Author: earthfirst

Today, September 28th, at 12:00 o’clock, approximately 60 international activists taking part in the Reclaim the Fields camp [1], together with the local association Alburnus Maior [2], from Rosia Montana, Romania, occupied and blocked the entrance to the Rosia Montana Gold Corporations [3] headquarters in the village’s Old Square. This action was in defiance of the companies continuing attempt to expropriate locals and destroy an area protected by Romanian conservation law.

Local and international people are opposing plans to open Europe’s largest open cast gold mine, which would displace hundreds of families and result in widespread ecological destruction and cyanide contamination of the protected landscape. The peaceful occupation and blockade lasted for two hours and the company decided to leave the public information point closed for the rest of the day.

The proposed mine would destroy the village of Rosia Montana and introduce dangerous cyanide leaching technology, threatening water systems in Romania and beyond with the potential of devastating accidents. Strong local opposition to the gold mining project emerged almost immediately in the year 2000 when the project was announced by Canadian company Gabriel Resources. Resistance to the plan has since spread across Romania and beyond. During the last 10 years, Alburnus Maior, through the Save Rosia Montana Campaign has successfully mobilized thousands of people and has so far kept the plans from being carried out.

The Environmental Impact Assessment procedure for the mining project was suspended in 2008 by the Ministry of the Environment, due to the discovery of illegalities committed by the company. Furthermore, civil society has won several court cases against the Gold Corporation, where it was proved that the mining project was initiated in illegal conditions and involved high levels of corruption, coercion and abuse of the local population.

According to the law, the mining project has to restart from point zero, but the new Romanian Environment Minister wants to proceed with a political decision in favour of the mining project, in a clear violation of the court decisions, as well as of Romanian and EU laws on Environmental Impact Assessment procedures.

The Romanian government seems keen to support corporate interests in the face of local opposition. A new law on expropriation has been recently proposed in the Romanian parliament and is expected to be voted on during the next month. The law would enable private companies, instead of the Romanian state and judicial system, to carry out forced expropriation of residents, in a clear violation of human rights.

In dialogue with the occupying activists, the company spokesperson, Catalin Hosu, rejected any relation between the Gold Corporation and this law and stated that they would not resort to using it if it is passed. In reply, the activists promised to target the corporation with further actions if the promise is not kept.

At the EU level, the European Commission has been refusing to follow up on a May 2010 European Parliament resolution requiring it to make a legislative proposal to ban the use of cyanide in mining. While the Gold Corporation has expressed the intention to adopt cyanide reduction technology in Rosia Montana, recent news exposed that the use of such technology will be much more expensive than originally planned [4]. In response to this, Catalin Hosu replied that the Gold Corporation is committed to respect all Romanian and EU legislation, but did not state whether this technology will be adopted or dropped in face of the costs.

NOTES:

[1] The Reclaim the Fields movement (www.reclaimthefields.org) brings together food growers and farmers around Europe that are connecting local practical action with global political struggles. Reclaim the Fields stands against corporate interests and any projects which reduce the access and right to land for food production, abuse local communities and destroy cultural and environmental values. Between 21-30 of September, 2011, several hundred activists from all over Europe and Romania are participating in an unprecedented solidarity camp in Rosia Montana – Romania. The event is organized by Reclaim the Fields together with the Alburnus Maior Association (www.rosiamontana.org), with strong support from the Romanian peasant association Eco Ruralis (www.ecoruralis.ro) and numerous organizations and individuals from across geographical Europe.

[2] Alburnus Maior association represents the local opposition from Rosia Montana against the largest gold mine proposal in Europe which entails the destruction of Rosia Montana and a large area of the Apuseni Mountains in Romania. www.rosiamontana.org

[3] Rosia Montana Gold Corporation is 19.31 percent owned by the Romanian state with the remaining shareholders including Gabriel Resources, Newmont and Barrick Gold.

[4] AFP, Lower cyanide level in Romanian gold mine to cost millions, 23.09.2011, http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hXIMBYPJT-sYBLCZhIWJfy-sp_oQ?docId=CNG.eca6a9ad91bdb5676908fa2ea3090890.e1

“I’ll never purge my contempt, and I want the ESB stopped. I most certainly do!” – message from Teresa Treacy, 65 years old, in Mountjoy Womens’ Prison.

On Wednesday the 14th of September, concerned individuals wishing to support Teresa Treacy arrived at Clonmore, Tullamore. The following morning the supporters learned that no tree felling would be carried out that week and ESB workers had been instructed to leave the site.

On the morning of Saturday the 17th of September, Teresa rang from the prison to say that her spirits had been lifted by the news. She has her own cell in the prison thanks to the good graces of the prison staff. After her initial shock she is settling in. She said she has no intention of ‘purging her contempt’ and is calling out for support.

It is the ESB’s intent to fell trees covering a total 12 acres of land and amounting to 12,000 trees in all, many of which are native species and were hand planted and maintained by Teresa over the years. The end result being a 50m wide corridor permanently severing her woodlands in two for well over one kilometer. It is the intention of the ESB to fill the felling zone with one 20 metre high metal tower, five double wooden poles, a 110Kv single transmission line, and five continuous wires.

Teresa has been attempting to negotiate with the ESB since 2006. She has reluctantly offered a compromise of siting the line underground to no avail. Having spent her entire life as a law-abiding citizen, she has taken the path of peaceful direct resistance as a course of last resort.

In a call from the prison, Teresa has asked for supporters to become actively involved in her struggle to protect her land and trees. Teresa is committed and remains defiant. She has no intention of ‘purging her contempt’.

Letters of support can be sent to: Teresa Treacy/ Dochas/ Monthjoy Womens’ Prison/ North Circular RD/ Dublin 7/ Eire

To become involved, call Niall on 086 8444966.

For MEDIA, email Sean Ryan at: 2seanryan2@gmail.com
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Notes to Editors

1. Both magnetic fields and electrical fields are separate entities with regard to the health question, even though they often may well work together to cause the risks.

2. A lot of arguments associated with magnetic field exposure are
contradicted by the fact that people who work in this particular area don’t seem to suffer from many of the illnesses associated with these fields. The counter argument advances that this is because the brain secretes particular secretions when a person is asleep that are not secreted when one is awake. Most folks who work in this area are assumed not to be asleep on the job!

3. Magnetic fields can strip radioactive particles from the atmosphere and concentrate them in the areas around overhead lines.

4. Electrical fields associated with high voltage create a corona that can ionise a very large area (measured in kilometres) around the conductors. The body is a conductor and radioactive particles can actually stick to the body due to this effect.

The following are associated with high voltage overhead lines:
Depression/suicide, childhood leukaemia, skin cancer, lung cancer,
miscarriages and many more.

More information here
http://www.feb.se/emfguru/Elf/calif-power.html
http://www.feb.se/emfguru/Elf/elf-contents.html

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Teresa Treacy Ordered to Jail over ESB Powerlines

“You picked the wrong place here” – Teresa Treacy to ESB consultant Shane McLoughney, April 2007.

eresa Treacy, a 65 year old woman from Tullamore, Co Offaly has been ordered to jail by High Court Judge Daniel Herbert at the request of the ESB.

Ms Treacy, who shares the family farm with her sister Mary at Woodfield House, Clonmore, Tullamore, Co Offaly has refused the ESB access to her lands in order to protect the natural environment and the native trees that she has managed there for many years.

In February 2006 the ESB began plans to construct a 110kV transmission powerline from Cushaling to Thornsbury. The plans specify that double woodpole structures and steel towers accommodating overhead powerlines be built at 200 metre intervals over a total distance of 32 kilometres through the lands of local landowners.

Ms Treacy outlined her objections in a number of letters to the ESB and arranged a number of meetings with them to request that the powerlines be constructed underground for the following reasons.

1) The Health & Safety risks, including cancer risks which are increasingly associated with overhead powerlines as a result of Electro Magnetic Fields (EMF).

2) The fact that she has always maintained and improved her land as a natural habitat which includes native trees, old and new, cared for and/or planted by herself for future generations as a sustainable natural resource, through which the ESB want to smash.

3) The fact that the undergrounding of powerlines is now considered to be best practice across Europe. Ireland and the ESB are at the bottom of the league in terms of catching up with international standards and the progress which has been made to ensure that underground powerlines are the progressive way forward.

The ESB were also pointed to a recent decision in 2006 to underground the Bantry (Colomane – Ballylickey) 38kV powerline, which arose out of intense local protest opposing the overgrounding of that line. The ESB were contracted to that project by a private windfarm developer who succeeded in getting injunctions against local farmers but decided not to enforce them. He abandoned overgrounding in favour of undergrounding the powerline. See here: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/77007

When the Cushaling – Thornsbury project was proposed for Tullamore in early 2006 it appeared that there was stiff opposition to the project among the affected 90 landowners in Offaly. Undergrounding options were discussed as technical possibilities and European best practice had come to the attention of the public.

It’s one thing to have a private developer opt for undergrounding but the ESB, fearing that a precedent may be set, were clever enough to use the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) to negotiate a compensation package with the landowners, most of them farmers.

Teresa Treacy stood to gain up to approximately 150,000 euro in 3 staged payments if she agreed to the project and on condition that no legal costs were incurred by the ESB if they had to go to court, in which case the last 2 payments would be ‘forfeited’.

This deal, negotiated by the IFA over the course of 2 years, seemed to appease most of the landowners so by the time a public meeting was called to organise the landowners, by Ms Treacy in March 2009, less than a dozen people showed up.

By the summer of 2011 Teresa Treacy was the only one refusing access to the ESB.

The ESB has made a number of applications to the High Court over the summer, including orders for Ms Treacy to unlock her gates and let them in and subsequently an order empowering the ESB to break the locks after Ms Treacy refused to obey the first order. The ESB told the court that Ms Treacy “has an emotional attachment to her trees”. When Ms Treacy obstructed them from breaking the locks the ESB decided to go back to court to issue contempt proceedings against Ms Treacy.

Today, Monday 12th September 2011, Judge Daniel Herbert told Ms Treacy that he had no choice but to uphold the law and ordered that she be jailed for contempt of the court orders.

“I’m begging them for years” said Ms Treacy today. “5½ years, what a waste of time it was trying to talk to them”. Facing jail she said “I feel good, I really do. I just couldn’t let them in to do that. It’s just not right”.

“The route is cutting through our forest and the old Whitethorn hedgerows. For over 25 years I have used all my time and energy getting our lands into a place of natural beauty and overnight it can be destroyed with high powered lines going through forests beside the old bridge, the old laneway and through the new Oak and Ash woods I planted over 20 years ago. I have spent many years replacing dead trees and cutting gorse with my hands. I filled containers with water from the river so that my forest is a model. All my trees have been pruned individually by me to promote their growth”

“My heart is broken by the thought that they may be uprooted and thrown away. I know I will never see them in their full glory but was satisfied knowing that others would enjoy them long into the future”

“We already have 10 ESB poles on our land and feel that we have already done enough for the common good. Our farm is our life’s blood, its scenic beauty from the untouched fields to the river and through the bog, all of it natural flora and fauna”.

Earlier court proceedings were heard by Judge Mary Laffoy who granted orders to the ESB. I’m wondering did Judge Laffoy decide not to be available to the ESB to hear contempt proceedings. Who would want to send an elderly woman to jail in these circumstances? When judgements are made in the High Court they are usually presented as ‘ … the High Court has ruled such a way …’, and the name of the judge is understood to be irrelevant for the purposes of law. A judge is simply an instrument of the law and the law must be applied regardless of the personality or opinion of the judge. It is legally correct for a judge to take responsibility for ‘difficult cases’ because that’s their job, and regardless of good reason, and the 3 reasons outlined above, the law must be applied, mustn’t it?!

Ms Treacy will remain in jail until she ‘purges her contempt’ by agreeing to comply with the court orders. The ESB, however, are in a position to make an application to the court for her release, but this is unlikely, at least until they’ve smashed the trees and constructed their outdated powerlines. Her incarceration is in their hands.

Bury the powerlines, not the people!