Tag: fracked gas

New York: Resist the Cricket Valley Fracked Gas Power Plant on Nov. 16

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Cross-posted from Resist CVE

On Saturday, November 16, at 11am, help shut down the largest climate destruction site in the Northeast: Cricket Valley fracked gas plant in Dutchess Co., NY. Families & #ClimateStrike youth encouraged to attend as well as friends who would like to participate in non-violent and creative escalation.

Who is most at risk?

Schaghticoke Indigenous Nation, Dutchess Co. organic farms, three adjacent children’s schools, and the ecosystem of Harlem Valley’s The Great Swamp Watershed, the largest freshwater wetlands in New York, and surrounded by medicinal plants.

Background: 

The Cricket Valley Energy Center (CVE) is a 1,100 megawatt fracked gas plant under construction in Dover/Wingdale, New York. It would receive out-of-state fracked gas through the Iroquois Gas Transmission System, a pipeline project co-owned by TransCanada and the Virginia-based fossil fuel bully Dominion Resources. Advanced Power, a Switzerland-based private energy infrastructure company, would own and operate the plant. The plant aims to begin operations in 2020, but WE are going to stop it. The company wants to perform “shakedowns” or testing of the turbines using diesel fuel. We won’t let them shake us down.

Our Strategy:

Governor Cuomo has the power to stop this plant. The plant was approved nearly a decade ago, based on out-of-date science, and without genuine community input. The plant is also on very shaky financial legs, and will foot us with the bill through our electric rates, as well as endure decades of pollution that Cuomo has committed to halting through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. His father, former Governor Mario Cuomo halted dirty Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant even though the building was complete. Governor Cuomo can follow his father’s legacy, listen to climate science, and follow our climate law… or will the largest fracked gas power plant in the northeast U.S. be Governor Cuomo’s Climate Legacy?

Our Plan: 

Our coalition of community and advocacy groups across New York are hosting three orientation trainings to learn more, and help plan! Orientation trainings = learn history + where we are, build our community relationships, pick a role!

Sign the pledge to get more information on the following Planning Orientations:

*Saturday, October 19 in Millerton, NY 10am-2pm

*Sunday, October 20 in Kingston, NY 12pm-4pm

*Sunday, October 27 in NYC 12pm-4pm

West Virginia: 24 Arrested at the Gates of Toxic Rockwool Factory

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pic via DC Media Group

Yesterday in Jefferson County, WV, over 300 community members showed up to take their concerns over toxic air and water pollution from a Danish Rockwool insulation factory straight to its gates.

Twenty-four people sat in and were arrested at the gates of the proposed Rockwool insulation plant. Local police barred the press and legal observers from video taping or photographing the arrests.

“They are choosing to make us their guinea pigs, they are choosing to put us in harms way, they are choosing to save money by using coal and gas and putting children in direct harms way its disgusting and I’m 100% against this factory, we will stop it,” Scott Sarich said, a protester and a parent.

The company is building an insulation manufacturing plant that will spew hazardous toxins into the community’s air and water.

Local, state and federal officials have secretly committed over $37 million for incentives to a Danish corporation that would impose a polluting factory and significantly deteriorate our land, air and water. The factory site is within 2 miles of public schools attended by 30% of the county’s students. The pollutants emitted by the factory include phenol, formaldehyde, methane and PM 2.5 that affect the kidney, liver, brain, heart and lungs.  Furthermore, the 1400 acre industrial zone will use large amounts of water, coal and fracked gas in its operation.

To date, the WV Dept. of Environment has issued all the necessary permits for construction and operation, and the project has been supported by Senator Joe Manchin. (Shocking, we know.)

This is one of many mass arrests fighting the project organized by Resist Rockwool in recent months. Previous actions included sit-ins at Manchin’s D.C. office and the Danish embassy in D.C.