We must avert another environmental disaster in Falls

From the Buffalo News:

Niagara Falls isn’t just a place where newlyweds go to snap pictures.

It’s an international treasure that feeds into Lake Ontario and provides drinking water to Toronto and beyond. And now, its future is in the hands of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, both of which are pushing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state, as well as the Niagara Falls Water Board, which will soon decide whether or not to accept toxic fracking waste trucked in from around the state. Get ready Niagara — you’re about to get fracked.

Many Americans are familiar with the disaster at Love Canal and the ensuing demand for stronger environmental regulation after a corporation buried massive amounts of toxic chemicals around Niagara Falls — chemicals that saddled thousands of residents with chronic health problems ranging from birth defects to cancer. Now the oil and gas industry wants to send its toxic waste to the city’s wastewater treatment plant, which discharges into the Niagara River, into Niagara Falls and eventually into Lake Ontario.

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