RadioActive 6/1/17

Guest Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Juniper Ridge Landfill Expansion Approved by BEP; Trump Withdraws from Paris Climate Agreement

-Today the Maine Board of Environmental Protection approved the expansion of the Juniper Ridge Landfill in Old Town.
-Local activists have strongly opposed the expansion, underlining the amount of out of state waste that is reclassified as “in-state waste” and disposed at Juniper Ridge, which is state owned, but privately operated by Casella Waste Management. Opponents, including members of the Penobscot Nation, are alarmed by potential impacts on ground water and the continued dumping of leachate by product into the Penobscot River.
-We also examine Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord

Guests:
Ed Spencer, Old Town resident and intervenor in Juniper Ridge Landfill Expansion
Erika Lennon, senior attorney for the Center for International Environmental Law

This program was produced in partnership with the Sunlight Media Collective.

Maine Currents 5/31/17

Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman

Conspiracy theory or healthy distrust of a corrupt system? How do you decide?

A call-in show discussion of this issue and of Richard Otto’s book The Paradox of Our National Security Complex: How secrecy and security diminish our liberty and threaten our democratic republic
with author Richard Otto and veteran journalist Peter Taber.


Maine Currents- independent local news, views and culture, every Tuesday at 4pm on WERU-FM and weru.org
NOTE: Maine Currents will be moving to Tuesdays (4-5pm) starting in June 2017

WERU Special 5/31/17: Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

Producer/Host: Linda Washburn
Engineer: John Greenman

Program Topic: The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

Key Discussion Points:
a) The Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in 1923. Why was it introduced?
b) 94 years later the ERA languishes- why?
c) What has jump-started interest in the ERA?
d) Are there ways other than a Constitutional amendment to bring equality to women?

Guests:
Posie Cowan, founder of Equal Rights Maine, from the Blue Hill Peninsula
Kathleen Bonk (Brooksville and DC) was involved with ERA ratification starting in 1972, then worked with Betty Ford and Alan Alda on the ERA Countdown Campaign as Communications Chief and is now on the steering committee for the current federal ERA drive.

To learn more about this topic:
Equal Rights Maine at equalrightsmaine.org (local organization)
Equal Means Equal: Why the Time for an Equal Rights Amendment is Now by Jessica Neuwirth, The New Press, 2015.
Why We Lost the ERA by Jane J. Mansbridge, University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Posie’s connection to the suffrage movement: And on to the ERA:
bangordailynews.com/2016/03/28/the-point/my-great-grandmother-fought-for-womens-equal-rights-im-still-working-on-her-dream/?ref=relatedBox
visit www.eracoalition.org and www.equalrightsamendment.org.