It's heartening to see that the victory over St. Lawrence Cement (now rebranded as Holcim) is still fresh in Berkshire minds—particularly, that the lesson about regional pollutants not respecting state boundaries is still being applied:
It was with good reason that Berkshire environmentalists joined the opposition to the giant cement plant proposed for construction along the Hudson River five years ago. Had it been built, the plant would have sent an estimated 10,000 tons of pollutants a year into the air over the Berkshires courtesy of the prevailing winds. It's those winds that the federal EPA must take into consideration in enforcing the new standards for smog-causing pollutants it proposed last Thursday. [...] The bucolic Berkshires are in violation of existing smog standards, let alone the new standards, even though the region produces little air pollution. Our smog comes flowing in from the west, just as the pollution from the cement plant would have. There may be areas of the Midwest that have better air than the Berkshires because pollutants from their industries are carried east.
