Lois Gibbs won the Goldman Prize in 1990 for her work to expose and clean-up ‘the love canal,’ a 21,000-ton toxic waste site buried beneath her neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. The discovery came after Gibbs launched a personal investigation into the unexplained health problems of her children and neighbors. Gibbs fought for years to get the site cleaned-up and went on to become the founding director of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice ( CHEJ ) , an organization that helps local communities combat toxic waste and environmental issues across the country. Today, Gibbs and the team at CHEJ are taking on one of the most controversial environmental issues facing the country today: hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Fracking is a natural gas extraction technique that involves injecting a highly pressurized mixture of sand, water and toxic chemicals deep into the earth through horizontally drilled wells. The pressurized mixture causes the shale rock to crack, cr