Tag: Bridgeport

Bridgeport Power Plants Are an International Problem

by Stanley Heller, Promoting Enduring Peace

People are not getting the message. The U.N. climate scientists say we must cut carbon emissions in half within a dozen years or we’re going to really screw up the climate. People read the words and go off to something else. The authorities will take care of it. But they’re not.

In Bridgeport, we have the Bridgeport Harbor Station — the last coal-burning plant in New England. It gives out all kinds of dangerous chemicals. After years of protest, it is slated to be replaced. That’s good news, BUT it will be replaced by a methane-burning power plant. The methane burning plant will actually throw off 6 times the carbon dioxide as does the current coal plant!

It will spew an estimated 1.6 million tons a year compared to a quarter of a million the coal plant emitted in 2017. It also will have to be fed with methane which currently comes from a U.S. production and piping system that leaks methane like crazy. And methane in the short run (and all we have is the short run) is 100 times worse as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide.

The coal-burning plant should be shut down immediately. The building of the methane plant should be stopped. Yes, yes, think of the expense. But think of the climate hell we’re creating. The U.S. has mothballed nuclear power plants at even more expense. It’s an emergency. Treat it like that and come up with a solution.

70 People Rally for Environmental Justice in Bridgeport

Dan Fischer, Capitalism vs. the Climate and Gabriella Rodriguez, Moral Monday CT

On Sunday, April 3, about 70 people attended a rally at Bridgeport’s McLevy Green to raise awareness about environmental justice. The rally was hosted by Healthy CT Alliance, a Bridgeport-based health advocacy group, Capitalism vs. the Climate, a statewide climate justice group, and Moral Monday CT, a faith-based affiliate of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.

bridgeport-pseg-harbor-coalSpeakers included Bishop John Selders, founder of Moral Monday CT, and Reverend Sekou, an author and theologian active in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. They declared it unjust that low income communities and communities of color are consistently exposed to higher levels of pollution.

Selders said, “Environmental racism is bound up with Connecticut’s industrial past and continues to feed health disparities and economic injustice. Natural resources and marginalized peoples have been relegated as dumping grounds in our urban areas – five cities are home to 71% of Connecticut’s people of color and at least 20% of pollution sources. Yet, large majorities of people of color support environmental justice. That’s why Moral Monday CT supports clean power – to the people! Green is for all of us. Black loves Green!”

Toxic facilities in Bridgeport include wastewater treatment facilities, a trash incinerator, a coal-fired power plant, and a fracked-gas plant. PSEG plans to begin building a new fracked-gas plant next year, locking in decades more of pollution in the South End. Forbes Magazine has ranked Bridgeport the country’s fourth dirtiest city. Meanwhile, Spectra Energy’s fracked-gas pipeline construction near New York’s Indian Point nuclear power plant endangers Bridgeport residents and others in the New York metropolitan area, since there is a small but real chance that a pipeline rupture could trigger a meltdown at Indian Point. A recent headline in The Nation warned, “A High-Pressure Pipeline Next to a Nuclear Power Plant… What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” For photos and videos from the rally, visit http://capitalismvsclimate.org.

‘Fracked Gas is Environmental Racism’: Balloon Banner Released at Bridgeport City Hall

by Dan Fischer, Capitalism vs. the Climate

On February 1, Bridgeport residents flooded a public hearing with opposition to PSEG’s proposed fracked gas power plant, which would replace its coal plant in 2021. As 10 year-old Jaysa Mellers urged, “No coal, no gas, go green!”, a Bridgeport-based member of Capitalism vs. the Climate released a banner tied to a bundle of balloons. The banner floated to the high ceiling, and city councillors and residents read its message: “Fracked gas is environmental racism! No coal, no gas!”

gracked-gas-enviro-racism-300x283“Environmental racism is when an unfair share of pollution is placed on communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. That’s what is happening in Bridgeport. PSEG is making it worse by trying to open a new gas plant, which would continue to release pollution in the air for decades,” said Gabriela Rodriguez, a nineteen year-old Bridgeport resident and a member of Capitalism vs. the Climate.

PSEG reports that its new gas plant would release into the air nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, lead, and other pollutants, causing emphysema, bronchitis, learning deficits, heart disease, cancer, and asthma triggers. Moreover, fracked gas is highly flammable and known to frequently leak. The result can be deadly. From 1995 to 2014, there were 371 deaths and 1,395 injuries due to reported pipeline incidents.

PSEG wants to put the gas plant where the coal plant currently stands, locking in decades of fossil fuel infra-structure in an area where 30 percent of residents are black and 30 percent are Latino. To add insult to injury, PSEG’s proposed gas plant, like its existing coal plant, would stand adjacent to the Mary and Eliza Freeman houses, the oldest houses in Connecticut built and owned by African Americans. From 1821 until the Civil War, the neighbor-hood had been a prosperous community of free people of color including African Americans and indigenous Paugussets. Historians say it may have been a stop on the Underground Railroad.

“By putting a gas plant here, PSEG is basically saying that black lives do not matter to them,” declared Tiffany Mellers, a Bridgeport resident, mother of Jaysa. Visit http://capitalismvsclimate.org for more information.

Help Us Close the Last Coal Burning Plant in the State‏

by Stanley Heller, Bridgeport Act on Climate

On Monday, Oct. 6 bring signs to our press conference in Bridgeport City Hall just before a vote by the City Council on a resolution calling for the closing of the coal burning power plant in Bridgeport. The plant is a double menace. It excretes mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and microscopic toxic particulate matter into the local community of the South End, which is mostly low income and minority. Several years ago the NAACP reported that the plant was the tenth worst in the U.S. in terms of climate justice.

It also endangers the whole world by pouring 146,000 tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year. We’re on a path to climate catastrophe if we don’t stop those gases from warming the world much more than it already has. Read more