Shell due to start work next week & report from Rossport Solidarity Camp

June 25, 2010
Things are get­ting very busy here — after a peace­ful June Gath­er­ing the camp is once more set to become a focal point for resist­ing Shell pipeline work. Shell are due in the estu­ary any day now to drill 80 bore­holes — pipeline sur­vey work that should take all sum­mer. Yes­ter­day we shut down the Shell office in Bel­mul­let. Today Mau­ra Har­ring­ton was jailed for non pay­ment of fines. Niall and Pat are still in jail. Gen­er­al­ly it seems that lots of peo­ple are wis­ing up to the oil indus­try in the wake of the BP dis­as­ter in the Gulf of Mex­i­co.…

Roof Occu­pa­tion Protest at Shel­l’s Bel­mul­let Offices
Cam­paign­ers hung a ban­ner read­ing “Ener­gy should­n’t cost the earth” from the roof of Shell offices in Bel­mul­let on Thurs­day morn­ing at 8am. This protest con­nect­ed the envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter suf­fered by the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty & peo­ple of Louisiana with the threat faced by the fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty and peo­ple of Erris. In par­tic­u­lar the protest was in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pat O’Don­nell who has been jailed for his coura­geous defense of the seas and his liveli­hood.
The protest blocked the entrance to the offices pre­vent­ing Shell work­ers from enter­ing that day!
Press Release and pho­tos here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/97054

Fore­shore License Grant­ed — Bore­hole Drilling Immi­nent
Yes­ter­day Shell cir­cu­lat­ed a let­ter giv­ing notice that the bore­hole drilling would com­mence “in the com­ing days”.
Recent­ly Shell got the sign-off from “Green” Min­is­ter John Gorm­ley on plans to bore 80 bore-holes in Sruwad­da­con bay. Once again the com­mu­ni­ty and camp will be oppos­ing the Shell work both on land and at sea. Water-action train­ing is ongo­ing. It will be a sum­mer long job if they get start­ed, so sup­port up here would be great when­ev­er pos­si­ble. Now would be a good time to come.

There have already been con­trac­tors around doing ini­tial sur­veys for the con­tract to con­struct the 5km tun­nel under the estu­ary — one can­di­date com­pa­ny is called ICOP from Italy. Pres­sure on them would be no harm.

Here is their web­site: http://www.icop.it/tool/home.php
And address:
I.CO.P. S.p.A.
via Sil­vio Pel­li­co 2
33031 Basil­iano UD,
Italy

And con­tacts: info@icop.it, tunnelcom@icop.it, fondazioni@icop.it, amministrazione@icop.it, personale@icop.it, acquisti@icop.it, tecnici@icop.it

T. +39 0432–838611
F. +39 0432–838681

Please write to Pat & Niall — polit­i­cal pris­on­ers
As a lot of you are aware Pat O’Don­nell and Niall Har­nett are cur­rent­ly in Castlerea Prison for con­vic­tions aris­ing from protests against the Cor­rib Gas project. You can read more on Pat’s jail­ing here: http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-corrib-gas-who-…llies or more on Nial­l’s jail­ing here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/96547

Please also ‘Like’ the ‘Sup­port Shell to Sea pris­on­ers of con­science’ page on Face­book (if you’re on it): http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Support-Shell-to-Sea-prisoners-of-conscience/112831115416555?ref=ts and Pat’s page at http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Pat-ODonnell/313999028104?ref=ts

Let­ters to Pat and Niall great­ly appre­ci­at­ed -
Pat O Don­nell / Niall Har­nett,
Castlerea Prison,
Har­ris­town,
Castlerea,
Co Roscom­mon,

Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp Wish­list
You might have some­thing lying around that you don’t want or need any­more.
At the moment we could use:

* Wheel­ie bins, plas­tic bar­rels, pal­lets (will prob­a­bly find local­ly)
* Work­ing Recharge­able Pow­er tools
* Boats and out­board motors of any size or make: Pow­er boats, sail boats, rigid sea kayaks would be espe­cial­ly use­ful as they can’t be punc­tured or sunk too eas­i­ly
* Band­saw
* PV pan­els, invert­ers, bat­ter­ies
* Trail­er that a Ford Tran­sit could tow. Some­thing like a horse trail­er and fair­ly weath­er proof would be ide­al to trans­port bikes.
http://www.shelltosea.com
ross­port­sol­i­dar­i­ty­camp at gmail dot com

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Annu­al Ross­port Gath­er­ing report

Sup­port­ers from around the world joined in the annu­al gath­er­ing over the past week­end at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp at Broad­haven Bay, Coun­ty Mayo in sup­port of the Shell to Sea cam­paign. A large con­tin­gent of cyclists trav­elled from Britain via Merthyr Tyd­fil in Wales where anoth­er cam­paign is focussed to stop an ugly open-cast coal mine which is destroy­ing the envi­ron­ment, pol­lut­ing air and water and endan­ger­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

The gath­er­ing at Ross­port has been held every year since before the jail­ing of the Ross­port 5 in 2005 — local res­i­dents who refused, for rea­sons of health, safe­ty and clean envi­ron­ment, to allow Shell / Sta­toil to lay an exper­i­men­tal high-pres­sure raw gas pipeline through their prop­er­ties. The Irish gov­ern­ment had, in an unprece­dent­ed move, pro­vid­ed the mul­ti-nation­als with com­pul­so­ry pur­chase orders. The five were giv­en indef­i­nite prison sen­tences but were released after 3 months fol­low­ing mas­sive pub­lic out­cry. A lat­er hear­ing vin­di­cat­ed them when the orig­i­nal pipeline route was reject­ed because of dan­ger­ous prox­im­i­ty to dwellings.

A new route is now being put for­ward, but is still con­sid­ered unac­cept­able by Shell to Sea who believe that the only safe way to bring the gas ashore is by refin­ing it at sea and bring­ing it in at low pres­sure. The dan­gers have been well high­light­ed by dis­as­ters world­wide includ­ing the Piper Alpha explo­sion, the pipeline explo­sion at Carls­bad, New Mex­i­co (August 2000 when a fam­i­ly of 12 liv­ing over 200 metres away were com­plete­ly wiped out), the out­ra­geous death and destruc­tion in Nige­ria and now the BP oil dis­as­ter.

The Merthyr to Mayo cycle ral­ly called at Castlerea prison to sup­port fish­er­man Pat O’Don­nell and fel­low Shell to Sea sup­port­er Niall Har­nett who are both now serv­ing jail terms for obstruct­ing police who had been brought in the ensure Shell employ­ees were not ham­pered in their work — the Irish gov­ern­ment takes care of big busi­ness with­out regard for the liveli­hoods of the local com­mu­ni­ty and the health of their envi­ron­ment !

The whole project was pushed ahead with­out con­sult­ing the local peo­ple — the refin­ery, 9 km inland (select­ed because it was state-owned forestry land) now approach­ing com­ple­tion and the sea­ward pipeline layed. But still no legal­ly per­mit­ted nor local­ly agreed inland route ! And not like­ly to be ! Local cam­paign­ers have had their lives total­ly dis­rupt­ed for more than 10 years now with this non­sense and are utter­ly com­mit­ted to the point of putting their lives on the line, lit­er­al­ly.