In 1972 the voters approved the 97th Amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution, known as the Ecological Bill of Rights. The amendment provides:
"The people shall have the right to clean air and water, freedom from excessive and unnecessary noise, and the natural, scenic, historic, and esthetic qualities of their environment; and the protection of the people in their right to the conservation, development and utilization of the agricultural, mineral, forest, water, air and other natural resources is hereby declared to be a public purpose.
The general court shall have the power to enact legislation necessary or expedient to protect such rights.
In the furtherance of the foregoing powers, the general court shall have the power to provide for the taking, upon payment of just compensation therefor, or for the acquisition by purchase or otherwise, of lands and easements or such other interests therein as may be deemed necessary to accomplish these purposes.
Lands and easements taken or acquired for such purposes shall not be used for other purposes or otherwise disposed of except by laws enacted by a two thirds vote, taken by yeas and nays, of each branch of the general court."
The amendment has not always operated in the way that environmental advocates would wish. One response to the leeway the amendment gives developers is the Public Lands Preservation Act, S. 2388 , which aims for no net loss of public lands as a result of property transfers. Last year the Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources & Agriculture reported it out favorably, and it is currently pending before the House Committee on Ways and Means.
Other significant legislative proposals include attempts to make it easier to sell land that belongs to the Commonwealth. Currently the law provides a role for local people in deciding whether to sell public land. But public land is, understandably, a tempting prospect for private for-profit developers so there are regular efforts to weaken the law.
In recent years all such efforts have failed as a result of grassroots pressure from organizations like the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities . Nevertheless, the bills keep coming, and one of them is H. 60 which would seriously diminish the ability of local governments to influence decisions about public land within their communities. To find out more about H. 60 and similar proposals to water down Chapter 70, contact the coalition via www.masschc.org [1].