Maura Stephens

Some mentions and quotations of Maura in the media:

 

Stand Up for Truth.org’s Whistleblowers and Supporters list: https://standupfortruth.org/whistleblower-and-supporter-bios

Protecting Our Waters: Maura Stephens, an educator and journalist based at Ithaca College, has created a factual companion narrative (and commentary) providing background information on each of five major pipeline ruptures in January 2015. She also shows how this 3 minute montage may be used as an organizing tool. 

 

Transatlantic Fracking Round Table by Emily Masters in Peace News Issue 2570-2571, June 2014

Excerpt: Maura Stephens has lived and worked in urban, suburban and rural settings and experienced the difficulty of linking urban campaigns with rural ones.

‘What we found was food is the one thing that connects us,’ she said. ‘We started … “Food Not Fracking”. It’s the partnership between city people who love their green markets and country people who bring [food] to the green markets.’

… ‘Some of the most successful nonviolent actions have involved elders taking the lead,’ Stephens said. ‘Nobody likes to see grandma get hauled off to jail or beaten, or grandpa. We have a group here [in the US] called the Raging Grannies, and they are joyful. They sing… and they have great protest lyrics.’

 

“It’s Not Easy Being Green” by Jason Mark in The American Prospect, April 2, 2013

Republished by AlterNet, May 15, 2013, as “It’s Not Easy Being Green: Are Some of the Biggest Enviro Groups Sell-Outs?”

 

Excerpt: “I call them gang-green,” says Maura Stephens, an activist based in Ithaca, New York, who spearheads several anti-fracking groups, including Frack Busters [sic] and the Coalition to Protect New York. “There are a lot of so-called environmental groups that were started with noble ideals—for example the ideals of John Muir—but who no longer live up to their mission. … They do good work on some level, but on this [fracking] they are selling us out.”

"Revealed: NY Governor Plans to Experiment with Fracking in Economically Struggling Areas" in Alternet, June 2012

Excerpts: Maura Stephens, a Southern Tier resident and co-founder of Coalition to Protect New York, an anti-fracking alliance, said that family farmers in the rural area have been struggling financially as more and more government spending has gone to support large-scale industrial agriculture. Also, many residents in the Southern Tier, she said, go without high-speed Internet and therefore get much of their information from mainstream media and the rampant pro-fracking commercials that air in the area.

“Many have fallen under the spell of the industry, which spends upward of $140 million a year on advertising and lobbying to convince people and legislators that fracking is clean, green, domestic and job-producing,” she said.

…

Stephens said that although it’s being stated that the majority of residents in the Southern Tier support fracking, she finds that when going door-to-door to speak with residents, more people are opposed to fracking. She said those in positions of power tend to speak for the residents. 
 

“People are waking up,” she said. “But their local town boards have been co-opted by the industry … .”

…

Stephens said this fight against oil and gas corporations is going to be a difficult one. “It’s hard to fight them because they don’t give a damn if our kids are getting sick and dying. But I believe that we shall prevail,” .