Exeter residents build on growing rights-based efforts to stop climate change
A press release from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund published on, March 13th, 2019.
EXETER, NH: At annual Town Meeting yesterday, Exeter residents voted 1176 to 1007 to adopt their Right to a Healthy Climate Ordinance. This is the first right-based climate law in the state of New Hampshire. The ordinance asserts the community’s rights to clean air, pure water, and local community self-government. It bans corporate activities that release toxic contaminates into the air, water, and soil as a violation of those rights.
Exeter community members face Liberty Utility’s proposed 27-mile long Granite Bridge fracked gas pipeline project, which is slated to cross eight New Hampshire towns. The project threatens to contaminate the Piscataqua River Watershed, an ecosystem that hundreds of thousands of people and countless species depend upon for clean air and water. MORE…