Crime & Safety
30 Activists Face Charges After Harvard Coal Train Blockade
Climate change activists from around New England are facing various charges for blocking a coal train bound for New Hampshire on Jan. 2.
CLINTON, MA — A group of climate activists who blocked a coal train in Harvard last month face a variety of charges after court hearings held Wednesday.
Twenty-six activists — including a journalist with The Nation — will be arraigned in March on charges of violating a railroad property law. Another four face charges of physically blocking a train carrying coal to a plant in New Hampshire.
The Jan. 2 demonstration involved activists erecting scaffolding over train tracks near Route 2 on the outskirts of Harvard. Four activists remained in the scaffolding after police from the Boston and Maine Railroad ordered them to leave. The 26 others left under orders from police.
After hearings at Clinton District Court on Wednesday, a magistrate issued summonses to the 26 demonstrators charging them with walking or riding on train tracks, a state law punishable by a $100 fine or 50 hours of community service.
The four activists who remained in the scaffolding were arrested and taken to jail on the morning of Jan. 3. They face charges of walking or riding on train tracks, obstruction of a train and obstruction of railroad tracks.
The demonstrators were organized by the group Climate Disobedience Center and hail from towns like Wayland and Natick and from Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The Jan. 2 protest was the group's sixth blockade this winter. It was part of a larger campaign to shut down a coal-fired plant in Bow, N.H., called Merrimack Station, the only coal plant left in New England without a shutdown date.
The trains that deliver coal to Merrimack Station run along Pan Am Railways tracks that begin in Worcester, run north to Ayer, then branch toward Boston, New Hampshire and Maine. Climate Disobedience Center co-founder Jay O'Hara said Wednesday that no other coal trains have made the trip to Merrimack Station since the Jan. 2 protest.
The 26 activists facing railroad trespassing charges will be arraigned on March 26. One of them is Wen Stephenson, who was at the protest reporting a story for The Nation. He has covered Climate Disobedience Center actions before. Railroad police originally sought to charge a Patch reporter who was covering the event, but withdrew the trespassing complaint during a hearing on Wednesday.
Boston and Maine Railroad Police Chief Miles Mayfield deferred comment on the charges to Pan Am Railways, but a representative was not immediately available for comment.
Tim DeChristopher, another Climate Disobedience Center co-founder, is one of the four protesters who remained in the scaffolding and faces more serious charges. He sees the case as almost a continuation of the protest because it offers another opportunity to talk about climate justice and shutting down Merrimack Station.
Both DeChristopher and O'Hara have been arrested before. DeChristopher spent two years in federal prison after he disrupted a federal auction in Utah for oil and gas leases. In 2014, O'Hara faced multiple charges for using a lobster boat to block a coal ship bound for the former Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset — that is until former Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter reduced the charges, citing a worldwide climate emergency.
"The court process is an opportunity to argue our case that climate impacts are so severe we had a necessity to act," DeChristopher said Wednesday. "It's one more venue to spread our message."
