Battle rages to save Remington Woods

 

 By Reginald Johnson 

 

     BRIDGEPORT ---- Zoning officials will likely decide the fate of Remington Woods next week following a hearing where dozens of people spoke passionately in favor preserving the more than 400-acre tract along the Stratford border.

 The Planning and Zoning commission has scheduled a meeting for Monday, November 29 at 6:30 pm to continue discussion on and likely vote on the proposed new city zoning regulations, which include a rezoning of the Remington Woods tract from industrial to commercial.

  If approved, that change is likely to pave the way for a subsidiary of the DuPont Corporation to develop the woods for corporate offices. DuPont is the owner of the property, which has sat untouched for decades after the Remington Arms company used the woods for munitions testing.

 Preservationists from Bridgeport and other communities attended a zoning hearing on the new regulations on November 16 and 17 to adamantly oppose the zone change for the woods and demand that the area be kept as a natural wildlife preserve. The speakers said preserving the mature hardwood forest is vital in the battle to combat climate change and reduce the effects of air pollution which triggers health problems such as asthma.

   “The woods are home to endangered box turtles, a family of bald eagles, fox, deer, over 70 species of birds and thousands and thousands of trees,’’ said Beth Lazar of Bridgeport.

  The Remington Woods area, Lazar said, “should be zoned in its entirety as a nature preserve and not as a park as they are two different things. Parks have roads, picnic areas and spaces for events. Remington Woods should be a protected living community for plants and animals.”

  A member of the group Preserve Remington Woods, Lazar noted that 17% of the office space in Bridgeport is now vacant and there are many vacant lots. “Why doesn’t Bridgeport rehab the spaces for commercial use rather than knocking down the forest?”

   Lazar said over 1000 people have signed a petition asking that the Remington ship Woods forest be preserved.

   She told the commissioners “in this age of climate change crisis, high pollution and asthma rates in Bridgeport, it is unconscionable to knock down the forest.”

  Some top elected officials have swung their support behind efforts to save Remington Woods. Councilwoman Maria Pereira, who represents the area where the Remington forest is located, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D – Connecticut, has sent a letter to both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, requesting that Remington Woods be protected as a nature and wildlife preserve.

The lake at Remington Woods

  But the city’s proposed plan appears to strike a compromise between those who want to preserve the woods completely and the corporate owners who are seeking development. The zoning plan calls for changing the area from light industrial to residential-office center.

   City Planner Lynn Haig, from the Office of Planning and Economic Development, said the Sporting Goods company, DuPont’s subsidiary which is now remediating the site, has said it prefers to maintain some form of light industrial zoning because “it is the most permissive current code we currently have.”

  According to the Connecticut Post, Haig told the commission that the current zoning classification “allows intense development without any conservation. We have proposed a clean mixed-use zone that requires the owner to submit a master plan to the planning and zoning commission for its review and approval.”

  Haig said that any such plan would have to include open space.

According to the Post, Haig said “The city cannot take the further step some would advocate and just zone the property as parks and open space.”

  She said that not only would that remove the economic potential from the Remington site, but such a classification might be legally challenged as a form of “reverse condemnation.”

   But several speakers, including some from out of town, expressed astonishment that Bridgeport was on the verge of allowing such a beautiful and extensive forest area, which includes a lake, to be developed.

  Stanley Heller of Danbury, from the organization Promoting Enduring Peace, said it was vital to preserve mature trees in the battle against global warming. “Preservation of mature woods like the one in Bridgeport is essential. It would be an outrage to destroy the thousands of trees there to develop some office park or cemetery or dump.”

  He added, “With what we know about the growing perils of the world climate the destruction of Remington Woods could be considered a possible international crime. Preserve the woods intact. All of it.”

 Scott Ward of West Haven said it was his understanding that the Remington Woods site contains some archaeological significance. “That alone should stop everything,” he said.

  Ward said that when all factors are taken together --- the fight against climate change, improving air quality, preserving a beautiful forest and wildlife, together with the possible archaeological considerations, it’s clear that the Remington Woods forest should be completely preserved.

  “It’s almost embarrassing your town is in this situation,” he commented.

A road into Remington Woods

   Speakers said Bridgeport officials should take heed of what came out of the recently concluded COP 26 conference on global warming in Scotland. World leaders there pledged to end deforestation --- a process which leads to carbon build-up and rising temperatures.

  Bridgeport Mayor Joseph Ganim attended that conference and was quoted in the Connecticut Post as justifying his overseas trip because municipal leaders, he said, have a “role to play” in setting policies relating to climate change.

  But Callie Heillman, of Bridgeport Generation Now, took Ganim to task. “While the mayor is correct that there is a role that we all play, the reason why there is such a groundswell of people testifying on this issue tonight and submitted comments is there is a complete lack of commitment from the administration to fully preserve the woods.”

  She added,  “To say we will work with the property owners to develop a plan which will include open space is not the same as a commitment to working with organizations here on the ground… to come up with a plan that would acquire and protect the woods.”

  Pereira criticized the zoning commission for failing to make sure that all the phone lines were working for the hearing which was done by Zoom. She said that some of her constituents were not able to get through on the toll-free numbers.

  “This is a violation of public hearing access laws under the Freedom of Information act. This meeting is illegal,” she said.

   Commissioners said later that they had addressed the problem of the phone lines.

 Pereira also spoke in favor of preserving Remington Woods and described how the construction and remediation work that has gone on so far has exacerbated flooding in the upper East Main Street area in the district that she represents.

  Spokesmen for the Sierra Club and the Greater Bridgeport NAACP also lent their support to the preservation effort.

 A spokeswoman for the Sierra Club testified that “Bridgeport has some of the dirtiest air in the country and high rates of health disparities that make Bridgeport residents highly susceptible to health crises like Covid 19 and we know that in situations like this frontline communities suffer the most,”

  She added “although development of the woods is being touted as an economic gain for the area the communities will ultimately gain no benefit and potentially will have to pay the cost for over development.”

 

 

 

 

   

 

Biden the best choice

 

   ELECTION VIEWPOINT

By Reginald Johnson

 

 I have to admit that I have my problems with the Democrats and Joe Biden.

 I don’t like the fact that the party has been weak in opposing future wars and reducing the military budget. In fact, many Democrats have been vigorous supporters of huge military budgets, which siphon away vital resources from domestic needs.

 I also don’t like the fact that party leaders embraced the phony “Russia-gate” narrative, which held incorrectly that  President Trump was some kind of Russian agent. All the talk about Russia collusion served to undermine the potential for a more peaceful relationship between the US and Russia. 

 Additionally, I’m not happy that the party failed to condemn the violence that engulfed American cities this past summer, violence which was provoked in considerable part by left-wing groups.

 Finally, I’m troubled by the recent allegations of possible corruption and ethical wrongdoing by Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. These certainly need investigation.

   Having said all that, I’m casting my vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in tomorrow’s presidential election. The choice is very clear --- based on a number of critical issues.

 First and foremost is climate change. This is clearly an existential threat and we have to marshal all our resources to fight it. That means the United States must get back into the Paris Climate Accords and the nation must change our energy use ---- moving to renewable sources and getting away from fossil fuels. That means implementing the Green New Deal. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president, support going back to the Paris Accords and moving to green energy conversion, even if Biden has equivocated recently on the issue of fracking. They’re headed in the right direction.

 By contrast, Trump has rejected the Paris Accords and wholeheartedly supports the continuation of fossil fuel use. This kind of position is simply unacceptable, given the gravity of global warming and its consequences, which include ever worsening forest fires, deadly heat waves and ever more violent hurricanes.

  Second is health issues. President Trump has badly fumbled management of the Covid-19 pandemic and has consistently sent the wrong signal to the American people about how serious this crisis is. He has pooh-poohed the Covid threat and that has probably cost many lives. Biden would clearly set a better tone on handling this crisis and move to set up a comprehensive testing program. He would likely push Congress more vigorously to come up with a badly needed stimulus package to help the American people, and not just corporations.

  Relatedly, Biden and Harris would shore up and likely improve the Affordable Care Act program. “Obama-care” as it is known, clearly has deficiencies, but it is certainly better than what the nation had before, which was nothing. Trump has proposed to eliminate “Obama-care” altogether and come up with what he says will be a new and better plan. But he has offered no details on exactly what this would be. This situation again is unacceptable. While the ultimate goal should be for the nation to move to Medicare-for-all, retaining Obama-care for now is clearly the best option over doing nothing.

     Finally, I think Biden would try to heal some of the divisions that now the beset our country and be much better on the issue of race. Trump has all too often stoked racial divisions and been divisive with his rhetoric. Biden is not perfect either on the issue of race, but he’ll be a lot better than Trump.

   One important point to remember is that while Biden is not the most progressive person in the world, he will likely be pushed towards more progressive policies by people who will likely have serious power in Congress, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

 So, Biden-Harris is my choice tomorrow.

 And with that, I’m taking a break from writing for a while. 

 It’s off to the park to take a few fall walks and head back to the garden to harvest some late broccoli.

  Happy voting!

 

Time Running Out

By Reginald Johnson

                Christiana Figueres, climate chief for the United Nations, said recently that time is running out for reaching an international agreement on dealing with global warming.

         Referring to the climate conference in Paris at the end of the year, she told the Associated Press, “We are at five minutes to 12 and Paris is the 12 o’clock strike of the clock.”

      Failure to reach a global, binding agreement on curbing carbon emissions --- the key driver of rising temperatures and climate change --- would mean “we are going to be playing with fire,” said the UN official.

     Figueres couldn’t be more correct in her assessment.  NASA testing shows that the average global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is now 400 parts per million. That’s a full 50 points higher than the 350 ppm that is considered by scientists to be the maximum sustainable level of atmospheric carbon. Beyond that level, the viability of human life in the long term could be threatened by sharply rising temperatures and catastrophic climate impacts.

  Already temperatures have been rising. Last year, 2014, was the hottest year ever recorded.

  And dramatic climate impacts are taking place. We are getting more and more violent, killer storms, like Super Storm Sandy in 2012; more powerful tornadoes, wreaking incredible devastation; brutal droughts in the American west and in other parts of the world; and terrible forest fires, also in the western U.S., which are destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of woodland.

  Experts believe that the extreme weather is linked to changes in the atmosphere caused by greenhouse gases.

   It’s imperative that we move quickly to massively cut back on carbon emissions, as well as the emissions of other global warming gases, like methane.

   But have world leaders been moving to take decisive action to blunt climate change?

  So far, the answer to that question is, no.

  The United States obviously has a leading role to play in any international effort to fight climate change. For most of his presidency, President Barack Obama has not made climate change a major priority, despite his claims to the contrary. He has never once made a nationwide speech in prime time about the danger of climate change and the absolute necessity that we all work together to fight it. Former Vice President Al Gore called the fight against climate change a “planetary emergency.” He’s right. Obama could have said the same thing. He could have laid out all the awful scenarios that will befall us if we do nothing to control climate change, and really scared people. They need to be scared. This is an existential threat --- far more than anything posed by al-Qaeda, the Islamic State or other extremists.

  At the same time Obama could have urged people, particularly young people, to get involved in a national effort to educate everyone about the dangers of global warming and the imperative of moving away from carbon-producing fossil fuels. That national address could have been followed by a series of speeches around the country.

  A major campaign like that could have put the climate skeptics back on their heels and prompted a strong public demand that Congress pass laws that both control carbon, lessen the use of fossil fuels and put major funding into renewables.

 But no such public campaign was undertaken. Obama has not used his bully pulpit to get the nation moving on climate change.

 In general, Obama has given out conflicting messages about how serious he is about tackling the central problem of limiting carbon emissions. While his administration worked to get some things done, like improving auto fuel efficiency standards, the president gave the go-ahead for more Gulf oil drilling, even after the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Recently, he gave the green light for Arctic oil drilling by Royal Dutch Shell, despite widespread protests.

  Everyone knows we have to move away from fossil fuels to control climate change. Why is Obama approving more oil drilling?

  Last week, six years into his presidency, Obama announced a new “Clean Power Plan” which plots an outline for tackling climate change. He laid out some steps for curbing carbon emissions from power plants --- which contribute the most CO2 to the atmosphere --- and moving to renewables like wind and solar power.

 That’s fine, as far as it goes. But it’s late. We’re now past 400 ppm of carbon in the air. Why didn’t he announce this plan five years ago?

  The administration behind the scenes has done some good work getting preliminary agreements from other major industrial nations like Brazil and China (two nations which previously had been reluctant to work out a deal on climate change) on the need to reduce carbon emissions and move to renewables. The recent talks set the stage for reaching some meaningful agreements at the Paris summit later this year.

   One possible idea that could be discussed in the Paris talks is setting up a system to impose a world-wide carbon tax. That would mean that the production, distribution and use of all carbon fuels --- coal, oil or natural gas --- would be hit with a special tax. As the price of carbon fuels rose, it would make the market move more rapidly to the development of non-carbon sources --- wind, solar and geo-thermal.

  Whatever specifics emerge for any carbon reduction plan, it’s clear that a strong, binding international agreement on slowing climate change is desperately needed --- now.

  It’s five minutes to midnight.