River KEEPER
this is a node that refers to all the water etc keeper orgs<div>
</div><div>great leverage as they get a cut of fines</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Jim Hightower: Can ‘powerless nobodies’ fight the corporate powers?</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Written by Jim Hightower December 21, 2019</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The many sparkling bays along the Texas coastline of the Gulf of Mexico have long provided both a working-class living and a valued lifestyle for generations of shrimpers, oysterers and other fishing families. People and seafood, however, are not the only creatures here, for such wildlife as alligators and snakes also call many of these interconnected waterways home. Yet, by necessity and experience, the hardy people of the water have figured out how to share the bays so all creatures can get along.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But in the 1980s, a strange and invasive new critter entered Lavaca Bay, near the town of Port Comfort. Far from getting along, this species proceeded over the years to devour whole harvests of seafood, along with the livelihoods of local Gulf communities. This marauder was not some monster from the deep but a massive, 45,000-acre factory looming over Lavaca Bay. It is the Formosa Plastics Corporation, founded by the richest man in Taiwan.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As its name implies, Formosa is not here for seafood. It is the <b>world’s second largest fabricator of polyvinyl chloride, </b>the tiny, highly toxic pebbles and powders used to make the gabillions of plastic bags, pipes, bottles, etc. that are choking the Earth. For decades, the Formosa plant has cavalierly been dumping trillions of these poisonous pebbles and tons of the polyvinyl powders into its wastewater — which end up in Lavaca Bay.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>That poisonous content then spreads to other bays, nearby waterways, the Gulf itself … and into the shrimp, oysters, fish and other creatures living there. The result has been species vanishing from these waters, creating economic and social devastation for families and port communities that rely on nature’s bounty.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Wait, isn’t this against the law? Of course, but petrochemical behemoths like Formosa have corrupted the law, turning Texas lawmakers and environmental regulators into <b>their puppets. When leaders won’t lead, The People must, and that’s exactly what’s happening in this case. A defiant, determined former fourth-generation shrimper named Diane Wilson, along with a scrappy environmental coalition on the Texas Gulf Coast,</b> have just won the largest citizen environmental lawsuit in U.S. history, forcing Formosa to stop its gross contamination of the bay, the local economy and the law.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">It’s good to have a happy-ending story for the holidays — one that’s not sugar-plum sappy but genuinely uplifting.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It “feels like justice,” said Wilson in early December when a federal district judge OK’d a $50 million pollution settlement against Formosa Plastics Corporation. Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Ronald Reagan appointee, had previously ruled that the Taiwan plastics conglomerate was a “serial offender” whose violations of America’s Clean Water Act were “extensive, historical, and repetitive.” How the case got there is as important as his ruling.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Wilson, the indefatigable local shrimper, had been trying for some 30 years to get state and national officials to stop Formosa from dumping poisonous plastic chemicals into the Lavaca Bay ecosystem. The corporation’s deliberate contamination was destroying seasonal seafood harvests upon which she and thousands of Gulf Coast fishing families relied. She was ignored by those in power and then ridiculed and then demonized. Yet this lady of the sea wouldn’t quit.<b> She kept speaking out, mounted hunger strikes and even tried to sink her own beloved shrimp boat in the bay as a public protest.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nothing. But then, backed by a volunteer network of regional environmentalists and a savvy group of nonprofit legal service lawyers, Wilson filed the private citizens lawsuit in July 2017 that came to trial this spring in Judge Hoyt’s courtroom, finally producing an overdue measure of justice</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The $50 million settlement doesn’t go to Wilson or the other plaintiffs but to projects that will revitalize local marine ecosystems and create a shrimping and oyster cooperative for local families.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> It also will pay for citizen-group monitoring of Formosa’s compliance with the judge’s orders for “zero discharge” of its plastic pollutants.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Even more significant than the money that the Formosa settlement provides,<b> this victory sets a major legal precedent to advance other citizen lawsuits against polluters, requiring that the polluters (not taxpayers) pay for their messes.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b> </b>Who needs Santa Clause when “We the People” can deliver such democratic gifts to ourselves? For information on the details and impact of this remarkable people’s victory, go to the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid website.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes “The Hightower Lowdown,” a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div></div><div><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/kennedy-exxon-trump-tillerson-2148709224.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/kennedy-exxon-trump-tillerson-2148709224.html</a></div><div>
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</div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Indian Point nuclear energy complex, owned by Entergy, is amid federal review for new 20-year licenses to operate two reactors. Meanwhile, state regulatory oversight of the facility continues.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Wednesday morning, <a href="http://www.lohud.com/videos/opinion/editorials/editorial-spotlight/2014/06/11/10336149/" style="color: rgb(25, 144, 229); text-decoration: none;">Riverkeeper joined Editorial Spotlight </a>to discuss the environmental organization's ongoing concerns with Indian Point, from the plant's impact on the Hudson River to an emergency evacuation plan that it views as unworkable. Hudson River program director Phillip Musegaas and President and Hudson Riverkeeper Paul Gallay explained Riverkeeper's position: The nuclear plant in Buchanan should be closed.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Wednesday afternoon, <a href="http://www.lohud.com/videos/opinion/editorials/editorial-spotlight/2014/06/11/10336857/" style="color: rgb(25, 144, 229); text-decoration: none;">Entergy officials joined an Editorial Spotlight discussion</a>. Joining the talk: Entergy Wholesale Commodities President Bill Mohl; Fred Dacimo, operations license renewal vice president; Mike Twomey, external affairs vice president; and Entergy spokesman Jerry Nappi. They gave an update on the license renewal process undertaken by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, explained the Buchanan plant's important role in the region and detailed the facility's safety and reliability.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gallay said Riverkeeper has "so many concerns that should lead to the closure of Indian Point." They include the plant's age – Unit 2's original 40-year license expired last year, and Unit 3's license expires next year; its location near two earthquake faults and in a densely populated region; and myriad concerns about security and an evacuation plan that former Gov. George Pataki had called "a paper plan for a paper emergency."</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Mohl said that any power system has three long-term objectives: reliability, economic sustainability and environmental sustainability. "Indian Point is absolutely critical to the state of New York in meeting those objectives," he told the Editorial Board.</p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px 60px; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Entergy officials expressed disappointment that a national long-term nuclear waste storage plan has stalled. While Riverkeeper officials asserted that the Buchanan site had become a "de facto nuclear waste dump," Entergy said it had the plans and capacity to store spent fuel on site safely.</p></div><div>=</div>