The launch of Beat the Boreholes in Mayo!

July 16, 2010
Yes­ter­day saw the launch of “Beat the Bore­holes”; a cam­paign of mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop Shell works in Mayo this Sum­mer. At 7am in the morn­ing cam­paign­ers entered the water in Broad­haven Bay in kayaks and a safe­ty rib in a peace­ful attempt to pre­vent Shell from bring­ing in a sec­ond bore­hole drilling plat­form. They were met with 5 Gar­da water unit boats, with approx­i­mate­ly 16 Gar­daí on board and 10 secu­ri­ty boats. Cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to approach the plat­form but were pre­vent­ed from doing so by Gar­daí who over­turned their kayaks. Gar­daí arrest­ed 2 cam­paign­ers for minor Pub­lic Order offences and seized three kayaks, the safe­ty rib & sev­er­al pad­dles.

Beat the Boreholes - Shell to SeaJuly 16, 2010
Yes­ter­day saw the launch of “Beat the Bore­holes”; a cam­paign of mass civ­il dis­obe­di­ence to stop Shell works in Mayo this Sum­mer. At 7am in the morn­ing cam­paign­ers entered the water in Broad­haven Bay in kayaks and a safe­ty rib in a peace­ful attempt to pre­vent Shell from bring­ing in a sec­ond bore­hole drilling plat­form. They were met with 5 Gar­da water unit boats, with approx­i­mate­ly 16 Gar­daí on board and 10 secu­ri­ty boats. Cam­paign­ers attempt­ed to approach the plat­form but were pre­vent­ed from doing so by Gar­daí who over­turned their kayaks. Gar­daí arrest­ed 2 cam­paign­ers for minor Pub­lic Order offences and seized three kayaks, the safe­ty rib & sev­er­al pad­dles.

This action fol­lows on from pre­vi­ous night when at 7pm peo­ple tried to stop the first drilling plat­form enter­ing the estu­ary by block­ing the way with rafts & kayaks. One kayak­er came close to the plat­form & was seized by Gar­dai. He says “a gar­da then pinched my throat with his two fin­gers and cut off my air sup­ply. He held me like that for about 90 sec­onds, allow­ing me to take one or two gasps. He kept say­ing into my ear that he had my last breath in his hands.”

Up to 80 bore­holes are planned in the Sruth Fha­da Chonn estu­ary in the next 3 months. They are to pro­vide a sur­vey for the tun­nel which Shell are propos­ing to build under the estu­ary to house the raw gas pipeline. Beat the Bore­holes are ask­ing peo­ple to pledge to “adopt” a bore­hole & take action to stop it being made. Groups are sign­ing up fast with var­i­ous actions planned such as mass walk outs on the sand, pic­nics on the beach & board­ing the drilling rigs.

The new pipeline route is still with­in 250m of sev­er­al hous­es and the local com­mu­ni­ty remains opposed to the plans. The estu­ary is a Spe­cial­ly Pro­tect­ed Area & part of the Broad­haven Bay Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion; pro­tect­ed under EU leg­is­la­tion. The oper­a­tion will dam­age parts of the estu­ary & dis­turb the wildlife there, par­tic­u­lar­ly Atlantic salmon, otters & birds found on the inter­tidal areas. This work was giv­en the go ahead by min­is­ter Gorm­ley, for­mer Ross­port 5 and Shell to Sea sup­port­er.

Join Beat the Bore­holes this Sum­mer in Mayo! See www.rossportsolidaritycamp.com. www.shelltosea.com. Con­tact rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com.