Winter 2024 Update | Slingshot

When communities unite and share their stories, knowledge, and power, they can achieve transformational change. That's why Slingshot works alongside communities most impacted by environmental threats to take aim at polluters and build lasting community power. This year, we've seen remarkable victories across the Northeast as residents organized for a vibrant, healthier future for all who call our region home.

Leaders of the National PFAS Contamination Coalition celebrate new national PFAS protections at the fourth National PFAS Conference in Ann Arbor, MI

SECURING HISTORIC PROTECTIONS FOR CLEAN WATER

After nearly a decade of unrelenting pressure, the 42 communities from 26 states—who together make up the National PFAS Contamination Coalition (NPCC)—celebrated a landmark victory this spring when the EPA finalized the first-ever national drinking water standards for six toxic PFAS "forever chemicals." This historic win will protect over 100 million people and save thousands of lives  from these dangerous substances.

This fall, NPCC leaders Emily Donovan, Sandy Wynn Stelt, and Jennifer Rawlison traveled to New York City to highlight the PFAS crisis at the United Nations, calling for accountability from corporate polluters and comprehensive regulation of the whole family of chemicals.

This summer, Brunswick, ME faced the state’s largest ever toxic PFAS-laden AFFF fire fighting foam spill at the former Naval Air Station. We supported Amy Self, Bruce Kantner, Peggy Siegle and other concerned residents to form Brunswick United for a Safe Environment. The group is calling for the removal of all AFFF fire fighting foam from Brunswick Executive Airport hangars and the provision of clean drinking water for residents.

BUILDING A ZERO WASTE FUTURE

In Maine, Ed Spencer, Chuck Leithiser, Jane Herbert, Bill Lippincott, and Jackie Elliott with Don't Waste ME won crucial protections against false solutions like "chemical recycling" by winning passage of LD 1660. This legislation ensures these facilities face the same regulations as other waste processing plants, preventing the fossil fuel industry from exploiting loopholes to continue burning plastics. The group continues to organize against Casella’s proposed expansion of Old Town’s Juniper Ridge Landfill by 8.6 Empire State Buildings worth of waste. 

Bristol Residents for Clean Air are organizing to protect their community from a dangerous proposal to burn biomedical waste at an aging incinerator in Connecticut. After learning that state regulators provisionally approved permits allowing the facility to burn up to 57 tons of biomedical waste daily—without modern emission controls—dozens of residents spoke passionately against the proposal at a public hearing with the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) in November. 

The Alliance for Health and Environment in Saugus, MA achieved a major victory in their long-running campaign to close the country's oldest incinerator and its toxic ash landfill. After organizing a powerful "retirement party" for the facility, they won a unanimous town meeting vote to establish a landfill closure committee. The EPA also awarded Saugus one of only two air quality monitors in Massachusetts, making it harder for polluter WIN Waste to deny their impact on community health.

The Alliance for Health and the Environment organized a mock “retirement party” for the WIN Waste landfill, which is slated to reach capacity in the next year

Meanwhile, Reb MacKenzie, Judith Koester, Jim Contois, and Nelia Sargent of A Better Claremont won a unanimous planning board vote to shore up local land-use regulations, a key step in their campaign to protect the community from a toxic construction and demolition waste transfer station proposal. 

Communities are also standing strong against new waste threats. In Massachusetts, Lisa Cohen, Meg Haight, Jim Lagomarsino, Barb & Bob Page, and Judi Korzec, alongside many other neighbors in Hardwick Villages for Responsible Growth, won a crucial planning board vote against reopening a closed landfill.

TRANSFORMING OUR ENERGY SYSTEM

Our Fix the Grid Campaign reached new heights as Senators Ed Markey, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Sheldon Whitehouse echoed our demands. They amplified our concerns that our region’s grid operator is falling far short on transparency, accountability, and renewable energy. Our first-ever in person Fix the Grid Community Summit brought together nearly 50 leaders to chart the path toward a just transition to 100% renewable energy.

A snowstorm didn’t stop leaders from participating in the first-ever Fix the Grid Community Summit (Photo credit: Marilyn Humphries Photography)

In Vermont, communities are rejecting false climate solutions and demanding truly clean, democratic, and healthy energy. In Burlington and Winooski, alongside allies from across the state, community members Ashley Adams, Chris Gish, Sean Morrissey, and Andrés Oyaga are organizing to phase out the aging McNeill biomass plant, emphasizing its impacts on lung and heart health. 

In the Northeast Kingdom, Lyndonville leaders Tim Sturm, Greg MacDonald, and Ned Andrews won their demands for full public hearings after developers attempted to fast-track permits for an experimental biomethane facility next to a daycare center and regional medical center.

Northeast Kingdom residents plan for upcoming hearings on the proposed  biomethane facility

With the appointment of our Co-Executive Director Mireille Bejjani to Massachusetts Governor Healey's Energy Transformation Advisory Board, we’ll ensure that decision-makers are listening to the voices of frontline communities who are demanding change.

BUILDING A MOVEMENT FOR ALL

This year, we expanded our team and deepened our work across the region, supporting 55 community groups in their fights for environmental health and justice. In Rhode Island, we're excited to support leaders like Rochelle Lee, April Brown, and Jo Ayuso, who are planting the seeds to launch the Racial & Environmental Justice Committee, a powerful new coalition bringing together groups like the Ocean State Environmental Justice Alliance, One Square World, Roots2Empower, and others to build a more equitable and sustainable future for frontline communities.

We’re particularly proud to help build connections between communities facing similar challenges, whether through the regional Trash Talks that unite community leaders organizing for zero waste, the Fix the Grid summit that brought energy justice leaders together, or the National PFAS Contamination Conference that brought together PFAS impacted residents, regulators, and academics in Ann Arbor, MI. 

These spaces for collaboration create the foundation for transformative regional change.

Your support makes these victories possible—and fuels the next chapter of our movement. When communities join together, speak truth to power, and keep fighting, transformational change is possible. With fierce love and solidarity, we wish you a safe & healthy 2025!