Activist Locks Himself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery Launching a “Red River Showdown” Over KXL South 23rd April

On Earth Day 2013, to mark the close of the State Department’s pub­lic com­ment peri­od for TransCanada’s pro­posed Key­stone XL North­ern Seg­ment (KXL North) pipeline’s Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment (EIS), an activist with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance has locked him­self to a piece of Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery in Okla­homa, tem­porar­i­ly halt­ing work site con­struc­tion. Alec John­son, a 61-year old cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­er from Ames, Iowa took direct action to defend the Red Riv­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Mayflower, Arkansas com­mu­ni­ty, which is cur­rent­ly reel­ing from last month’s mas­sive tar sands spill. The dis­as­ter, due to a 22-foot long gash in ExxonMobil’s rup­tured Pega­sus tar sands pipeline, has result­ed in chron­ic health prob­lems for near­by res­i­dents and has left Lake Con­way dan­ger­ous pol­lut­ed.

“This is our envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment,” stat­ed artist/activist and Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance spokesper­son Richard Ray Whit­man. “Tran­sCana­da claims its tech­nol­o­gy will pre­vent spills, but that same tech­nol­o­gy was used on the Pega­sus line, too. That didn’t work, now, did it? We are tak­ing a stand to pro­tect our access to clean water. KXL South is already being con­struct­ed with or with­out the North, and the destruc­tion of our water­ways in its path is not a ques­tion of if, but when. No tox­ic pipeline is worth the gam­ble and no com­mu­ni­ties in Texas or Okla­homa deserve the fate of Mayflower, Arkansas.”

While the cur­rent fate of KXL North rests upon U.S. Pres­i­den­tial approval, KXL South’s now lies in the broad-spec­trum oppo­si­tion it has gar­nered in the form of legal cas­es as well as the grass­roots civ­il dis­obe­di­ence cam­paigns by groups like Great Plain Tar Sands Resis­tance and Tar Sands Block­ade. Should KXL North be per­mit­ted to start con­struc­tion, these groups along with grass­roots indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions, sev­er­al Lako­ta Nation trib­al coun­cils, and over 60,000 oth­ers have pledged resis­tance in the form of non-vio­lent direct action to halt pipeline con­struc­tion.

Inter­na­tion­al treaties like the Treaty to Pro­tect the Sacred and strong­ly-word­ed trib­al coun­cil res­o­lu­tions like those recent­ly passed by the Oglala and Ihank­ton­wan Oyate/Yankton Sioux Gen­er­al Coun­cils pledg­ing resis­tance to KXL North “by all means nec­es­sary” indi­cate a tremen­dous uni­ty amongst Great Plains indige­nous nations. The strong reac­tions come after years of inad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tion on the part of Tran­sCana­da with regards to impacts on the Lako­ta Nation com­mu­ni­ties by its tox­ic tar sands pipeline. In rec­og­niz­ing the dire threat to their first med­i­cine, sacred water, the com­mu­ni­ties are also embrac­ing the spir­it of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty with First Nation com­mu­ni­ties down­stream from tar sands min­ing sites. After years decry­ing the chem­i­cal pol­lu­tion and result­ing destruc­tion of tra­di­tion­al life ways from tar sands exploita­tion in what some affect­ed indige­nous peo­ples refer to as a “slow indus­tri­al geno­cide,” Cree and Dene Nations are expe­ri­enc­ing an upsurge in sym­pa­thy and sol­i­dar­i­ty with their plight.

“I am per­son­al­ly amazed at how resis­tance to the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline and edu­ca­tion as to what tar sands exploita­tion looks like con­tin­ues to grow every day,” John­son wrote in a state­ment pri­or to his action. “Because it would be irre­spon­si­ble, we’re not stop­ping until the indus­try stops poi­son­ing our futures with lies, unnec­es­sary risks, and death for their prof­it. As long as the tar sands indus­try promis­es it will kill, we will block­ade.”

 

UPDATE 7:30PM – Cor­rec­tion – Friends are being held on a com­bined $9,000 bail and will be spend­ing the night in jail.

Sor­ry for the con­fu­sion, as charges and asso­ci­at­ed bail change.  Our friends are in high spir­its and would like to be bailed out togeth­er.  Hope­ful­ly tomor­row!

Dona­tions have been pour­ing in and we real­ly appre­ci­ate the sup­port!  How­ev­er, we still need some help to get our friends out of jail togeth­er…

Help GPTSR get our friends out of jail here!

 

UPDATE 5:30PM – Four activists are cur­rent­ly being held on a com­bined $14,000 bail

Alec has been charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass for shut­ting down the KXL con­struc­tion site today and is being held on a $3,000 bail.  The charges for the 3 oth­er activists also include crim­i­nal tres­pass.

UPDATE 1:00PM – Ral­ly at the Ato­ka Coun­ty Cour­t­house – Cel­e­brate Earth Day and sup­port our brave activists

Dozens are gath­er­ing after the KXL con­struc­tion site shut­down. Come join a ral­ly hap­pen­ing right now with local indige­nous lead­ers and KXL pipeline activists @200 E Court St. Ato­ka on this beau­ti­ful Earth Day.

See more pho­tos from today’s action here.

UPDATE 11:30AM – Alec has been extract­ed and arrest­ed for shut­ting down a KXL con­struc­tion site – 4 arrests on Earth Day so far

UPDATE 11:00AM – Fire Depart­ment try­ing to remove Alec from KXL machin­ery – Con­struc­tion shut down on both sides of road

UPDATE 10:30AM – Two arrests so far at site of Key­stone XL con­struc­tion shut down – Alec still locked to heavy machin­ery 

Activists with Idle No More South­ern Okla­homa ral­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Alec and Mayflower res­i­dents liv­ing with the health affects of tox­ic tar sands.

UPDATE 10:00AM – LIVE VIDEO: Alec locks him­self to Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery

Watch this live footage shot by live stream­er @jak_nlauren of Alec lock­ing him­self to Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery.  10 min­utes into the video local police show up and arrest Jak for his cov­er­age of the sto­ry.

Video stream­ing by Ustream