Have you ever had to drink bottled water? For a month? Or a year? I know people in my town who have been drinking and bathing in bottled water for 15-20 years, since they found out their wells were contaminated. Our government should be protecting us, our water, our food, and our environment. Instead, administrators are limited by funding decisions from the legislative chambers, and people in both major political parties are taught by industry representatives to feel bad for the people causing the pollution and poison, because someday they just might have to stop putting pollution and poison into our water and food supply. We should be able to drink from our wells, from our public water, from the streams we walk along and fish. It shouldn't be turned foul by leaking pipelines, spills and leachate from toxic waste dumps. I'm part of a small group taking on a big industry for the sake of a small town, but I know there are lots of small towns in PA who are doing the same, and lots of small groups fighting with petitions, meetings with legislators, court cases, and more. We need to get to know each other. We need to share ideas and resources; just be there for one another as we fight for the clean air, water and food that our Constitution guarantees: Article I, § 27. Natural resources and the public estate. The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the Commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people. (May 18, 1971, P.L.769, J.R.3) That's why I'm going to the Pennsylvania Climate Convergence.
Jim Highland