You are INvited! Free to ReImagine! Wednesday, December 11, at 5:00 pm

Join us to Reimagine the heart and soul of Southwestern Pennsylvania: Free and open to the public!

The ReImagine initiative began in the spring of 2017 in Beaver County. Led by the League of Women Voters and local residents, a group of community members met for three visioning sessions, where they discussed sustainable economic and community development projects that they wanted to see completed in their county. In May of 2019, ReImagine Beaver County released a report with the community's visions, and now they are actively working to implement positive change in their communities. Similar initiatives have also taken place in Butler and Indiana Counties.

And now this:
The League of Women Voters and local community partners are now launching an initiative to Reimagine the Turtle Creek Watershed, which encompasses the eastern part of Allegheny County including the city of Pittsburgh, and western Westmoreland County. To make this event as inclusive as possible, we are expanding it beyond the watershed into the "airshed" to include District 8 of Allegheny County Council and PA congressional District 18 - because the positive and negative externalities of economic and community development don't know municipal boundaries. This initiative will begin with a series of brainstorming sessions about the things that the people of these communities would like to see in their area.

Join us on Wednesday, December 11th at 5:00 pm at the Braddock Carnegie Library to learn about the initiative and to begin the visioning process.
The main agenda for the evening is as follows:

5:00 to 6:00pm: Free, plant-based dinner will be served courtesy of the League of Women Voters; organizations will also have tables set up for people to browse.

6:00 to 6:30pm: Introductions, Introductions to visioning, and short presentations by Ujamaa Collective, Epic Metals, and Coalfield Development

6:30 to 7:30pm: Small group brainstorming / visioning activity

7:30 to 8:00pm: Large group discussion and next steps

For those interested, prior to the main event, starting at 2:30pm, there will also be yoga led by Dr. Moni Wesner and a free screening of the documentary The Need to Grow.

This initiative only works if there is representation from many communities. We hope that you will be able to join us and share your visions. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to ReImagine the Turtle Creek Watershed on Facebook or sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com.

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The Need to Grow, Vegan Expo, and Re-Imagine!

Happy November, and a December SAVE the DATE!

We hope to see you this week at the Monroeville Public Library 11/4/19, and at the Monroeville Convention Center, 11/9/19 as well. Mark your calendar for December 11, 2019 at the Braddock Carnegie Public Library too for our exciting Re-Imagining Turtle Creek Watershed and Airshed Communities Visioning session! Some details below with more to come. Stay tuned!

1) FREE: The Need to Grow documentary at the Monroeville Public Library:

Monday evening, November 4, 2019 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Monroeville Public Library including discussion following the film screening of The Need to Grow. Feel free to bring healthy whole food, plant based snacks to share:

FREE!

Save the Soil. Save the World: The Need To Grow documentary narrated & produced by Rosario Dawson. A film by Rob Herring & Ryan Wirick tomorrow evening, November 4 at the Monroeville Public Library starting at 6:30 pm.
The Need to Grow is an incredibly wonderful & uplifting documentary offering a view into the hearts of activists and innovators in the food movement. Join us!

2) The Pittsburgh Vegan Expo, Saturday, November 9, 2019, 10 am to 4 pm at the Monroeville Convention Center:

Food, products, wellness room, demonstrations, movies, speakers, vegan trick or treat for kids, gingerbread house competition, breakdance, beatboxer, bellydance, live music, DJ, Re-model gala (recycled dance fashion contest), Vegan Spirituality-Southwest PA, Re-Imagine! TCWAC+ and many, many, more tabling, and much more!

3) FREE: Inaugural Re-Imagine! Turtle Creek Watershed and Airshed Communities Plus, Re-Imagine! TCWAC+ Visioning Session at the Braddock Carnegie Public Library, 5 pm to 8:30 pm (with 3:00 to 5:00 pm session too), Facebook page & EventBrite Registration available soon with more details!

URGENT! Attend October 3 Citizen's Night and October 8 Council Meeting at 7:00 PM at the Monroeville Municipal Building

Happy Autumn!

Listen to Greta Thunberg's wise words at the recent United Nations Climate Summit and then get busy acting locally in Monroeville, PA in early October by contacting your councilperson to let him or her know your thoughts about two critical issues:

1) We must be sure Monroeville does NOT sell the Municipal pool property. This property is specifically for recreational use in perpetuity according to documents we've seen.

2) We must be sure Monroeville council votes to put in place a protective of the citizens oil and gas ordinance at the November, 2019 meeting after being advertised in October, 2019.

Locally, what is going on here in Monroeville, PA and how can you be involved? Read the articles recently published with links below. Both articles were published by Trib Total Media in September, 2019 in The Times Express by Dillon Carr.

Actions for Citizens:

Please contact your councilperson and let him or her to vote to take the pool sale off of the table. If you do not live in Monroeville, please call Mayor Nick Gresock and Municipal Manager Tim Little to let them know selling the pool property is not ok.

https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/monroeville-pool-up-for-sale-making-way-for-turnpike-commission-purchase/

Please call your councilperson and ask him or her to be sure the proposed oil and gas ordinance is advertised this coming month. Then ask that this updated protective of the citizens ordinance be voted in at the November, 2019 council meeting.
https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/monroeville-residents-propose-oil-and-gas-ordinance/

We must fill the council chamber on both Thursday, October 3 at 7:00 pm for Citizen's Night and Tuesday, October 8 at 7:00 pm,  for the next council meeting. Please mark your calendars, and plan to speak up about two critically important issues:

Council plans to vote to sell the Monroeville Municipal pool property on Tuesday, October 8, 2019 unless citizens rise up to say NO WAY! Council has been claiming that the turnpike commission has asked for that property to use to widen the turnpike. We were told at a council meeting not too long ago by one of the councilpersons that the property would be taken by eminent domain. This simply is not true. We have not seen any documentation that states this. Some of the pool members found out that the turnpike does not plan to widen that portion of the road until nine years from now. We also have learned that:

1) The property on the other side of the turnpike from the pool is also owned by the Municipality of Monroeville. We have asked why there has not been discussion about the turnpike using that property to widen the road and to leave the pool property alone.
2) The property the municipal pool sits on was condemned in 1974 and given to the Municipality of Monroeville. This 10 + acre property was to be used only for recreational purposes according to the condemnation documentation. It is therefore illegal to sell this property and to use it for any purpose other than recreation.
3) What is the hurry by council to sell this pool property? We have been asking for four months who owns the gas and oil rights underneath that property. No complete answer has been provided yet. Mr. Wratcher, the municipal attorney for the Municipality of Monroeville was formerly employed by APEX, a gas extraction company that is working in this area in the fracking industry. Is this a conflict of interest? Why is it that Mr. Wratcher is not able to figure out an answer to this question of who owns these mineral rights in a timely fashion especially as a former gas industry employee?
4) Could it be that the municipality owns the gas rights under this property? Could it be that the gas industry is eyeing these gas rights for fracking infrastructure or for other types of gas lines? We know that a fracking well pad is proposed for 0.4 mile from this site just into Penn Township, Westmoreland County right next to both the pool and the Heritage bike and Walking Trail. This is unacceptable. If it is true about the gas rights being owned by the municipality of Monroeville, we need to be sure that those rights are never used for fracking infrastructure such as pipelines and /or compressor stations, or any other fracked gas or other extractive industry infrastructure. Why? This property is for the use of Monroeville citizens for recreational use. Gas infrastructure does not belong underneath. In addition, this infrastructure does not belong near schools, homes, religious institutions, or businesses in our town.

Think Globally and Act Locally: Get involved in local Monroeville politics for a clean air and water and just future for all,

With gratitude,

David Mintz, Lois Drumheller, Madeline Havrilla, and Elisa Beck for Sustainable Monroeville
Sustainable Monroeville on Facebook!

ReImagine! Turtle Creek Watershed Communities. Yay!

Monroeville CommUNITY Day, ReImagine! Turtle Creek Watershed Communities, and more:

Please join us at our booth on Monroeville CommUnity Day on Saturday, July 27, 2019 in Monroeville Park from 11:00 AM to 6:30 PM! 

Our next meeting of Sustainable Monroeville is on Monday evening, August 5, 2019 at 7:00 PM in the downstairs program room of the Monroeville Public Library. Come learn about our newest collaborative initiative. This amazing vision, ReImagine! Turtle Creek Watershed Communities is inspired by ReImagine! Beaver, ReImagine! Butler, and the League of Women Voters. We'll also review the work of Sustainable Monroeville since its inception ten years ago.

Save the Dates:

• Turtle Creek Watershed Association Board Meeting on Tuesday, July 30, 2019 at 5:30 PM-Murrysville, PA
• Sustainable Monroeville on Monday evening, August 5, 2019 at the Monroeville Public Library in the downstairs program room
• Monroeville Citizens' Night on Thursday evening, August 8, 2019 at 7:00 PM-Monroeville Municipal building
• Monroeville Council meeting on Tuesday evening, August 13, 2019 at the Monroeville Municipal building

We have been asking at each Monroeville Citizens' Night and Monroeville Council meeting who owns the mineral rights under the municipal pool property. We continue to wait for an answer from our municipal attorney, Mr. Wratcher. 

Sustainable Monroeville has also been asking why Monroeville Council is not concerned about putting a protective of the citizens of Monroeville detailed oil and gas ordinance in place just like has been done in Churchill, Forest Hills, South Fayette, Oakmont, and the City of Pittsburgh. 

In collaboration with the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania (LWV), we'll begin the process to ReImagine! the Communities in the Turtle Creek Watershed. We have reached out to a few other organizations and are waiting to hear back from them to let us know if they'd love to collaborate with us. If you have ideas about which individuals and organizations throughout the Turtle Creek Watershed would love to join in this amazing process, please let us know by messaging the Sustainable Monroeville Facebook page or to sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com. Sustainable Monroeville will be a participant in this process. There will be many leaders. How about you?! :)

To see which communities we're referring to, go the the Turtle Creek Watershed Association website and look at the map of the many communities that are part of the Turtle Creek Watershed. 

It will be wonderful when we can all feel comfortable to swim again in Turtle Creek and know that we are doing all we can to promote the health and wellness of ourselves and of our wonderful region by promoting healthy businesses, healthy economic development and so much more! This day will happen when acid mine drainage from sixty years ago or more is addressed with mindfullness and full responsibility is taken by all of us to clean up this mess instead of building on top of it and pretending it's not there! The Turtle Creek Watershed Association (TCWA) is doing well addressing the issue of Acid Mine Drainage in Irwin, PA. They just had a wonderful event a few weeks ago to raise awareness and raise funds for both their organization and for the city of Irwin. Support the Turtle Creek Watershed Association! There's also a newly formed Chalfont Watershed Association that is in the process of raising 

It is important for us to be proactive and not allow further pollution to our airshed and watershed with upcoming proposals for further extractive industries such as the Marcellus Shale/Natural gas industry. The natural gas industry is not required to comply with the environmental standards of even the coal industry. And look what mess we are in sixty years later with acid mine drainage!!! We must be sure we have protective of the citizens oil and gas ordinances in place in our populated regions. Minimally, we must insist that industry complies with existing environmental standards and not simply pay fines when they do not follow the rules. If you're not familiar with the oil and gas issues in Southwest PA, here's a few wonderful resources to begin with:

• The book Amity and Prosperity by Eliza Griswald
• The League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Shale Gas Extraction and Public Health, A Resource Guide
• The Environmental Health Project: www.environmentalhealthproject.org
• The Climate Reality Project: www.climaterealtiyproject.org

Thank you all for your belief in truth and your work in moving us into the more beautiful world we all know in our hearts is possible.

Blessings to us all,

Elisa Beck, on behalf of over 125 individuals who have been engaged with Sustainable Monroeville for a decade.

Join us on July 27 at Monroeville Park for Monroeville CommUNITY Day!

Sustainable Monroeville looks forward to showcasing our work from the past 10 years in the Municipality of Monroeville and beyond at the upcoming Monroeville CommUNITY Day on Saturday, July 27, 2019 from 11:00 am to 4:00 PM. If you'd love to volunteer on the 27th of July or at any time, feel free to reach out to us through the Sustainable Monroeville Facebook page or through sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com.

Stop by our booth to learn about our most recent projects and to see how you can get involved!

You are INvited and more! Monday June 24: Protecting Allegheny County from Fracking! and Save the Dates: Tuesday, July 2 and Tuesday, July 9!

Dear everyone we all know who live in Allegheny County, (yes, please share FAR and WIDE)!

If you are able to attend the Food and Water Action event detailed below, a week from tomorrow, that's Monday, June 24, 2019 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm in Squirrel Hill at the home of Maren Cooke, please do! 

We will carpool from Monroeville to Maren Cook's home. Let us know if you'd like to join a carpool by messaging sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com or send us a private message through the Sustainble Monroeville Facebook page. At least one carpool will be leaving from Trotwood Drive in Monroeville. It's worth attending just to spend a bit of time in Maren's home which is amazing. Her home, everything about how she lives demonstrates Permaculture in Action. The roof is full of half vegetables and half solar panels. You can go up there to see it! Maren has been hosting monthly Sustainability Salons at her home for as long as Sustainable Monroeville has been around, and that's been 10 years.  

Whether or not you are able to attend a week from Tuesday, please consider donating to Food and Water Action. They are an incredible not- for- profit organization! Right now their work with Monroeville is centered around educating all of us and to support Monroeville in putting a protective of the citizens oil and gas ordinance in place Immediately. They are working in communities throughout Allegheny County.

Many of us Monroeville citizens have gone to Monroeville council meetings to request council put a protective ordinance in place as has been done in South Fayette, Oakmont, Forest Hills, Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh has banned fracking), and other boroughs. Mr. Wratcher, the Municipal Attorney for Monroeville, PA continues to say that council needs to ask him to draw up the ordinance. Our council members are refusing to make this request. Please contact your council person to ask that council ask Mr. Wratcher draw up this request. When council sees the level of concern among the people, the council will act! Sustainable Monroeville presented model ordinances to council over six months ago.

At the last council meeting this past week, both Ms. Gaydos and Mr. Poach said they are happy with the existing ordinance that states fracking is only allowed in industrial zones in Monroeville. This poses many issues. There are NO specifications as to allowable noise levels, light levels, setbacks and much, much more that needs to be specified to protect human health. Many in Sustainable Monroeville are completely opposed to continuing with the extractive industries. That said, we understand that we are not allowed to ban fracking in Monroeville. However, we are allowed to specify WHERE fracking (and infrastructure? who knows the answer to this?) can occur, and we are certainly allowed to put in place within our Monroeville borders rules for noise levels, light levels, setbacks, and more. 

Watch this past week's Monroeville council meeting (6-11-19) from the link on the Municipal web site. It's an important one!!!

Please share this invitation with everyone you know who lives in Monroeville and really anybody you know who will be interested! The time to ACT is NOW!

We're going to start to fill the council chamber in Monroeville to make sure we get a protective of the citizens ordinance in place that specifies light and noise levels for fracking well pads, and most importantly 2500 foot setbacks from homes, schools and businesses. Right now, one of the well pads that has been approved for just over the border of Allegheny County into Westmoreland County right by the amazing bike trail off of Saunders Station near the municipal pool is 0.4 of a mile from the municipal pool. That means it is WAY too close to the homes over there, Ramsey Elementary, several elementary schools in Level Green to say the least.  It is way too close to the Saunders Station and Haymaker residential sections of Monroeville as well, including Gateway High School, the Middle School and the Cleveland Steward Elementary School. Those of us who live in these areas are living in areas where there is a large threat to our human health. Let's correct this issue and do the right thing. We have that opportunity now!

Protect PT is also an outstanding organization that is doing a lot of the hard work around this issue. I highly recommend you join Protect PT. Go to their web site to learn more about what is going on right next door to Monroeville and how we can protect ourselves. Protect PT has brought many law suits against the gas companies to fight for our human health....They need our support. 

Please mark Tuesday July 2 (July 4 is that Thursday so meeting is on Tuesday rather than Thursday) on your calendar for the next Monroeville Citizens Night to express your views, and the following Tuesday, July 9 for the next council meeting. We MUST demand the current council acts Now!

It is time to come together as ONE! If you have any questions, let us know. 

Many blessings, 

Kelly, Dave, Lois, Elisa, and all of us here in Monroeville, PA!

sustainablemonroeville@gmail.com

Sustainable Monroeville on Facebook!

Protecting Allegheny County From Fracking Envisioning a Pennsylvania without fracking, even if it means going town by town Monday, June 24, 2019 (New Date) 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The home of Maren Cooke Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania New fracking wells and pipelines are being proposed in our communities.  The 2019 election is our time to elect champions who can put people over the profits of corporate polluters.  Learn about opportunities to stop fracking in places like Franklin Park Borough, Indiana Township, Elizabeth Township and throughout all of Allegheny County.  Light bites, wine and beer will be served. Host committee: Chris and Diane Abell, Nancy Bernstein, Maren Cooke, Nancy Reese Space is limited. RSVP by Thursday, June 20.  For more information, visit the event ticketing page. To join the host committee and get involved, please contact  Tamara Tripp at ttripp@fwwatch.org

Oil and Gas Ordinance Update: Monday, June 3 at 7:00 PM at the Monroeville Public Library!

FREE and Open to the Public:

Please join us on Monday evening, June 3, 2018 in the downstairs program room of the Monroeville Public Library from 7:00 to 8:30 PM for an update about the existing and planned oil and gas ordinance for Monroeville, PA. No matter where you live, this will be an incredibly informative and important evening. 

Thank you Monroeville resident Kelly Yagatich, Gateway High School and University of Pittsburgh graduate, for planning this educational evening for the residents, council, Mayor, Municipal Manager, and beyond! 

Kelly, your generation is our future. May the next 7 generations carry on in your footsteps.

Blessings to us all as we move greacefully into our Regenerative Future NOW! 

Elisa B., Lois D. and Dave M. for Sustainable Monroeville :)

From the amazing Patricia DeMarco, our Western PA local Rachel Carsonesque incredible woman:

As my May blog post in Pathways and Transitions, I am sharing the keynote address I gave in Wheeling West Virginia at a Green New Deal Town Hall.  This is the time to recognize that the transition away from fossil fuels is no longer optional, but critical for our survival.  The path forward offers better choices, robust opportunities and a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.  We must decide to leave a living planet as our legacy.  We must organize and campaign for justice and fairness in the transformation.

Green Jobs and a Living Planet - Make it Happen! https://patriciademarco.com/blog-2/

For more discussion on this topic, join the Battle of Homestead Foundation for a roundtable discussion "Labor and Environmental Coalitions: A Must for survival of Both" on June 8, 2019 at 1:30 to 3:00 PM at the Pump House 880 East Waterfront Drive, Munhall PA 15120  Free and open to the public.

In Solidarity,

Patty

Live in harmony with nature

Patricia M. DeMarco, Ph.D.

Author: "Pathways to Our Sustainable Future-  Global Perspective from Pittsburgh"

Forest Hills Borough Council, 2016-2020

Visiting Researcher & Writer, Carnegie Mellon University

Senior Scholar and Adjunct Faculty, Chatham University

2017 William Freudenburg Lifetime Achievement Award

2018 Visionary of the Year- PA Interfaith Power and Light

(412) 708-9277

www.patriciademarco.com

Happy Mothers of the Earth Day!

Happy Mother Earth Day!

Feeling compelled as a Mother today to post about Mother Earth, as our voice is her voice. Let's tell the new story of our regenerative future. Stand up and speak your truth in the midst of all of this madness. Let's tell the new story, and let's begin this new era today!

If you live in Monroeville, call and e-mail your councilperson to show your support to put a protective of the citizens detailed and updated gas and oil ordinance in place right away following the lead of Oakmont. Ask your council member why he or she has not yet acted on the recommendations of Sustainable Monroeville. Then please let us know if their answer to you is satisfactory. Ask your councilperson what regenerative future ideas are being implemented into the consent decree stormwater management plans for the Municipality of Monroeville. Will residents be educated and required to attach rain barrels on each of their downspouts at the expense of the municipality through the fee we are paying yearly? Will the community be educated about installing rain gardens and bio-swales in their landscapes? Will we work together as citizens to create Food, not Lawns laden with chemicals? Will we put ordinances in place to grow pesticide-free food everywhere?

If you are not already planning to vote, put May 21, 2019 on your calendar. If you live in Allegheny County, be sure to vote for Jenkins for District Attorney and if you live in East Pittsburgh, be sure to vote for Jonathan Reyes for East Pittsburgh Council at Large. Vote for Patricia DeMarco in Forest Hills!

Get involved in your local community to the best of your ability. Learn all you can and then ACT!

Join Protect PT! PT stands for Penn Township and Trafford, our neighboring communities who are dealing with many potential fracking wells and infrastructure in their community several of which are less than a mile from our community of Monroeville. Attend Sustainable Monroeville events with your family, friends and neighbors to keep up to date.

If you know anyone in the state of Colorado, or if you have $5.00 or much more to spare, please support dianaforcolorado.com. Diana Bray is my childhood friend and is the ONLY environmental candidate who states her opposition to fracking running for U.S. Senate from the state of Colorado. The competition is fierce, so if you feel called, PLEASE support her campaign!

Here's a few interesting excerpts from David Korten's 2015 book titled Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth.

From Chapter 5 titled Children of a Living Earth, pp. 74-75:

"Acting as a community in concert with Earth's physical structures and forces, Earth's diverse species filtered excess carbon and a vast variety of toxins from earth's air, waters, and soils and sequestered them deep underground. In so doing- whether by luck or deep cosmic intention-they created environmental conditions necessary for the birth of a species with a capacity for conscious, creative, self-reflective choice far beyond any other."

"In a collective trance induced by the idolatrous Sacred Money and Markets story, we of that species now devote our best minds and technologies to extracting and releasing those sequestered carbons and toxins back into Earth's atmosphere, waters and soils as money-seeking corporate robots exploit and suppress Earth's natural processes to make a quick buck, Our acceptance of this insanity is the ultimate demonstration of the potentially fatal consequence of living by a fabricated Sacred Money and Markets story."

from page 76:

"Hope lies in the evidence that we are reawakening in what I believe to be a fundamental truth of our existence. We humans, like all other beings, are both product and instrument of creation, not its purpose. We belong to Earth, and our health and well-being are inseparable from her health and well-being."

David Korten goes on to elaborate about Living Communities and moving from Abuser to Healer. There is hope. So let's get busy changing ourselves and therefore lovely, amazing, nurturing Mother Earth!

Many blessings for a wonderful day and lots of brand new beginnings! Hey, if you're not already eating a plant-based diet, try it out for one or two meals a week and gradually reduce your consumption of dairy, red meat, chicken and fish. Both your body and Mother Earth will thank you!

Join the Plant Based Eating Hub on June 30 at Temple David for a Pop-Up Plant-based eating event. It will be educational and delicious. Go to PlantBasedEatingHub.com for details!

And if you're feeling especially excited about our Regenerative Future NOW, attend Phipps' Conservatory's Big Green Block Party on Thursday May 16, 2019!

Namasté,

Elisa Beck on behalf of Panchamama, Mother Earth :)

Go Solar!

Join Sustainable Monroeville on Monday evening, May 6, 2019 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM in the downstairs program room of the Monroeville Public Library to learn about solar co-ops and how to:

GO SOLAR!

Erica Jackson of FracTracker to speak at the Monroeville Public Library. Monday, March 11, 2019 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM

Hello and Happy March, 2019!

In collaboration with the Monroeville Public Library and Sustainable Monroeville, Erica Jackson of FracTracker will talk about local and regional oil and gas issues, with time for Q&A and time to listen to the community's needs around the topic. She'll also talk about the FracTracker Alliance app, a citizen science tool you can use to support data transparency and fracking resistance.

Monday evening, March 11, 2019 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM with Erica Jackson of FracTracker. Free and open to the public!

Contact person: Erica Jackson, Community Outreach and Communications Specialist, FracTracker Alliance. Phone: 412-229-7514 Email: jackson@fractracker.org

See you on Monday, March 11, 2019 in the Yolanda Room at the Monroeville Public Library!

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