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Quotable Douglass

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Men may not get all they pay for in this world; but they must pay for all they get. If we ever get free from all the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and, if needs be, by our lives, and the lives of others.

— FREDERICK DOUGLASS (WEST INDIA EMANCIPATION SPEECH, 1857)

Signifying nothing

’Tis the season when the leaves float down, and the campaign signs sprout up. It’s also the season when the partisans of various political candidates agonize waaaay too much over who has more lawn signs. In fact some campaigns think of little else but their signs—at the expense of the actual work of winning over voters.

The annual sign routine is predictable:

• Candidate Joe gets his signs up first, causing the supporters of Candidate Jane to freak out.


• Jane overcompensates by trying to put up twice as many signs as Joe, escalating the sign wars.


• Now it’s Joe’s supporters’ turn to freak out, so Joe orders another 100 signs to catch up, making Joe and Jane roughly even.


• Both teams suddenly realize that if they put TWO signs on each property, it looks like they have double the support! Then they realize that three is better than two. And four is better than three. (Five, however, makes the property owner look crazy.)


• Jane’s cousin gets caught with a trunkload of stolen Joe signs, creating a bunch of bad publicity for Jane.


• Meanwhile, the local zoning enforcement officer (a member of Jane’s campaign committee) decides to enforce a little-known local law, requiring Joe to take down his signs because they are 3.25 inches too tall.


• The ACLU steps in, with a letter (correctly) denouncing the local sign ordinance as un-Constitutional; the ZEO backs off; Joe gets most of his signs back up.


• After the first week of this annual ritual, voters stop even seeing the signs, as they become just another feature of the roadscape.


• All of this distracts from the mechanics of wooing voters, turning them out to the polls, and getting elected.

Finally, after months of sign wars, your local election occurs. The votes are tallied. Turns out that having more signs had nothing to do with who actually won. The outcome could be predicted as reliably with a coin flip. Because no one—well, almost no one—decides which candidate to support because of a sign.

People understandably love to count election signs, since they’re often the only visible portion of a local campaign. (Debates, if any, are usually poorly-attended, with mainly the inner circles of each candidate attending.)

But signs tell you virtually nothing about a campaign, except maybe which side assigned a more obsessive-compulsive operative to putting wax-coated cardboard placards all over town. I’ve seen plenty of elections around here—for example, in Claverack, Hudson and Taghkanic—where the candidate with more signs lost, sometimes by a lot.

A few people put up signs because they actually feel strongly about a candidate. But rarely does more than a tiny sliver of the voting public actually display signs for either side. Some are apathetic. A few don’t want to have an argument with their neighbor. Others simply want their allegiances to remain a private matter, especially in the event that the other team wins, and appoints a new tax assessor.

Still it is almost impossible for a candidate’s friends and core supporters to turn off the sign hysteria. In the minds eye, if you see three signs for Joe in a given neighborhood, it is natural to conclude that “everyone” in that neighborhood supports Joe, though only 3 out of 30 houses are sporting his colors. 

Signs also go up for a host of reasons that have little to do with popularity. They go up first on the lawns or houses of relatives of candidates, and their allied commiteemen. Then they go up because someone didn’t want to say “no” to an operative with a supervisory role over that person’s job. They go up on certain attorneys’ and insurance agents’ houses who depend on municipal or County work, even if they plan to vote for the other side. And so on.

So long as both sides have a reasonable presence on the street, the exact tally of who’s ahead in the Sign Wars tells you nothing. The only time to freak out about signs is if the only sign up for your candidate is on his own house. Then you might worry, as that absence probably reflects a much larger problem of organization that goes far beyond getting signs printed and distributed. On the other hand, your candidate may be lullling the other side into complacency, as s/he diligently and quietly knocks on the door of every single local household, building a giant electoral advantage which only becomes visible on Election Day.

Sure, once in a while someone comes up with a truly clever or winning sign design which truly captures voters’ imaginations and gives them some slight advantage. That happens maybe once in a lifetime, and usually is a symptom of the candidate’s prowess, not its cause. As one consultant put it:

Lawn signs are another case where more is less as candidates try to outdo each other to see who can plaster a neighborhood with the most signs. It’s a stalemate of mutually assured destruction: Competing campaigns drain their budgets as they litter the landscape with a blurry sea of colorful cardboard largely ignored by commuters and other passersby.  

And what about our neighbors who actually choose to post political lawn signs in their front yard?  I say this: Free speech is awesome, but we already know who you vote for, and you’re not changing anyone’s mind.  Let it go.

So wherever you may live, please don’t get too worked up about who appears to have more signs. If you care about a candidate, badgering them about the other guy’s signs does not help. Instead, organize an event at your home, or make calls on their behalf to voters, or write a personal letter to your five best friends, urging them to join you in voting for your candidate.

In a local election, the only reliable sign that your team may win is that John or Jane isn’t investing too much of their limited money, time and thoughts on campaign signs.

Quotable Oglesby

What gives you hope gives me bitterness—this balmy night, soft spring, sweet air. Life looks so little and death looks so big. You don't misunderstand me. What’s worth working for is simply worth working for—on its own present terms, on the face value of what it is. I mean, I’m not in the movement like a businessman’s in business, waiting for the payoff on the investment. The value of my commitment is not pending anything, the commitment isn't waiting to be ratified by success or refuted by failure. Life is better than death, one sides with life always.

— Anti-war activist CARL Oglesby [h/t Daniel Radosh]

Quotable Toynbee

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.

— Arnold Toynbee

S.P.ecies

The New York State Department of State (DOS) has proposed upgrading Hudson’s South Bay to a Significant Fish & Wildlife Habitat. The Valley Alliance has created a web tool which allows you to simply and directly send an email to DOS supporting this beneficial idea.

Doing so not only will help protect and restore the ecology of this unique area. It may also lead to Hudson developing a more forward-looking Waterfront plan, one with far more economic, social, cultural and environmental benefits than the current draft.

Attached here are the extensive comments I’ve submitted to the State, documenting numerous rare, threatened, endangered and other species of concern which have been identified in the South Bay area—in many cases, by Holcim itself. But you don’t have to be any kind of expert to participate, so please visit the VA’s action page today...

Quotable Acton

At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities, that have prevailed by associating themselves with auxiliaries whose objects often differed from their own; and this association, which is always dangerous, has sometimes been disastrous, by giving to opponents just grounds of opposition.

— SIR JOHN DALBERG-ACTon, known as Lord Acton

Not so curious, after all

A letter entitled “Curious” in today’s Register-Star asks: “How come I do not see any war protesters now?” The author, David Scott of Hudson, then suggests that war protests are “really about who is president, and not the lack of peace in the world.”

The only curious thing here, however, is how Mr. Scott has managed to remain unaware of the weekly anti-war protest in Hudson.

Since the Fall of 2001, Martin Baumgold and others (such as Bruce Frishkoff) have gathered every Saturday afternoon for two hours at the southwest corner of Hudson’s 7th Street park—to protest against war and for peace.

While these protests began during the Bush administration, they have (contrary to Scott’s assertion) continued regularly since Obama was elected.

Meanwhile, any simple Google query on “peace protests” or “war protests” will quickly lead the searcher to similar groups, both local and international, which have continued their efforts well after Bush left office—for example, United for Peace & Justice.

The story of the model

Here’s some background on that scale model of the Hudson area, which according to an article by Jamie Larson in The Register-Star is now in a City garage looking for a home:

• The model cost about $5,000 to commission, and comes in two parts (each roughly 4 x 8 feet, making a square).

• It includes parts of Greenport, not just Hudson.

• It was built by William (Bill) Sweet of Northampton, Mass., a model-maker who works primarily for real estate developers, found by Richard Katzman who paid for the project. Both are pictured below with me in Bill’s studio, making corrections and additions to the unfinished model.

• In addition to topo maps and aerial photos, Sweet worked from stats and snapshots (gathered by yours truly) to add details and clarify layouts.

• To save time and cost, in some cases an estimated number of buildings-per-block were included rather than trying to build precise models of every major and minor building. So with the exception of prominent structures like Bliss Towers, The Opera House and the proposed SLC project, not every structure is necessarily to exact scale nor in precise locations. That said, there is a surprising amount of detail and the overall effect is highly accurate.

• The model came with armatures for stringing cotton plumes from the model of the proposed 406-foot St. Lawrence Cement plant stack; also, for public display, a plexiglass cover was created. Whether these still exist or not is not clear.

• It was unveiled at the July 6th, 2002 Friends of Hudson members picnic, which drew approximately 500 attendees, at the Federation of Polish Sportsmen, whose property would have been surrounded by the plant’s 1,200 acres of quarries.

Some additional photos of the model (in progress, at the unveiling, and completed) follow below.

Six years ago tonight...

... it was Marty Davidson's 60th birthday. Also, the Secretary of State issued a far-reaching decision to stop the plant, and the Hudson aldermen voted to reject the company’s “community host agreement” which Rick Scalera tried to railroad through the Council for a third time. Five days later, SLC abandoned the fight. As I said in a Rural Intelligence interview last year,

Randy Daniel’s ruling was far more sweeping than we expected. He went beyond saying, “You are not going to build your giant cement plant here,” he gave specific recommendations for how Hudson should rezone its waterfront.  He recognized that compromise—a mix of recreation and heavy industry— would not work.  And he had fourteen thousand signatures to convince him that the public favored conservation and recreation.  He stated clearly that the waterfront should be for the people’s enjoyment, for ecological rebirth, and for sensible economic development.

Six years on, the City still has not followed those "immediate" instructions...

Now that we're almost as far removed from that date as the fight itself took, this may be the last such reminiscence until the 10th anniversary. But there's still many great memories of that long struggle, and lots left to do to preserve and protect this area from such threats.

Pictured above, from that evening’s events at City Hall and subsequent celebrations: Bob Blechman, Dorothy Lynn, Alan Skerritt, Ardal Powell, Monica & Bob Mechling, Peter Jung, Moisha Blechman, Alan Hamilton, Claire Oravec, Wilson McLean, Carole Osterink, Sarah Sterling, Sven Huseby, Byrne Fone, Ian Nitschke, Roy Volkmann, Peter Meyer, Sam Pratt, Barbara Ettinger, Ellen Thurston, Nora Hancock-Snead, and Julia Doyle.

Read about the whole saga here (PDF) and here.

Hudson 101: The Cement Plant Battle (Part 5)

[ Click for Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]

NOTE: This is the conclusion of a piece which originally appeared in last year’s environment issue of Our Town (the Columbia County quarterly), under the title The Bullet We Dodged: How the Cement War was Won.* I’m offering it here in several installments over the next week, in a somewhat expanded form, and with added visuals and links, both for those who lived through the tumultuous years of 1998-2005, and for others who moved to the area more recently—who may wonder what all the fuss was about...

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THE FUN PART •  Believe it or not, we did manage to find some fun in this deadly-serious fight; we never would have made it if we hadn’t. Printing up red “swat the plant” fly swatters. Painting signs in people’s backyards and barns with leftover latex and scrap wood, and plenty of beer. Puzzling out Tom Koulos’ sphinx-like letters-to-the-editor.

Poking fun at the more absurd pro-plant arguments—like the claim that more pollution would bring more rain for famrs by seeding clouds with dust particles, or that the giant stack would draw industrial tourists, just like the Paris sewers.

Opening the office for Winter Walk, with cookies and carolers. Rushing around during SLC balloon tests to spot the most devastating views of the dirigibles on 406-foot tethers.

Clamoring up scaffolding to hang giant murals and banners in the gym before the big benefit. There was always lots to do, and a lot of gallows humor. Naturally we would have traded it all away to be rid of the threat, and go back to the quieter lives we led before anyone ever heard of PM 2.5. But getting to know our neighbors and finding creative ways to stave off destruction was a challenge that brought out the personalities and talents of everyone involved.

 

LAST BUT THE OPPOSITE OF LEAST • I’ve still not mentioned the person whose involvement and contributions I can fairly say stood above all others—Hudson business owner (and bass player) Peter Jung.

For nearly seven years, despite the pressure to keep his own business afloat, Peter never said no when called upon for help, advice, or more of his time. I lost track of how many dozen times we loaded up his van with signs and flyers and posterboards— Jehovah’s Witnesses, he called us—to spend an afternoon in the house of another virtual stranger, soon to be a good friend, talking about the world’s driest subject, cement. We burned up the phone lines at all hours of the night, strategizing the group’s next moves, dealing with some mini-crisis within the ranks, or crafting a sharp response to the company’s latest nonsense.

Weekends and holidays became irrelevant; there could be no letting up until we won. Peter was not merely a terrific sounding board, but also brought along a relentlessly-positive outlook and a special knack for boiling complicated issues down to their essence. One of his favorite spiels, after I’d done an exhaustive presentation of the gory details of proposal, was: “If any of this technical mumbojumbo has you scratching your heads, I got a good one for ’ya—just take a drive across the river down Route 9W, from the Ravena cement plant down to the Catskill facility in Cementon. What convinced me to get involved was the devastation and misery that this industry has brought to those places...” Immersing ourselves in the particulars of Portland cement manufacturing was definitely not how any of us planned to spend the better part of a decade in the Hudson Valley, but Peter stuck with it through the exhilarating times and the exasperating, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

AS FOR YOURS TRULY • I’m not going to pretend that an all-consuming crusade which overwhelmed every waking hour of my life for nearly seven years—79 months, all without pay— was not something of a mitzvah.

Though that calling constantly put my name in the press and planted my feet in front of Senators and celebrities, it was seldom, if ever, glamorous.

This line of work entails walking around with a target on one’s back, a willingness to be a lightning rod and take a lot of flack—in part, so that others didn’t have to. It meant taking out the garbage and cleaning toilets in our first simple third-floor walk-up office, spending Saturday nights distilling deadly-dull applications and legal briefs into manageable summaries, checking and double-checking every organizational and factual and personal detail to make sure the cause wasn’t jeopardized by a slipup.

It meant being constantly on call and on guard, and living as virtuously as a monk—knowing that many eyes were on the lookout for any hint of scandal that could bring down the opposition. It also meant managing people’s anxieties and misguided brainstorms and freak-outs, pacifying those seeking assurance, and sometimes having to be the bad guy who pushed erratic or toxic members to the fringes of the fight. Yes, there were internal wars, even bitter rivalries within the ranks. But another part of the job was to keep uppermost in people’s minds that the real enemy was never our neighbors, even when we disagreed.

It meant constantly adapting to new twists, keeping a seemingly never-ending issue fresh, finding new angles. Life under the threat of SLC was a surreal continuum of writing, speaking, presenting, designing, fundraising, leafletting, convincing, cajoling, arguing, watchdogging, and barely ever leaving the 30-mile circle of towns around Hudson for years on end—because whenever you did, you’d wind up getting called back to handle some emergency.

The upside was not just the hope of securing the region’s safety and future; as a result of SLC’s greed, we all met more of our neighbors (and got more of an education) in seven years than we otherwise could have in seventy.

Even today, nearing the sixth anniversary of our victory, I still get stopped in the grocery store by a stranger who wants to thank me “for all that work you did.” My standard replies are “Well, I had a lot of help,” and “If I hadn’t stepped up to the plate, I trust that someone else would have.” Both of those replies I mean sincerely. I also know that stopping the plant was never a sure thing. On the contrary: There were thousands of ways to fail, and only a handful of ways to prevail. To win against the odds (with $60 million and the political establishment lined up against us like a firing squad) required every ounce of an entire community’s brain- and willpower.

My role was to gather, harness, and focus that immense collective energy.

So I’ve jotted down these sketches of the people who came along for the ride on our bandwagon—naming just a few of the countless spokes of a vast wheel—in the hope that whenever the next disastrously foolish idea comes along, as it surely will, someone may read this and realize it can be done: by extraordinary ordinary people like us, and you.

 

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* Readers who want to read the full, original OT article as edited by Enid Futterman and designed by John Isaacs can download it as a PDF right away by clicking here. A full, week-by-week chronology of the fight can be found at Stop the Plant.com.

Quotable Nietzsche

When one has a great deal to put into it, a day has a hundred pockets.

 — FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (Human, All Too Human, 1878)

Hudson 101: The Cement Plant Battle (Part 4)

[ Click for Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 ]

NOTE: This piece originally appeared in last year’s environment issue of Our Town (the Columbia County quarterly), under the title The Bullet We Dodged: How the Cement War was Won.* I’m offering it here in several installments over the next week, in a somewhat expanded form, and with added visuals and links, both for those who lived through the tumultuous years of 1998-2005, and for others who moved to the area more recently—who may wonder what all the fuss was about...

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THE CONVERTS • While much of the media and SLC tried to portray opponents as kneejerk reactionaries, for most, the process of opposing the plant involved a slow, steady loss of faith in the company—paired with increased  trust in opponents’ credibility.

Claverack’s Mary Sanchez, who ran a lively and sometimes profane online chat site known as “Red’s Board”, described her change of stance in terms of the patience and decency of opponents’ responses:

People took the time to answer my questions in a civil and thoughtout manner. Their answers made sense—and—they could be verified with facts. I started to look back at my involvement with SLC. After reading all the information I had found (not been given—but found), both good and bad, I asked myself that question that Jesse continuously asks: “Why is SLC good for us?” I could not think of an answer... I got to thinking that big promises don’t always add up to big “keeps.”

It is my hope that some of the “pro-cement” folks will take some time to really really honestly think about this SLC project. Really think about this Santa Claus of a company promising you all you ever wished for. I do not believe that there can be a Santa Claus if there is no heart.

Santa Claus would never use people.

Santa Claus would never hurt people.

St. Lawrence Cement has no heart, and they use people. They prey on their feelings and they are good at bringing out the ugly in everybody.

It was also on Red’s Board that then-State Assemblyman Patrick Manning (R-Hopewell Junction) had his own epiphany about SLC.

Manning had bashed opponents at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Meadowgreens, then got an earful back from disappointed constituents.

He agreed to an hour online chat at Red’s, finally admitting that he would not want a project like SLC in his own town. Gathering his own facts, he consulted closely with doctors such as noted Cornell cancer researcher and Hillsdale resident Mitchell Gaynor, to understand the health implications of living near a major coal-burning facility, and then weighed in regularly and forcefully with State agencies against the plant. Another key public official, Hudson Planning Board chair and later President of the Common Council Michael Vertetis, began as a middle-of-the road plant proponent.

But Vertetis (unlike his former ally, Mayor Rick Scalera) was careful to maintain a civil relationship with plant opponents, and showed an interest in having the City conduct a proper review. At first, many of us assumed that Mike was proceeding cautiously only to ensure that a botched process wouldn’t open the door for a successful lawsuit. But over time, the heavy-handed tactics of SLC (in particular their belligerent attorneys, Bob Alessi and Tom West) tended to alienate more moderate supporters like Mike.

By keeping communication open with folks like Mike, our side maintained the possibility of his voting against SLC’s proposed Host Community Agreement, a package intended to buy the City’s support.

That in fact happened on the same day that Secretary of State Randy Daniels found the project violated New York’s Coastal Policies, dealing a crushing double-whammy to the project on April 19th, 2005.

THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY • Opposition needed to be rooted in more than just environmental arguments.

While some business leaders automatically supported the project without doing any due diligence, others took the time to gather facts and assess the situation. Farmers and realtors (including Steve Kingsley, who generously donated free office space when we were just getting our feet under us) were two early groups with a lot at stake, taking a stand against SLC as a threat to their livelihoods.

Germantowners Nancy Gordon and Paul Swedenburg, whose hightech company HAVE, Inc. is located in Hudson’s former Simpsonville neighborhood, were among the first to step out of ranks with those businesses falling in line behind SLC.

Before taking any position, they invited then-project managers Dirk Cox and Phil Lochbrunner to a discussion with me at their offices. They insisted on an open debate, with both sides present. After considering what they’d heard, Nancy and Paul issued a strongly-argued op-ed, setting forth precisely how the project would harm their business, and the commitment they’d made to employing local people. Richard Katzman, then a major employer in Hudson- Greenport, also gathered his own facts, and after losing confidence in the company, came out against it. He proceeded to underwrite the construction of a giant scale model of the plant, quarry and dock facility, and sponsored telephone polls (conducted by the same firm used by President Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg) showing that by 2002, plant opponents had outnumbered supporters. 

Toward the end of the fight, many of these same business leaders along with others such as Martina Arfwidson of FACE Stockholm, Don and Marnie MacLean of Thompson- Finch Farm, Deborah Bowen of The Inn at Green River, and David Rubel of Agincourt Press, worked with us to craft a Statement of Values for promoting greener, more sustainable development in the region: To ensure continued growth and stability, we need to protect our high quality of life. This includes a healthy environment and workforce, clean air and water, scenic and historic resources, and public enjoyment of our unique natural surroundings. [We conclude] that the overall scale, design, location and impacts of the St. Lawrence Cement facility proposed for Hudson and Greenport pose too great a risk of harming the health, quality of life, and economic viabililty of our region, and therefore it is not the right fit for our communities.

By the time this letter was presented to the State, more than 200 businesses representing over 1,150 full-time and another 450 part-time jobs in the area, had signed on. Their message was clear: in the mid-Hudson Valley, the fate of the environment and the economy are inextricably linked. We were fighting not only to stop something, but also to preserve the possibility of a brighter future.

THE EXPERTS • Citizens’ groups always are held to a higher standard of accuracy than slippery politicians. We knew we had to be painstakingly accurate in our public statements, and to back them up with full documentation and professional confirmations by independent experts.

One such expert was living right under our noses in Claverack: toxicologist and EPA consultant Travis Kline (son of Pamela Kline, founder of Traditions). Kline was asked to speak at an SLC forum, set up by the company in hopes that they’d control the dialogue and make opponents appear marginal and ill-informed.

But the opposite occurred, as major public attendance forced the events to move to a large Columbia-Greene Community College auditorium. As panelists were peppered with tough questions from the well-prepared audience, they were emboldened to step outside the limited scripts SLC expected they’d stick to. Much to the company’s chagrin, Travis made a devastating presentation about the health risks of volatile organic compounds and products of incomplete combustion resulting from the burning of impurity-laden limestone and coal. Calling for a multi-disciplinary risk assessment and test burns, he warned that the existing regulatory process was inadequate to protect residents from harm. By his second forum appearance, SLC had lost control of the dialogue, causing some of its supporters to lose their cool. Four “young guys feeling their oats,” sporting the company’s free blue tshirts, attempted to menace Travis, who was escorted out of the hall for his own safety by State Police Investigator and forum member Gary Mazzacano. These occasional and pathetic attempts at intimidation only made SLC look worse.

While SLC expected opponents to bring nothing to the table, impressive experts were retained to back up our positions during official reviews.

One day in 1999, Hudson art dealer John Davis had a visit from a loyal client named Gabe Miller. Gabe spotted one of our flyers on John’s desk and said: “You really don’t want something like this in your community. I know, because I build these things.” An NYU chemistry professor and senior engineer at Camp Dresser & McKee, among the largest international industrial consultants based in the Northeast, John arranged for Gabe to meet me for lunch at the St. Charles Hotel, whereupon we became the first environmental group ever represented by CDM. His firm’s work was supplemented by Dr.

Alex Sagady, a pit bull of an engineer from Michigan, who represents citizens groups at discount rates. Alex’s preferred method of working was to file Freedom of Information requests with State agencies, then fly to Albany to camp out in the offices of the Department of Environmental Conservation, where he’d invariably find lots of useful information that bureaucrats, such as Project Manager Michael Higgins, had previously “overlooked”.

As our network expanded, similar finds began emerging on a regular basis. One after another, experts came to Hudson to educate our membership in public presentations: Neil Carman of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, Florida kiln activist and elected official Penny Wheat, Downwinders at Risk leaders Jim Schermbeck and Katy Hubener, Bonnie Sanders of South Camden Citizens in Action. Sanders, who died the following year, was particularly moving as she talked about her neighborhood’s experience with SLC: “They spread around a lot of promises of jobs and grants for local organizations. They led our church pastors to think that this company would do good for minority residents.

Once they had their permits, we learned that all they cared about was making money. We only gained a very small number of jobs. What we ended up with was pollution that made my grandchild, other kids and our seniors fight for breath, and truck traffic so heavy it shook house foundations. [But] even if SLC stood behind their promises, the hardships wouldn't have been worth it. You can't trust this company, and you don't want them in your area.” The Allies From the start, we knew we couldn’t go it alone. The fight had to be expanded to the whole Valley and into the downwind states of New England. After a lonely couple of years, one by one, more than three dozen groups stood with us—some contributing just their names, others biting off major pieces of the legal fight. 

During one difficult winter meeting at City Hall in Hudson, a group of about five young, purposeful people in outdoor gear strode into the Council Chambers: Alex Matthiessen and his Riverkeeper crew had docked their boat and come up Warren Street like the cavalry to save the day.

Meanwhile, at his office in Pittsfield, my all-time favorite conservation activist George Wislocki, founder of the Berkshire Natural Resource Council, used his decades of contacts and stockpile of credibility to convince EPA’s New England Regional Administrator to issue a stern letter against SLC—and her support was echoed by the Massachusetts DEP and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Across the river, Athens officials such as Andrea Smallwood and Chris Pfister opened up a western front against SLC by passing a Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and submitting strong letters cautioning against Hudson impairing the State’s investment in the Village’s newly-restored park and docks along the Hudson. 

THE GO-TO GUYS & GALS • But for all the specialized skills and thoughtful analysis that go into long grassroots battles, possibly the most valuable asset of a citizens’ organization is to have plenty of worker bees ready to swarm out of the hive at a moment’s notice. We weren’t lacking in that department. Whether it was an urgent mailing to get stuffed and stamped, or rounding up auction items for our next benefit party, or needing a small crowd to assemble for an unexpected meeting, or volunteers to help set up for an event, people gave generously and endlessly of their time: Warren Collins, Fran DeGrazia, Bob and Monica Mechling, Diana Jelinek, Dick Donovan, Claire Oravec, Chloe Zerwick, Jennifer Arenskjold, Marty Davidson, Martha Lane, Carole Clark, Hillary Hillman... This list could go on forever, and still be missing important contributions.

We also lost some of our most valued soldiers over the years: the hilariously wise Cassandra Danz (a/k/a Mrs. Greenthumbs); the fearless Bud Mann; artist Hannah Williamson; Phyllis Herbert, who never threw out a single article about the plant; and the ever-ready Vinny DeGrazia, our favorite bartender and raconteur. Their contributions live on each time anyone looks toward Becraft and still sees a hill, rather than a 1,200-acre hole in the landscape.

NEXT UP: The conclusion of this five-part series.

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* Readers who want to read the full, original OT article as edited by Enid Futterman and designed by John Isaacs can download it as a PDF right away by clicking here. A full, week-by-week chronology of the fight can be found at Stop the Plant.com.