6-8pm TONIGHT (5/30)
Rhode Island State House
If you haven’t yet signed this petition against the plant, please do (especially if you can’t make it tonight). In both of these cases, it’s good to have lots of people. Burrillville BASE, the FANG Collective, the Burrillville Land Trust/No New Power Plant and many more people and groups have worked extremely hard for a long time to stop this disastrous project. Let’s follow up on the work they have done and are still doing. Hope to see you there.
The Water Security Act ensures that income level isn’t a barrier to safe, clean drinking water, and requires management plans to be accountable to the public. It will help prevent corporate control of water, protect water as a human right regardless of income, and start putting in place ways of handling water equitably and responsibly as the climate changes.
The hearing for this bill is on Wednesday, 5/29 at 4:30 pm. Can you come and testify? If not, can you call the senators on the RI Senate Committee on Environment and Agriculture (especially if one of them represents your district) and tell them why you want them to pass it?
Tell them how important healthy water and healthy public land are to your and your family’s life and well-being!
Tell them about problems you’ve had with drops in water quality or rises in water costs!
Tell them how the water system where you live has been affected, or could be affected, by flood, drought, sea level rise and erosion, high heat or storms!
Tell them how a Percentage of Income Payment Plan (where your water rates are a fixed percentage of your income) would reduce financial strains on you and/or your family!
Tell them why it’s important for water systems to be accountable to the public, and for water users to have input into how water is managed!
Tell them why it’s important for water systems to take into account economic, social and environmental justice in the communities they serve, when they’re making improvements and plans for the future!
I feel like often (and more recently), when we in the US have a need to interact with the people who govern us (to govern is to control, remember), we are trying to stop them from passing a horrible law. This is a chance to encourage the people who make the laws in Rhode Island to pass a law that’s really not too bad!
Here is the bill itself, RI S0820, so you can see what it requires from the towns/cities, agencies, departments, districts, etc. that are responsible for getting water to the people who use it. Please come testify if you can!
For several years now, residents of Burrillville RI, along with environmental justice, conservation and climate justice advocates, have been fighting the Clear River Energy Center, the fracked-gas power plant that Invenergy wants to build in their town. You can help them, and help slow down climate catastrophe, by submitting public comments on two upcoming permits.
The most important, because it is likely to be final, is the Energy Facility Siting Board decision. The EFSB decides whether energy companies can build in their chosen location; here’s some background on their role in this case. They are open to public comment on their decision until June 1st, 2019. Commenting through this petition is probably the easiest way: Stop the Burrillville Power Plant!
Come to the RI State House at 6pm, May 30th, to speak out against the plant.
The other opportunity to comment is through the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management: they are taking public comments through July 15th, 2019 on an air quality permit (aka a “major source permit”). Email your comments to dem.invenergyairpermit AT dem.ri.gov, and include the words “formal comment” in your subject line. The RI DEM will also hold a public hearing about this permit; bookmark this page and check it for the date and time.
Here’s a simple but thorough breakdown of the damage this plant would do, and you can use this information to support your comments.
This article shows how Invenergy handles air quality at another of their plants, in PA.
Stopping new fossil fuel infrastructure is a key piece of creating a livable future. If you’ve been feeling helpless, this is something you can do to help.
If you have anxieties about climate change and its effects, you can come talk with me at these times and places in Providence. These are the ones that are for sure right now; I will add more if I can set up more.
Wednesday, June 5th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park (opposite Kennedy Plaza)
Thursday, June 6th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
Saturday, June 8th, starting at 12pm and going till… in Burnside Park as part of PVDFest
Wednesday, June 12th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
Thursday, June 13th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
Friday, June 14th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
Saturday, June 15th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
Sunday, June 16th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
Monday, June 17th, 2-5pm, Burnside Park
*
Wednesday, June 19th, 2-6pm, Sankofa World Market (275 Elmwood Ave)
Wednesday, June 26th, 2-6pm, Sankofa World Market
(I’ll also be at the Sankofa World Market in July and August!)
*
If you come and talk to me, I’ll listen, ask you some questions, possibly make some suggestions and give you a little piece of art to keep, featuring one of our nonhuman RI neighbors.
You can also mark your worries about specific places on a map of the state and nearby waters.
If you want me to come to your Rhode Island town (or even further afield, up to a point), email me at my gmail address, publiclycomplex, or talk to me on Twitter. (Climate Anxiety Counseling has a Facebook page too but I don’t use it very much.)
Some other things that are coming this summer and that I’ll post more about soon:
*Write to the Energy Facilities Siting Board and Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to stop Invenergy’s fracked-gas power plant in Burrillville! You’ll be able to fill them out at the counseling booth, and I will send them in for you; you can also do them online for the EFSB (a petition with explanations and a comment that you can adapt) and RI DEM (instructions for submitting comments and the email address where you should send them).
*GUEST COUNSELORS! If you would like to be one, please let me know.
*Climate anxiety support group? Maybe? A couple of people have told me they’re interested; let me know if you’re interested too.
climateanxietycounseling 