Westfield River Action Update: Your Words Delivered at the EPA Public Hearing In Russell, MA!
Last Thursday, the EPA presented the draft NPDES permitfor Russell Biomass, which allows for the discharge of polluted heated river water, at a hearing for public comments in Russell, MA. Harper Dangler and Ryan Czekanski-Moir presented your 1,000 letters, highlighting many of your great personal comments. Thanks to you the EPA learned just how much their decision matters on a national level. There was great applause and many residents expressed their gratitude for all of your well informed letters and words.
All but one of the nearly a hundred attending were opposed to permitting the facility to discharge anything into the river. Locals recalled times when the river flow was low and full of algae-covered rocks heating up. They were concerned with the temperature of the discharged water - 85 degrees - and with all the phosphorus and other pollutants allowed back into the river.The permit would allow Russell Biomass to discharge a total of 126 pollutants.
Too much work had been done for the salmon and brook trout to risk it all now and for what? One resident told of fly casting in three feet of water when within 15 minutes the river level fell to three inches.
The owner of the local bait and tackle shop was most eloquent in details read from a yellow papered pocket notebook. He had been working the fish stocks in Russell for decades. Once, due to “employee error” an upstream factory mistakenly discharged something and thirty years of fish stocking was wiped out. “One error, thirty years of fish, thirty years of hard work stocking was all gone.” And then there was the one time the paper mill got it wrong.
Rob Moir, of ORI, and Piotr Parasiewicz, of Rushing Rivers Institute, provided the scientists perspective in their testimonies. Rob testified about the large gravel aquifer beneath the river and shore and its role in maintaining a coldstream ecology for salmon.Piotr called for caution, more diligence and pointed out poor data used in the decision making process.
The EPA was grateful for new information, learning opportunities and need for more research. To their credit they had already got the utility to not introduce aluminum into the discharge, only 126 "priority pollutants" left to address.
Save the Westfield River – Be Heard at EPA Public Hearing
http://oceanriver.org/support.php
Write-in $12 on the donation page and help ORI to meet the average per person costs of influencing decision-makers to save the Westfield River. When saving wildlife and ecosystems every holler helps. Thanks for helping us all get heard.
< Back to Actions
|
