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The Roethke Festival will present a symposium Sept. 19 and 20 focused on the hot-button issue of hydraulic fracturing, more commonly referred to as fracking.
Sandra Steingraber will present the festival’s keynote address.
“With broad public interest in the Marcellus Shale gas boom and its implications, and a new pipeline proposed for the Lehigh Valley and Hunterdon County, it is crucial to come together to examine the issue from all sides,“ says organizer Alix Ohlin, associate professor of English. “The community’s participation in this event could help shape the future of fracking in this region.”
The program begins 4 p.m. Friday in the Williams Visual Arts Building with a panel discussion featuring David Yoxtheimer, a geoscientist and shale gas development expert at Penn State; Abby Kinchy, a sociologist from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Lamar Herrin, author of the critically acclaimed novel Fractures; and Brian Cohen, a photographer for the Marcellus Shale Documentary Project. Following the panel at 7 p.m., Herrin will read from Fractures, and Cohen will show photographs and discuss his work with the project.
Saturday’s events include a community forum at 2 p.m. in 248 North Third Street, the newest addition to the Williams Arts Campus. The event is co-hosted by Easton’s Nurture Nature Center.
Author, biologist, and environmental activist Sandra Steingraber will present the keynote address at 5 p.m. in Oechsle Hall room 224. She is scholar in residence at Ithaca College, author of Living Downstream: A Scientist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment, co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York and New Yorkers Against Fracking, and science adviser to Americans Against Fracking.
The Roethke Festival is an interdisciplinary festival of the environment and the arts. The symposium is presented in partnership with the Nurture Nature Center and programs from every division at Lafayette and with generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.