Warwick earns Green Community Designation — December, 2014
Warwick is now one of 13 new Green Communities, recently designated on Dec. 3 2014, and awarded $137,850 to begin implementing their 20% energy reduction plan over the next 5 years.
“Never say never” says Janice Kurkoski, chair of the Warwick Buildings and Energy Committee, who from the beginning had felt that there was much too much paperwork and too many hoops to jump through to apply for this grant. But when Warwick’s Town Coordinator David Young offered to be the point-person, the Committee stepped up to the plate and presented an Energy Reduction Plan that the State thinks is good enough to use as a model for other small towns to follow. With a total of 136 participating cities and towns, more than half of all Massachusetts residents now live in a Green Community.
Presentation of check to Warwick as one of newest Green Communities in MA — David Young and Janice Kurkoski accept Green Communities grant from Dept. of Energy Resources in Boston.
Proposed Pipeline and Alternative Route — As the move to stop the Kinder Morgan/TGP Northeast Energy Direct widens to southern New Hampshire more and more people are thinking and talking about taking steps in their communities to be more energy efficient and use all forms of energy including electricity wisely. For January events in region see Events.
Watch for more information about January Events regarding continuing work to stop the Kinder Morgan/TGP natural gas pipeline project. For more information now go to www.nofrackedgasinmass.org
Low Demand Scenario Study — The MA Department of Energy Resources hired Synapse Consultants to do an analysis of the “low demand scenario” between October and December 2014. After a stakeholder meeting in Boston on December 18th, the release of the final study was delayed. Many people attending stakeholder meetings feel that the final study will just focus on natural gas and not fully evaluate a range of solutions to meet the state’s energy needs as stated on the Synapse website. The Synapse website stated, “The purpose of the analysis is to consider various gas demand scenarios and to evaluate a range of solutions to meet Massachusetts’ short and long-term resource needs, considering greenhouse gas reductions, economic costs and benefits, and system reliability.” Many comments concerning the final report voiced concerns about staying in compliance with the Global Warming Solutions Act and reducing greenhouse gases. People from environmental groups, land trusts, and stop the pipeline groups participated on December 18, 2014. To learn more about the on-going study, more stakeholder meetings, and to read comments from groups and see what Synapse is doing go to http://synapse-energy.com/project/massachusetts-low-demand-analysis.
Rolling March of Words in December — People in area towns (Athol, Erving, Northfield, Orange, Royalston, Warwick) gathered to write letters to state senators in December to educate them about Article 97 of the State Constitution and ask them to uphold this article regarded protected land in the state. Between 400 and 500 letters were written during December to state officials. Other towns including Bolton also participated in letter writing activities during December.
Petition to speak out against the National Grid rate hike of 37% on MoveOn — Tell the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities to roll back the rate increase. The long-term solution for preventing volatile price spikes and halting climate change is investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy. It is time to democratize energy policy in the Commonwealth, making it clean, green and fair.
On September 16, National Grid, the largest electric utility in Massachusetts filed a 37% rate increase with the Department of Public Utilities. Other large utilities, such as NStar, Unitil and WMECO are expected to do the same. Support the roll back of this massive rate increase and demand environmentally sustainable energy policy in Massachusetts. Click on link below to read full petition and sign.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/roll-back-the-rate-hike?source=s.icn.em.mt&r_by=11487565