Pennsylvania Borough Strips Sludge Corporations of "Rights"Becomes First Municipality in the United States to Recognize theRights of Nature CONTACT : Ben Price, Projects Director (717) 243-6725 bengprice@aol.comFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Chambersburg, Pennsylvania (September 20) - On September19th, the Tamaqua Borough Council in Schuylkill County,Pennsylvania, unanimously passed a law declaring that mining anddredge corporations possess no constitutional "rights" within theBorough. Tamaqua thus becomes the fifth local government in thecountry to abolish the illegitimate "rights" and privileges claimedby corporations. Those constitutional "rights" and legal privilegeshave been routinely asserted by corporations in other localities tonullify local laws. The Tamaqua law also (1) bans corporations from engagingin the land application of sludge within the Borough; (2) recognizesthat ecosystems in Tamaqua possess enforceable rights againstcorporations; (3) asserts that corporations doing business inTamaqua will henceforth be treated as "state actors" under the law,and thus, be required to respect the rights of people and naturalcommunities within the Borough; and (4) establishes that Tamaquaresidents can bring lawsuits to vindicate not only their own civilrights, but also the newly-mandated rights of Nature. In the ordinance, the Borough Council also declared thatif state and federal agencies - or corporate managers - attempt toinvalidate the ordinance, a Borough-wide public meeting would behosted to determine additional steps to expand local control andself-governance within the Borough. Ben Price, the Projects Director for the CommunityEnvironmental Legal Defense Fund, the organization that helped draftthe Ordinance, declared that "the Tamaqua Borough Council has takenan extraordinary - but logical - step. Since this nation's founding- and for thousands of years before - 'law' in the western world hastreated rivers, mountains, forests, and other natural systems as'property' with no rights that governments or corporations mustrespect. This has resulted in the destruction of ecosystems andnatural communities, backed by law, public policy, and the power ofgovernment. The people of Tamaqua have changed how the law regardsNature, and have acted in the grand tradition of the Abolitionists,who launched a people's movement in the 1830's to end the legal butimmoral treatment of slaves as property and to establish forevertheir rights as people entitled to fundamental and inalienable humanrights." Richard Grossman, the Legal Defense Fund's historian,pointed out that the work in Tamaqua Borough has several parallelsto prior people's movements, and declared that "Abolitionistsstruggled over decades to undo constitutional law which had longdefined slaves as 'property' and to transform this nation's'property and commerce' constitution into a 'rights and liberty'constitution. Tamaqua has now challenged today's constitutionalinjustices - against Nature and against the self-governing 'We thePeople.'" The Tamaqua ordinance emerged out of six months ofdiscussion and debate across Tamaqua Borough and Schuylkill County.Democracy Schools presented by the Legal Defense Fund along withpublic meetings, hosted by local governments and community groups,laid the groundwork for the Borough Council to overturn years ofcollusion between the Pennsylvania legislature, state environmentalagencies, and corporate polluters focused on denying the rights ofpeople within Tamaqua. Helping to drive the campaign was the Armyfor a Clean Environment (ACE), a thousand-member Schuylkill Countycitizen organization led by Dr. Dante Picciano.

In the coming months, other municipalities in SchuylkillCounty are expected to follow Tamaqua's lead. Municipalities acrossPennsylvania are considering similar ways of equipping theircitizens with the legal authority to stop corporate assaultsengineered by mining, sludge, and factory farm corporations -assaults enabled and protected by State permitting agencies andcourts.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, locatedin Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, has worked with communities resistingcorporate assaults upon democratic self-governance since 1995. Amongother programs, it has brought its unique Daniel Pennock DemocracySchools to communities in Pennsylvania and twenty-five other stateswhere people seek to end destructive and rights-denying corporateacts routinely permitted by state and federal agencies. Over onehundred Pennsylvania municipalities have adopted ordinances authoredby the Legal Defense Fund.
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Mike Hudak, PhD,
DirectorPublic Lands Without Livestock
38 Oliver StreetBinghamton, NY 13904-1516
Phone: 607.330.0351
Web: http://www.mikehudak.com