image description — Susan Cohen and Jennifer Seelig

Berkshire HorseWorks, Inc. Welcomes to its Board Of Directors

12:39PM / Wednesday, January 25, 2023Print Story | Email Story

RICHMOND, Mass. — Berkshire HorseWorks, Inc. welcomed Susan Cohen, immigration attorney and author and Jennifer Seelig, television producer and deputy director of media affairs for Jon Kasich's Presidential Campaign, to its Board of Directors.

According to a press release:

Susan Cohen, a nationally recognized immigration lawyer who founded & chaired Mintz's Immigration practice, has played an instrumental role is shaping both federal and state regulation for over 30 years. Cohen recently became a best-selling author with the publication of "Journeys from There to Here". She is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and resides in both Boston and Becket.

Jennifer Seelig was a producer at Fox News Channel for over a decade and served as deputy director of media affairs for Jon Kasich's Presidential Campaign in 2016. She has a background working with national news organizations including NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Forbes, BuzzFeed, and the Huffington Post. Currently, she is a Podcaster In-Chief of Podcast PR Pro and the CEO of its parent company Orion Public Relations.

Cohen and Seelig join the rest of Berkshire HorseWorks Board including President Don Fulford, Vice President Don Granger, Secretary Barbara Newman, and member Dr. Steve Hoff.

In addition, Berkshire HorseWorks has received a first-time grant of $5,000 from the Scott Fujioka Fund. Funds will go directly toward scholarships for children for the Ranch Life 101 program and for other educational and therapeutic initiatives. The grant will allow BHW to continue supporting those with mental health and behavioral challenges, as well as children in the area who were undiagnosed and experiencing heightened anxiety due to social isolation.

Berkshire HorseWorks, Inc. is a 501c 3 mission-driven nonprofit, which offers Eagala Model and Eagala-based equine-assisted educational, experiential activities, trail ride lessons, and life skills curriculum for children, families and those at risk with mental health and behavioral challenges.

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Lee Wants Bioremediation in Housatonic River Vernal Pool Study

05:24AM / Thursday, September 03, 2026

LEE, Mass. — The town has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and General Electric to include PCB bioremediation in its vernal pool study on the Housatonic River.

Lee officials are urging the EPA to require GE to add a bioremediation treatment arm to the vernal-pool study or provide the public with a clear explanation for why such testing is being excluded.

"This is exactly the kind of question EPA and GE should be asking before final remedy decisions are locked in," Select Board Chair Bob Jones said in a statement released to the press. "The town is not asking to slow the cleanup. We are asking EPA and GE to make the cleanup smarter, less destructive, and more protective over the long term."

An open house was held in Pittsfield earlier this summer for the Vernal Pool Pilot Study on Reach 5A of the Housatonic River, a five-mile stretch between the river's confluence and Lenox border.

EPA has required GE to conduct a Vernal Pool Pilot Study as part of the Housatonic River Rest of River remediation, comparing excavation and restoration with activated-carbon-based treatments, including a product called SediMite and powdered activated carbon, the town said.

Ten vernal pools will be cleaned of polychlorinated biphenyls in total, five with excavation and five with active carbon, and seven additional vernal pools will be monitored as controls. Construction will be complete around October, but the pools will be left to their natural processes and monitored with surveys and sampling for three years.

The Lee PCB Advisory Committee wrote a letter calling for the 21st-century approach it said could reduce long-term toxicity, avoid unnecessary destruction of sensitive habitats, and improve the effectiveness of the cleanup.

It states that Lee supports the study's purpose and agrees that EPA and GE must understand how cleanup activities affect sensitive vernal-pool ecosystems.

"The current pilot includes 10 treatment pools and seven control pools, while local officials understand that roughly 100 vernal pools may occur in the broader remediation corridor," the Aug. 27 letter reads.

"That makes the pilot study consequential: the methods tested now could shape how many sensitive wetlands are excavated, reconstructed, treated, or left with PCBs managed in place."

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