3 days of action for Beat the Boreholes in Rossport

Shell drilling stopped for an hour and a half

6.08.2010
Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Campers go out before 7am and suc­cess­ful­ly pre­vent work­ers from access­ing the drilling plat­forms.

9 Campers wadded and kayaked out to the plat­forms this morn­ing and halt­ed work for 1 and half hours. IRMS work­ers even­tu­al­ly secured the area by push­ing peo­ple away and drag­ging their kayaks down the estu­ary. Kayaks were deflat­ed by secu­ri­ty and some peo­ple were dan­ger­ous­ly forced to swim in high cur­rents. There were no arrests.

We real­ly need more peo­ple to come and take part in actions over the next two months. Please get in touch if you think you would be able to come down and help stop Shell.

http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org

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Shell drilling stopped for 5 hours – as Beat the Bore­holes con­tin­ues

05.08.2010
Yes­ter­day morn­ing 11 peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp wad­ed and kayaked out from the camp to again delay Shell’s sur­vey work in Sruwad­da­con Estu­ary. Over­all drilling work was stopped for over 5 hours, with one per­son climb­ing up one of the legs of the drilling plat­forms. Sev­er­al peo­ple also attached them­selves to the 2 out­er drilling poles which are under the plat­forms.

The campers went out before 7am to pre­vent work­ers get­ting access to the plat­form and held the plat­form for about 4 hours before being removed by IRMS secu­ri­ty. Despite only 11 pro­test­ers being present, it took 50 IRMS to come before they could secure the area. After about 5 hours the drilling work­ers got on board and start­ed prepar­ing the drilling oper­a­tion. Even­tu­al­ly they start­ed drilling at around 1pm, despite the climber still being perched at the side of the plat­form. They drilled for approx­i­mate­ly an hour before the climber came down and swam back to shore.

The drilling plat­forms are cur­rent­ly in a vital part of the SAC; close to bird feed­ing and nest­ing sites. At this time the estu­ary is also used as a migra­tion route for Atlantic Salmon which are an Annex 1 species (the most pro­tect­ed EU cat­e­go­ry). They are very vul­ner­a­ble to suf­fo­ca­tion by sus­pend­ed solids in the water clog­ging their gills and today we saw evi­dence of sed­i­ment spew­ing into the estu­ary from the bore­holes. Move­ment of the plat­forms will also release sus­pend­ed solids; endan­ger­ing the sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed salmon. This direct­ly con­tra­venes the pur­pose of the SAC which Min­is­ter Gorm­ley seems to con­ve­nient­ly for­get when it comes to facil­i­tat­ing big busi­ness here in Mayo but likes to remind us at oth­er times such as on 2nd August in rela­tion to restrict­ing leisure activ­i­ties to pro­tect SAC’s, the Min­is­ter said;
“Along with oth­er EU States, Ire­land has des­ig­nat­ed cer­tain areas for nature pro­tec­tion and, in those areas, that must be our pri­or­i­ty. Many peo­ple, indeed, find recre­ation in the enjoy­ment of undis­turbed nature,” he con­clud­ed .
Indeed Gorm­ley, that is what the peo­ple of Erris have been say­ing for 10 years; its time to pro­tect this SAC from Shell!

John Gorm­ley’s recent press release:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Heritage/NationalParksandWildl…n.htm

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
http://www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org, www.shelltosea.com

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Shell dis­rupt­ed — Beat the Bore­holes con­tin­ues

9.8.2010
Yes­ter­day at about 2.30pm Shell began to low­er “Jack — 1” — one of two sur­vey barges cur­rent­ly in Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary SAC (Spe­cial Area of Pro­tec­tion) — in order to tug it to anoth­er part of the estu­ary.

The Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp was ready and will­ing to claim free pas­sage of the pub­lic estu­ary and in the process upset the oper­a­tion. Over a dozen Shell secu­ri­ty boats and two Gar­da RIBS could­n’t keep the 6 kayk­ers out, with two of them reach­ing the mov­ing barge after an hour and a half of chase.

Shel­l’s jack-up barges are dam­ag­ing Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary SAC (Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion) by drilling sur­vey bore­holes for the pro­posed Onshore Cor­rib Gas Pipeline tun­nel — the lat­est route offered by Shell as a means to hook up the refin­ery to the well. At each new loca­tion the barges mas­sive legs are low­ered into the estu­ary crush­ing life beneath the sand. Estu­ary water is being used to lubri­cate the work, and and out­fall pipe is dis­charg­ing it back in to the sup­pos­ed­ly pro­tect­ed waters.

The Gar­daí seemed hap­py to let IRMS do as they pleased on the water, with kayak­ers being unlaw­ful­ly rammed, grabbed, towed against their will — all on a pub­lic water­way. At one stage an IRMS boat stole one kayak from under its own­er, cap­siz­ing him into the water. The Gar­daí issued many Sec­tion 8 warn­ing under the pub­lic order act (to the kayk­ers) but no arrests were made, despite one kayak­er mak­ing it onto the mov­ing rig.

Beat the bore­holes con­tin­ues, now both rigs are in the upper estu­ary — on the sand at low tide and acces­si­ble by walk­ing.

rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com
www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org, www.shelltosea.com