The FANG Collective staged a demonstration outside TD Bank Wednesday to protest the company’s support of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), which is even now being blocked by First Nation protesters from many different tribes. TD Bank is one of many lending institutions financing the pipeline.
This protest follows an action last week in which two protesters locked themselves down in the bank’s lobby and had to be removed by police. Wednesday’s action, which was publicly announced on Facebook, drew a Providence Police detail, but the entire affair was very low key, and no arrests were made.
Protesters handed out flyers and held signs. One woman, Amy, after hearing from protester Sally Mendzela about the bank’s involvement with DAPL, told me that though she had come to open an account with the bank, she was not. Mendzela said that the woman was the second person to be dissuaded from doing business with TD Bank since she arrived.
Meanwhile, tensions remain high between the “water protecters” and DAPL developer Energy Transfer Partners. Tribes are invoking their treaty rights even as the developer threatens arrests and even violence. As reported by Mary Annette Pember, “the Morton County Sheriff’s Department backed by North Dakota Governor Jack Dalyrmple continued to ratchet up displays of military-style police force.”
The video below, published by Jennifer Minor on October 25, shows police using pepper spray before arresting protesters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066h12rmcDQ
So begins the ACLU of Rhode Island’s detailed seven-page testimony to the Rhode Island Vehicle Value Commission submitted this week in advance of a public hearing on the Commission regulations on 
Nearly three dozen people marched and chanted outside Wendy’s on Charles St in Providence Friday afternoon to call attention to the boycott of the food chain called by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a group that has fought for farmworker’s rights and fair treatment for two decades. Wendy’s remains the largest fast food chain that refuses to ethically source their produce from CIW supported growers. Rather than supporting the 
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As large as Invenergy‘s $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant would be if it were to be actually built in the pristine wilderness of Burrillville, the project is but a small part of a colossal, three-state fracked gas infrastructure project that has been in development for years in the northwest corner of the Rhode Island and beyond. Eight power plants currently litter a 31 mile expanse of pipeline, from Killingly, Connecticut, through Rhode Island, to Medway, Massachusetts. If built, Burrillville would be power plant number nine and Killingly is the proposed site of power plant number ten.
The Killingly power plant is to be built in a residential neighborhood within a mile of 460 Killingly housing units. At least five schools and day cares, over 5,000 students, are within three miles of the proposed plant. Wyndham County, where Killingly is located, has asthma rates 18 percent higher than the rest of Connecticut.
The Town of Killingly is categorized as a distressed community. Like other areas where these types of facilities are targeted, there are environmental justice issues to be considered. Very often the facilities are like these are aimed at low income communities that lack the financial means to either fight the power plant or resist the financial carrots dangled by the company building the plant.
The candidacy of Donald J. Trump for President of the United States finds daily a new road to Hell, and threatens to drag the nation, and the world, down with it.
Raimondo has consistently touted her support for renewables like wind and solar, only occasionally voicing her support for fracking. Raimondo never holds a press release in front of a fracked gas pipeline or compressor station. She holds them at wind turbines and solar farms, giving the appearance of a strong leader on the environment.
The meeting of the EFSB in Warwick also dealt with a short list of procedural motions. The Harrisville Fire District had entered a late motion to intervene, but were denied without prejudice. This motion gave attorney Richard Sinapi the opportunity to rise and speak to the board in favor of Harrisville, only to be told, for the second time, that there was no input allowed from attorneys or the public at this open meeting.
A group of concerned Providence community members 
The project’s location, 642 Allens Ave, has a long history of industrial contamination dating back to the earliest days of the gas industry. Providence Gas Company operated a “manufactured gas plant” from 1910 to 1954 which resulted in the release of many toxic substances which polluted the soil and groundwater. The site has also been host to an ammonia plant, a toluene facility, a propane works, and most recently an LNG storage facility. Numerous substances which pose a risk to public health, safety, and the environment have been recorded at the site, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), phenolic compounds, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including benzene and naphthalene, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), ferri and ferro cyanide compounds, asbestos, and metals including lead and arsenic. Many locations in the site contain multiple hazardous substances at levels that far exceed allowed standards, and while some specific areas have been remediated since 1994, the majority of the land has not been remediated.
“This is our community, people live here and kids go to school here, why does National Grid think it’s okay to put our lives and our health at risk? It’s our legal right to be involved in these decisions,” said Gina Rodríguez, a community resident and leader in the No LNG in PVD coalition. Monica Huertas, another coalition leader said, “It’s outrageous that there’s a known toxic site this close to my house, and we can go down Allens Ave and see clouds of dust blowing off from the piles that National Grid is digging up. The whole point of this Public Involvement Plan law is to address things like that, but National Grid is just ignoring our concerns and DEM isn’t doing anything to stop them.”
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The march was organized by the Safer Rhodes Coalition and Comité en Acción. Organizer Claire Pimental, writing for 
Even as the Burrillville Town Council approved a resolution to oppose the siting and construction of Invenergy’s $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant in their town, the next battle, over a proposed 
The Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) public hearing in Warwick Wednesday evening, coming near the end of the process to decide the fate of Invenergy‘s proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant, was filled with almost philosophical reflection, with many speakers, who have sat through dozens of EFSB, town council, zoning and department meetings and honed their public speaking skills, commenting with a battle weary determination and steely resolve.
The Consumer Liaison Group (CLG) Meeting happens four times a year and its a chance for ISO-NE to exchange information with electricity consumers in New England. ISO-NE is the group that regulates our electricity markets and keeps the lights on by coordinating electricity generation and transmission. They run billion dollar markets and interact with companies like Spectra Energy, Invenergy, National Grid and Deepwater Wind. Pretty much every aspect of the process of getting electricity to your television is touched upon by ISO-NE in some way.
The latest meeting of the CLG, in Providence on Thursday, featured a panel discussion with representatives from the four companies mentioned above. The panel was pulled together with the help of Douglas Gablinske, executive director of The Energy Council of Rhode Island (TEC-RI) an advocacy group for energy company concerns. Readers of RI Future may remember that Gablinske was a vocal 
Over one hundred forty thousand (141,035) Rhode Islanders lived in poverty in 2015, according to new data released today from the Census Bureau. The drop in the rate to 13.9% in 2015 from 14.1% in 2014 is not statistically significant. The poverty level for a family of four is approximately $24,000.
Fuerza maintains that on May 26-29, Civetti’s company “assigned a group of workers to clean apartments located in the area surrounding Providence College. The workers say that Civetti assigned workers to the houses that needed cleaning and supplied them with company tee shirts and cleaning supplies. After the job was completed, 8 workers were not compensated for those 4 days, 11 hours a day.” Civetti claimed that the people who cleaned his apartments were hired by subcontractors, and that the the subcontractors owe the money, not him.
On Thursday about a dozen workers and activists showed up at Civetti’s offices near Providence College, and began leafleting houses and passing students. Organizer Raul Figueroa carried a megaphone and broadcast the workers’ complaints to the neighborhood. Once the workers arrived at Civetti’s offices, Fabian, one of the workers, called Civetti on the phone and asked him to come down and pay him the money he is owed. When Civetti would not commit to do so, the protest continued.
TD Bank in downtown Providence became the target of local environmental and indigenous American activists Thursday in response to calls for solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux as they continue to battle the $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). TD Bank is one of many financial institutions funding the pipeline. Similar actions have been 
Organizers contend that construction of the DAPL “would engender a renewed fracking-frenzy in the Bakken shale region, as well as endanger a source of fresh water for the Standing Rock Sioux and 8 million people living downstream. DAPL would also impact many sites that are sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and other indigenous nations.”
