Signage displayed near the polls for eight hours on March 11.
A victory for the people of coastal Maine this week as the town of Steuben voted nearly 2 to 1 to ban commercial rocket launches from its beautiful coast. It was the second town to refuse Blueshift's proposal to build an offshore rocket launch site, the first being nearby Jonesport.
The ordinance went into effect immediately and also bans any rocket building, any use by the Maine Space Corporation, and any use by the U.S. Space Force. It also prohibits "retrieval of launch vehicles or payloads within the boundaries of the town."
It prohibits a whole lot more, too, and you can read the ordinance as passed here on the town's website.
Almost seems like someone who knew what they were doing created such a comprehensive ban. That person would be seaweed harvester Larch Hanson who has shared the content of two mass mailings he sent prior to the March 11 referendum. He is also ready and willing to support other towns that may need to defend their coastal waters from for-profit rocket companies in the future. "Happy to consult with the next town, and refine the message and the process," says Hanson who can be reached at hanson.larch@gmail.com.
Here's text from the mailer sent one month before the referendum:
Dear Neighbors in Steuben,
please mark your calendars for two important dates:
1. On Saturday, February 15th,
at 1 p.m., there will be an informational meeting about the
proposed Commercial Rocket
Launch Ordinance at the Steuben Volunteer Fire Department.
Please share what you know!
Many of you have spoken to me in favor of the proposed ordinance.
Some of you have direct life
experience with managing and monitoring the handling of explosives at the
federal level, and you’ve
shared reports with me that are eye-opening. Some of you have been directly
harmed by the chemicals in
flame retardant foams used to fight intense fires. You’ve made me aware of
how hazardous working in the
secretive culture of rocketry and the military can be. Please tell your story.
Some of you are hospital
workers and EMT’s who recognize the fact that our current health system is
broken, and that we could not
adequately respond to poisonings and catastrophic accidents related to
rocket production and
launchings, especially given the fact that rocket companies are secretive,
refusing to publicly list all
the chemicals and possible hazards involved in their processes. (In
Aroostook County, VALT has
concealed the location of their rocket launches to such an extent that even
the sheriff doesn’t know when
and where they occur.)
Some of you have worked in
aerospace and are bound by nondisclosure agreements. You’ve told me
privately, “I know too much,”
and that you would like to share more, but you’re afraid of retribution.
Some of you are aware that
bluShiftAerospace will require firefighters to sign nondisclosure agreements.
The company is just a place
holder; once established, many more companies will follow, and these
companies won’t even bother
pretending to be “green”. (“Biofuel” is just a word used to distract people.)
Many of you are fishermen who
understand that marine life is sensitive to chemical pollution and strong
vibrations, and you don’t want
to lose your livelihoods. You understand, as I do, that “the greenest
business is the one with the
shortest hauling path”. The marketing emphasis here is on LOCALLY
SOURCED CLEAN SEAFOOD. Compare:
It’s a long hauling path to Mars, and Mars has vast perchlorate
deserts that are toxic to human
life. In 2016, Maine’s CDC set a limit of 0.8 parts per billion for
perchlorate in drinking water.
That’s how toxic it is! Perchlorate blocks transport of iodine to the thyroid
which makes regulatory hormones
centered on the stable element of iodine. Marine life will
concentrate perchlorate and
introduce it into the food web. Perchlorate, a forever chemical, is
associated with the manufacture
and use of rocket fuels, munitions, fireworks, and air bag inflators. The
feds refuse to regulate
perchlorate; they are the biggest contributors to this problem which robs us
all of
our ability to self-regulate,
develop strong immune systems, and raise normal healthy smart children.
Some of you have sent me
articles describing the failures of federal regulatory agencies to do what they
were created to do. For
instance, the E.P.A. and F.A.A. have failed to regulate forever chemicals, and
as
a result we are losing more and
more soil and water resources. I grew up in southwest Minnesota where
farmers polluted their surface
wells with herbicides and pesticides, so the state drilled deep wells and
piped water to all the farms.
This is a stopgap solution. The farmers are still spraying toxic herbicides
and pesticides, and it’s just a
matter of time before these chemicals reach the deep water table.
In the late 1960’s, I lived in
northern Florida where spring fed rivers lush with eel grass attracted
manatees, but now, due to
pollution, the eel grass is gone and the manatees are starving to death. For a
while, I lived in Sarasota and
swam in the Gulf of Mexico. Due to a leaking oil rig disaster, that body of
water no longer supports
fishermen. On the east coast, the estuaries adjacent to Cape Canaveral are
polluted with forever chemicals
related to rockets, and one has to travel north to St. Augustine before
one can find locally caught
fresh seafood. Don’t let this happen to the downeast coast of Maine!
2. Tuesday, March 11th, from 8
a.m. to 8 p.m. is the day when we all can vote to pass the
ordinance, and if you can’t be
here, you can get an absentee ballot at the town office.
Rest in the Light, abide in the Heart. Larch Hanson
Once our water is polluted by forever chemicals, there’s no
getting it back.
Dear Neighbors,
On Tuesday, March 11th, the polls are open from 8 a.m. to 8
p.m., and
please vote YES to enact an ordinance that bans conventional
rocket
launchings in Steuben. Absentee ballots are also available.
Sascha Deri, CEO of bluShift Aerospace and a board member of
Maine
Space Corporation, has written in his very own brochure that
Maine Space
Corporation’s overall plan could attract “out-of-state
competitors using
toxic propellants”. In Aroostook County, as reported by
Melissa Lizotte in
the Bangor Daily News, September 11th, 2024, VALT rocket
launching
company is secretly launching rockets over Aroostook
County……so
secretly, in fact, that not even the sheriff was notified of
the location of the
launchings. There’s been no environmental impact study, no
community
vote, before proceeding to application for a license to the
Federal
Aviation Agency - a process that was promised in Maine Space
Complex’s
“Draft Strategic Plan Report” dated 2/11/2022. Welcome to
the Wild West!
Mr. Deri and his workers are at risk of exposure to toxic
“forever
chemicals” known as PFAS after a malfunction unleashed a
staggering
51,540 gallons of firefighting foam in one of the hangars at
Brunswick
Landing, home of bluShift Aerospace. It’s the largest
accidental spill of
such foam in the state’s history, and the sixth-largest in
the U.S. in the past
30 years. See
https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2024/08/
massive-brunswick-pfas-spill-maines-largest-ever-firefighting-foam
And guess what? Mr. Deri has signed a contract to launch
human and pet
cremains into space. What does this have to do with science?
Couldn’t
he find anything better to do with a rocket? It’s wasteful.
https://
www.mainebiz.biz/article/in-7m-deal-blushift-signs-shackleton-
descendant-for-unconventional-launches This is not a path
with heart.
There’s a video that sums it all up, including interviews
with residents of
Brownsville, Texas, about the progressive degradation of the
environment
as a result of Elon Musk’s Space X takeover of the town, and
since he’s
working with Trump to eliminate regulation, this is a
preview of what will
come to Steuben if we don’t assert our right of home rule
per Maine state
law. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cZEZoa8rW0
Rest in the Light, abide in the Heart. Larch hanson.larch@gmail.com
For more information on local resistance to toxic rocket launch sites all over the planet check out my website NoToxicRockets4ME.org.
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