Tar sands blocked in South Portland – 2013

Save Our Bay MA had an exciting victory. On July 18, 2024 the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection released a final determination to stop radioactively and chemically contaminated industrial wastewater from being dumped into Cape Cod Bay. I’m passing on a message from Ben Cronin, a member of Save Our Bay MA, below. Thank you […]

Cape Elizebeth, Maine – On February 2023, a small group of community members in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, successfully gathered enough signatures to petition the town to restrict the use of pesticides for cosmetic landscaping on private property. The proposed pesticide ordinance was modeled very closely on similar pesticide ordinances in Portland, Maine, and South Portland. […]

Community members in Acushnet, Massachusetts worked hard to protect their community from harmful air pollution. On November 4, 2022 the approval of an injunction against PJ Keating’s operations was announced to the public after a court hearing earlier in the week. The injunction makes it so that PJ Keating will have to comply with the […]

Westminster, MA has some of the highest levels of PFAS in Massachusetts, and is a town with a high risk for further contamination. A local developer had planned to build about 10 new buildings, and wanted to drill in the middle of contaminated wells. Not only is this a contamination issue, but a waterbed issue […]

The Coalition for Clean Air South Coast and Toxics Action Center released a new report: Reimagining Brayton Point. Photo credit: Staff When the Coalition for Clean Air South Coast retired the smaller coal plant in town, residents didn’t stop there. Instead, they turned their sites on Brayton Point, another coal plant in town that was […]

Bees, Bays and Backyards activists celebrate winning a town ordinance to ban toxic pesticides in town. Photo credit: Staff Pesticides hurt more than just the bugs and weeds they’re targeting. RoundUp has just been shown to be linked to cancer and scientists are pointing to neonics as one of the biggest causes of bee die-offs. […]

The Governor’s Recycling bill represented a huge change for the better in Connecticut, where the recycling rate had been half that of the rest of the country. Photo credit: Staff For years, Connecticut’s recycling rate lagged far behind the rest of the country and the state burned more of it’s trash than any other. Community […]

Hundreds of volunteers took part in the effort to block tar sands from being exported out of the South Portland harbor. Photo credit: Staff When ExxonMobil proposed to reverse an 80 year old pipeline to bring tar sands oil from Canada through Vermont, NH and Maine, activists organized. Tar Sands, some of the dirtiest oil […]

The Newhall Coalition holds polluters responsible for decades of contamination. Photo credit: Staff For decades, Winchester Rifle, later bought by Olin Chemical, dumped tons of toxic chemicals into a swamp, which was then sold and became the site for more than 300 homes, a school, and a park. The site was so toxic that the […]

The Massachusetts Campaign to Clean Up Hazardous Waste leads a coalition to prevent Concord from being the site of a nuclear waste dump. Photo credit: Staff In 1994, the Commonwealth passed an act paving the way for a radioactive waste dump to be built despite widespread public opposition. Anti-nuclear activist Mary “Pixie” Lampert joined us […]

Video credit: Staff Families living on Gratuity Road in Groton, MA discovered high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) in their drinking water wells. The pollution was from Insco Corporation near the homes. Claudia Saball suspected that the chemicals were the cause of the epidemic of children with learning disabilities in the neighborhood. Claudia’s group, Concerned Citizens […]