Three activists from Tar Sands Blockade locked themselves to construction equipment near Saltillo, TX this morning, shutting down the construction site completely. As of the latest update, workers and police had all left the site, leaving the blockade intact.
The action is the third so far for Tar Sands Blocakde, a group devoted to stopping TransCanada’s plan to expand the Keystone XL Pipeline to transport oil from the Alberta Tar Sands to Texas. It follows only days upon an August 28 action, when four activists locked themselves to the underside of a truck actually carrying a piece of the planned pipeline. A total of seven protesters were arrested, but not before all Keystone construction transportation for the southern segment was shut down for a full day.
In an unrelated action targeting big energy infrastructure, more than 150 protesters from Everglades Earth First! and Occupy Wall Street blockaded the access roads to TECO’s Big Bend coal plant on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay, FL on Aug 31, coinciding with the last day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa.
According to a press release, “Earth First! activists chose this day for their protest in order to highlight Mitt Romney’s plan to expand what the group calls the “energy empire” which favors the interest of big donors in oil, gas and coal industries.” TECO was also chosen for its involvement in mountaintop removal coal mining.
The plant was successfully blockaded for nearly four hours. Seven people were arrested. And as a bonus: the action led freaked-out authorities to temporarily shut down the Port of Tampa!