2014 Victories in Review
In our most exciting year yet, grassroots campaigns that we’ve started or supported have won 16 victories, mostly against biomass and waste incinerators, though some were pro-active policies or other facilities (landfills or gas-fired power plants). This brings the total number of incinerator victories in our network to about 50 just since 2010.
Over the summer, we mentioned eight campaigns we expected to see victories on. Two are already in our victory list below. Another four (in MD, PA, IN and TX) are looking like we’ll see victories on them in the year to come. One, in Chester, PA, was a difficult loss, despite some powerful organizing work we put in. We’ll be digging in to support a number of ongoing and new community battles in the coming year as well.
Please support our ability to help more communities win in 2015! We’d particularly like to help ensure more victories against gas-fired power plants in the next year, as well as more incinerator victories and steps toward implementing zero waste alternatives.
We’re proud to have contributed in small or huge ways to each of these great wins in 2014:
- Frederick, Maryland: After a decade-long fight, local groups we supported, No Incinerator Alliance and Waste Not! Carroll stopped a planned 1,500 ton/day incinerator to burn trash, tires and sewage sludge.
- Bloomington-Normal, Illinois: organized local residents to quickly stop plans by Paradigm BioAviation for an experimental trash and tires gasification facility that aimed to incinerate the waste, and eventually try to convert it into jet fuel. We’ve learned that they plan to try again in the state, and in McAllen, TX and we’re warning residents to make sure they’re stopped for good.
- Washington, DC: Got a large (389 living unit) cooperative complex in the nation’s capitol, Tiber Island Community Homes, to be the first to add a “no incineration” clause to their waste contract, paving the way for other apartments and coops to take control of where their waste goes when it’s hauled “away.” Some of their waste has been going to the large trash incinerator in Lorton, VA, profiled in this article on DC’s Waste and Environmental Racism.
- Allentown, Pennsylvania: stopped plans for an experimental trash and sewage sludge incinerator planned in the heart of the Hispanic community in the state’s 3rd largest city. We formed the Allentown Residents for Clean Air group and this was a priority fight for us since 2012, which continues in its efforts to preserve the rights of all Pennsylvania local governments to adopt their own clean air laws.
- Stafford County / Fredericksburg, Virginia: plans for a trash and tire pyrolysis incinerator were shelved after a year of local opposition that we supported.
- Lorton, Virginia: a construction/demolition waste landfill expansion was defeated by the Citizens to Stop the Dump and South County Federation. We helped a bit, going door-to-door in the community that is also overshadowed by the 4th largest trash incinerator and surrounded by two other landfills. We brought in experts on zero waste to speak about alternatives for recycling those valuable materials.
- Washington, DC: Washington, DC city government passed two major waste laws we worked on, banning Styrofoam, instituting curbside composting, requiring the city to adopt a zero waste plan, starting electronic waste recycling and much more to move the nation’s capitol toward zero waste!
- Newark, Delaware: a natural gas power plant (disguised as a data center at the University of Delaware) was stopped by the Newark Residents Against the Power Plant group we helped train
- Jasper, Indiana: biomass incinerator to burn Miscanthus grass stopped by our biomass network members, Healthy Dubois County after a protracted and expensive fight.
- Port Townsend, Washington: paper mill’s plan for a biomass incinerator stopped by our biomass network members, Port Townsend Air Watchers and No Biomass Burn
- Maryland: Working with the Zero Waste Maryland coalition and other allies, we helped stop legislation, for a second year in a row, that would have put Maryland on the path to burning nearly all of its waste that is not recycled. Also, commented on several other compromised energy bills, none of which passed.
- North Las Vegas, Nevada: gigantic plan for a construction and demolition gasification incinerator stopped by our biomass network members, Citizens of North Las Vegas United
- Bristol Township, Pennsylvania: Proposed hazardous waste incinerator stopped after we’ve testified to expose corporate misinformation, and supported grassroots and political opponents who reached out to us in late 2013.
- North Springfield, Vermont: large biomass incinerator stopped by North Springfield Action Group, a grassroots group we helped launch an opposition campaign.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota: Trash incinerator expansion blocked by grassroots activists we’ve supported.
- White Deer, Pennsylvania: Proposed tire incinerator stopped by grassroots leaders with Organizations United for the Environment and the Tire Burner Team who we’ve supported since 2011.
