Love Canal Activist Lois Gibbs to Speak Here Tuesday By Sue Kropp
	In 1978 Gibbs discovered that her child attended a school built on top of a toxic-chemical dump. PHOTOGRAPH BY KATIE SCHNEIDER		DECEMBER 3, 1999--Lois Gibbs, executive director of the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (CHEJ), will speak Tuesday, December 7, at 7:30 P.M. in Carnegie Hall's Root Room. The lecture, "Toxics in Our Communities," is free and open to the public. Gibbs is a nationally renowned speaker and advocate for the grassroots environmental-justice movement. In spring 1978 Gibbs--then a 27-year-old housewife living in New York's Love Canal community--discovered that her child attended a school built on top of a toxic-chemical dump. Gibbs organized the Love Canal Homeowners Association and petitioned the federal government for relocation. In October 1980 Gibbs and her community won a significant victory when President Jimmy Carter signed the appropriation bill that provided funding to all families who wished to leave the Love Canal area. She was also instrumental in forcing the government to create the Superfund program, a federal program established in 1980 to clean up toxic-waste sites. In 1981 Gibbs founded the CHEJ, an organization that has helped over 8000 grassroots groups gather and distribute information on a national level. Gibbs now educates communities about hazardous waste pollution and lectures on issues society faces with chemical exposures. On Monday, the day before the lecture, Cleveland National Public Radio affiliate WCPN (90.3 F.M.) will run a local interview with Gibbs during Morning Edition. The live interview by reporter-producer Karen Schaefer will air around 8:30 A.M. The December 1-7 edition of the Cleveland Free Times mentions Gibbs's Oberlin appearance in the article "Lois Gibbs: Legendary Environmental Activist." The Ohio Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) is sponsoring Gibbs's campus visit, along with the Blackbrook Audubon Society, the Buckeye Environmental Network, the Concerned River Valley Families, the Earth Day Coalition, the Oberlin College Environmental Studies Program, Ohio Citizen Action, the Sierra Club, the Sierra Student Coalition, and the Student Environmental Action Coalition. OPIRG has more information about toxic chemicals in local communities at 440-775-8137 or OPIRG@oberlin.edu.
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