Mass. Coalition for Healthy Communities
CALL YOUR REPS TODAY. COME TO THE APRIL 5 HEARING.
Stop the roll back of environmental protection & public rights on tidelands!

Dear friend of the environment and sustainable, just communities,

Real estate interests are pushing hard to roll back key safeguards for our coastal environment. Please contact your state legislators ASAP (by Wednesday) and ask them to stop the rollback of environmental protection and public rights on tidelands by H3757.

H3757 eliminates oversight by the Department of Environmental Protection on filled ("landlocked") tidelands, a move that flies in the face of serious environmental and economic threats arising from unregulated development on these lands - including flooding, coastal pollution contributing to the collapse of marine habitat and fisheries, and groundwater fluctuations beneath filled tidelands that is causing older building foundations to decay.

H3757 also puts an end to community input in guiding the use of filled tideland - a right guaranteed by law. Thus H3757 eliminates a critical safeguard ensuring public benefit in any development of this public trust land.

The bill comes to the rescue of developers of the massive NorthPoint development in Cambridge whom the Supreme Judicial Court recently found in violation of environmental permitting and community process requirements. In so doing, H3757 opens up a new windfall for private developers, many of whom are now represented at the highest levels of the Patrick administration, from which the bill originated.

PLEASE COME TO THE HEARING THURSDAY, APRIL 5TH, RM A-1, 1 PM, STATEHOUSE.
PLEASE CONTACT YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS TODAY & URGE THEM TO:

• OPPOSE THE ROLLBACK OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION & PUBLIC RIGHTS ON TIDELANDS BY H3757, as filed by the Patrick Administration. The bill is a triple threat to environmental oversight, the public trust and existing community rights to guide any development of this public trust land to ensure public benefit.
• UPHOLD DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. Make any amended versions of the bill available for public review and the subject of additional public hearings. Any bill diminishing the public trust should be fully scrutinized before being passed into law. Anything less is a serious breach of fundamental democratic principles.

Click here for a sample letter/phone call, news articles, backgrounder, text of H3757. Or go to www.masschc.org or call 617-821-1453.

Thank you for standing up - once again - for democracy & the sustainable, just communities we all deserve!

Upward, Jill Stein
Mass. Coalition for Healthy Communities www.masschc.org, jill@masschc.org