|
VPIRG Holds Line on Utility Rates
Vermonters pay lower rates for electricity because of VPIRG's
intervention before the Public Service Board in 1998. VPIRG intervened in
rate cases, convinced the Public Service Board to appoint an independent
expert to assess bankruptcy claims by state utilities, and worked for the
establishment of a statewide utility devoted to energy efficiency.
Vermont utility ratepayers are burdened with a history of bad decisions
made by utilities.
Ombudsman to Protect Patients' Rights
In the 1998 legislature VPIRG won a multi-year battle to give Vermont
patients and their doctors the last word on medical treatment. The
legislation established the office of Health Care Ombudsman, to help
consumers obtain the best type of insurance for their needs, understand
their rights and resolve disputes with insurance carriers. It also allows
consumers to appeal, to an independent panel, a Health Maintenance
Organization's decision to deny care. Until now, administrators at HMOs
have been able to deny treatment, prescribed by doctors, without any
right of appeal by consumers.
Campaign Finance Law Withstands Court Challenge
VPIRG assisted state attorneys in turning away a federal court challenge
to Vermont's progressive campaign finance reform law, although the
decision has been appealed. In autumn of 1998, National Right to Life
brought a lawsuit to block a section of the law that requires
identification on all political advertising and 24-hour disclosure of
mass media expenditures in the final days of an election cycle. The day
after the 1998 election, the toughest campaign spending law in the nation
began to take effect in Vermont. Spending on political races will be
capped and candidates will have to raise the bulk of their money from
Vermonters.
Factory Farm Regulation Beefed Up
The state's Large Farm Operations statue was strengthened with revisions
suggested by a coalition led by VPIRG during the 1998 legislative
session. VPIRG lobbied to give more power to the state's commissioner of
agriculture to set conditions for factory farms, fine them for creating a
nuisance, or revoke their permits. The Vermont Egg Farm in Highgate
created such problems with the manure from its 100,000 chickens that
nearby dairy farms were adversely affected.
Vermont Leads National Fight Against Toxic Mercury
VPIRG's 1998 lobbying effort yielded the most comprehensive labeling law
in the nation for products containing the toxic heavy metal mercury.
Fighting well-financed lobbyists from several manufacturing industries, VPIRG convinced legislators to pass a law to require products containing
mercury to bear a label warning consumers of the metal's presence and
require recycling of mercury-containing items. Every lake and river in
Vermont is contaminated with mercury, with health effects ranging from
learning deficits and kidney damage to impaired immune systems and
cerebral palsy.
Frog Surveys Win Recognition
On Earth Day (April 20), the Environmental Protection Agency awarded VPIRG's efforts to seek a cause of frog deformities throughout Vermont.
Deformed frogs have appeared throughout North America in the 1990s, but VPIRG is the first group to actively engage the general public in
collecting information about the types and range of deformed frogs in a
particular state. VPIRG conducted frog surveys in 1997 and 1998 and found
deformed frogs in approximately half the towns surveyed. In September
1998, VPIRG released the results of laboratory analyses investigating a
possible link between a new class of super-potent herbicides and deformed
frogs.
VPIRG Hosts Green Speakers
In June and December, VPIRG brought environmental speakers to Vermont
from across the country and both ends of the political spectrum. In June,
conservative Indiana Republican Gordon Durnil, former chair of the
International Joint Commission, spoke about his confrontation with Great
Lakes pollution and his conclusion that our industrial policy must change
to protect our resource. In December, Robert Kennedy, Jr., scion of
America's leading Democratic dynasty, spoke about citizens using the
power of the law in the Hudson River Valley and beyond to defend our
rivers and lakes.
(Un)Safety Medical Systems Incinerator Closed
In January 1999, after seven years of pressure by VPIRG in the courtroom
and the community, state regulators permanently closed the Safety Medical
Systems (SMS) medical waste incinerator-autoclave in Colchester. All
through Safety Medical's history, VPIRG exposed the poor operating
procedures of SMS owners, the threat the plant posed to nearby residents
and prodded state regulators to investigate, fine and finally shut the
facility. VPIRG continues to work with community activists to seek safe
disposal technologies for medical waste. Safety Medical Systems at one
time processed as much as 36 tons of medical waste each day, polluting
nearby groundwater with hazardous waste and dispersing heavy metals and
dioxin through the air.
VPIRG Douses IP Tire Fire
VPIRG successfully turned back a proposal by the International Paper mill
in Ticonderoga, NY to burn shredded tires as fuel for the mill. By
uniting activists from throughout the Champlain Basin, VPIRG was able to
stop the tire-burning proposal before the burner was brought on line. IP
Ticonderoga test-burned ssixtons of tires in the fall of 1997, without
notifying Vermont environmental officials. VPIRG activists were the first
to bring IP's plan to the public's attention.
Windsor Rejects Incinerator Ash Sludge
In September, at VPIRG's urging, the Windsor selectboard voted
unanimously to refuse further shipments of hazardous leachate from the
ash dump associated with the Wheelabrator incinerator in Claremont, NH.
The vote capped a year-long organizing effort by VPIRG and local citizens
to alert Windsor residents to the threat presented by allowing wastes to
be spread on local fields. For five years, Windsor accepted leachate
tainted with dioxin and heavy metals, from the trash incinerator's ash
dump. Town workers mixed leachate and sewage at the town's treatment
plant and the resulting dioxin-tainted sludge was spread on cornfields
along the Connecticut River.
VPIRG Exposes Flaws in Federal BGH Review
In October, VPIRG and Rural Vermont were the first American groups to
release an analysis of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) by
Canadian researchers which exposes what appears to be a cover-up of
important health data by the Monsanto Company and the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA). VPIRG has been fighting to keep rBGH out of
Vermont's cows and dairy products for over a decade. The new information
from Health Canada show serious gaps in FDA's approval of rBGH. Based on
that information, VPIRG and others have submitted a petition to the FDA
asking that rBGH be taken off the market until long-term human safety
studies are done. If that petition is rejected, a federal court challenge
will likely be filed in Vermont, by VPIRG and others.
VPIRG Launches Fund for Vermont's Future
Reacting to issues will never be adequate to the challenges which face Vermont,
so in November VPIRG formed the Sustainable Vermont Fund, an initiative
dedicated to sounding an active voice on the pace and direction of change
in our state. An advisory committee, chaired by former Governor Phil
Hoff, will investigate positive solutions to sprawl, transportation issues,
economic development and agricultural policy. Across America, and increasingly
in Vermont, decision about our communities are left to the lowest common
denominator and power over those decisions has devolved to those who stand to make the most money from them.
|
|
|
