SAVE THE HOUSATONIC

STATE GRANTS THE HOUSATONIC ACEC STATUS

Save The Housatonic is proud to announce that 13 miles of the Housatonic River and the land that surrounds it have been declared an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The designation covers a total of 12,276 acres of river, floodplain, and upland.


On March 31, 2009 Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles announced:

The new designation promises greater protection for the region’s unique natural and cultural resources.
The new ACEC includes a 13-mile corridor of the Housatonic River, adjacent floodplains, tributary streams, and the western slopes of October Mountain State Forest. It augments more than 2,000 acres within two other ACECs – Kampoosa Bog Drainage Basin and Hinsdale Flats Watershed – in the towns of Lee and Washington.
“During the extensive public process that led up today’s designation, my office heard from hundreds of Berkshire residents, organizations and public officials,” Secretary Bowles said. “The community and regional support for this ACEC was overwhelmingly positive, and this designation will help create an important framework for the long-term preservation and stewardship of these outstanding resources.”

Upper Housatonic River ACEC


The 30-page decision document specifically declines to exempt the EPA and the various industrial and municipal properties that sought exclusions.


It quotes the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife’s endorsement which states that “the Housatonic River watershed is one of the most biologically rich and unique regions of the Commonwealth supporting one of the highest densities of state-listed species in the state.”


And it notes that 93% of the ACEC is delineated as an area representing the highest priority for biodiversity protection in Massachusetts.


This is a victory for the River, for those who live beside the river, for those who hike, canoe, hunt and fish and bird-watch. It is a victory for the varied forms of plant and animal life that make the Upper Housatonic their home.


It is a victory for citizen participation and for the combined power of ordinary Berkshire-ites and their representatives. Together, we demonstrated an overwhelming consensus for protecting the environment we regard as precious and irreplaceable.


Our great thanks go out to the many organizations who joined together to save the Housatonic, to all of you who took the time to attend public meetings, to write letters and contact your state representatives and state senator and Secretary Bowles, and to those of you who signed our petition.


Green Berkshires will be celebrating the ACEC (and its own fifth birthday) with an Open House at our office on Earth Day, April 22, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. We’re on the second floor at 292 Main Street, Great Barrington. Save the date! Please join us.




Note: you can download Secretary Bowles’ press release, the designation document, and his letter to Save The Housatonic on our Documents page.

Tags: biodiversity in Massachusetts, Green Berkshires, Hinsdale Flats Watershed, Housatonic River watershed, Kampoosa Bog, October Mountain State Forest, Save the Housatonic, Secretary Ian Bowles, The Housatonic River wins, Upper Housatonic ACEC designation

We need your help now to secure the
Upper Housatonic River ACEC!

Here are 2 things we need you to do!

1. Sign our online petition. A few powerful people are working behind the scenes to scuttle the nomination of the upper Housatonic River and its surrounding landscape as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. It will take a lot of us to stop them. Don’t delay in signing the petition. Even if you have signed a paper petition, please sign this one now.

For your name to appear, you must use a valid email address. After you have entered your information into this petition, an e-mail will be sent to your email account to confirm your signature. You must respond to the e-mail by clicking on the blue link otherwise your name will not be added to the petition. If you do not receive the confirmation email, please check to see whether it has been diverted to your Spam folder or “Suspect Email” folder. Thank you.

PETITION
Supporting designation

of the Upper Housatonic River

Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC)

[[petition-1]]

2. Please send a short email to Secretary Bowles about your support for the ACEC. It can be as brief as a sentence or two. Our emails will be going to the director of the ACEC program who will be compiling them for Secretary Bowles, but please add the following to the subject line: Secretary Bowles: Upper Housatonic ACEC. Email her at: Elizabeth.Sorenson@state.ma.us. All public comments are due within 10 days after the public hearing, by February 9th.


Please distribute paper versions of our petition.
Click here to download a Word document version of the petition:


Click here to download a PDF version of the petition:


Please keep track of everyone who has copies of the petition so that we can collect them at the end of the petition drive. Paper petitions can be faxed to Save The Housatonic at (413) 528-6854, or mailed to P.O. Box 501, Great Barrington, MA 01230.

The online and paper petitions will be submitted to the state’s Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs on February 9, 2009. (Duplicate signatures will be eliminated.) Please help us get as many signatures as possible.
Please call us at (413) 528-9363 or email us if you have any questions: etillinghast@greenberkshires.org

Tags: Housatonic ACEC Petition

Until recently, General Electric (GE) had a major industrial facility in Pittsfield, the largest city in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. At its Pittsfield site along the Housatonic River, from the mid-1930s to the mid 1970s, GE used the man-made toxic chemical polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) as an insulating fluid in its electrical transformers. PCBs are poisonous to people, animals, birds, fish, and other wildlife.

During those years, a massive amount of PCB-contaminated oil ended up in the Housatonic River. This contaminated oil has adhered to riverbank soils and the river sediment, and has severely compromised the health of the Housatonic River ecosystem.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in coordination with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MADEP), has been charged with working with GE to clean the river. Under a Consent Decree signed by the parties, GE cleaned the first half-mile of the river adjacent to the former GE industrial facility. EPA cleaned the next mile and a half downstream from the plant.

Under the terms of the Consent Decree, GE was charged with developing a Corrective Measures Study (CMS) to investigate the need for, and possible alternative ways of, cleaning the Rest of the River – that section of the river from the confluence of the East and West Branches of the Housatonic down through Berkshire County, Massachusetts into Connecticut to the Long Island Sound.

GE is proposing a 10-year construction and restoration project involving the excavation and disposal of over 225,000 cubic yards of sediment and soil, at an estimated combined cost of $184 million for the Housatonic River.

Many concerned citizens are worried about what this might mean for the River. While we strongly support the clean-up of PCB contamination from the river sediments to make the river safe for wildlife and humans, we have strong reservations about the GE proposal.

Some would like GE to clean more of the River; some would like GE to use new and innovative technologies to break down the PCBs rather than dredge the River and landfill contaminated sediment and soil; and some are very concerned that they may live near a PCB-dump like the one adjacent to the Allendale School in Pittsfield. Everyone wants the process to end with a clean and beautiful Housatonic.

Mass Audubon has written that the GE proposal:

… contains insufficient information to evaluate the feasibility and cost of restoration of remediated areas. Given the sensitivity of the habitat along the Housatonic River and its floodplain, GE must be held to accordingly high standards for this clean up, which should begin with avoidance and minimization of adverse impacts to critical habitats. Where there is no alternative but to destroy habitats, restoration of affected areas to fully functional habitats must be required by EPA.

One important step we can take to protect our River is to designate the 12.9-mile corridor of the Upper Housatonic River as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). This stretch of the Housatonic is comprised of a complex and rich ecosystem that includes the river itself, adjacent wetlands and floodplains, several tributary streams, abundant wildlife, concentrations of rare species, and the steep, forested, western slopes of October Mountain State Forest.

You can read the Nomination of the Upper Housatonic River as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern, submitted by Save The Housatonic to Ian A. Bowles, Secretary, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, August 29, 2008. Download the entire ACEC Nomination Document [180 pages, 27.6 MB]




To download individual sections of the ACEC Nomination Document go to our Documents Page.

Tags: PCBs, Save the Housatonic River, Upper Housatonic ACEC, Upper Housatonic Valley