It Can Be Done
It is natural to wonder if we are really powerless in all of this, and that maybe any effort we put into this is wasted. I sometimes wonder that myself, but I don’t believe it is the case.
It’s important to realize that these efforts can and do succeed.
Let’s take a look at a success story, from which we can hopefully learn a thing or two about how to mount a successful campaign against a 1,100 MW power plant. Here’s the web site. Note that the last entries are about parties they threw after successfully stopping the project in March 2008:
These folks went all out to succeed: “Congratulations and thank you to our elected officials, the lawyers who helped prepare the case, Columbia Law School Environmental Law Clinic, Pace Energy Project, and to the hundreds of community volunteers who have worked so hard over the years to stop the power plant from destroying our neighborhood.”
Their site is very well done. I will be scouring it over the next few days and contacting some of the people involved to find out what they viewed as their most effective tactics in their successful effort.
There is another group in Hayward that seems to be turning the tide also:
Community Intervention in Eastshore Energy Power Plant
I will be contacting this group in Hayward as well to learn all we can about how they have been able to make their advances so far.