HARVARD, Mass. — Four climate activists who tried to block a train carrying coal to a New Hampshire power plant were arrested early Friday in Massachusetts.
The protesters were arrested in the town of Harvard just after 1 a.m. after erecting a scaffold over the tracks and refusing to come down, a state police spokesman said in a statement.
Harvard firefighters dismantled the scaffold.
“The climate is in a state of emergency.” Activists with the @ClimateDisobey protested the largest coal-fired plant in New England by blocking train tracks in the woods. We have LIVE updates NOW on Boston 25 Morning News. https://t.co/ofIx8Fm6zt #boston25 pic.twitter.com/nQG7RSiMbL
— Boston 25 News (@boston25) January 3, 2020
Timothy Dechristopher, 38, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Adam Rice, 30, of South Portland, Maine; Cody Pajic, 21, of Pembroke; and Gia Neswald, 50, of Turners Falls, were charged with trespassing, walking or standing on railroad tracks, and obstruction of a passing train.
They were booked at the state police barracks in Leominster and transported to Clinton District Court for arraignment.
It’s not clear of they have attorneys.
The group Climate Disobedience Center has held several protests recently trying to stop coal shipments to the power plant in Bow, New Hampshire.
“With the climate crisis and the science as we know it is, it is far past time to be shipping coal to New England and burning it for our electricity,” said Jay O’Hara, a member of the Climate Disobedience Center.
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