WGRZ reports, “It’s not often that people pack into the Water Board hearings in Niagara Falls, …but the dozens of people who packed into the hearing think (that the Board’s plan to treat ‘fracking fluid’ at the wastewater plant there) is a bad idea.”
The Council of Canadians joined that opposition yesterday by submitting a letter to the Niagara Falls Water Board calling on them to scrap the plan in order to protect the Great Lakes Basin for current and future generations. Niagara Falls is situated on the Niagara River and connects to both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
The letter states, “The Great Lakes, specifically, and water, in general, are part of the global commons (a shared entity) and are a public trust. Any harm to water is a harm to the whole including the Earth and humans. The Great Lakes hold nearly 20% of the world’s freshwater and 95% of North America’s freshwater. They provide drinking water to 40 million people in surrounding areas. Last year the UN passed two resolutions recognizing water as a human right and this proposal to treat fracking fluids threatens people’s human right to safe and clean drinking water.”
WGRZ adds, “The water board hired an outside consulting firm to study its ability to accept fracking fluid, should the process become legal. The president of the board described the results of that study as ‘promising’. …New York State is expected to make its decision on whether or not to lift the ban on horizontal, high-volume hydraulic fracturing within the next few months. …The president of the board assured the crowd that no fracking fluid is currently being treated and that their comments would be taken into consideration.”
Earlier, Buffalo News reported, “Members of the group called Food and Water Watch plan to picket outside the meeting being held at the Niagara Falls Water Treatment Plant.”
To read the Council of Canadians letter to the Niagara Falls Water Board, go to http://canadians.org/water/documents/fracking/letter-Niagara-Falls-Water-Board-0911.pdf.
For past campaign blogs on this, please see http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10669 and http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10514.
