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LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — North County citizens packed Lanesborough Town Hall on Thursday night for an informational meeting about the proposed Kinder Morgan gas pipeline.

Jane Winn of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team lead the meeting that focused on how the natural gas pipeline could affect residents. It was followed by a Q&A.

Originally, the Tennessee Gas Pipeline, which will carry natural gas from Marcellus Shale territory in Pennsylvania, through New York, Massachusetts, and Maine, was planned to run through Lenox and Richmond. However, after strong resistance a section of the pipeline was rerouted north, through Hancock, Lanesborough, Cheshire, Dalton, Hinsdale and

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A group of residents came to Monday's Board of Selectmen meeting to ask town officials to attend another meeting.

They had more on their minds, actually. They really want the board to endorse a resolution opposing a proposed gas pipeline that would run through Northern Berkshire County.

Although no part of the route would go through Williamstown itself, the threat it poses to the county is everyone's problem, activists say. And two of those activists were at Town Hall on Monday night to encourage the selectmen to attend one of five upcoming informational sessions about Kinder Morgan's Northeast Energy Direct project.

The first is Thursday, Jan.

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The calendar says November, but it felt a little bit like summer inside the Towne Field House at Williams College on Sunday.

More than 50 vendors filled the gym with fresh produce and other homemade and handmade items at the sixth annual Berkshire Grown Holidays Farmers Market. The market was in Great Barrington on Saturday and Williamstown on Sunday in advance of Thanksgiving; next month, it will again be in Great Barrington on Saturday, Dec. 13, and Williamstown on Sunday, Dec. 14.

The markets feature locally grown and produced foods and gifts, plus live music, lunch fare and activities for children, during months when most farmers markets are not open in the

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The U.S. Senate rejected passage of the Keystone Pipeline by one vote this week. The controversial energy plan will be back on the agenda, however, in January. For most of us, separating fact from fiction as both sides alter the facts is difficult at best, but here are some things we do know.

First, we can describe the project. The proposed Keystone XL project consists of an 875-mile stretch of pipeline and related facilities that will transport 830,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. It will then connect to existing pipeline facilities that flow through Nebraska, Oklahoma and ultimately down to the Texas Gulf Coast

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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — As next week's statewide election approaches, local environmentalists and others have mounted substantial efforts to lobby in favor of Ballot Question 2, which would expand on Massachusetts' existing bottle bill.

Proponents of the ballot initiative, which would expand current monetary incentives for recycling soda and beer bottles to non-carbonated beverages, lined Park Square on Thursday beneath a giant inflatable bottle to get their point across.

Advocates say expansion of the law is crucial to increasing recycling that will both reduce waste in the environment and help reduce deleterious greenhouse effects.

"It would be like taking 7,000 cars

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen on Monday approved a resolution promoting the return of inpatient services at the former North Adams Regional Hospital and expressed the town's support for a "Yes" vote on the bottle deposits initiative on the Nov. 4 election ballot.

A group representing activists who have been working to reopen the shuttered hospital since its closure in March attended Monday's meeting, as did a representative of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, who told the board that inpatient facilities in North Adams would be economically sustainable.

Individual members of the board expressed sympathy with the plight of residents who have been

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williams College has the green light to use sunlight to produce electricity on Simonds Road.

The Zoning Board of Appeals this month gave its blessing to a 500-kilowatt photovoltaic installation near its library shelving facility, located a mile and a half north of campus near the intersection of Simonds Road (Route 7) and Sand Springs Road.

Just one abutter raised questions about the proposal at the board's public hearing. The owner of the nearby Cozy Corner Motel told the panel he was concerned about the look of the large-scale installation.

"My concern is that the second-floor guests like a mountain view," Bhavin Shah told the ZBA. "Most

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ADAMS, Mass. — Berkshire Arts & Technology Public Charter School will sell Grenadian-produced chocolate to raise funds for special school events and to spread a message against child labor.

The organic "tree-to-bar" chocolate is produced by the Grenada Chocolate Co., a small company that fights against the child labor many of the other cocoa harvesters implement.

Edmond Brown, master chocolate maker and co-founder of the Grenada Chocolate Co., visited the school on Monday morning to show the students clips from a documentary made about the company called "Nothing Like Chocolate."

The company was founded in 1999 with the goal to "revolutionize" the

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