TWAC Blockade Portland Transcanada Office with Tripod

29July 2013 Update: The action has been declared a suc­cess as busi­ness­es were forced to lock their doors and close their blinds – appar­ent­ly the dance par­ty was just too much of them to even look at! In addi­tion, all TWAC activists have avoid­ed arrest and gear was not con­fis­cat­ed

A tri­pod has been erect­ed at the entrance of a build­ing that hous­es a Tran­sCana­da office, block­ing the entrance and caus­ing busi­ness­es inside to lock the doors. Pro­test­ers out­side have respond­ed with a very glit­tery and col­or­ful dance par­ty in front of the build­ing and a ban­ner that reads “No Tar Sands On Native Lands. Stop Geno­cide.”

This action was orga­nized by the Trans and Wom­yns Action Camp (TWAC), a direct action group for women and trans* and gen­der-vari­ant folks. A cor­re­spon­dent from TWAC said that they took action today “to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with com­mu­ni­ties that are affect­ed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly by tar sands, includ­ing every­one in Alber­ta who is forced to live in areas of tar sands oil extrac­tion, folks near the Gulf Coast affect­ed by tar sand refine­ment plants, and com­mu­ni­ties who are liv­ing on the pipeline route.” With con­di­tions on the Gulf Coast already tox­ic, high rates of asth­ma and can­cer are becom­ing the norm, and the arrival of tar sands will only wors­en these con­di­tions. In the Athabas­ka water­shed in Alber­ta, com­mu­ni­ties have seen the rise of a large num­ber of rare can­cers, and First Nations com­mu­ni­ties have been affect­ed most heav­i­ly.

 

Steph Cas­ca­dia, who is sit­ting at the top of the tri­pod, said, “Extrac­tion of the tar sands is the most destruc­tive project on the con­ti­nent. It threat­ens the integri­ty of the entire bios­phere, not to men­tion the First Nations peo­ples depen­dent upon access to clean water, land, and air for the health of their com­mu­ni­ties.”’

A cor­re­spon­dent from TWAC also said that TWAC was there “to remind the employ­ees of Tran­sCana­da that the death and destruc­tion does not end when they go home to their fam­i­lies, or when they leave to take their lunch break. Lots of oth­er peo­ple have jobs and are often not able to work and pro­vide for their fam­i­lies because of the actions that this cor­po­ra­tion has tak­en, which sole­ly ben­e­fit TransCananda–nobody else wins.”

Yudith Nieto, a TWAC par­tic­i­pant who trav­eled from a com­mu­ni­ty in Hous­ton affect­ed by tar sands refiner­ies, said, “I am com­mit­ted to ampli­fy­ing the voic­es of com­mu­ni­ties of col­or that are sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly silenced, like mine, that are being dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly affect­ed by envi­ron­men­tal­ly destruc­tive indus­tries, and expe­ri­enc­ing racism and clas­sism.”

This action fol­lows a long string of actions tak­en by groups and com­mu­ni­ties all across the coun­try to stop tar sands extrac­tion, trans­porta­tion, and refine­ment – all of which put com­mu­ni­ties at risk and exac­er­bate glob­al cli­mate change. These actions can be tak­en vir­tu­al­ly any­where in the Unit­ed States or Cana­da where there are cor­po­ra­tions who invest in, con­struct, or oth­er­wise do busi­ness with tar sands infra­struc­ture. Lit­tle by lit­tle, we will stop these cor­po­rate maraud­ers.