I‑69 Protesters Shut Down Asphalt Yard Again, Arrestees Face Severe Repression

Fif­teen I‑69 oppo­nents were arrest­ed Mon­day morn­ing (15/7/2008) block­ing the entrance to Gohmann Asphalt, and need your sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty. Many of them are being held on trumped up felony charges, and some of the female-bod­ied arrestees have been put in exceed­ing­ly unsafe sit­u­a­tions. As of this time they are still chang­ing the charges on the fly, and we have been unable to bail out peo­ple with seri­ous med­ical con­di­tions. We are doing our best to make sure every­one is safe and get every­one out, but we need mon­ey. Any lit­tle bit helps! Dona­tions can be made through our Pay­pal account on stopi69.wordpress.com

or to the I69 Legal Office, 323 S Wal­nut, Bloom­ing­ton, Indi­ana, 47401

Peo­ple who have been call­ing the jail con­stant­ly and demand­ing humane treat­ment of the arrestees have done a great ser­vice, but at this point stop­ping those calls would make the job of the legal sup­port team sig­nif­i­cant­ly eas­i­er as we try to keep lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open between us, the arrestees, and the jail/D.A.’s office. THANKS!

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This morn­ing, over 20 cit­i­zens opposed to the con­struc­tion of Inter­state 69 shut down work at the Haub­stadt Asphalt Yard belong­ing to Gohmann Asphalt & Con­struc­tion, Inc. Five of the oppo­nents locked them­selves togeth­er in a cir­cle at the yard’s gate, accom­pa­nied by five oth­ers ded­i­cat­ed to keep­ing them as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble in the face of sum­mer heat and the threat of police vio­lence. With con­struc­tion slat­ed to begin this week, oppo­nents are demand­ing that Gohmann imme­di­ate­ly drop their con­tract for work on I‑69. Addi­tion­al­ly they demand that Gohmann and their accom­plices, River­ton Truck­ing, Inc., drop a spu­ri­ous civ­il suit brought against the only I‑69 oppo­nent arrest­ed at a pre­vi­ous lock-down at Gohmann Asphalt’s Haub­stadt facil­i­ty.

Gohmann A&C is the pri­ma­ry con­trac­tor with the Indi­ana Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion for the con­struc­tion of the first 1.77 miles of Sec­tion 1 of the pro­posed high­way from Evans­ville to Indi­anapo­lis. Sev­er­al weeks pri­or, five oppo­nents chained them­selves to a truck leav­ing Haub­stadt Asphalt Yard belong­ing to Gohmann Asphalt & Con­struc­tion, Inc.. The five—accompanied by twen­ty-five supporters—demanded that Gohmann drop their con­tract with INDOT or face con­tin­ued oppo­si­tion and work stop­pages. Until Gohmann drops its con­tract, oppo­nents will con­tin­ue to hold them account­able for the evic­tions of farm­ers, the dis­rup­tion of com­mu­ni­ties, and the dev­as­ta­tion of the envi­ron­ment caused by I‑69.

I‑69 has been hot­ly con­test­ed for almost two decades, with voic­es raised against its part in the destruc­tion of the envi­ron­ment, the eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty of South­ern Indi­ana com­mu­ni­ties, and the vio­la­tion of Hoosiers’ prop­er­ty rights. Although over 70% of Indi­ana res­i­dents are opposed to the road, the gov­er­nor and cor­po­rate inter­ests are ram­ming I‑69 down the throats of South­ern Indi­ana res­i­dents in a com­plete sub­ver­sion of the demo­c­ra­t­ic process.

Over 400 fam­i­lies will be dis­placed in South­ern Indi­ana; thou­sands of acres of farm­land, wet­lands, and wildlife refuge will be paved over; and the already-pol­lut­ed tri-state area will face thou­sands of pounds of increased dai­ly emis­sions from the increased truck traf­fic through the region. The inter­state is ulti­mate­ly intend­ed to stretch from Cana­da to Mex­i­co, link­ing up with an exten­sive net­work of roads being con­struct­ed there. The high­way is a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of NAFTA and oth­er free trade agree­ments through­out the Americas—the same free trade agree­ments that have cost 31,000 jobs in Indi­ana alone since their begin­nings in 1994.

“This road is being billed as an eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus for South­ern Indi­ana, but in fact it will only bring min­i­mum wage jobs at truck stops and fast food joints. Mean­while, all the oth­er jobs are shipped to sweat­shops fur­ther and fur­ther south of the bor­der. The peo­ple of Indi­ana deserve bet­ter,” said Judith May­land, a pro­tes­tor at the site.

Var­i­ous cit­i­zens’ groups have opposed I‑69 for two decades, but with con­struc­tion start­ing this week, oppo­nents are step­ping up the resis­tance in order to ensure that the will of the peo­ple is enact­ed.

“We’ve writ­ten let­ters, attend­ed pub­lic meet­ings, and vot­ed, and despite mas­sive oppo­si­tion they’re still try­ing to build this road,” one of the locked-down oppo­nents said. “They haven’t lis­tened and they haven’t lis­tened. Now it’s time to lay our bod­ies on the line so that they final­ly get it that when we say ‘No road!’ we mean ‘No f***king road!’”

for more info vis­it stopi69.wordpress.com

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Legal Update on Gohmann Actions and Ensu­ing Repres­sion