As someone who is involved in a Community Rights campaign, and follows the movement somewhat closely, this letter to the editor by Mary Geddry (below) interests me. Why? Because she is pointing at the predictable results of trying to stop a “19th century, fossil-fuel energy project like Jordan Cove LNG [A Liquified Natural Gas Terminal project]” using the regulatory system of law, or, as some call it in the Community Rights movement: The Box of Allowable Activism.
She then points to Grant Township, Pennsylvania in her letter. A community and local body of government that thought and acted outside of the Box of Allowable Activism. And they got different results. They did not get the corporate project that was proposed. To be more specific, they were able to hold off a corporate project that the State of Pennsylvania tried to impose on their community through legal mechanisms.
I think if we are ever going to transition to a sane and sustainable system of law it will take more people like Mary publicly pointing out what is working and what is not working when we attempt to act democratically and engage our governing institutions.
I can’t come up with a better way to clearly and powerfully give feedback to our State and Federal governing institutions than Grant Township did. And if history serves as any kind of indicator or guide, it will take many more communities like Grant Township acting disobediently to help shape a system of law that actually protects the health, safety, and welfare of communities and the ecosystems they depend on to survive and thrive. — Curt Hubatch, Community Rights US Media Team member
The letter to the editor below, by Mary Geddry, appeared in The World on March 26th, 2020. You can read it at its original HERE.
While I hate to say, “I told you so,” my predictions about Jordan Cove LNG have come true, albeit a couple of weeks later than I originally thought. FERC has approved a conditional permit for the project despite the tens of thousands of comments filed opposing the project and Pembina saw a corresponding stock rise from its COVID-19 decline of $10.67 to almost double within 24 hours. My other prediction, that Pembina will be in no rush to secure the remaining state and local permits remains to be proven but in time those permits will inevitably be granted because that is what the existing system is designed to do.
To stop a climate destroying, 19th century, fossil-fuel energy project like Jordan Cove LNG we have to stop playing by the existing rules and think outside the box. We must revoke our consent to the existing system by enacting local ordinances that enforce nature’s right to thrive, flourish and naturally evolve. Grant Township in Pennsylvania did just this to in order to stop a harmful project. In an extraordinary reversal, last week, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revoked a permit for a frack waste injection well in Grant Township. DEP officials cited Grant Township’s Home Rule Charter, banning injection wells as grounds for their reversal.
Injection wells are toxic sewers for the fracking industry that cause earthquakes, receive radioactive waste, and threaten drinking water and ecosystems.
Township residents popularly adopted a Home Rule Charter (local constitution) in 2015 that contains a “Community Bill of Rights.” The Charter bans injection wells as a violation of the rights of those living in the township and recognizes rights of nature.
All governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. Grant Township revoked consent and beat down a multi-billion-dollar foreign corporation that argued it had a constitutional right to inject fracking waste into the tiny rural community. Coos County needs to revoke consent to the existing system and assert our right to protect ourselves to higher standards than state and federal regulators allow. visit https://cooscommons.org.