The community is against the project

It was a standing-room-only crowd when we gathered to protest Ford Motor Company partnering with Pan Am Southern Railroad to pave 12 acres directly above underground wells that supply drinking water to 15,000 people in Littleton and Ayer, Mass.

The corporation didn't care. It refused to consider delaying the project.

It refused to re-open the negotiations to use the other lot -- identical, nearby, and vacant -- because it's leased to competitor CSX until 2016.

It's like we live in a third-world country and cannot control our local resources.

The bureaucrats sitting up front beside the corporation explained why they are all helpless to stop the project.

We have contacted our state, local and federal politicians -- who are also helpless because Congress granted railroads the legal right to interstate commerce in the 1860s. Because of a regulatory gap, similar to the gap that caused this recession -- they can ignore the 200 people in that meeting hall.

We cannot trust 60 percent of our water supply to a known and reckless polluter -- Pan Am Railways. Ford Motor Company is partnering with this company over our aquifer.

Here's my daily excerpt from the environmental strike force upon sentencing Pan Am Railways to 3 years probation for a spill of more than 800 gallons in Ayer in 2006, covering it up and not reporting it [business as usual].

"The defendants' compliance history with both the Commonwealth and the State of Maine is remarkable not only for the defendants' repeated failures to report spills of oil and hazardous materials, but also for their failure to adopt or implement required spills of oil and hazardous materials but also for their failure to adopt or implement required spill response plans or an overall environmental management system to prevent future spills."