The Burden of Skin Color & Bias

I've often thought about the lottery of life and how it affects billions of people, in the past, now and in the future. Poverty, economic status, war, peace, starvation, health, illness, life and death. Trying to figure it out is pretty useless, but understanding that it is out there is a critical part of knowing how and why people sometimes act the way they do, or in knowing how to respond as well.

I wish I could say it were different, but the fact is, most white people just don't get the issues revolving around Ferguson, Missouri. Mainly because we just don't understand or experience the kind of injustice that black communities live with every day. The killing and imprisonment of young black men is a statistical fact. Eventually information and statistics like this have a devastating effect on people of color. As justice is pursued when these things occur, black communities see responses from a system that have to make them believe everything is rigged.

If anything, Ferguson should help some of us try to unravel the problems of the burden of skin color and bias in America. To be sure, I'm writing this as a white man who came up through experiences in the civil rights movement of the 60's and the Vietnam era anti-war movement.

Sadly, Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown have similarities to that time period. The similarities are in the burden and the bias. But there are many differences. Fifty years later, some people were niave enough to think that change had been accomplished. Some things have changed, but the reality of being young and black remains. The reality of being black in and of itself remains.

The language that we've heard in the past week is the language of bias and it helps in understanding how deep it is settled within the white culture of America. We've heard words like "it", "bulking up", "Hulk Hogan", "demon" when referencing Michael Brown. The images of wild, young, black men menacing the white culture as we know it, are there. There are other words and images of black men & women, code words if you will. They conjure up fears or conquests and power struggles. They are bad and yet many in the white community see nothing wrong with them.

You can hear it in conversations whites are having among themselves. "What are they doing burning up their own neighborhoods, their own businesses?" "Riots never solve anything." And so it goes. No understanding of hopelessness or of the odds that are pitted against someone growing up black in America. No understanding of mistreatment by traditional authority figures or bosses or banks or people in the street. Seemingly no real understanding that the criminal justice system is totally biased relative to blacks in particular but also bad for all of us.

What's happening is much bigger than Ferguson though. What's happening is about economics and low wage workers.Young people and older people believe the system is rigged and unfair. More and more people believe justice is hard to come by. This is about the environment, criminal justice, exploitation, fear and a world that seems more and more broken. We are watching a revolution with young leaders who are rightfully angry and frustrated.

Everyday there are new examples of over zealous policing and bad policy relative to economics and fairness. Watch the video of Tamir Rice, the 12 tear old Cleveland youth, shot by police in a few seconds for wielding a toy weapon. And remember Trayvon Martin. I have faith in new leaders who are trying to let people know how serious these issues are for all of us. We need to listen and act. Help eliminate the burden of skin color and bias in any way you can.

The Crappy Mom Manisesto

Again, I've decided to reprint below, Sandra Steingraber's latest Letter from the Chemung County Jail, where she's serving a 15 day sentence for blocking the driveway at the Crestwood facility in the Town of Reading north of Watkins Glen, protesting the storage of methane and LP gas in salt caverns around Seneca Lake. The letter was recently published in EcoWatch and has been made available through social media. I think Sandra's writing is helpful relative to environmental issues as well as issues related to families, human relationships and the struggles we all go through. - The Gadfly

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The Crappy Mom Manifesto

11/24/14

Last month extreme fossil fuel extraction and I were both recipients of an accusatory outburst by my 13-year-old.

“I hate fracking!” he said, half yelling, half sobbing. “Fracking turns you into a crappy mom!”

And he is right. Because of my ongoing efforts to halt both fracking and fracking’s metastasizing infrastructure from invading New York State, I have not chaperoned a school trip in three years. I missed Elijah’s opening-night star turn in Romeo and Juliet. I did not attend the high school girls’ cross country state championship, in which his sister competed. In fact, I missed all the races of the whole season, and, as such, am the only parent of a varsity runner who can make that claim. I know that because my 16-year-old periodically reminds me of my exceptionalism on this front.

Filling the jails with mothers as a kind of collective SOS signal is only one tool among many in building a climate change movement.

I seldom help with homework. I sometimes pull all-nighters in order to finish up fracking-related writing projects and am barely functional while scrambling eggs for breakfast. This is also my excuse for why I signed a permission slip for my son to travel to a concert performance as a member of the school chorus, not noticing that the date conflicted with the opening night of the play—the one I wasn’t going to be attending due to a fracking-related lecture—and so brought the wrath and annoyance of the middle school music teacher down upon our heads.

And when my daughter called to say that she needed to stay after school to make up a chemistry test and could I please arrange a ride for her, I was at that exact moment staring at a line of blue and red flashing lights screaming toward me and a group of fellow civil disobedients standing on a blockade line.

“Honey, I’ll do the best I can, but we’ve got arrests going on here.”

It’s hard to dial a cell phone when your hands are cuffed behind your back.

It’s even harder when you’re in jail without a cell phone. Which is where I am now. I’m inmate number 20140190 of cell block 5C in the Chemung County Jail. Happily, I’ll be out in time for Thanksgiving—although through no good planning on my part. As near as I can see, jails are short staffed and don’t like doing releases on holidays. But I don’t know for sure. Explanations are short to come by here. I do know that, because no higher-rung members of the jail administration work on weekends, I won’t be released from keep-lock until Monday even though my TB test was verified as negative on Saturday. Ergo, except for daily showers, I am confined to my cell. I haven’t talked to my kids in two days.

Let’s go back to that half-hearted and basically crappy promise, “I’ll do the best I can,” as delivered to my daughter by her mother, who was overseeing an unlawful action (trespassing) at the time. I’ll do the best I can (along with the equally crappy, I’ll try) basically functions as a pre-excuse for failure to see something through. It was Winston Churchill who said—and I’ll have to paraphrase here as I don’t have access to Google—Don’t do your best. Do what’s required.

It would be easy to say that results-oriented Churchillian determination is the approach I take, as a biologist, when confronting fossil fuel extremism (and its greatest enabler, fracking), while good-intentioned half-measures are what I dole out, as a mother, at home. But that’s not exactly right. Instead, it’s precisely because I have access to the peer-reviewed literature, as a biologist, that I have come to understand climate change as a mass murderer that has my children in its sights. (And fracking is its toxic, thuggish, water-destroying accomplice). I’m informed by the data; I’m animated by a mother’s love.

And here in cell 3, I’m doing what’s required so that my kids have a future. Above all else, my job as their mother is to provide them that.

I am not the only mother whose priorities are thus aligned. I was arrested, side by side, with two other mothers, Mariah Plumlee and Stephanie Redmond, who have three young children apiece. At her own sentencing, Plumlee said, “I’m really sad and angry to be here. I don’t like to break the rules; I usually try to follow them. But I also have principles and children,” said Redmond. “I have children, and the laws of motherhood supersede the laws bought and paid for by large corporations.”

I fully believe that Mariah, Stephanie and I are on the leading edge of an emergent social movement that will only grow in numbers and intensity as the dire urgency of the climate change emergency (and fracking, its obscene, clanging bell) becomes evermore apparent. In the meantime, we mothers who are already fighting on the frontlines—with our whole hearts, all of our spare cash and as much time away from our kids, spouses and jobs as we dare offer—inhabit two parallel worlds. When we rush back from the rally, the press conference, the public hearing, the arraignment, in order to attend the soccer game, the Halloween party, the holiday concert, the parent-teacher conference, we listen to other moms talk about bake sales, home improvement projects, vacation plans and college admission criteria. (Oh, and maybe the crazy weather we’ve been having that threatens to close the roads and cancel the game). Some of us are on wartime footing. Some of us don’t yet know there is a war going on.

There are a number of reinforcing reasons for what I call climate helplessness—we’re mostly beyond climate denial at this point—and they begin with the capitulation, corroboration and appeasement of both the mainstream environmental community and the federal government toward the oil and gas industry. Less Winston Churchill, more Neville Chamberlain. None of the Obama Administration’s proposals—including the Clean Power Plan—hold any hope of mounting a challenge serious enough to solve the problem in the unextendable time frame that remains to us. Meanwhile, those in the scientific community who are valiantly bringing forth data and attempting to describe our emergency situation to the public use terms like “planetary tipping points” and “existential threats.” They could say “loss of pollination systems resulting in widespread hunger, a phenomenon that is already underway” and “threats to the existence of your children and grandchildren,” which might focus the picture more clearly.

Filling the jails with mothers as a kind of collective SOS signal is only one tool among many in building a climate change movement as powerful as women’s suffrage (Susan B. Anthony was arrested for the act of voting in a presidential election on November 18, 1872) or the Civil Rights Movement (Martin Luther King, Jr. had many small children at home during his several sojourns in county jails). But jail time has several important, value-added relevancies. One is that the enforced extended separation from the natural world serves as a potent reminder of everything we depend upon the world to do for us. Five days without clouds, sky, stars, leaves, birdsong, wind, sunlight and fresh food has left me homesick to the point of grief. I now inhabit an ugly, diminished place devoid of life and beauty—and this is exactly the kind of harsh, ravaged world I do not want my children to inhabit.

And the other is that jail teaches you how to stand up and fight inside of desperate circumstances. This morning we said goodbye to Casey (not her real name) who was headed to court to face charges related to drug addiction. Which itself is related to a childhood filled with sexual abuse—the memories of which were retriggered when her own seven-year-old daughter was raped. We all urged, as we wished her well: Keep fighting. You can’t give up on life.

Inside cell 3, I have a dream: an environmental movement full of crappy moms who do what’s required and refuse to give up on life.

Having It Both Ways Is Tough

Recently there's been a lot of discussion about outsiders/protesters getting involved in issues that have an impact on the area near where I live. It's an interesting discussion for a couple of reasons. Seneca Lake, the Finger Lakes Region and Watkins Glen are in fact tourist areas that sell themselves to tourists (outsiders). The sell is obviously for business purposes. Tourists and tourism bring dollars to the area. Many businesses depend on these transactions and the tax revenue also impacts services and reduces pressure on property taxes. But there's another side to the business transaction. Tourists, visitors, customers sometimes come with different perspectives, different values and perhaps new and different ideas. It's really no different then other economic development transactions. Outside companies come to an area with their ideas of quality of life, development, etc. Sometimes welcome, sometimes not.

Ideas from visitors, neighbors or developers can be similar to ones generally held in a community but sometimes they clash. It can be good for everyone, or it can be horrible, but it is a natural process of growth. What attracts tourists to a place - the beauty, the quiet, the ambience, are sometimes lost as more people discover a particular community or region. But every new person brings the potential of new ideas and that's not bad. These people create diversity of thought, talent, cultures and experiences along with their sought after dollars. In the end some of them stay because they're seeking something the area has to offer. As in many communities they will be known as outsiders by natives for 30+ years. Who decides who an outsider is or where the boundaries lie can also be a puzzle. Is someone from Watkins Glen an outsider in the town of Reading or somewhere else on the shores of a lake that has 70 miles of shore line? Is it based on mileage or years spent in a region?

In my view you just can't have it both ways. You can't promote your area as the mecca where everyone should come to spend their dollars and then be upset because these 'outsiders' have different views, looks, values and ideas.

I believe the use of the term outsiders is in itself divisive. Telling people they're not part of your community is the last thing a tourist community should want to do. Somehow there has to be a line of communication built on tolerance and respect that helps people find and build on common beliefs rather then differences.

The current discussion has also identified the old concept of the silent majority vs a vocal minority. Personally I don't think it really leads anywhere. The reality is that discussion also creates some false barriers. It seems what people always want is for their side to become more vocal and it all becomes a circular argument.

The discussion about Methane and LPGas being stored in salt caverns around Seneca Lake should really be more fact based rather then an emotional one about where someone lives. It's a valid discussion for anyone living in or near the area, anyone depending on the lake for water or recreational uses, or for people truly worried about environmental issues. Some people feel they've had that fact based discussion with all of the public officials they can and it has fallen on deaf ears. They are resorting to a form of protest that many dislike but one that has a long history in our country and throughout the world. Non-violent, civil disobedience has always had a role in our society and probably always will. You can dislike it, disagree with it or bemoan it but it has accomplished many things in the past. That's the other thing about not being able to have it both ways - you break the law and you pay the consequences and it doesn't matter if you're an outsider or an insider. People start thinking and discussing and that's the point.

Why I Am In Jail - Sandra Steingraber

The following letter was written on Friday, Nov. 21, 2014 by Sandra Steingraber. It was published today by EcoWatch. Steingraber certainly understands the principles of non-violence and civil disobedience. But she understands a lot more and it comes through in her writing. I've decided to just publish her letter with no other commentary - The Gadfly

Breakfast in the Chemung County Jail is served at 5 a.m. This morning—Friday, November 21, 2014—it was Cheerios and milk plus two slaps of universally-despised “breakfast cake.” Along with trays of food—which are passed through the bars—arrive the morning rounds of meds for the inmates who take them. Now comes my favorite time of day in jail—the two quiet hours between breakfast and 7 a.m. before the television clicks on and we are ordered to make our beds and the loud day begins. Between the end of breakfast and 7 a.m., most women go back to sleep. Now I can hear only the sounds of their breathing—different rhythms all—and, on the far side of the steel door—the occasional voices of the C.O.s (correction officers, a.k.a. the guards) and the walkie-talkie orders they themselves are receiving.

Sandra Steingraber wrote this letter for EcoWatch from the Chemung County Jail this morning to share with our readers and beyond.

Meanwhile, my bed is already made and I have repurposed my small laundry basket—by flipping it upside down—into a table on which I am writing. And because I am a writer who is writing, I am happy.

I am also happy because I know that, by writing, I am fulfilling a promise to Ashley (not her real name) who brought me last night a sharpened pencil and a stack of inmate medical request forms to use as writing paper. After hearing my story—narrated through the bars of my cell as I am being kept in “keeplock” until the results of my TB screening come back—Ashley said, “I know about you Seneca Lake protesters. I read about that. But only once. You have to keep fighting. You have to write to the newspaper. You can do that from here, you know. You can’t just sit in your cell for 14 days and do nothing. You have to fight.” And then she ran off and found me paper.

Sitting on a stool outside my cell—which is welded to the far row of bars—Ashley freely dispensed advice last night for the We Are Seneca Lake movement. “Don’t give up. Keep writing the newspapers. They are always looking for stories.” She added, “I may be only 21, but I’m wise about some things.”

Here’s Ashley’s story: She was arrested two years ago—at age 19—for stealing a pumpkin. She is jailed now for violating probation. She has three kids—ages 6, 4 and 2—who are staying with her foster mother in Allegany County until she serves her time. She’ll be out the day after Christmas. Meanwhile, she’s studying for her GED and laying plans to go to college.

Half the women in my cell block are here for probation violation. One thing they all agree on: It’s almost impossible to be a single mother in search of housing and a job, both of which require mobility, and comply with probation rules, which restrict mobility. Better to do the time and then make a fresh start.

I get that. And it’s a logic that runs parallel to my own. I have come to believe that a successful civil disobedience campaign likewise depends on the willingness of at least some of us to gladly accept jail time over other kinds of sentences, such as paying fines.

There are four reasons for this. First, it shows respect for the law. In my case, I was arrested for trespassing on the driveway of a Texas-based energy company that has the sole intention of turning the crumbling salt mines underneath the hillside into massive gas tanks for the highly-pressurized products of fracking: methane, propane and butane. (The part of the plan involving methane storage has already been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission). Even before the infrastructure for this gas storage is built, Crestwood Midstream has polluted the lake with salt, at levels that exceed its legal limits. Crestwood’s response is to pay a fine and keep polluting. By contrast, I refuse to pay a fine to excuse my crime and so accepted the lawful consequences of my actions.

Second, extending one’s civil disobedience testimony in jail shows seriousness of intent. Four of the 17 civil disobedients who have so far been arraigned as part of the We Are Seneca Lake campaign have chosen jail instead of fines: 75-year-old Dwain Wilder, a veteran of the Navy who was incarcerated for Veteran’s Day; 86-year-old Roland Micklem, a Quaker, who is now incarcerated in the Schuyler County Jail [Roland Micklem was released yesterday due to health concern]; 58-year-old Colleen Boland, a retired Air Force sergeant who served in the White House; and me (I’m a 55-year-old biologist and author).

Colleen occupies the cell next to mine. We talk through the wall. Colleen, Roland and I are on track to find out what they serve prisoners for Thanksgiving dinner.

By our willing separation from our families, by our sacrifice and consent to suffer, by our very absence, we are saying that we object in the strongest terms to the transformation of our beloved Finger Lakes community into a hub for fracking. We object to the occupation of our lakeshore by a Houston-based corporation that seeks to further build out fossil-fuel infrastructure in a time of climate emergency, and in so doing, imperils a source of drinking water for 100,000 people.

Third, by filling the jails with mothers, elders and veterans, we peacefully provoke a crisis that cannot be ignored by media or political leaders. Of course, civil disobedience is always a method of last recourse, deployed when all other methods of addressing a grievance have been exhausted. We have turned over all stones. We have submitted comments, written letters, offered testimony, filed Freedom of Information requests for secret documents—only to see our legitimate concerns brushed aside. Our incarceration shows that the regulatory system is broken. So far, in the Seneca Lake campaign, there have been 59 arrests, and a majority of those have yet to be sentenced. There will be more of us in jail before the year is out.

And the fourth reason is this: spending time in jail is a time of personal transformation. Alone with a pencil, some inmate request forms for stationery, the Bible and your own thoughts, you discover that you are braver than you knew. You are doing time, and time offers the possibility of rededicating oneself to the necessary work ahead: dismantling the fossil fuel industry in the last 20 years left to us, before the climate crisis spins into unfixable, unending calamity.

Last night I learned how to create a tool for changing the channel on the television, which blares from the other side of two rows of bars. It involves twisting newspaper around a row of pencils and stiffening it with toothpaste.

Thus do the women of the Chemung County Jail—all mothers—exert agency over the circumstances of their lives and defy the status quo. That’s a skill set we all need. As Ashley scolded me last night, while passing a sharpened pencil through the bars, “You can’t just sit there for the next 14 days. Start fighting.”

Arrests At Crestwood Continue

Arrests are continuing at the Crestwood facility in the Town of Reading, where federal approval has been given for the Texas based company to construct the infrastructure to store LP Gas in abandoned salt caverns around and under Seneca Lake. I've written about that plan previously. This week arrests began on Monday morning Nov. 17th. Ten people were arrested for blocking the entrance to Crestwood off of Rt 14. Then again this morning, eight others blockaded two gates at about 7am and were arrested by 7:30. They join others who have been arrested over the past few weeks.

These are brave citizens in my opinion. They have worked tirelessly to educate themselves and others about the issue of Gas Storage in Reading. They have taken steps to communicate and request action with and from government officials. They've studied civil disobedience and understand its consequences and value. They are a mix of young and old.

Most recently they are being attacked for being outsiders and for putting the citizens of Schuyler County at risk and in danger by tying up police agencies and resources with their activities. These attacks are pretty typical arguments by people in power who try to discredit demonstrators. They are the same criticisms made in every case of public assembly to protest the status quo. When these attacks occur, they are usually prefaced or followed by statements supporting the first amendment and peoples' right to protest but........The but is always there - but others are being put in danger - but there are better ways to make your point - but what if everyone did this - but the law has to be upheld. There are many more buts and we'll most likely hear them while people explain their support of the first amendment, but.

Now to be clear, these Lake Defenders are doing more then expressing their first amendment rights. They are challenging the law. They are blocking access to private property. They are also prepared to take the consequences.

What about the fact that they're outsiders? Well, some are and some aren't but so what. Crestwood is an outsider. Tourists are outsiders. Companies being sought for economic development tend to be outsiders. None of this really matters in the world we live in today. We're all connected - sometimes in ways that are good and sometimes in very bad ways. But let's accept the fact that these are people who are concerned about water that impacts 100,000 plus people.

These folks are a danger to public safety? The argument goes something like this. Schuyler is a small, rural county. Its police agency is limited and when they are tied up with protests and arresting people, everyone else is at risk because they (the police) could not respond appropriately to an emergency. Police agencies have the responsibility to protect all citizens, including those protesting and expressing their displeasure with government. They have the responsibility to enforce the law. It seems pretty ludicrous though to say this fairly small group of protesters are endangering public safety when what they are protesting is the storage of volatile gas under an important source of clean and critical water. It's also ludicrous to believe these activities somehow are equal to the stress placed on police agencies when 90,000+ people attend the NASCAR event in Watkins Glen. There are also many festivals, events and just increased traffic related to tourism that places stress and/or danger on public safety. The reality though is that how those situations are dealt with are through proper management and cooperation with other police agencies.

These folks are breaking the law and they know it. At this point it's one of the only avenues that they have left to get the attention of government, the media and the public. They are willing to pay the consequences for their actions. You can read about them at their website We Are Seneca Lake. You may even be able to catch a live feed of their actions.

Clocks, Time & Time Changes

Normal Time has arrived and with it some struggles, thoughts and rest. Normal time is when we fall back an hour from Daylight Savings Time. I don't understand any of it. I'm supposed to feel better but I'm always lazy and tired when the change is made. No difference this year. Its been a few weeks but my body clock is out of step, messed up and confused like many of you I would guess. Supposedly I got an extra hour of sleep but then again, I stayed up later. Help!

All of this brings me to clocks and specifically, the clocks in my house. I grew up in a clock family. My father was infatuated with clocks. He collected them and had them ticking throughout his house. I'm not sure if this was a shared love between him and my mother or if she just put up with it. Perhaps he just put up with it but after her death became more attached to the things she loved. Whatever the case, they had every kind of clock and they have been distributed among his sons and daughters. There were mantel clocks, cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks, 7 day, 30 day and school house clocks. They would tick, tick, tock, tock all over the place. A few would chime on the hour and others on the half or quarter hour. It was always a surprise, depending on where you were in the house, what you would hear and when you would hear it. Some of them would chime together, others would go off on their own schedule within a minute or two of the first. I believe his goal was to one day get them all coordinated but he never did.

I remember visiting him one day in his later years. He had one of the clocks in a hundred or more pieces laid out on the kitchen table. A lamp was set up with the cord stretching dangerously across a walk space. He had gotten himself a set of small pliers and screw drivers and was working away on this latest project. He got things working to his satisfaction (chimes within five minutes of the other clocks). He also spent lots of time (no pun intended) cleaning, dusting and polishing his collection. To be honest, I enjoyed watching him and the homeyness I felt when all of those clocks started their chant.

All of that brings me to my clocks. Oh, of course I have the digital clocks that keep us all on schedule - the mobile phone, the appliance clocks and so forth. All of these are set on nuclear time or something of that sort. In my front room I have a Seth Thomas mantel clock. A modern, battery operated quarter hour chimer. I changed batteries about a month ago and something strange happened. The pendulum works but the hands don't move. It has been stuck on 5 after 8. In the hallway, I have a nice mission oak wall clock. It's supposed to chime on the hour and 1/2 hour. No luck, it sits stuck on either noon or midnight. In my living room I have one of the clocks my father left me, a nice school room wall clock. I've had it repaired at least three times and right now the hands are stuck on 8:55.

So please, if you ever come to visit, wear a watch or bring your cell phone. Time here is pretty relative - 5 after 8, noon or midnight, or 8:55.

Update - the battery clock hands have started moving again but it's losing an hour for every 12. Chimes are nice but have nothing to do with the actual time.

Civil Disobedience at Seneca Lake

I've been thinking a lot lately about the arrests that are taking place at the Crestwood facility in Reading, NY, just north of Watkins Glen on Seneca Lake. A total of 25 people have been arrested over the past few weeks while blocking the entrance to Crestwood on Rt 14.

The ongoing protests are about Crestwood's plan to use salt caverns under Seneca Lake to store LP and Methane Gas. There are lots of articles about the issue that can be found by doing a fairly simple search.

Being a Lake Keeper or Defender of the Lake is serious business and these folks are proving it. I have considered myself a Lake Keeper for quite awhile. My feelings and commitment go back a long time. I first became aware of Seneca Lake when I was 5 years old. My father and a business associate brought my brother and I to Seneca on fishing trips in those early years. They were the years that I became aware of the water and its importance. Later I spent summers on the waters around Nantucket Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. I also lived at the Jersey Shore in those early years. All of these experiences brought me close to the water - fishing, swimming, boating. I learned respect for the water as well as a real love for it.

I moved to this area in the late '70's and reunited with Seneca Lake. I had a small sailboat at the Last Ditch Marina in Watkins Glen and later, a powerboat at the newly built Village Marina. I've lived in a number of houses and owned property on the shores of Seneca. My love affair and relationship with Seneca has been long and solid.

Like many others I have evolved as a Lake Keeper. There were times in my life when I didn't respect this or other great waterways as a natural resource. I have seen and been a part of the fishing lines discarded, the beer bottles and cans finding their way into the lake, a small overflow of gas as a motor was being filled. I've watched and seen the plastic bags being thrown into the water along with trash like wood, metal and concrete. The agricultural runoff of fertilizer and chemicals has been reduced but does continue. All of these things have helped me evolve and see how serious the problem really is for Seneca Lake and many other bodies of water.

I say this because I want to make it clear that the issues we have relative to protecting our water is much more complicated then just an outside corporation storing gas in salt caverns. Just yesterday I watched a farmer not very far above the lake spread cow manure on his fields. Multiplied by hundreds, it will have an eventual impact. A recent report by Seneca Lake Pure Waters indicates that testing streams feeding into Seneca Lake shows she is being choked by phosphorous - Seneca Lake Choking. We are all part of the problem and therefore have to be part of the solution. Here's the reality though. We can hold individuals much more accountable than we can a corporation, especially one driven by fuel and fuel storage profits. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try - we certainly should. I also think we have to be careful about holding up the wine industry and tourism as being so totally environmentally friendly and pitted against a corporation like Crestwood. If we're really honest about it, wineries, breweries and tourism bring their own baggage to the environment including the aforementioned agricultural runoff, traffic and social consequences. Many small rural roads were never meant to handle the bus and limo traffic that is part of the tourism reality. Bringing thousands of people to an area has its pros and cons. Community planning, community conversations and people caring about their environment is important in all aspects of what is easily touted as economic development - always.

These Defenders of the Lake have certainly made us think. Their arrests are significant and important even if law enforcement and the opposition want to make us think it is all pretty minimal and, if anything, creating safety issues in the community.

You see, civil disobedience is very serious business. It's something people need to think about very clearly. It has consequences, some unknown. I happen to believe in civil disobedience as a strategy and at times as a moral imperative. I have been arrested numerous times protesting or fighting for social justice issues.  It should never be taken lightly. There are times when justice screams out at you about laws that need to be broken. This may in fact be one of them. I'm not completely sure yet, but I have a feeling.

I went back recently and re-read Henry David Thoreau's piece on Civil Disobedience. It was written in 1849. Many people may have skimmed over it in high school or college as part of their reading and study of Thoreau's work Walden. Thoreau makes the case but doesn't do it lightly. He recognizes the consequences for both the individual and for society.

I sense more people will commit to civil disobedience and be arrested before it's over. Hopefully these acts will not be taken lightly and many more people will begin talking about and thinking about the importance of our natural resources.