Friday update: Public support, public health

We got 400+ signatures last week. Your voices are being heard; we need your continued help.  Two bits of news:

1. Public support: Late last week, the Town of East Haven called on the FAA to conduct an EIS, making the same demand as our petition. From the Town's 10/7 letter to the FAA Regional Administrator: 

• “The Town requests that the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”), as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) (42 USC 4321 et seq.) . . .”
• “The (planned expansion ... at Tweed-New Haven Airport) would result in significant impacts to the human environment, includes a major runway extension, is highly controversial on environmental grounds, and involves substantive special purpose laws, such as Department of Transportation Act Section 4(f), wetlands, sensitive coastal areas, and air quality laws. 
• These factors warrant proceeding to an EIS” (italics added).

2. Public health has been in our focus this week, specifically harms from air pollution:

• Writing in the Yale Daily News, Dr. Shirley McCarthy opened our eyes to premature mortality for those within 12.5 miles of an airport. 360,000 of us between Milford and Madison, take notice! 
• Parents and Citizens of Greater New Haven is a new website inspired by a healthy, happy vision of our New Haven area – free from the harms of a massive Tweed airport, which are especially concerning for children. 
• A research article in The Lancet Planetary Health by the University of Aberdeen (UK) scientists reported new findings that particulate matter from air pollution can get into the lungs and brains of fetuses as early as the first trimester of pregnancy. 

As President John F. Kennedy said, we all breathe the same air.  A rigorous environmental review of the Tweed airport expansion makes obvious sense.

We need YOUR HELP: to support the people and the town of East Haven; to protect your own clean air.  

Please SIGN the petition and SHARE IT with your friends and neighbors in CT.