Out d'Coup LIVE | Chad Nicholson, Community Organizer with Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

On tonight’s show, I welcome Chad Nicholson, Community Organizer with the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). Chad has been engaged in community rights work since 2009, initially working with Envision Spokane on a Bill of Rights protecting neighborhoods, workers, and the environment. He then moved on to assist in New England, working with communities in Maine and New Hampshire to protect their environment. He now lives and organizes in Pennsylvania, assisting communities to engage in rights-based organizing on issues ranging from environmental protection to prisoners’ rights. 

Chad has been involved with the fight in Pennsylvania townships to pass Home Rule powers to resist the decimation of their communities by the fracking industry. Most notably, Chad’s work in Grant Township, PA has been part of an on-going fight to assert the rights of a community to protect its environment and to extend legal rights to the natural environment. The story of Grant Township is a David and Goliath story - a battle that began more than seven years ago and is scheduled to go before the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court this summer. The Grant Township battle has only emboldened other PA towns/. Just last month, residents of Clara Township in Potter County, PA voted in support to consider Home Rule powers after Routlette Oil and Gas tried to get a permit for a fracking waste well there.

Chad and the CELDF have been on the cutting edge of making a case for the legal rights of the natural world. The fight in Grant Township, PA featured heavily in the recent documentary by Melissa Troutman and Joshua Pribanic, Invisible Hand: The Rights of Nature. Mark Ruffalo was the executive producer for the film. 

Resources: 

• Contact Chad Nicholson: 
  • chad@celdf.org, keybase.io/ctnicholson (encrypted) or 207-541-3649 (encrypted through signal.org)
• Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: https://celdf.org/
• Pennsylvania Community Rights Network: https://www.pacommunityrights.org/
• East Run Hellbenders Society FB page: https://www.facebook.com/eastrunhellbenders
• Grant Township, Indiana County, PA: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Grant%20Township,%20Indiana%20County,%20Pennsylvania/104053069631300/

A special shout out to Jonathan Mann who wrote our intro song, “There Are No People in the Future.” Check out all is great stuff on his YouTube page and follow him on Twitter @songadaymann