A federal court judge will soon decide whether a lawsuit should go forward that the Sierra Club and Conservation Law Foundation has filed over alleged violations of water-discharge permits for the Merrimack Station coal-burning power plant in Bow.
CLF succeeds because we have people like you by our side. In this special annual report issue of Conservation Matters, we are honoring just a few of our many local heroes, people who have devoted their time, energy, and passion to defending our homes, protecting our children’s health, and supporting the vibrancy of our communities.
“For many years we’ve been seeing a sort of downward spiral in the state of the health of this remarkable network of rivers and bays that we live near. The bottom line is that we still have a lot that’s getting into our water that’s making it hard for this to be a robust and healthy ecosystem.”
A group of Exeter activists turned a trip on the Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper boat into a town-wide call to better protect water resources, conserve energy, and be a more sustainable community. After their boat ride last fall, the four women worked to create Exeter’s Sustainability Advisory Committee, which recently for met for the first time.
Extreme weather caused by climate change may damage coastal infrastructure by degrading equipment containing hazardous chemicals or by flooding storage facilities. But fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil and Shell would rather take their chances and do nothing to ready their facilities. CLF knows, however, that these companies have a legal duty (not to mention an ethical one) to adapt their facilities to the foreseeable effects of climate change.
UPDATE: On July 19, 2019, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the State’s rejection of the Northern Pass project. After the Site Evaluation Committee denied Eversource a permit to build in 2018, the energy company appealed the decision to the State Supreme Court. However, the Court stood behind the permit denials, rejecting the controversial transmission line for… Continue reading Update: Eversource’s Northern Pass Project Gets Final Rejection
As the Trump administration continues to shirk its responsibilities on climate, New England states have recognized the need for local leadership to fill the federal void.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision is the right one for New Hampshire,” said Tom Irwin, vice president and director of Conservation Law Foundation New Hampshire. “Eversource has been nothing but dismissive of community concerns throughout this process and that alone is enough to reject Northern Pass for good.”
“Today’s Supreme Court decision is the right one for New Hampshire,” said Tom Irwin, Vice President and Director of CLF New Hampshire. “Eversource has been nothing but dismissive of community concerns throughout this process and that alone is enough to reject Northern Pass for good. This project has always been bad for the state and Eversource needs to move on.”
“PFAS chemicals are poisonous to humans and have no place in our water,” said Meredith Hatfield, Senior Attorney at CLF. “With the federal government dodging its responsibility on this critical issue, real action on the state level is the only way to combat this crisis. These rules are an important first step to protect the drinking water for New Hampshire families.”
