The 20th annual Source to Sea Cleanup organized by the Connecticut River Watershed Council will be held Sept. 23 and 24.
“The Source to Sea Cleanup strengthens community and gives people an opportunity to improve their neighborhoods,” Andrew Fisk, executive director of the council said in a statement. “When people help clean their rivers, they make connections with each other and with their rivers.”
The annual Source to Sea Cleanup is a two-day river cleanup coordinated by the council in Massachusetts New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut, the states of the 410-plus-mile Connecticut River basin.
Each fall, thousands of volunteers of all ages and abilities clean the Connecticut River and its tributaries on foot or by boat. Volunteers remove trash along rivers, streams, parks, boat launches, trails and more.
There are three ways for volunteers to get involved in the Cleanup this year: report a trash site in need of cleaning, find a cleanup group near you to join, or organize and register your own local cleanup group. For more information or to register for the event, visit www.ctriver.org/cleanup.
If your group wants to get involved but needs a cleanup site, if you have questions, or if you know of a trash site in need of cleaning, contact cleanup coordinator Alicea Charamut at cleanup@ctriver.org or 860-704-0057.
NORTH SMITHFIELD, R.I. — Even as Rhode Island makes history as the first U.S. state with an offshore wind farm, its people are not so fond of wind turbines sprouting up on land near where they live.
Dreams of a wind-powered nation sparked by the pioneering Atlantic Ocean project are running aground back on shore, where conventional battles over aesthetics and property values have stymied wind projects here and around the country.
Ruth Pacheco said she didn’t expect so much hostility when she invited a developer to build a giant wind turbine atop a forested hill at her 52-acre family farm in rural North Smithfield.
The 86-year-old proprietor of the Hi-on-a-Hill Herb Farm believes harvesting wind energy is the best way to preserve the land her family has owned and cultivated since the 1840s. But she wasn’t prepared for the dozens of “No Turbine” signs, erected outside nearly every home on the road leading up to her farm.
“We’ve lived here all our lives and seen people come and go,” Pacheco said. “I guess you just can’t take it personally. They’ve got tunnel vision out there.”
Responding to the ire of Pacheco’s neighbors, North Smithfield leaders are now drafting a town-wide ban on wind turbines, though it is too late to affect Pacheco’s project because it already has a permit.
—Associated Press
The following are recent state Department of Environmental Protection consent orders and penalty assessments in western Massachusetts.
• CONSENT ORDER FOR WATER SUPPLY COMPLIANCE, June 17, Deerfield: Entered into a consent order with South Deerfield Water Supply District for water supply compliance in Deerfield. The order with the South Deerfield Water Supply District is to address operator staffing to ensure the public water system is adequately staffed with licensed personnel, it can keep up with maintenance and will increase staff hours over time as identified in the order.
• UNILATERAL ORDER FOR SURFACE WATER VIOLATIONS, June 6, Deerfield: Issued a unilateral order to J.F. White Contracting Co. for surface water discharge violations in Deerfield. The company was found to be responsible for non-authorized discharge of concrete and rebar to the Deerfield River, which was recently discovered at MassDOT’s Interstate 91 bridge replacement project at the Deerfield River in Deerfield.