Is this What Winning Feels Like? MVP & ACP Legal Update

Here’s where the permits for EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) stand:
The Army Corps’s permit allowing Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to blast through more than 1,000 streams? Back to the drawing board.
The Forest Service’s permit for MVP to slice across the Jefferson National Forest? Rejected.
What was the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) forced to do as a result? Stop construction activity along all portions of the MVP for nearly four weeks.
What’s next? On behalf of CCAN and other groups, Appalachian Mountain Advocates (Appalmad) filed a challenge to FERC’s approval of the entire pipeline with the D.C. Circuit. Oral argument will take place in 2019.
 
And here’s where we stand with Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP):
Dominion’s permit from the National Park Service to cross the iconic Blue Ridge Parkway? Tossed. And the agency’s new, mostly unchanged permit is being challenged.
The Fish and Wildlife Service permit protecting endangered species from the ACP? Insufficient. That agency’s re-issued permit is also being challenged.
Dominion’s permit to cut across the Monongahela and George Washington national forests? Stayed. A decision is forthcoming.
The Army Corps’s permit allowing ACP to blast through streams in West Virginia? Stayed. Argument will take place later this year.
What was FERC forced to do? Stop all work on the ACP for over a month.
What’s next? On behalf of CCAN and other groups, the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalmad filed a challenge to FERC’s approval of the entire pipeline with the Fourth Circuit. Oral argument will take place in 2019.
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In my eight years at CCAN fighting for clean energy and against dirty energy projects, I’ve never seen us make more dents in the armor of a dirty-energy project than we are with these two pipelines. In the wake of a sobering report on climate change, our work to protect our communities and planet is more important than ever. This critical work includes fighting projects such as the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines, which would lock us into reliance on polluting fossil fuels for decades to come.
I’ve been inspired by the years — YEARS — that opponents have spent fighting these pipelines on the ground. While they’ve received (most of) their permits, not one permit was granted without controversy or a fight. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality was forced to create an entirely new process by which they reviewed the pipelines. Thanks to your outcry, Virginia gave ACP and MVP more scrutiny than neighboring Maryland gave a pipeline there. The State Water Control Board came this close to rejecting water permits for the pipelines, voting 4-3 to approve the permits after an unprecedented level of scrutiny. Even FERC itself was divided. When the Commission issued its approval of the projects, it did so at 7pm on a Friday with one of the three commissioners dissenting.
Now we’re attacking each of those shoddy permits in court. For years we’ve been warning that the companies behind the pipelines have been pushing regulators to approve key permits without considering the full scope of their destruction. In decision after decision, courts are validating that concern. One court in particular — the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit — is doing what the federal government should have done all along: protecting the public and the environment from these harmful and unneeded pipelines.
The newest news is that late last week the Army Corps of Engineers suspended a permit that the fracked-gas Mountain Valley Pipeline must have in order to build through waterways in Virginia. This action follows Tuesday’s federal court ruling throwing out MVP’s stream crossing permit for southern West Virginia. That now-vacated permit would have allowed MVP to blast a trench through the beloved Gauley, Greenbrier, and Elk rivers. Our attorneys at Appalachian Mountain Advocates (Appalmad) argued our case so convincingly that the court only needed two business days to decide to toss the permit. We followed up this win with a letter to FERC asking it to halt all work on the pipeline, as FERC’s order approving the project requires that all permits be in place for construction to take place anywhere along its 303-mile route.
The issue before the court was this: When West Virginia certified the Army Corps’ nationwide permit back in 2017, it placed a condition that stream crossings have to be completed within 72 hours. States have the authority to include additional conditions when they certify the Army Corps’s blanket permit, which they do every five years. Essentially, West Virginia said that it had reasonable assurance that state water quality standards would be met if the project met the conditions of the Army Corps’ nationwide permit and the project took 72 hours or less to cross waterbodies. We argued — and the court agreed — that MVP hadn’t even tried to comply with West Virginia’s 72-hour time limit when planning to cross four major rivers, and that this failure meant that the entire permit, not just as it applied to those four crossings, was therefore defective.
West Virginia officials are now trying to rewrite their own rules. After the Fourth Circuit indicated that it had major concerns with the permit over the summer, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice wasted no time in issuing a statement promising to “expedit[e] the construction of this pipeline.” Might Governor Justice’s devotion to the MVP have something to do with the fact that a top adviser, Bray Cary, serves on the board of EQT? EQT, of course, is a main backer of the MVP and Mr. Cary holds millions of dollars in EQT stock.
Appalmad responded with a letter explaining the many reasons why the state can’t rewrite its rules at this stage. And, during oral argument two weeks ago, the judges appeared highly skeptical of West Virginia’s shenanigans. Along with our friends at Appalmad and West Virginia Rivers, we are closely monitoring any developments.  
What does this defeat mean for the MVP? Another year of delay, most likely. Instead of a blanket, one-size-fits-all permit that the Corps had tried to use, it now has to issue an individual permit that’s tailored to the specific area. This process could take up to a year and will include opportunities for public comment. Stay tuned for more from us on how to participate in that process.
The court’s decision to throw out the Army Corps’s water permit for MVP is just one of a number of defeats that pipeline has faced. In July, the Fourth Circuit vacated decisions by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service authorizing the construction of the MVP across the Jefferson National Forest.
In response, Commission staff halted construction activity along all portions of the MVP. When FERC staff lifted that stay for most of the MVP, two commissioners issued a scathing press release raising “significant concerns” with the staff’s action.
To reiterate: The Army Corps’s permit for MVP to blast through more than 1,000 streams? Back to the drawing board. The Forest Service’s permit for MVP to slice across the Jefferson National Forest? Rejected.
All the while, the MVP project is getting further delayed and more expensive. MVP has told investors that its anticipated completion date of late this year is no longer viable. And, in a revised estimate, pipeline developers now expect to spend $4.6 billion on the project, a jump of about 25% over the anticipated $3.7 billion.
Meanwhile, Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline is also reeling from multiple setbacks. Dominion’s permit from the National Park Service to cross the iconic Blue Ridge Parkway? Tossed. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s permit protecting endangered species from the ACP? Insufficient. Dominion’s permit to cut across the Monongahela and George Washington national forests? Stayed. The court’s order to stay construction through the national forests was the third time in four months that the Fourth Circuit has vacated or stayed federal authorization for the ACP.
These invalid permits caused FERC to issue a stop work order for the ACP. While FERC lifted the stay as soon as the agencies issued new, rushed permits, our friends at the Southern Environmental Law Center are challenging both of those re-issued permits.
And the Fourth Circuit’s work on the ACP isn’t over yet. Judges recently heard arguments to Virginia’s approval of the project under the Clean Water Act. The court also heard oral argument in the challenge to Dominion’s permit to cross national forest land — the same permit it stayed days earlier — and is expected to rule on it in the coming months.
Our biggest cases yet will be heading to federal courts later this year. We are challenging FERC’s permit, which underpins both projects. This challenge will give courts an opportunity to scrutinize the need for these projects.
Together, we’ve been chipping away at these pipelines through protests and activism and camptivism and tree-sits and community monitoring efforts and lawsuits. Now, two of the largest interstate fracked-gas pipeline projects in the Eastern US are in jeopardy. This wouldn’t have happened without you. Thank you for all you do!

Bringing Offshore Wind to MD: Inspiration from Block Island

On September 17th, I had the great opportunity of joining a “Power Women” tour of the Block Island wind farm in Rhode Island, the nation’s only offshore wind farm. Organized by the National Wildlife Federation and Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy, the tour brought together women working in clean energy advocacy and in the industry itself. I traveled from Maryland with my colleagues Jennifer Kunze from Clean Water Action, Laqeisha Greene from United Workers, and Leah Kelly with the Environmental Integrity Project to join the tour.

A group photo from the “Power Women” tour of the Block Island Wind Farm.

As we work with our local partners to bring offshore wind to Maryland, we can learn a lot from the U.S.’s only offshore wind farm off of Block Island. The wind farm was built by Deepwater Wind and came online in December 2016. It’s a small project, made up of just five 6-megawatt turbines. But those five turbines are enough to power 17,000 homes both on Block Island and on the mainland with clean, renewable energy. Prior to the wind farm, Block Island’s 300 residents received their power from diesel generators. When the turbines were installed, Deepwater built a submarine cable that connected Block Island to the mainland electric grid for the first time, and the island was able to turn off those diesel generators. As Aileen Kenney of Deepwater Wind remarked on the tour, “It’s a small symbol of how renewable energy will replace some of those dirtier older fuels.”

Five 6-megawatt turbines make up the Block Island wind farm.

The project is 16 miles off of the mainland, so it took a while to get out there. While there have been some concerns in Maryland about how visible offshore wind turbines will be from the shore, I struggled to see them for most of our boat ride. Then they slowly began to appear on the horizon, cropping up on the horizon in their slow-moving elegance. Once we approached the turbines, we cruised around them and heard from local elected officials, technical experts from Deepwater Wind and GE, and advocates who were instrumental in bringing this project online. 

It took most of the boat ride before we could start to see the turbines on the horizon.

Once we reached the turbines, elected officials from Rhode Island and Massachusetts engaged in competitive banter about who is going to install the most megawatts of offshore wind power. Rep. Pat Haddad from Massachusetts got a lot of laughs when she commented, “I used to be the queen of coal. Now I’m the witch of wind.”
I chatted with Janet Coit, director of Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, on the boat, and she shared more insights into the project’s local reception. I mentioned some of the concerns that I’ve heard in Maryland, particularly about how offshore wind could potentially impact tourism. Ms. Coit spoke about how the turbines off of Block Island have actually become a tourist destination themselves. And as an island that is largely dependent upon tourism, the additional reason to visit has been a boon. While there was some initial hesitation from a few folks on the island who were worried about impacts to the pristine view of the ocean, she said that most people have come around: “it’s just like how people get used to utility lines, it’s part of the viewshed and it’s actually cool, like Block Island is celebrating that it’s green.”

Aileen Kenney, Senior Vice President of Development at Deepwater Wind, shared a lot of information about the project including its economic benefits, the company’s engagement with local communities, and various precautions to protect wildlife. She said that the Block Island project generated 300 construction jobs and noted that when she goes to public meetings about offshore wind, “you don’t even hear about the climate benefits anymore because people are really focusing in on the port improvement, the jobs, what is it going to mean for people going back to work in ports, and the whole manufacturing side of it.” Coming from Baltimore where we stand to gain port improvements and local manufacturing jobs from Maryland’s proposed wind farms, I can attest to this deep interest in the economic opportunities presented by offshore wind.

Aileen Kenney with Deepwater Wind noted that since the turbines were built, there’s been an increase in recreational fishing around the turbines as they function as artificial reefs. She shared, “Some of the recreational fishermen, they’ll be tweeting out or blogging out which turbine is the best for catch on certain days. So it’s fun, and that all drives into the economy of Rhode Island and brings more people, makes Rhode Island more attractive for fishing.”

Ms. Kenney also pointed out an avian radar unit that was installed in collaboration with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service that allows the agency to track endangered species when they’re flying across Rhode Island Sound. And she spoke about efforts to minimize the impacts from pile driving, which causes noise that can be disruptive to marine mammals and sea turtles. To protect local wildlife, particularly the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale from the construction noise, conservation groups helped develop an agreement to limit the time of year that pile driving could occur. And when pile driving did take place, Ms. Kenney described how “teams of protected species observers on vessels patroll[ed] around, looking for marine mammals and shutting down construction activity when they were in certain zones.”

Aileen Kenney, Senior Vice President of Development at Deepwater Wind, speaking about the project off Block Island.

While no development project is going to have zero impacts to the local community and environment, the team of people who brought the Block Island wind farm to completion seemed genuinely committed to addressing concerns and working in collaboration to build the best possible project. As we headed back to shore, I spoke with Ms. Kenney and Joy Weber from Deepwater to learn more about what their plans are for Maryland. Their proposed wind farm in Maryland will be much bigger than the one off Block Island, generating 120 MW of energy and creating 913 direct and 484 indirect jobs. I asked what type of jobs they expect the project to create and what types of transferable skills will be useful for people hoping to work on the project. Ms. Kenney said that the Block Island project employed “welders, painters, electricians,” and noted that “welding is welding. It’s a transferable skill if you’re a qualified welder, so the weld on that [pointing to a turbine] is a very transferable skill.” Then there are the maintenance and operating jobs after the projects are built.

Ms. Weber remarked that as the industry gets off the ground, “there’s going to be a lot of partnering [with] companies that have done this before and maybe from out of state that come in and partner with Maryland companies that are interested in getting involved.” As Maryland’s Public Service Commission emphasized when they approved both Deepwater’s project as well as U.S. Wind’s project last year, Maryland has an exciting opportunity to lead the offshore wind industry on the East Coast. Ms. Kenney spoke of this potential: “there’s not just a project, there’s an industry that will mean long-term, sustainable jobs as well.”
We also chatted about how to overcome some of the lingering opposition and concerns in Maryland, mostly around the appearance of the wind turbines. Ms. Weber predicted, “I think that understandably there’s concern about changing anything. But I think that people are going to be okay once they see how you can barely see them.”
Indeed, as our boat got closer to shore, the turbines disappeared from view once again. But I was sad to see them go. Rather than obstructing a pristine ocean view, I think the turbines are beautiful symbols of our clean energy future. 

Check out a video from the tour below!

Want to bring offshore wind to Maryland? Sign this petition to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management urging them to approve offshore wind in our state!

Learn More: Bringing Offshore Wind to Maryland

Creating a Clean Energy Future by Eliminating Trash Incineration

By Jackie Apel
Rockville, Maryland
In light of the Maryland Department of Energy’s new rule requiring waste incinerators in the state to reduce their harmful air pollution, this is an excellent time to consider ways for Baltimore and other cities to manage their waste disposal processes. The Baltimore City Council has issued a resolution to improve upon its Solid Waste Management Master Plan, asking consultants to bid on a contract to develop a new plan. These new resolutions and limits on emissions are important first steps towards reducing air pollution, but environmentalists have expressed concerns that these steps do not go far enough to adequately address our clean air problems.
Residents who live near incineration facilities are all too familiar with the dirty air that they breathe each day. Recently, I heard testimony from a resident of Baltimore who recounted how many of her neighbors had been exposed to dangerous chemicals as well as air from the BRESCO incinerator, and had developed lung cancer as a result. While it is encouraging that the incinerators are taking steps to lower their output of nitrogen oxides, it is also a known fact that incinerators tend to be placed near, and disproportionately impact, lower income communities of color. A recent scientific study by The American Chemical Society reported that nitrogen oxides directly contribute to respiratory diseases like asthma and COPD; lung cancers; heart disease; birth defects, and developmental problems in children, with impacts to the brain and nervous systems. Nitrogen dioxide is a hidden health hazard, and particulates can become airborne and travel long distances, with microscopic particles penetrating deeply into the lungs. During the recent Supreme Court confirmation hearing, we also heard testimony from a teenager who suffers with asthma about the dangers of air pollution, and its consequences for human health, and the importance of not revoking our environmental regulations. Many are rightfully concerned as we watch the Trump Administration move in a fateful direction, away from regulation of harmful toxins, to allowing companies to proliferate pollution of our air and water. Combined, there are many sources of air pollution that affect our health on a daily basis, as well as contribute to climate change.
What can we do to minimize our trash pollution and create a cleaner environment? Maryland can begin by passing the Clean Energy Jobs Initiative, which would phase out incineration as a Tier 1 source in the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard. Improving our technology and limiting emissions will help, but we also need to look at the whole picture of waste management— from product design to disposal—and find ways to move towards a “zero waste” plan like Oakland, California has done, where 1,000 jobs were created. Pollution costs the U.S. billions in healthcare, and is adversely affecting our planet’s weather. We need to embrace new ways of thinking about waste disposal, and do everything we can to limit our toxic air. We can do this sooner rather than later, by following a zero waste and clean energy plan!
Submit a comment today! Urge the MDE to lower pollution from Baltimore’s incinerator.

Camping against the pipelines: With strong roots, we grow power.

This summer was not an easy one. We faced several blows in the anti-pipeline movement. The days were long, and hot — too hot — and the months slipped away.
Before I knew it, the summer was over, and construction was underway for two massive fracked-gas pipelines in Virginia, themselves like a force of nature, unstoppable and immovable.
So when I finally got the chance to visit the home of Bill and Lynn Limpert, whose breathtaking land is in the path of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, it was long past time. I had heard stories about how extraordinary it was to visit: to say hello and stand with Ona, the 300-year-old sugar maple; to hike the old-growth forest that had never been cut; to speak and sing with Bill and Lynn Limpert, the amazing couple at the heart of it all who have everything to lose. Safe to say, my expectations were high.
And they were met.
The weekend was filled with music, magic, and moving moments. I found myself moved to tears at the stories of the weekend visitors, a group from the West Virginia-based Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance. The beauty of the Limperts’ land truly transported me so I felt I was walking through a fairy tale movie landscape.

And the music! We were graced with the presence of lifelong folk musicians, who strummed and sang the pipeline movement to life.

In my air-conditioned Takoma Park office, seven stories above the ground, I often felt seven worlds removed from reality. I often find this sort of disconnection a necessary evil as a lifelong climate activist: when you’re facing an issue as existential and overwhelming as global warming, you need to remove yourself from its horrors. Otherwise, it can feel like too much.
But this is an immense privilege I have — to hide out behind a computer. So many others don’t have the opportunity to escape the climate crisis. The Limperts cannot simply fold their land into a lockbox and hide it away. That’s why it is so important to meet them and learn from them, and remember what we are all fighting for.
And in the midst of the setbacks, we’ve also won some crucial victories — so the fights against the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines are far from over.
This summer, the 4th Circuit Court threw out crucial permits provided by the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Forest Service. As a result of these court decisions, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission–the main agency in charge of overseeing these pipelines–made Dominion and EQT stop work on both the ACP and the MVP.
Unfortunately, since then, FERC staff lifted the stop-work orders for much of the route of both pipelines. FERC’s move was hugely controversial, and not just to everyone who opposes this unnecessary and damaging pipeline. Two FERC commissioners took the rare step of issuing a press release criticizing the decision to allow MVP to continue work.
In the meantime, CCAN and our allies have filed the biggest challenge yet to both pipelines. We are challenging FERC’s overarching approval of both the ACP and MVP, arguing that the pipelines are unneeded and damaging to our climate and the environment.
From the streets, to the courts to the forests, we are dedicated to fighting these pipelines in any way we can.

Baltimore Braved the Rain to #RiseforClimate at the Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs & Justice

On Saturday, September 8th, the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement hosted the Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs & Justice as part of an international day of action to #RiseforClimate in the lead-up to a major climate summit in California this week. Despite rainy conditions, two hundred people from Baltimore and from as far away as Ocean City and Washington D.C. gathered at War Memorial Plaza in front of City Hall to demand bold action on climate change.
Watch a video with highlights from the day HERE!
The festival kicked off with two marching bands, the Baltimore Twilighters and the Dynasty Marching Unit, who encircled War Memorial Plaza and energized the crowd.

The Dynasty Marching Unit marching around War Memorial Plaza. Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

The Baltimore Twilighters kicking off the Festival for Change! Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

 
After the opening numbers, Dr. Rev. Heber Brown from the Black Church Food Security Network delivered a powerful keynote address where he urged us to “bring it all together” and unite our struggles for racial, economic, and environmental justice.
Keynote speaker, Rev. Dr. Heber Brown of the Black Church Food Security Network said, “Seeking food justice and an end to food apartheid is intricately tied to our response to climate change. This holy work, of caring for the health of our neighbors and caring for creation, of connecting climate, jobs, and justice, is why I founded The Black Church Food Security Network, and why we’re gathering at the Festival for Change.” Photo credit: Yinka Bode-George, Maryland Environmental Health Network.

 
Out across the plaza,  festival goers moved through an “action village” full of opportunities to join the movement for climate justice and gain practical skills to build climate resilient communities.
Festival goers stop by the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement’s table to take local action for climate justice and SEIU’s table to join the Fight for $15 movement. Photo credit: Taylor Smith-Hams, CCAN

 
Rodette Jones with the Filbert Street Garden and Baltimore Compost Collective posing with a young festival goer at her station in the action village. Photo credit: Nabeehah Azeez, Communities United.

Kevin Antoszewski makes apple cider at the Baltimore Orchard Project’s station in the action village. Photo credit: Taylor Smith-Hams, CCAN

 
The festival also featured several art exhibits that encouraged attendees to creatively engage with environmental and climate justice issues. A highlight of the exhibits was “Resilience Street,” a cardboard village that serves as a model for the strong and resilient neighborhoods we need to face the climate crisis. Festival goers were invited to paint and “plant” vegetables for the garden and take photos with the village.
Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

 
Valeska Populoh of the Maryland Institute College of Art and Black Cherry Puppet Theater, spoke about the importance of art in the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement’s work: “Art Builds, informal workshop spaces where coalition members and community members can drop in, hold space for people to come together, have conversation, connect across issue areas, and learn new art making skills, like banner making and screenprinting. The banners and props we made were designed to support various ongoing campaigns, in addition to the work of the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement, and will be a kind of lending library for coalition member groups in the future.”
 
Painting vegetables to plant in the garden in front of “Resilience Street.”  Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

 
Laure Drogoul exhibited her kinetic sculpture “Teetering x Tottering (On the Brink)” at the festival. The seesaw-inspired sculpture is made from wood, recycled plastic bottles, and water and “invites participants to level and stabilize themselves using the shared water in the sculpture as a balancing mechanism.” Drogoul explains, “through movement, the work creates a relationship between the participants and creates an experiential awareness of water as a shared resource.” This was one of the most popular exhibits at the festival, since many of use hadn’t been on a seesaw in years!
“Teetering x Tottering (On the Brink)” by Laure Drogoul. Photo credit: Taylor Smith-Hams, CCAN

 
One of my favorite activities was Climate Justice Cornhole. I collaborated with Naadiya Hutchinson to paint climate-themed boards for this classic game, and we worked with several members of the coalition on accompanying cards that help define different aspects of climate justice including “food sovereignty,” “just transition,” and “energy democracy.” The cards were color coded to match up with the hand-sewn beanbags. When participants tossed a bean bag, they were invited to read the corresponding card and learn about different components of climate justice. 
Playing climate justice cornhole! Photo credit: Taylor Smith-Hams, CCAN

One of the climate justice cornhole boards made at art builds hosted by the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement and Black Cherry Puppet Theater in August. Photo credit: Jennifer Kunze, Clean Water Action

 
And it wouldn’t have been a climate festival without bringing the “Wonders of the Wind” backdrop back out from our traveling art show earlier in the year!
“Wonders of the Wind” was made by Alex Dukes, Di’amon Fisher, Grace Marshall, Naomi Wilkins, Stephanie Wallace, and Torianne Montes-Schiff for a traveling art show earlier in the year. It reappeared at the Festival for Change on September 8th. Photo credit: Taylor Smith-Hams, CCAN.

Festival goers pose in front of the “Wonders of the Wind” backdrop with signs from the 2017 Peoples Climate March. Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

 
Meanwhile, local musicians took the stage including Ronald Rucker and Naomi & Malaika. 
Ronald Rucker performs at the Festival for Change. Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

 
While the event was celebratory in nature, the gravity of the issues facing Baltimore was not lost on participants. Speakers connected climate and environmental issues to transit equity, public health, and racial justice. Samuel Jordan of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition commented, “By completing the Red Line light rail project and replacing vehicles in the Baltimore Link bus fleet with no-harmful-emissions buses, public transportation will create jobs, help achieve air quality standards, reduce automobile congestion, shorten commutes, and limit the health risks of bad air in Baltimore.”
Ellery Grimm from Zero Hour, a youth-led climate justice movement, called on festival goers to center justice and take action. Photo credit: Stacy Miller, CCAN

 
As Ellery closed out a powerful speech, the steady rainfall took its toll on our sound equipment and we had to close out the stage. But festival goers stuck around and continued to participate in the action village and in the art exhibits throughout the plaza.
Braving the rain at the Festival for Change. Photo credit: Jennifer Kunze, Clean Water Action

 
Emily Schubert closed out the festival with her performance “Resist the Gloom.” She and her performers truly embodied the piece’s message as they braved increasingly heavy rain and playfully interacted with the audience, encouraging us to utilize “realistic optimism” in the face of climate change and other crises. 
The perfect performance to close out a rainy day with: “Resist the Gloom” by Emily Schubert.

 
While the heavy rain definitely put a damper on the event, it also emphasized how Baltimore is already being impacted by the effects of climate change. The city has seen record-setting rainfall this year and is likely to face even more as Hurricane Florence approaches the East Coast later this week. 
The Festival for Change was part of a series of events that the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement organized this summer and will continue into the fall that seek to connect the dots across issue areas and highlight how climate change affects Baltimore. To read recaps of the coalition’s other events this summer, check out these previous posts. And mark your calendars for the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement’s upcoming events! 
 
Get Out the Vote Pep Rally
When: Saturday, 9/22 from 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Where: UMB Community Engagement Center (870 W Baltimore St)
What: Groups including Black Girls Vote, The No Boundaries Coalition, the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement, Southwest Partnership, and more will come together to help prepare us all for the upcoming elections by sharing their amazing GOTV plans!  Participants will have the opportunity to join a team that is right for them, and also have the opportunity to learn more about hosting a party to the polls.
RSVP: RSVP here and invite all your friends!
 
Redefining Public Safety Town Hall
When: Saturday, October 13, 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Where: Douglas Memorial Community Church (1325 Madison Ave)
What: Have you ever wondered what we could do to help our communities if we spent 25% of the police budget in other ways? Have you been incarcerated for a felony and now you think you can’t vote? (You can!) Do you know that prison labor has been used to clean up the BP oil spill, to fight wildfires, and to clear record amounts of snowfall possibly caused by climate change? Do you think it’s shameful that their is a $504 million surplus in Maryland’s budget, but our city students started school during a heat wave with no AC? Do you think that safety includes homes free of lead paint and pipes, free of mold, and free of rodents? Worried about how climate change will make these problems worse? Join Communities United and other members of the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement for a town hall where we will educated ourselves and one another about these issues in the city, how they connect one another, and how solutions can create more climate-resilient communities
RSVP: RSVP on Facebook and invite all your friends!

Catching up with the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement!

It’s been a busy summer with the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement! This coalition of environmental and social justice groups has hosted a series of art builds, skills trainings, and town halls focused on building a just clean energy and economic future.
All of these events are working to connect the dots between climate change and other critical issues in the city, while building a powerful climate justice movement to push for a fossil-fuel-free future that works for all of us. On September 8th, we’ll celebrate and continue building together at the Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs and Justice!
This festival will feature activities, games for kids and adults, live music, DJs — and of course, opportunities to take local action for climate justice! September 8th is an international day of action, and the Festival for Change is Baltimore’s contribution to the movement for Climate, Jobs & Justice.

“Resilience Street” will be featured at the Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs & Justice on September 8th. It takes many hands to build a village, and this one was a collaborative effort between Valeska Populoh, Dirk Jospeh, Azaria, Michael Lamason, Jennifer Strunge, Reynard Parks, Naadiya Hutchinson, Dan Van Allen and Jack Trimper!

 
Featuring local artists including DJ Isabelle Genie, Joy Postell, Dew More Baltimore, DJ Flow, President Davo, The Baltimore Twilighters, and Be Civil Battles and local climate leaders, including Dr. Rev. Heber Brown with the Black Church Food Security Network and Destiny Watford with United Workers, the festival will be a celebratory and fun-filled day of action! You’ll have a chance to tour a tiny home, engage in a solar demo, practice easy at-home gardening and composting, prepare for extreme weather — and more! The festival will also feature games and art activities, including Resilience Street — a cardboard neighborhood that you can help build — a test-your-knowledge recycling game, and climate justice cornhole!
You don’t want to miss the Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs & Justice. Join us on September 8th and bring your family, friends, and neighbors!
 
Here’s a recap of what we’ve been up to the past month. To read about our events from earlier in the summer, click here!
At the end of July, we hosted a teach-in called “Change Our City Charter” where attendees learned about the city’s charter and how you can use ballot initiatives to change the way city government works. Legal experts and community organizers from the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, Communities United, and United Workers shared their experience with current ballot initiatives and answered questions ranging from drafting the ballot question language to strategies for collecting enough petitions to get your question on the ballot (you need 10,000!)
Nabeehah Azeez with Communities United shares information about her experience with ballot initiatives.

 
We also hosted our first town hall in July, which focused on transit, housing, and health and how all of these issues connect to climate change. The town hall began with a panel discussion featuring transit, housing, and health advocates who responded to questions about how the issue they work on connects with and is exacerbated by climate change, what solutions they’re working toward, obstacles they face, and how they make their work relevant to the public at large. Panelists highlighted the inequities that Baltimoreans face daily in housing, transit, and infrastructure and how these inequities are amplified by climate change. Didn’t make the town hall? Watch the recording here! 
Panelist Samuel Jordan of the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition speaks while co-panelist Sylvia Lam with the Environmental Integrity Project (far left), moderator Marc Steiner (center left), co-panelist Sidney Bond with Housing Our Neighbors and United Workers (center right), and Yinka Bode-George with the Maryland Environmental Health Network (far right) listen.

 
After the panel discussion and Q&A, attendees broke out into small groups to discuss what they had just heard. Breakout groups responded to prompts about how these issues connect to / show up in their lives, what they learned about the connections between these issues, and what climate justice would look like in Baltimore. At the end of the event, attendees filled out pledge cards committing to different actions they can take locally for climate justice.
A breakout group discussing what they learned during the Transit, Housing, and Health Town Hall.

 
We kicked off August with two more art builds! Members of the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement and community members gathered at Black Cherry Puppet Theater to create materials for the Festival for Change on September 8th. We made signs for different stations at the festival, a banner for the stage, climate justice cornhole, and a cardboard miniature village called “Resilience Street” that will be featured at the festival.
At work making signs and banners for the Festival for Change on September 8th!

 
Painter and artisan Dirk Joseph works on “Resilience Street”

 
Last night, we hosted our second town hall. This one focused on building the New Energy & Economic Future and featured labor, climate, and grassroots leaders. Jim Strong from United Steelworkers, Reynard Parks from Navitas Solar, Kallan Benson from Zero Hour, and Nabeehah Azeez from Communities United dug into what it will take to build green industries in Maryland that protect our climate and health, provide clean, affordable power, and create family-sustaining jobs.
Mustafa Ali, Senior VP of Climate, Environmental Justice & Community Revitalization for the Hip Hop Caucus, taped a special video welcome for the town hall. Then the panel wrestled with questions such as how to create more family-sustaining, union jobs within the clean energy sector, especially given that 90% of fossil fuel jobs are unionized and offer good pay with benefits. Throughout the evening, attendees in person and viewers from across the country (and the world!) who tuned into the livestream weighed in to answer poll questions and ask their own questions of the panelists. These questions enriched the conversation, particularly a question from someone who lives in the Maldives who challenged the panel to highlight wealth inequality as a significant barrier to climate justice.
The audience watches a video welcome from Mustafa Ali before the panel begins at the New Energy & Economic Future Town Hall.

 
As you can see, it’s been a busy summer with the Baltimore Peoples Climate Movement! I hope you’ve been able to join us for some of these events, and that you’ll come out to the Festival for Change: Climate, Jobs & Justice on September 8th!

Our Children Deserve Better

by Kim Williams
On July 16, with a group of friends I took an early morning stroll into a wetlands area in the city of Chesapeake, Virginia. We arrived before sunrise, but though the area was beautiful, we were not there for the views. The wetlands were overrun by heavy equipment and stacks of 24-inch diameter pipeline.
My friends and I were on a mission: to occupy the construction equipment.
Why would we want to do such a thing? We were there to protect children.
The construction equipment was being used to build the Southside Connector, a 9-mile-long Virginia Natural Gas utility pipeline. And there the giant diggers and pounders and pipe sat, perilously close to a cheerful building named for the late civil rights attorney and first African-American Supreme Court Justice, the “Thurgood Marshall Elementary School.” Shockingly close. A stone’s throw.
My friends and I made public the external costs of this pipeline, which is slated to end along the Elizabeth River in Chesapeake right, next to the planned end of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in Hampton Roads. We hung banners reading “Methane Gas Pipeline = Blast Zone Danger + Climate Disaster” and “Our Children Deserve Better.”
We occupied the tops of two large construction vehicles, and settled in to watch the sunrise. I had time to calm myself, meditate. The sunrise was so beautiful, birdsong joyful. What a wonderful learning lab this strip of wetlands could be for this school! If only we didn’t have to contemplate apocalypse!

And that is why I was there. Sitting for two hours atop the pipe-pounder,  I flashed back to happy days as parent-volunteer at my own sons’ schools, my era as reading-tutor, and my time supporting elementary school Spring Carnivals. The memories helped me see beautiful faces, smiles with baby-teeth, lost teeth, teeth growing-in; I could see hair combed in braids and beads, innocence.
But then I could see flames. I could hear glass breaking, bookbags and limbs, flying. And at this school, the faces my mind saw were mostly African-American kindergarteners through fifth graders, innocents. Mostly African-American, because that is where this pipeline is going. In Norfolk, it travels through mostly poor African-American enclaves. In Chesapeake, it cuts though mostly middle-class African-American enclaves. Enclaves because Jim Crow history made it that way.
Workers showed up about 7am. Soon after, the police.
The police were informed by a volunteer liaison that a “stop-work occupy” was underway. Some of us climbed down at that point. I stayed. My kids are self-sufficient. My worklife flexible. My partner supportive. I refused to leave, intending no pipeline construction to happen that day. I now have a court date for a trespass charge. I hope I can make it clear to the judge that Virginia Natural Gas (and it’s Boss Company, Dominion) are the real trespassers in that wetlands next to a school.
Kim Williams is a full-time member of the Norfolk Catholic Worker community.
 

How climate change harmed Ellicott City and me

It’s been raining heavily lately where I live in Hyattsville, Maryland. In the week of June 23rd, it rained almost all week. Couple weeks ago, while on the metro, I received a warning on my phone that there would be a flash flood in my area. So I called my mom and told her to stay alert.
While I knew it would rain a lot, I hoped it would not be as much as in Ellicott City. Just a couple months ago, this city faced life-changing floods in a devastating climate change event. It started raining in the old historic city on May 27 around at 3:15 pm. It continued on raining and raining for days, until the streets of Ellicott City were flooded with strong rushing waters. Cars were pulled away by the waters. The floods destroyed and damaged countless stores, homes, restaurants, and even one person’s life.
During the floods, a woman named Kate Bowman was in need of safety from her flooded store — along with her cat. She was on a window, screaming and ready to jump out. At that moment, National Guardsman, Eddison Hermond, noticed her and without thinking twice he started to try and help. He told Kate to calm down, just as he said that, according to Kate, he slipped and the rushing waters took him. His body was found two days later.
This isn’t Ellicott City’s first time experiencing a devastating flood. Just two years ago, the city was deluged with 6.6 inches of rain, again damaging stores, restaurants, and homes. The 2016 flood killed two individuals. They were found in their cars on the Baltimore Side of the river.
Both the floods in 2016 and in 2018 were ”one-in-a-thousand year” rain events — meaning the rain was so intense that the chances of this happening should only happen once in a thousand years. At least in a normal world.
But we’re not in a normal world. We are now living in a world that has been changed by global warming. And the main factor of the problem is us. We burn fossil fuels like oil and gas, which stay in the atmosphere and make it so heat can’t escape from the Earth — much like a greenhouse, which is why they are called greenhouse gases. Because of that, we make the Earth warmer each year. The warmer the Earth is, the more water gets evaporated. And the warmer the air is, the more water it can hold in its clouds. The more evaporation and clouds, the more rain and floods. Basic science!
While I have never experienced something just as damaging as Ellicott City, I have lived through floods. In 2015, my family moved to our first house in Hyattsville from our apartment. One night at 11:00pm it started raining really hard. We had been told by our new neighbors that water would flood their basement when it rains really hard, so my sister and I woke my parents up and we went to our basement to check. We checked out the door that goes to the backyard to see if water was coming in. There was nothing. But just as we turned around to go back to sleep I see water flowing in under the door. We were completely unprepared.
Climate change affects us even if we don’t see it. We are the cause of climate change. We have damaged the ocean waters, forests, even the air. This cannot continue on. If we don’t act now then the future generations of 100 years from now probably won’t even know what a polar bear is!
Luckily, we are not helpless in this fight against climate change. You can take action today by signing CCAN’s petition in Maryland to move away from fossil fuels by doubling wind and solar power. This will put us on track to achieve a future powered by 100 clean, renewable energy, and livable streets. And, hopefully, no more flooded basements!
 
Featured Imaged from: Flicker User Todd.

Truth to Power: How we Educated our Local Officials on the Issue of Climate Change

Written by Pam Dehmer from Harford County Climate Action
Our group aims to lessen Harford County’s carbon footprint and adapt to the effects of climate change. We started in October 2014 right after the People’s Climate March in NY. Seeing passionate activists from around the world gave us hope that change was possible. That’s why, over the past four years, we have been working to educate the local community about the causes and impacts of climate change.
However, there is a dangerous strand of climate change denial running through our community. On February 13, the retiring County Council President Mr. Slutsky ended a public meeting by spouting a number of misinformed opinions about global warming, including calling climate change a hoax.
We could not let this go without responding. So 16 of us spoke out at the next County Council public meeting. Each person took a point made by Mr. Slutsky and explained why his statements were false. At the end of the session, two HCCA members and a scientist spoke privately with Mr. Slutsky and arranged a meeting with him the following week. During that meeting, two citizens discussed the climate change subject again trying to inform our council president. Even though Mr. Slutsky was not convinced, he offered HCCA the opportunity to speak at a public meeting to educate the public.
So this was our chance to educate the rest of our local officials! Under the guidance of our leader, Tracey Waite, six of us worked hard to create a presentation. It took hours and hours of research, discussion and fine-tuning as we were given a time limit of just twenty minutes. We met and rehearsed four times in order to make sure the presentation was concise, accurate and informative.
On April 17, we made the presentation at the public, televised, County Council meeting. At the end, all six council members affirmed their support for HCCA and our mission to educate!
While we were pleased that we turned a negative into a positive, this is not the end of the story. Verbal support for our group does nothing in reducing Harford County’s carbon footprint. We are now asking the County Council to form a panel with stakeholders from the local community to find ways to drastically expand clean energy in our state and eventually achieve a 100% renewable energy future.
There are many towns and cities that are committed to this goal and we must do this now. As Bill McKibben said, “Winning slowly is the same as losing.”

The Ellicott City floods: What was salvaged, what was lost

Coming together in the face of disaster
By Liz Lee, former CCAN Director of Maryland Volunteer Outreach
With streams converging into the Patapsco River, Ellicott City, a town built on the river has been no stranger to flooding. After the historic July 2016 flooding, the community came together to rebuild the downtown — to rebuild their businesses, their homes, their lives. On May 27th, residents and business owners of Ellicott City were hit once again by another historic devastating flash flood. They’ve only just re-opened their doors.
At CCAN, we wondered what can we could do to help this community during this disaster. More importantly, what could we do to push for stronger climate change policy in Maryland so this would not happen again to Ellicott City and other vulnerable communities. I was touched by my experience at Ellicott City following the May flooding — I saw a community come together once again.
Last August, my intern, Gaby, and I business canvassed the downtown area of Ellicott City to gather endorsements in support of the Maryland Clean Energy Jobs Initiative. We heard heartbreaking stories one after the next as owners showed us the height of the watermarks on their walls from the 2016 flood. I met the local hero of a toy shop on Main Street — as the last link of a human chain, he pulled a woman out of her car which was immediately swept away in the flood waters on the doorstep of his store. In the end, 20 local businesses signed our resolution for a total of over 660 businesses, labor and faith groups supporting the initiative, which will double solar and wind energy in Maryland and move us away from our reliance on fossil fuels.
I was in disbelief when I saw the shocking footage of the May 27th flooding on social media and checked to make sure I did not mistakenly look at footage from the last 2016 flood. On June 7th, just days after the flood, I went back to Ellicott City to find out how CCAN and I could help. We were in contact with an owner from an oriental rug store on Main Street and I planned to meet him at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the command center for business owners, residents and volunteers. I saw many of those business owners from canvassing last August, including the toy store owner.
Due to safety reasons, access to owners and residents to clean and recover property from their stores and homes was limited from 5PM to 7PM. In order to get a wristband to go to downtown Ellicott City, businesses and residents with photo id badges had to vouch for volunteers as you needed a specific reason to be there. Only credentialed people could get rides to the downtown area on golf carts. The atmosphere was somber as owners hustled to get volunteers credentialed and anxiously waited in a line to get on one of the few golf carts which circulated from the church to the downtown.

Left to right: Volunteer Katie Fry Hester, Mogan Bagha of Mainstreet Oriental Rugs, and Liz Lee of CCAN

I was lucky that the rug store owner helped me receive my red wristband. He was called away with an emergency and could not accompany to the site. On my own, I jumped into the trunk of a golf cart and joined an off-duty Fort Meade Air Force team who came to volunteer for the first time. They were assigned to help two of the businesses very close to the Patapsco River at the bottom of the Main Street hill — so that’s where I would be going to volunteer, too.

We were stopped before entering the downtown area as the police checked our wristbands and reminded us that we could not wander from the volunteer site. Previously over the phone, the rug store owner painted a picture of the distressing conditions of the town and a story of how he watched a displaced beaver walking down the street! Memories of the last flood less than 2 years ago was still fresh in their minds, but this time the damage was much worse due to the sewage main break and tons of mud which many blamed on overdevelopment of surrounding neighborhoods. I would now see this for my own eyes.

I gasped as we drove down the deserted street that resembled an empty movie set, like a set from a natural disaster blockbuster summer movie. But this was real. Huge X’s spray-painted on doors and windows noted the buildings which were damaged and commercial dumpsters sat on each block. My heart sank as we passed by a store front with a banner proudly announcing it’s grand re-opening. This store finally reopened in April after the July 2016 flooding and a month later, it was closed again.
Basements and patios were eroded. An entire 2-story historic establishment collapsed to skelton steel frames, dangling wood planks jutting from walls and piles of brick and rubbish.
After being dropped off by the golf cart at a glass pane store and antique store, the boards securing the doors and windows were removed and we got right to work. The owner of the antique store had been there for years and recently rebuilt her store after the July 2016 flood. The heavy, wet mud, which was a foot and a half deep carpeting the floor, was shoveled into wheelbarrows and dumped on the street for pick-up by street cleaners. Trucks sprinkling the streets with water to keep the dirt level down took turns with police vehicles and golf carts, driving up and down the street. Mountains of piles of insulation and drywall ripped up by volunteers sat in the alley ways. Tons of broken glass from windows, shelving units and precious antique glass items were coated in the deep layers of mud.
I worked with the store owner and volunteers to salvage whatever I could form the mud. We wore 2 layers of rubber gloves to protect us from the glass shards and sewage as we sifted through the thick mud. After the owner spent years collecting rare items, antique vases, and chandeliers, her prized possessions were now all caked in mud.
I was amazed that she knew each piece of jewelry, vase, and drinking glass set by heart and had a story for every piece. Many items were broken and too damaged to be saved and I threw them out into the piles of mud and trash on the street.
That’s me!

But we did recover many items! When she told me that the ring I found in a handful of mud was a diamond ring worth $400, it motivated me to search even harder to salvage more items she could resell. I used a colander and dazzling pairs of earrings and shiny necklaces appeared as the water washed away the mud. When I asked her where to place a fragile porcelain cat, she excitedly told me that it came as a pair. I was disappointed not to find the cat’s twin that evening.
Later, other volunteers who finished helping out another store owner, graciously joined us at the antique store where there was still much to do with the 2 hours of allocated time per day rapidly coming to an end. At one point, the store owner told us to look at a muddy sign she found – it thanked volunteers for helping her rebuild and re-open her store after the July 2016 flood. It was a sad reminder that business owners like her were suffering and having to face this unimaginable challenge once more.
As I finished my shift, I saw business owners in tears, hugging and comforting each other, and each questioning how they would cope and what they were going to do next. Some were simply mourning the loss, while others accepted the painful truth that they could not stay and rebuild there. Given the unpredictable weather patterns, the friend of the store owner said affirmatively that this will not be the last flood in Ellicott City. After I volunteered, I pondered and worried about what would happen to all of the business owners? Will they rebuild again with the looming fear of losing their businesses and livelihood again to yet another inevitable flood? And if they don’t rebuild in Ellicott City, where will they go to start over?
After this recent flood, two downtown Ellicott City business owners signed a Letter to Governor Hogan asking him to stop expanding fossil fuel infrastructure and to support stronger climate policy in Maryland, like the Clean Energy Jobs Act to curb the destructive effects of climate change and flooding. Let’s work together to tell our Maryland legislators and new incoming legislators to pass this bill in 2019 to combat climate change for the sake of our fellow neighbors in Maryland.