‘Walk to Stop the SERPent Pipeline’: Connecticut Groups Protest Proposed Eversource Pipeline

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EAST HAMPTON, Connecticut — On Saturday, November 7, Sierra Club Connecticut supporters, other community groups, and allies walked for four hours across seven miles from Hurd State Park to Eversource Headquarters in East Hampton to protest the utility’s proposed Southeast Resilience Pipeline. Fifty people attended the Walk to Stop the SERPent Pipeline. Of the 50, 37 participated in the seven-mile walk to Eversource Headquarters.

Sierra Club and partner organizations have given the proposed Eversource pipeline the name “SERPent” to highlight its potential harm to public health, energy affordability, climate, and the Connecticut River which, if approved, the pipeline will run under.

“Prioritizing profit over the health of the environment is to our own detriment,” said Erin Day, Owner of Ten Summit Yoga and Earth Based Wellness. “Protecting our natural landscapes is essential, as the connection to the earth is what sustains our own well-being. Preserving this land from the pipeline is a vital step in honoring our relationship with nature and upholding our responsibility for a healthy future.”

“Building communities resilient to climate and economic crises requires improving people’s health and environments while preventing the danger and destruction posed by this pipeline and similar projects,” said Diana Martinez, of Chicks Ahoy Farm. “We can’t allow our futures to be sacrificed for corporate gain.”

“Eversource wants to build a pipeline under the Connecticut River because they make more money building pipelines than they do selling gas; they are a for profit company making a billion IN PROFIT per year so we know what their priorities are,” said Martha Klein, Sierra Club Connecticut and the No Pipeline Expansion Northeast Coalition. “Eversource is blocking the transition to the modern energy economy by expanding fracked gas infrastructure in our state, which locks us into methane use for decades. Burning fossil gas kills people, disrupts the climate and makes energy unaffordable, but it has been very profitable for Eversource. The time for change is here.”

“As young people, we are critically aware of the fallacies embedded in the short-term logic of fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Jo Almond, Sunrise Movement Wesleyan. “I grew up in a town with one hundred and forty-four active methane gas leaks; a result of relying on natural gas pipelines imposed by our utility company. I want to be part of the last generation who has to deal with the toxicity that fossil fuels introduce into our communities; this pipeline would guarantee that Connecticut’s youth will be growing up alongside poisoned water, air, and soil for generations to come.”

“Environmental racism harms all communities and it is important to hold corporations and utilities accountable for expanding poisonous methane gas into our communities and exposing us to environmental harms that exacerbate health, housing, education and economic barriers,” said Tenaya Taylor, Nonprofit Accountability Group.