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Come to Clean Water Action and Ocean State Action's Eighth Annual Breakfast of Champions!

• When: Friday, April 30 2010  9:00am-10:30am 

• Where: Aspray Boathouse, Pawtuxet Village

At the event, we will celebrate the achievements of Rhode Island’s environmental leaders of 2009, eat a delicious breakfast provided by Meals on Wheels, and enjoy the MC skills of our friend Bob Walsh from the National Education Association of Rhode Island.

This year's Earth Day Champions include:

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Clean Water Action has scheduled a meeting with Mayor Jeanne-Marie Napolitano of Newport on Tuesday, Febuary 23rd. The meeting will focus on diesel pollution and possible solutions to the health threat it presents. Clean Water Action is calling for letters from the Newport area to express the public interest in this important issue.

Letters are immensely valuable to the political process, and will ensure that we get as effective a solution as possible. Please take the moment to write a quick letter or email addressed to the Mayor and Email it to Michael Coates at provcwa@cleanwater.org. Below is a sample letter to show the basic structure and length desirable.

Dear Mayor Napolitano,

Contact Name: 

Michael Coates

Contact Phone: 

1 401-331-6972

Contact Email: 

provcwa@cleanwater.org

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Clean Water Action has been meeting with activists and political leaders in Cranston to fight for clean construction.

Many of you have been engaged in this fight, but now more than ever…..WE NEED YOU TO TAKE ACTION.

The Council Finance Committee will be hearing the Clean Construction Ordinance on February 11th at 8:00 pm at City Hall.

If you are unable to attend, please send a letter of support to the city council. You can find their contact information by clicking here.

See the sample letter below as a basic template:

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Clean Water Action, on behalf of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, invites you to attend a free workshop on Rhode Island's Clean Diesel Program.

President Obama was right to emphasize the job creation potential and economic stakes for America's leadership on global warming solutions in his State of the Union address this week.

Strategic use of federal stimulus monies is one of the best ways to jump-start the nation's transition to a clean energy economy. Planned investments in high speed rail, new energy efficiency technologies, clean energy start-ups and entrepreneurs can deliver the right combination of near term and longer range benefits.

By re-asserting the imperative for U.S. action and leadership on global warming, the President signaled the urgency and importance of Senate action to complete work on comprehensive energy and global warming legislation begun by the House.

Providence – Today Clean Water Action released a report documenting that Rhode Island is below the national average for preventing mercury pollution from thermostats and far behind the national leaders. The report, Turning Up The Heat, also finds that thermostat makers have collected less than 5% of the thermostats coming out of service over the last 10 years. The House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources is scheduled to hear a bill that would prevent mercury pollution from thermostats on Thursday, February 4 at the rise of the House in room 205.

NEWPORT - Newport County ranks in the worst 20 percent of all United States counties in health problems connected to diesel pollution, according to the National Clean Air Task Force.

And a half-dozen Thompson Middle School students are doing their part to ease the problem. The students stood outside the school Wednesday afternoon holding signs that featured messages like "We Don't Want to Die."

Korena Johnson, a seventhgrader, jotted down the number of diesel-powered vehicles - such as buses and construction equipment - that drove up and down Broadway in half-an-hour. "We love this earth," she said. "We don't want anything bad to happen to it."

The pollution patrol was part of an after-school program run by Clean Water Action of Providence. Campaign organizer Michael Coates ran the demonstration. "We want the kids to have an idea of how much diesel potentially goes into the air right outside their own school," he said.

NEWPORT - Kids, parents and neighborhood leaders are pushing the City Council to crack down on diesel pollution, pointing to relatively high levels of air toxics released near schools and in densely populated areas throughout the city.

Thompson Middle School students last week conducted a ‘pollution patrol’ in front of the Newport school on Broadway. (Michael Coates/Clean Water Action)

As a major tourist destination with one of the densest populations in Rhode Island, Newport shoulders the burden of air pollution on Aquidneck Island, according to the state chapter of Clean Water Action.

Nearly 25,000 vehicles travel through Newport on an average summer day, with many idling in the midst of traffic jams or while waiting for parking. Newport pays a high price for this congestion, not only in frustration on the part of drivers but also in the health burden that residents endure as a result, according to Clean Water Action.

Act Now To Fund Jobs That Save Lives

Legislation to create jobs is moving forward in Congress, and environmental health advocates have a great opportunity to significantly increase the funding to reduce diesel emissions. The request for $1 billion would potentially save or generate 19,000 jobs and increase economic output by over $3 billion.

It is a great opportunity to protect public health, curb greenhouse gases and otherwise protect the environment while putting Americans to work and boosting the economy. Please contact your House representative and two Senators to urge them to support $1 billion in the jobs package to reduce diesel emissions today. 

January 11, 2010

The Honorable Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Majority Leader Reid:

We are writing as a broad-based group of environmental, health and industry organizations to urge you to include $1 billion for the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2005 ("DERA") in the anticipated jobs package.

Published On: 

01/11/2010 - 10:57