The pandemic is still making things a bit difficult for those in state government. The Commonwealth currently does not have an approved state budget for fiscal year 2021.
The state’s temporary spending plan expires on October 31st. Fall River state senator and chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee Michael Rodrigues says the body will begin deliberations on a spending plan this month with many unknowns still before them, including whether the federal government will help the state recoup losses in revenue…Which will likely total $5 billion.
Senator Rodrigues says the legislature is looking to approve a budget over a one month period when it normally has three months to deliberate. He says getting it done will require cooperation from his colleagues in government.
Michael, can you help the southern-waterfront residents of Somerset snd Swansea? They’ve been hung out to dry, and are REALLY hurting. Industrial access to Commonwealth wharves elsewhere yields annual lease revenues of $9MM-plus a year; here, the state claims to receive nothing, and no taxes Massive freighters haul in scrap metal, whose metal shavings and particles waft into everything near, as do scrap’s sinister coatings of dust, sediment, petrochemicals, heavy metals (arsenic, lead), pathogenic microorganisms, toxic organic compounds featuring gypsum, etc., and who knows what else. 48 gargantuan ships a year. Once Pangea spotted our residents’ few cameras, out came the fire-hoses. Our river bled through sullied hooks, through tainted buckets, silent holds. Even the ride home was fraught, dumped in bed without a glance. And so it hides their proof of guilt, having known no other way: “Rinse, and rinse again, while philanthropic trucks heave to, metals mounding day and night. Venetian blinds from site to far side of Gardner’s Neck and beyond. Again Lees River asks “the grands” how thunderclouds are heard, not seen.
… Our “CoVid Summer” seemed to mar this world in ways we’d never known. Some whelks and clams came newly-dead, no gull-drop cracks or creaking jaws. And on the shore, Pangea strives to drive away its witnesses. Elders mustn’t kayak-fish; guests are barred from “private roads,” while deeds all show the truth of it. … Our streets and roads are all the town’s; the pier, some acres, Beacon Hill’s. And Beacon Hill shares theirs for free, while we the town must fix the roads. … From early days, it’s been a mess. No Mass. EPA review, before or since. Developers’ friends at Mass. Energy & Environment make whistleblowers pretzel-knots, urging “self-advocacy” IS “all the rage.” So DEP Lakeville & DEP Boston cannot help, they say: “No ‘Wild and Scenic River,’ this.” … It’s not their purview, nor that of DEP’s Environmental Police. Local Board of Health is silent and passive. Chair of Town’s Board of Selectmen claims she’s run own scientific tests for Whatever. Naturally, all her Whichever samples were drawn Whenever at Wherever by Whomever. (The Chair reiterates that her records’ confidential status denotes professionalism.) … At ebb tide, drones bear witness to our siege. Lissome plumes stray north and south, like tourists’ final, muggy strolls. Today the Flats bear rainbow jewels; a week from now, it’s buoy goo. And what a change it is, to see our childhoods’ marvels lying by, weak and lissome as they are. … Now Pangea and its Newport facility herald 1,100% “expansion” by year end:. And not just metals whose bits and threads snag on skin, flower gardens, cedar shingles, vehicular clear coats and barbecued suppers. Expect all manner of portable illness, assuming they don’t far surpass their projected “enhancements”: oyster shells, whose crumbs waft irritants toward sinuses and chest (if not dinoflagellates and heavy metals, too;); or “organic detritus” that had so long screened tank caps at Aruba’s buried fuel depot from curious eyes; construction sites’ gypsum residues; coal-processors’ waste slag; and so much more. 1100% of weekly volumes via fleet of additional “partner organization” tankers, and collecting far more scrap metals from their current shadowy sources. (Compromised landfills? Failed fracking wells? Toxic Central American dumps? Dioxin-rich industrial-waste sites? 100-gallon drums from Nevada’s m spent-rods graveyard?) — delivered via semis — for transport to parts unknown. diversifying cargoes to include slag,