ALTON GROUP LAUDED FOR CHARBERT ACTIVISM

ALTON - Members of the community group Alton Community Action were honored with an "Outstanding Activism" award on Thursday for their work protecting public health and the environment.

The Toxics Action Center awarded residents Ann Bettinger, Donald Chambers, Janelle Silva and Karen Leslie at Environmental Action 2006 - a New England conference for citizens working to protect the environment. They were applauded by over 300 of their peers from across the region.

"After suffering decades of pollution from Charbert's toxic waste, Alton Community Action showed that when citizens get together and organize, they can succeed in committing local and state officials to bring about real change," said Jay Rasku, Southern New England Director for the Toxics Action Center. "They truly deserve to be thanked for their perseverance to protect the health and safety of Richmond residents."

Founded by Alton residents in early 2004, the watchdog group pressured town and state officials to address alleged environmental contamination in the mill village, where NFA Corpration's Charbert Division operates a fabric dyeing facility.

Prior to 2004, village residents had complained for decades about the smell of chemical dye effluent stored in several, unlined lagoons - chemicals that were found to be escaping into the Pawcatuck River during a state Department of Environmental Management site inspection in December 1998.

A leaky septic system at the plant also contaminated drinking water wells in several homes on Church Street.

Four-and-a-half million yards of fabric are dyed and finished at the facility annually, as part of a process that generates approximately 250,000 gallons of wastewater each day. The company started tests on a new wastewater treatment system last fall.

The town of Richmond currently has a lawsuit against Charbert pending in state Superior Court.

Since 1987, Toxics Action Center has assisted more than 500 neighborhood groups from across New England in their fight against toxic hazards in their communities. Environmental Action 2006 is the 20th annual conference of Toxics Action Center and the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, a foundation dedicated to supporting community-based grassroots environmental campaigns.

Offering skills and issue-based workshops, Environmental Action 2006 served as a venue for citizen activists to share experiences, learn new skills, and reinvigorate their campaigns to protect the environment and public health.

Highlighting the day were the conference's featured speakers: Craig Williams, an advocate for the safe disposal of chemical weapons without the use of incinerators; and Harvard University's Marshall Ganz, a civil rights and union organizer.