All-Woman Tripod and Lockdown Halts Enbridge Line 9 Pipeline Operations for Hours

The third woman at the protest spent hours teetering on this makeshift construction before being removed by firefighters. </p> </body></html>

The third woman at the protest spent hours teetering on this makeshift construction before being removed by firefighters. (Kate McKenna/CBC)
Octo­ber 7th, 2014
Three activists who chained them­selves to a fence at Enbridge’s Mon­tre­al
head­quar­ters had their locks and chains cut just after noon on Tues­day.

After spend­ing hours in the cold rain, Alyssa Symons-Bélanger, Jes­si­ca Lam­bert and a third woman were removed from the fence they chained them­selves to at Enbridge’s head­quar­ters on Hen­ri-Bouras­sa East.

She attached her­self to a chain-link fence with a heavy chain around her waist and a bicy­cle lock around her neck.

“I know that today I stand with these peo­ple, and these peo­ple stand with me also in oppo­si­tion of Enbridge’s Line 9,” she said.

The group of pro­test­ers, who accord­ing to Symons-Bélanger are not part of a larg­er orga­ni­za­tion, issued a news release Tues­day morn­ing say­ing they were look­ing to dis­rupt Suncor’s refin­ery oper­a­tions.

Enbridge plans to reverse the 9B sec­tion of its Line 9 pipeline. (Enbridge)

Enbridge trans­ports the crude oil to Mon­tre­al via pipeline, where refiner­ies like Sun­cor process it.

Symons-Bélanger said she is against Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline rever­sal for a vari­ety of rea­sons, includ­ing safe­ty con­cerns and improp­er com­pen­sa­tion for peo­ple whose land is touched by the pipeline.

She was a mem­ber of the group of pro­test­ers who walked for 34 days from Cacouna, Que., to Kane­sa­take in the spring.