After NJ Gov. Phil Murphy delayed a planned vote in mid-January on the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s plan to build a fracked-gas power plant in Newark, Social Action Chair Anne Wallman thanked Society members who in recent weeks wrote letters and made calls to voice their objection to the plan.
Anne directed members to this message from Food and Water Watch-NJ: “Last week’s decision was a direct result of the many hundreds of you who wrote, called, advocated, marched, and bird-dogged the Governor in solidarity with Newark!
‘Most important weeks…of this fight’
“This is a critical short-term victory for clean air and climate justice, but now we enter the most important weeks and months of this fight. That’s because PVSC continued to greenwash their dirty power plant at last week’s meeting, and the Governor and PVSC have only committed to pause the project so a more robust environmental justice review and stakeholder engagement can occur. We need Governor Murphy to not just delay the vote on the gas plant, but to make a strong public commitment to do this project in a way that upholds his climate and environmental justice commitments.”
In November, the Social Action and Social Affairs committees organized a letter-writing luncheon, called Soup’s On, where members sampled homemade soups and signed letters of protest about the sewerage commission’s plans to build the power plant in the already environmentally challenged Ironbound district of Newark.
‘We must keep pressure on’
“We are still not out of the woods,” Anne said, “so we must keep pressure on Gov. Murphy by thanking him for his actions and urging him to continue to champion environmental issues.”
You may send a message here: https://actionnetwork.org/…/thank-you-and-next-steps…/
