Powerful Women: Lori Ehrlich

By Joel Wool, Clean Energy Organizer

MA Residents: Stand with Lori, call for clean power and healthy communities

If your children left soot where they walked, left coal-black footprints in the kitchen, would you have the courage to ask what was in their air and water? Would you stand up to terrible power? Lori did. When the soot came up toxic, PG&E, then-owners of the Salem Harbor Power Plant, offered to powerwash Lori’s home in neighboring Marblehead if she’d only keep quiet. Rather than be silent about pollution that was harming her children, “Mother Grizzly” began a long fight to transition our communities away from coal-fired power. She didn’t stop there. From the power plant fight, Lori leapt forward, leading a successful struggle to clean up ash-filled Wenham Lake—a drinking water source for Salem and Beverly. By 1955, around the time the Salem Power Plant was built, a local construction company had completely mined a gravel quarry that abutted Wenham Lake. Industrial waste, including that from coal combustion, piled in the quarry until it was 30-40 feet thick. It wasn't until decades later, when Lori got involved and pulled in everyone from neighbors, to city councillors, to lawyers, to west coast activist Erin Brockovich, that the waste was cleaned up. (You can read more on the Wenham Lake story here). Lori took the fight to Washington to close loopholes on federal air protections. She shook the EPA up and down, demanding they regulate coal ash. And in 2008, she won a seat in the Massachusetts State House, where she continues to fight for all us. Now Representative Lori Ehrlich is advocating for healthy communities from Beacon Hill—but as always, it’s an uphill battle. Will you stand with heroes like Lori? Join us to call for power free of harm, and thank Lori for her valiant efforts. (March is Women's History Month. Today, we honor Representative Lori Ehrlich. Massachusetts residents can take action online here).