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Crossroads Screens “Living Downstream”

The Door County Environmental Council in cooperation with Kewaunee Cares will present Living Downstream, a documentary based on Sandra Steingraber’s book of the same name, on Wednesday, March 12, at 7 pm at Crossroads At Big Creek, 2041 Michigan St., Sturgeon Bay.

Living Downstream reveals Steingraber’s personal story to protect her family’s health after her own battle with cancer. In an act of civil disobedience in 2013, which she called a “last resort” after having taken “every legal avenue” to raise serious health, economic, and environmental concerns, distinguished biologist, scholar, author and activist Steingraber was arrested and imprisoned just days after her appearance on Bill Moyers. On the Moyers show, she discussed the sense of responsibility, the scientific knowledge and the concerns she feels as a mother of two. Steingraber was instrumental in urging the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to delay the decision to issue licenses to frack.

On March 18, Steingraber and 11 others who became known as the Seneca Lake 12, blockaded access to the Inergy compressor station site and were arrested. She pled guilty to the charge on April 17 and Reading Town Judge Raymond Berry imposed a fine of $375. When Steingraber and several of her co-defendants declined to pay the fine, the judge sentenced them to spend 15 days in jail. Steingraber was handcuffed and taken off to jail.

Steingraber and others oppose the industrialization of the pristine Finger Lakes region, a magnet for tourism, known for its beauty, serenity, vineyards, lakes and farms. Missouri-based Inergy, LLP, has built a compressor station, (a gas storage and transportation project) located in the Town of Reading. The facility is on Seneca Lake, which supplies water to 100,000 people. The facility was completed before any of the necessary permits were approved.

Steingraber will appear in a live presentation on May 10 at Stone Harbor Conference Center in an all-day event sponsored by Kewaunee Cares and other groups including DCEC.