Agency focused on cutting toxics loses funding
Read the full story in the Boston Globe.
It is a miniscule slice of the state’s $27 billion budget – less than $1.5 million to fund an obscure environmental agency at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
But the Toxics Use Reduction Institute is part of a state-mandated program that has reduced the use of hazardous substances by local manufacturers 41 percent in its 20-year history. That funding has been eliminated, and the institute’s 18 employees do not know where their next paycheck will come from – or whether it will come at all.