I know a little something about environmental disasters, and how businesses and government sometimes respond to them.
The neighborhood that I lived in — Love Canal, in Niagara Falls — became synonymous with environmental disaster when chemical waste stored underground was released, leading to serious health problems.
Allowing a new industry to drill all over New York, injecting millions of gallons of undisclosed chemicals underground to release the natural gas locked in the shale, has the potential to create hundreds or thousands of Love Canals.
This is what's at stake as Gov. Andrew Cuomo considers whether to allow oil and gas corporations to bring hydrofracking into New York.
The oil and gas lobby likes to claim it will create thousands of new jobs here in New York, but most would be temporary and filled by people from out of state.
But the pollution that fracking leaves behind — the pollution in the air, the chemicals in the water — will remain for New Yorkers to deal with for an untold number of generations. I know firsthand what it's like to deal with a toxic legacy and disastrous choices from the past. I suffered from it, my family suffered from it, and my neighbors suffered from it.
If Gov. Cuomo allows fracking in New York, he will be creating such a toxic legacy, but across the entire state for present and future generations.
That's not a good deal for New York. And that's why thousands of New are telling the governor and the Legislature that instead of fracking our way to more energy, we should look to renewable energy instead.
Lois Gibbs is executive director of the Virginia-based Center for Health, Environment & Justice.