{news} Remy Chevalier in Norwich Bulletin

[David Bedell]

Remy sticks up for nonviolence and the environment:
"Don't burn it down, recycle the lumber."

By the way, you can learn more about the environmental library in Norwalk at
http://www.the-aquarium.org

David Bedell

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/news/x1098980458/Connecticut-member-says-Earth-First-an-education-group

Connecticut member says Earth First an education group

By Norwich Bulletin
Posted Mar 31, 2009 @ 11:26 PM

A Connecticut member of Earth First called the environmental group a
"coalition of loose cannons, if you will." But he said the letter
threatening the Plainfield Renewable Energy project and its principals
sounded more like a radical group that uses arsons and firebombings to make
its environmental point.

Remy Chevalier, director of the Environmental Library Fund in Weston, says
his group has been a chapter of Earth First for 20 years. He said Earth
First, an umbrella organization for local environmental groups, is more
about education. For example, he says an environmental reference library in
Norwalk has about 20,000 books. Chevalier says his focus is on working to
shut down the Indian Point nuclear facility in Westchester County, N.Y.

The Plainfield letter says the power plant's proposed site has been
contaminated. It also identified contacts at Earth First Journal. A person
who answered the phone at the Tucson, Ariz., office said he was not aware of
the letter, or PRE.

"We are a newspaper," said the man, who identified himself as Jezebel
Dreamboat. "We're in Tucson and we just make the newspaper. I don't know who
sent (the letter)."

Chevalier said the Plainfield threat sounds more like something that would
come from the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a radical band of environmental
activists.

Earth Liberation Front

The North American Earth Liberation Front press office Web site says ELF "is
an international underground organization that uses direct action in the
form of economic sabotage to stop the exploitation and destruction of the
natural environment. The ELF understands that environmental destruction is
driven by the pursuit of monetary gain by corporations and the governments
that allow them to act. Sensibly, the ELF inflicts severe economic damage on
these corporations and governmental entities in an attempt to convince them
that the lives of humans, animals and the natural environment are more
important and precious than financial gains."

The press office, based in New York, did not return a phone call Tuesday.

Last week, an ELF member was sentenced to three years in prison for
attempting to firebomb two buildings at a Michigan university in 2001.

Arsons in several states have resulted in tens of millions of dollars in
losses, including to private homes. The group, a loose connection of
individual cells, is reported to be headquartered in Oregon.

"(ELF members) burned down a ski resort that was encroaching on a national
park," Chevalier said of a 1998 incident in Colorado that caused $12 million
in damage. "If they wanted to be successful, they would have shut down the
resort and recycled the lumber.

"Fighting fire with fire doesn't make logical sense."

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