Town Meeting Keeps Concord Cool for Cats, Bad for Bottles

The third and final night of Concord’s annual Town Meeting included votes for acquiring a family farm and against repealing the town’s water bottle bylaw and instituting cat registration and a cat bylaw.

  Here’s a quick rundown of the action from the third and final night of Concord’s annual Town Meeting for 2013, held Wednesday, April 24, at Concord-Carlisle High School. Read about night one here and night two here. Article 40, Zoning Bylaw Amendment – Public Service Corporation Overlay District By more than the required two-thirds majority, Town Meeting approved a public service corporation overlay district for 79 acres of the WR Grace property abutting Acton and the Assabet River off Main Street in West Concord. According to the article’s presenter, Mark Bobrowski, the overlay district would allow uses such as a large-scale solar installation, peaking power plant or wastewater treatment. Now approved, the overlay district will be …

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Letters to the Editor

LETTER: Overturning the Bottle Bylaw Would Send the Wrong Message

Encouraging a 'No' vote on Article 30, Annursnac Hill Road resident Katie Lebling writes, 'Choosing tap water instead is a minor change for an individual that sends a much larger message.'

To the Editor, Bottled water definitely has convenience going for it, but beyond that momentary benefit it has little to offer the consumer and the global community. In terms of human health and environmental effects, as well as its larger impacts on equity and environmental justice, it is undeniably damaging.  As residents of not only one of the most developed nations in the world, but one of the most affluent towns within that nation, we have a responsibility to both future generations and to the rest of the global population to maintain the environmental quality we were given. The amount of plastic and other externalities dumped into our environment throughout a bottle’s lifecycle is staggering, especially considering the same product …

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Trish

1:47 pm on Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The survey was conducted by locals right here in Concord. It was a survey to ask how people feel about repealing the ban, not an effort to change your mind. A group of local Concord citizens made hours of phone calls around town to identify others also in favor of repealing the ban. All the calls were made by people in your neighborhood and not the bottled water industry.   more ›

Letters to the Editor

LETTER: A Vote for Keeping Concord's Bottle Ban

Annursnac Hill Road resident Janet Rothrock writes that voting 'no' on Article 30 and 'moving away from single-serve bottled water is a small step toward a more sustainable world.'

To the Editor, We all believe in individual choice but along with choice comes responsibility.  We have a responsibility to our children and their children to leave a world that will be habitable. Moving away from single-serve bottled water is a small step toward a more sustainable world. High quality water comes out of your tap and by choosing it instead of water in disposable bottles you are choosing to eliminate carbon dioxide spewed into the air from the manufacture of bottles, the drilling for and pumping of water, and the trucking of bottles to bottling plants and of bottled water to retail stores It is now clear that human activity is a major contributor to climate change. We have already seen a 1.5 degree C increase in global …

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Reverend E. Raleigh Pimperton III

2:22 pm on Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Trish, You are ignoring the influence of collective guilt, which is a heavy burden for Concord liberals. A plastic bottle dropped on Main Street finds its way into Mill Brook which empties into the Concord River, which empties into the Mississippi River, which empties into the Rio Grande River, which empties into the Colorado River, which meets the Pacific Ocean. From there the empty bottle makes…   more ›

You Ask, Patch Answers

What’s Up With This ‘Free The Water’ Campaign?

Each week, we set out to answer a question on the mind of Concord Patch readers as part of our You Ask, Patch Answers column. This focus of this week’s column is the FreetheWater.org campaign and website that’s been making a bit of a splash of late.

  Looks like the Concord Residents for Consumer Choice group has a new website and branding campaign pushing for the repeal of Concord’s revolutionary bottle-banning bylaw. According to members of the group and a sentence at the bottom of website's homepage, FreeTheWater.org “is supported by Concord Residents for Consumer Choice, a local coalition of concerned citizens.” The original group, Concord Residents for Consumer Choice, is seeking to repeal a bylaw prohibiting the sale of non-sparking, unflavored drinking water in single-serve PET bottles of 1 liter or less. The bylaw was approved by annual Town Meeting last April, was ratified by the Attorney General’s office a few months later and took effect earlier this year. Concord resident …

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Patrick Ball

9:27 am on Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Stephanie, if I'm not mistaken, it actually passed the first time (2010), failed the second time (2011) and passed again on a third try, in 2012. In 2010, Town Meeting approved a bottle ban that was not written as a bylaw. Arguing that there were "no teeth" to article, the selectmen opted against trying to enforce the ban, and it was later rejected by the Attorney General's office. -pb   more ›