For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Politics and Democracy page, Organic Transitions page, and our New York News page.

People traveled by plane, car, bus, bicycle, and on foot from across the United States and the world to Washington, DC on Saturday, July 28 for the 2012 Stop the Frack Attack Rally. The rally demanded that Congress take immediate action to protect public health and water from the now EPA-documented harmful effects of hydro-fracturing for gas and oil. Sponsored by 136 local and national organizations, citizens already impacted by fracking in their communities united with those under imminent threat to create this declaration of protest. In the three days leading up to the rally, leaders were lobbying and educating elected officials while others led workshops on organizing against the escalating abuses of the fossil fuel industry. In addition to demanding an end to fracking, an emphasis was directed toward a green energy future.

Maria Pena of Long Eddy, New York said, “I’m here because I want to stop the environmental terrorism that fracking will cause.” Deanna Petula, a mother from Carlyle, Pennsylvania added, “I’m very upset about what’s happening. It’s awful. As a mother of three young children I’m concerned with their future. How will I explain this, what we let happen to our state 20 years from now, leasing state forests, water withdrawals from the Susquehanna River where we live downstream from it and depend on that water?”