Two People Barricade Themselves Inside Keystone XL Pipe To Halt Construction

WINONA, TX – MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 7:30 AM – Sev­er­al pro­tes­tors with Tar Sands Block­ade sealed them­selves inside a sec­tion of pipe des­tined for the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline to stop con­struc­tion of the dan­ger­ous project. Using a blockad­ing tech­nique nev­er imple­ment­ed before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked them­selves between two bar­rels of con­crete weigh­ing over six hun­dred pounds each. Locat­ed twen­ty-five feet into a pipe seg­ment wait­ing to be laid in the ground, the out­er bar­rel is bar­ri­cad­ing the pipe’s open­ing and nei­ther bar­rel can be moved with­out risk­ing seri­ous injury to the block­aders.

The bar­ri­cad­ed sec­tion of the pipeline pass­es through a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood in Winona, TX. If Tran­sCana­da moves ahead with the trench­ing and bury­ing of this par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of pipe, it would run less than a hun­dred feet from neigh­bor­ing homes. Tar sands pipelines threat­en East Texas com­mu­ni­ties with their high­ly tox­ic con­tents, which pose a greater risk to human health than con­ven­tion­al crude oil. TransCanada’s exist­ing tar sands pipeline, Key­stone XL’s pre­de­ces­sor, has an atro­cious safe­ty record, leak­ing twelve times in its first year of oper­a­tion.

“Tran­sCana­da didn’t both­er to ask the peo­ple of this neigh­bor­hood if they want­ed to have mil­lions of gal­lons of poi­so­nous tar sands pumped through their back­yards,” said Almonte, one of the pro­test­ers now inside the pipeline. “This multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tion has bul­lied landown­ers and expro­pri­at­ed homes to fat­ten its bot­tom line.”

Recent­ly, over 40 com­mu­ni­ties world­wide planned actions with Tar Sands Block­ade dur­ing a week of resis­tance against extreme ener­gy extrac­tion and its direct con­nec­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis. A grow­ing glob­al move­ment is ris­ing up against the abus­es of the fos­sil fuel indus­try and its increas­ing­ly des­per­ate pur­suit of dan­ger­ous extrac­tion meth­ods.

“I’m bar­ri­cad­ing this pipe with Tar Sands Block­ade today to say loud and clear to the extrac­tion indus­try that our com­mu­ni­ties and the resources we depend on for sur­vival are not col­lat­er­al dam­age,” said Collins, anoth­er block­ad­er inside the pipe and an orga­niz­er with Rad­i­cal Action for Moun­tain Peo­ples Sur­vival (RAMPS) and Moun­tain Jus­tice, grass­roots cam­paigns in Appalachia work­ing to stop moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing.

“This fight in East Texas against tar sands exploita­tion is one and the same as our fight in the hollers of West Vir­ginia. Dirty ener­gy extrac­tion doesn’t just threat­en my home; it threat­ens the col­lec­tive future of the plan­et.”

“At this late stage, doing noth­ing is a greater dan­ger than the risks of tak­ing direct action to stop destruc­tive projects like Key­stone XL,” said Ron Seifert, a spokesper­son for Tar Sands Block­ade. “That’s why folks work­ing with groups like RAMPS, the Unist’ot’en Camp fight­ing a nat­ur­al gas pipeline in British Colum­bia and Tar Sands Block­ade are will­ing to use every­thing includ­ing their own hands and feet to ensure we all have a safe cli­mate and healthy, thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ties.”

Today also marks day 5 of the Hous­ton Hunger Strike in which Gulf Coast activists with Tar Sands Block­ade are going with­out food to demand that Valero divest entire­ly from the Key­stone XL pipeline and invest in the health and well­be­ing of the com­mu­ni­ties it’s poi­son­ing.

UPDATE: 7:30 am – Work­ers arrive. Con­struc­tion is effec­tive­ly halt­ed.

Twen­ty-two trucks and over thir­ty work­ers are on the scene with noth­ing to do.

UPDATE: 8:45 a/m – Sher­iffs arrive on site and are con­sult­ing with work­ers and talk­ing into the pipe.

UPDATE: 9:00 am – Police warn block­aders to leave the pipe or face arrest.

Police are demand­ing that the block­aders leave the pipe or be arrest­ed. The block­aders refuse to com­ply.

UPDATE: 9:20 am – Police threat­en to use tear gas on peace­ful pro­test­ers

Sev­er­al sher­iffs are shin­ing flash­lights into the pipe and threat­en­ing to use tear gas on the peo­ple inside. The block­aders are stand­ing strong and remain bar­ri­cad­ed inside the pipe. Hold­ing fast to their prin­ci­ples of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance, Matt and Glen respond: “we will not be deterred by threats of vio­lence.”

UPDATE: 9:50 am – Offi­cers are threat­en­ing to send a police dog into the pipe

Police are say­ing that they will send a canine unit into the pipe after the pro­test­ers. There are no dogs on scene but the police claim that they are hav­ing them brought to the scene.

UPDATE: 10:40 am – Police threat­en to lift pipe and dump out Glen and Matt

Police are con­tin­u­ing to threat­en tear gas and canine units. They are also say­ing that they could raise the pipe and dump out the block­aders. Doing so would cause seri­ous harm or even death; Matt and Glen are locked between two bar­rels of con­crete which weigh over six hun­dred pounds each.

UPDATE: 10:55 am – Crowd gath­ers to sup­port block­aders inside Key­stone XL pipeline

Peo­ple dri­ving by the scene are show­ing their sup­port by honk­ing and stop­ping to talk to pro­test­ers about the dan­gers of tox­ic tar sands. Despite threats of vio­lence, spir­its are high; the crowd and Glen and Matt are singing togeth­er.

UPDATE: 11:20 am – Police attempt­ing to block view of pipe and move sup­port­ers fur­ther from scene

Police have moved sev­er­al trucks and vans in order to obstruct the view of the pipe in which Glen and Matt are locked. They have threat­ened arrest and forced sup­port­ers off the prop­er­ty imme­di­ate­ly adja­cent to the pipeline ease­ment, despite the fact that the home­own­er gave pro­test­ers explic­it per­mis­sion to be in her yard. Police are also forc­ing pro­test­ers to move fur­ther along the pub­lic road along which they were stand­ing.