To the editor,                                                                                        I am writing with a very real and quite dire sense of urgency.

Many of us Rhode Islanders from all over the state have been endlessly going to siting board meetings for the Clear River Energy Center proposed for Burrillville for more than a year. There has been an endless series of meetings of various kinds where the residents and others have pleaded for the sakes of their own and their children’s health, have given expert testimony, have screamed, have yelled, have followed every guideline and process detail, only to be told by Gov. Raimondo to “follow the process” even more, as if that had not already been done.

We are publicly pleading with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse — our supposed, self-proclaimed environmental champion — to finally put an end to this 200-plus acre fracked gas plant, this monstrous perpetuator of the usage of fossil fuels and continuation of fracking, and the guarantee that any effort at climate change will now be thwarted, per the plans of the Trump administration.

We cannot allow this to happen. All Rhode Islanders are breathing the same air.

Not only will pristine camping, fishing and recreational land be destroyed and poisoned, wildlife and their habitat harmed, but we will be locked into the use of fossil fuels for decades, putting us out of range of our plans for Rhode Island to avoid catastrophic warming and the extreme weather changes that would result.

We are demanding the creation of alternative energy as a source of jobs, not the creation of another eventual toxic brownfield, where the energy produced is not needed.

We appeal to the sense of common decency of all Rhode Islanders, the desire to preserve the beautiful natural areas of Rhode Island we all love, to let homeowners stay in their homes some have had for generations, to not have to take huge property losses, to not be poisoned by toxic gases and chemicals, to not have a noisy plant blowing off gases in the middle of the night, to not have to risk leaks, spills and the dangers of an on-site oil tank and more.

Everyone needs to ask themselves: Would they like it if a gigantic fracked gas power plant were sited in their neighborhood and they were made to beg endlessly, literally for their lives with no resolution except … the Rhode Island legislature will do whatever it wants, preferring to collect pay-offs from the Invenergy fossil fuel company over the needs of constituents?

Please make calls, write, email and or tweet Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse and demand that he be the consistent supporter of our beautiful Rhode Island environment that he claims to be. He can be reached at 170 Westminster St., Ste. 200, Providence, RI 02903; 401-453-5294; or Hart Senate Office Bldg, Room 530, Washington, DC, 20510; 202-224-2921. You can also tweet @SenWhitehouse

With Trump in the White House, EPA restrictions will be lifted and any work we have done to protect the environment will be lost.

Jessica Stensrud
Pawtucket

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