Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, February 25, 2008

MAHANOY TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA, BANS CORPORATE SLUDGE DUMPING

[Rachel's introduction: Another Pennsylvania municipality outlaws chemical bodily trespass, strips corporations of their claim to "rights," recognizes the rights of nature, and asserts the civil rights of residents to sue corporations as state actors.]

The Board of Supervisors for Mahanoy Township in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania on Feb.1, 2008, enacted a law that bans corporations from dumping sewage sludge as "fertilizer" and for "mine reclamation," while declaring that within the community corporations possess no constitutional "rights," privileges or immunities intended for people.

The Ordinance takes the offense in challenging corporate managers in Pennsylvania and around the nation, who effortlessly wield constitutional "rights" and legal privileges to dictate corporate values and nullify local laws.

In adopting the law, Mahanoy Township also became the second local government in the country to define liability and impose penalties for chemical bodily trespass, following the lead of the Town of Halifax, Virginia, where an ordinance banning corporate mining and bodily trespass became law on February 7, 2008.

The people of Mahanoy Township included a provision that recognizes the right of natural communities and ecosystems to exist and flourish within the Township, joining eight other communities that have asserted environmental protection as an enforceable right rather than a matter of discretionary convenience.

The Mahanoy Township law

1) Bans corporations from engaging in the land application of sewage sludge;

2) Bans persons from using corporations to engage in the land application of sewage sludge;

3) Provides for the testing of sewage sludge prior to land application by individuals, with testing costs to be borne by the applicant;

4) Prohibits chemical bodily trespass upon residents of the Township;

5) Establishes strict liability and burden of proof standards for chemical trespass;

6) Removes claims to legal rights and protections from corporations within the Township;

7) Recognizes and provides for enforcement of rights of residents, natural communities and ecosystems;

8) Subordinates sludge hauling and disposing corporations to the People of Mahanoy Township;

9) Adopts Pennsylvania regulations as locally enforceable concerning the land application of sewage sludge by individuals.

In the Ordinance, the Township Board of Supervisors declared that if state and federal agencies -- or corporate managers -- attempt to invalidate the Ordinance, a Township-wide public meeting would be hosted to determine additional steps to expand local control and self- governance within the Township.

Adoption of the Ordinance came after years of consideration by the municipality, several community educational forums and a weekend Democracy School, where the Township hosted the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund to discuss its rights-based strategy for confronting corporate and state preemptions of community self- governance.

Sharon Chiao, Chairperson for the Mahanoy Township Board of Supervisors commented that "we feel the Township has the right to accept or deny it. This is to protect the health, safety and general welfare of the citizens and the environment of our Township."

Ben Price, Projects Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the organization that helped draft the Ordinance said,

"Passage of this Ordinance is especially significant at this time, since neighboring East Brunswick Township has been sued by the Pennsylvania Attorney General for adopting a similar Ordinance. Acting as private litigator for agribusiness and sludge corporations, under authority of a State statute lobbied for heavily by these industries, the PA Attorney General recently filed a legal brief requesting the court overturn East Brunswick's Ordinance without giving the community its day in court.

In that brief, a key argument for nullifying the local law makes this stunning assertion in bold print: "There is no inalienable right to local self-government." It's a point of view we see played out every day in communities across Pennsylvania and the United States. By enacting their new Ordinance, the community government of Mahanoy Township has outshone its State counterpart by recognizing that the consent of the governed is a prerequisite for just governments and law."

CONTACT: Ben Price, Projects Director (717) 243-6725; bengprice@aol.com