Lois Gibbs, best known for her crusade against chemical waste dumping in Love Canal, N.Y., spoke to an audience of nearly 200 people in the Union Auditorium about her actions in Love Canal, her views on recycling and the potential harms of dumping nuclear waste near the UNC campus. The event was sponsored by the Student Environmental Action Coalition.
Gibbs said while living in Love Canal she noticed her children becoming sick with asthma and epilepsy as well as experiencing liver and urinary tract problems and suppressed immune systems. These results were typical of many people in the area. So when officials discovered the local elementary school was built on 20,000 tons of chemical waste, Gibbs took action. "When I went to the school board to move (my son), they said they could not do it. No one in government was any help to me," Gibbs said. "(The New York Health Department) said we were a random cluster of genetically defective people."
She finally took her complaints to an attorney but said she found little help in the legal system. "(The attorney) told us, `In America, it is not illegal to poison people. In fact, they give you a permit to do it.'"
Gibbs said she learned the value of personal action through her experiences. "The way we need to change what is happening is through organizing," she said.
Gibbs talked about local environmental destruction, discussing the lack of recycling in eating establishments. "If you all went to the restaurants and said, `We are not going to eat here until you recycle,' I bet they would change."
Carolina Power & Light's dumping of nuclear waste in the area also became a heated topic of discussion. "Most people on this campus don't know that we are in the 50-mile radius of a nuclear waste dump. An accident there could have dramatic effects here," she said.
"If CP&L continues to dump their stuff here, we will become a dumping ground for nuclear and hazardous waste for all of the Southeast. They will destroy this absolutely beautiful area."
She said students are vital in making changes. "Young people, students of America, are one of the most important groups of people to get involved in social justice movements," Gibbs said.
And students are responding to that call to action. Sophomore Dana Moseley said she found Gibbs' lecture very moving. "She was (effective) at letting us know that we need to do something."
