From the Massachusetts Environmental Collaborative - August 22, 2007
End of an era As most of you know, our fearless leader, Jim Gomes, is leaving ELM.
His last day in the office will be August 31st. Jim has served as President of the organization for more than 14 years and we will miss him terribly. Jim's combination of political savvy, policy depth, sense of timing, ability to collaborate and foster and maintain relationships has served not only ELM well, but the environmental community as a whole. It is fair to say that key environmental accomplishments during the past decade are a result of Jim's talents and skills. From the Massachusetts Environmental Collaborative to the Mass. League of Environmental Voters to the Mass. Smart Growth Alliance, Jim leaves a legacy of working to broaden and strengthen our influence. From a strong Community Preservation Act, a focus on adequate funding for the environmental agencies, and a robust effort to reduce toxic chemicals in the state, we see the results of Jim's work. We could go on, but we will have ample time to laud Jim and his accomplishments and to celebrate his tenure at ELM at several upcoming events, so stay posted.
Jim is looking forward to the next chapter in his professional career and is actively pursuing a number of interesting possibilities. We will, of course, let you know once he accepts a new position. In terms of finding a new President for ELM, a transition committee of the Board and staff has been active and is in the process of interviewing candidates with a hope that we will have someone new at the helm this fall.
We wish Jim all the best and thank him for everything he has done for ELM and for the Massachusetts environment. ___________________________________________________________________
Boston Globe- "A limit on environmental appeals Rules would restrict residents' power"
By Robert Knox, Globe Correspondent - August 19, 2007
Local environmentalists say rules changes proposed by state regulators would cut ordinary citizens out of the democratic process and leave the environment vulnerable to ill-considered development projects.
They point to cases where citizen involvement has made a crucial difference in heading off developments, such as a plan to build houses on wetlands adjacent to Silver Lake in Kingston. The environmentally sensitive area ultimately became the Silver Lake Sanctuary, after residents appealed to the Department of Environmental Protection under the state's Wetlands Protection Act.
The Department of Environmental Protection last month proposed changes intended to speed up environmental decisions that leave developers hanging for two years or more and imperil financing for worthwhile projects. The new rules would eliminate the right of any 10 residents of a community to appeal a DEP decision to the department's administrative law division for a hearing before an administrative law judge. But state officials say the new rules would retain essential protections.
"There are many ways to participate short of an appeal," said spokesman Bob Keough of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.
Acting on a directive from Governor Deval Patrick to make the wetlands appeals process more efficient, the DEP has proposed to limit who can appeal, require parties to present their evidence early in the proceedings, and set a six-month deadline for the appeal to be resolved.
State officials point to Hoosac Wind, a proposed wind farm in the Berkshires, as a project hung up for three years after a permit was successfully appealed to the department's administrative division. The decision was overruled by the department's commissioner and then taken to court by local petitioners.
Although the number of appeals has not been overwhelming in recent years -- 13 so far this year, only four last year -- wetlands appeals have been used for "other than environmental grounds," Keough said, such as the desire not have a project built in the petitioners' backyard.
But advocates say the rules changes would have a chilling effect on civic participation by ordinary citizens.
"The changes would eliminate an important part of environmental protection," said Mettie Whipple, president of the Plymouth-based Eel River Watershed Association.
The right to appeal lends weight to issues raised by residents, who are often more knowledgeable about local terrain than regulators and developers, environmentalists say. The potential for an appeal may cause parties to make changes or accept conditions proposed by folks "on the ground."
"The process makes everybody come to the table and say what the issues are and what the facts are," said Tom Palmer, president of the Friends of the Blue Hills.
The proposed rules would restrict the right of appeal to residents who can show they would be "personally harmed" by a project, said Deidre Menoyo, a former DEP assistant commissioner who opposes the change. Demonstrating harm to the environment would no longer be enough. "It's a hard standard," Menoyo said. The old rules allowed residents who could gather at least 10 signatures on a petition to file an appeal.
Opponents say the change runs counter to the Wetlands Protection Act, which refers to wetlands as "public resources." In the Silver Lake case, Menoyo said, citizen intervention protected an important public resource that provides part of Brockton's water supply and became a 92-acre conservation area.
In another instance, the Friends of the Blue Hills four years ago backed a 10-citizen appeal of a proposal to fill a naturally vegetated area and build condos on the Quincy waterfront near Marina Bay. A DEP administrative judge stayed the project indefinitely, and the property was eventually purchased by Quincy for open space.
Appeals don't always go the petitioners' way. Two years ago the Friends of the Blue Hills appealed the DEP's approval of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority's draining of a reservoir in the Blue Hills Reservation, contending that the agency should require the replacement of the lost wetlands acres. The group won its appeal, but the decision was reversed by the DEP commissioner, permitting the MWRA to go forward.
Even then something good came out of the process, Palmer said. "People know what's going on," he said.
A measure of the issue's importance to the general public, say rules change opponents, is the nearly 500 comments on it posted to the governor's website (devalpatrick.com). The issue is number three on the site's "myissue" space, just behind marriage equality.
Keough said the strong public response is likely to cause at least one alteration in the proposed regulations before they go into effect (the final public hearing was held this month in Worcester). If adopted, he said, the new regulations will make it clear that groups such as regional watershed associations would still have standing to appeal DEP decisions -- a right, he said, the new rules had never intended to question.
"We thought it was well-established in case law that established environmental organizations like watershed organizations would continue to have standing to file appeals," Keough said.
Robert Knox can be contacted at rc.knox@gmail.com.
C Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
_________________________________________________________________
Globe Editorial- "To spray or not to spray"
August 16, 2007
THE MASSACHUSETTS Highway Department has gone back and forth on whether to use herbicides to control roadside vegetation. It sprayed them in the 1990s, stopped until 2003, and then resumed using them that year. It should go on the wagon again.
The alternatives are to use nontoxic, organic herbicides and to remove plants by hand or with mowers or weed whackers. These options are the preference of the Massachusetts Coalition for Pesticide Reduction, which includes such groups as the Toxics Action Center and Environment Massachusetts. Twelve legislators have joined in opposing the spraying.
The core of the coalition's argument is that humans and the environment at large are already exposed to enough harmful chemicals without additional ones from the highway department. The department says that it removes unwanted bushes and weeds manually or mechanically on the vast majority of the 48,200 acres it maintains but needs the herbicides for about 188 acres -- less than half of 1 percent of the total -- where manual removal is too hazardous to workers. Commissioner Luisa Paiewonsky says that much of the vegetation removal is needed for safety reasons, to maintain drivers' sight lines. She says the state takes all precautions to protect its workers from the chemicals.
Yet the country's basic approach to toxic substances that have been in use for decades -- innocent until proven guilty -- makes more sense with defendants in courts than with chemicals in the environment. Except in the most obvious cases, like DDT or Agent Orange, conclusive guilt is difficult to prove. So the country's farmlands, orchards, utility and railroad rights of way, and highways continue to be sprayed with chemicals.
There are indications, however, that their toxicity extends beyond the vegetation or insects they are intended to kill. Oust, one of the herbicides the state uses, has been shown to harm animal reproductive systems. Cornell University professor David Pimentel says the country loses 67 million birds each year to pesticide use on farmland alone.
The commissioner says the department does not spray near residential areas or wetlands. "We take extraordinary steps to limit the environmental impact," she says. And she suggests that the alternatives are not always sufficient. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts studying organic herbicides or steam applications as ways of controlling road vegetation have reported in a preliminary finding, she said, that such methods do not attack nuisance plants as systematically as commercial herbicides do. She also said the organic herbicides require more frequent applications than toxic herbicides.
Those disadvantages have to be weighed against the cost to the environment. The state should return to its old policy of controlling unwanted vegetation without herbicides.
C Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
__________________________________________________________________
This bulletin prepared by:
David L. DeKing
Vice President for Education and Collaboration
mailto:ddeking@environmentalleague.org
Bernard J McHugh
Citizen Education Coordinator
mailto:bmchugh@environmentalleague.org
Isabel T. Grantham
Research Assistant
mailto:igrantham@environmentalleague.org
Environmental League of Massachusetts
14 Beacon Street, Suite 714
Boston, MA 02108
Tel: 617-742-2553
Fax: 617-742-9656
return to top |
