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How One Gandhi Staff Spent MLK Day: Fracking & Seneca Lake

The following is an open letter sent to the following New York State and United States representatives on Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 19, 2015.

Dear Chairman Fagan, County Executive Brooks, Senator Gillibrand, Senator Schumer, Governor Cuomo, and President Obama,

My name is David Sanchez. I grew up in Liverpool, NY, half a mile from Onondaga Lake, one of the most polluted lakes in the country. As a child, I remember being told stories about the lake that was, once full of beaches and merry go rounds. On days with high winds, these stories sounded especially fantastical as dead fish and stomach turning smells surfaced from the water. I’m writing this letter in hopes that you and I can be part of preventing the creation of another story of a lake “that was.”

New York State (NYS) has made history by banning hydraulic-fracturing to avoid the environmental degradation that states like Texas, Colorado, North Dakota and Pennsylvania have only begun to see. As we learn more about the waste being shipped from Pennsylvania to be processed in NYS and Crestwood Midstream’s potentially explosive plans to store methane and liquified petroleum gas (LPG) in the salt caverns along Seneca Lake, it’s clear that the residents and elected officials of our state need to move further to take a stand to guarantee our land is livable for all who call it home for generations to come.

Today on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I’m joining the group of over 180 New Yorkers and thousands internationally who are putting their careers, bodies and consciouses on the line to say no to energy practices that put ours and future lives in danger. As I commit civil disobedience today as a Seneca Lake Defender, I’ll remember King’s words saying “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him [sic] is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”  Do know that on the other side of this decisive ‘no’ lives a passionate commitment to be apart of shifts of the consumption of the finite resources on our only planet. Climate change, the increase in population, and urbanization offers New York and the United States the opportunity to set a global precedent in shifting to sustainable resources. We need to act now.

I’m asking your direct support on the following issues: Create a ban on storage of methane and LPG gas in unsafe facilities and on shipment of fracking waste to NYS waste plants. Investigate the barring of the public from Reading Town Court hearings. Review and extend the appeal of the September 30, 2014 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruling allowing Crestwood to store methane and LPG at Seneca Lake. Support policies to shift to sustainable energy and transport systems for NYS. Accelerate local, state and national policies to support the growth of local food and economic systems that make adjusting to climate change viable.

Support New Yorkers by supporting the dedicated people standing by the now pristine Seneca Lake that is.

Looking towards the future,

David Sanchez

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