Author: earthfirst

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.

 

The Clause 21 Growth and Infrastructure Bill Threat: More Info

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

 

THE LOOSE ANTI OPENCAST NETWORK

IF THE GOVERNMENT GETS ITS WAY, ARE WE LIKELY TO SEE MORE ‘MOTHBALLED’ OPENCAST SITES POCK-MARKING OUR COUNTRYSIDE?

LAON PR 2012- 16                                                               1/12/12

The hidden topic so far, in all the discussion about the Energy Bill is what will be its impact on the UK Coal Industry. This is a much shrunken industry, producing around 18m tonnes of coal a year. Last year 59% of that coal was produced by opencast methods. This year, as the deep mining sector continues to suffer from problems and cost pressures are closing mines (on a temporary basis) at Maltby and Aperpergwm and Daw Mill, our largest pit is almost certain to close, domestic coal production is becoming ever more reliant on surface mining – in the July to September quarter, of the 4m tonnes of coal the UK produced, 65% now came from surface mines.

But even the surface mine sector of the coal industry is not immune to the cold winds of economic realism coming from across the Atlantic, as US coal producers, desperate to find a market for their coal now that it can no longer compete with gas in the US domestic market because of the ‘fracking revolution’, send shiploads of coal to Europe at prices that make UK coal production uncompetitive. As a consequence, ATH Resources, a major surface mine operator has put itself up for sale and stopped development work on its new sites and Scottish Coal has asked its workforce to take a 10% pay cut and mothballed its large Blair House opencast site in Scotland indefinably. It’s just left it as large hole.

Furthermore, the Energy Bill, introduced into Parliament this week is intending to create a low carbon generating system which is design to squeeze out coal from being part of the fuel mix unless Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) prove itself to be commercially viable. The Bill will provide for financial disincentives to make it more costly to burn coal in power stations without CCS, whilst, at the same time, provide financial incentives for existing coal fired power stations to be fully converted to burn biomass. The result is that Coal Operators in the UK are for the foreseeable future likely to see their market for coal shrinking dramatically.

All that may sound good to you, if you worry about protecting the countryside from being treated as one large coal bunker, or you are concerned about climate change.

Except it is not all good news. The expected decline in the use of coal for power generation purposes is going to take years to achieve. In the meantime, we may be starting to witness an increase in planning applications for new opencast mines across the UK, as Coal Operators realise that they must try to cash in on the investments they have already made before the coal market dries up.

This month LAON can report, in its 7th Review of Opencast Sites available here:

https://nottingham.indymedia.org/articles/3309

 that two new proposals have been made recently, one for a new 10m tonne site called Cauldhall, near Rosewell in Midlothian (ironically by Scottish Coal) and the other at the Deanfield site for 1.18m tonnes at Sharleston near Wakefield, where UK Coal, another coal company which nearly went into administration this year, intends to surface mine. As a consequence, The Stop Opencast in Sharlston (SOS) group has joined the Network

That is not the only bad news about the surface mining of coal in England. The Government is proposing, through the Growth and Infrastructure Bill (Clause 21), to make it easier to dig up coal in England, just when they are planning to reduce the role coal plays in producing electricity through the Energy Bill. This clause of the Bill is likely to be debated by the Growth and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, along with our evidence, on Tuesday 4th December.

LAON’s concern about these policy changes is this. Given the economic difficulties that the UK Coal Industry finds itself in, is this the right time to be changing the planning system to make it easier for Coal Operators to get permission for new opencast mines? This is increasing the risk that many more opencast sites are left ‘mothballed’ and pock-marking our country-side if UK Coal Producers find that they are increasingly priced out of their own declining domestic market. In our view, this is not the time to relax planning controls at all for new surface mines in England

We are hoping that the Government realises the inconsistencies in its current policy proposals and whilst it continues with its plans to decarbonise the generating sector, it revises its plans and not allow any plans to surface mine coal in England to be treated as a Major Infrastructure Project.

A referenced version of this press release is available by contacting LAON at the email address below.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Opencast Network (LAON) has been in existence since 2009. It functions as a medium through which to oppose open cast mine applications. At present LAON links individuals and groups in N Ireland (Just Say No to Lignite), Scotland (Coal Action Scotland), Wales (Green Valleys Alliance, The Merthyr Tydfil Anti Opencast Campaign), England, (Coal Action Network), Northumberland, (Whittonstall Action Group, Halton Lea Gate Residents)) Co Durham (Pont Valley Network), Leeds, Sheffield (Cowley Residents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skelmansthorpe Action Group)  Nottinghamshire (Shortwood Farm Opencast Opposition), Derbyshire (West Hallum Environment Group, Smalley Action Group and Hilltop Action Group) , Leicestershire (Minorca Opencast Protest Group), Wakefield (Stop Opencast in Sharlston) and Walsall (Alumwell Action Group).

Contacting LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordinator, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now follow LAON on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

Fracking Lord’s Chelsea Mansion Drilled

The Big Rig Revolt kicked off at 8am Saturday with Frack Off London paying a surprise visit to the Chelsea Mansion owned by Lord Browne of Riverstone and Cuadrilla. The Fracking Lord’s malign influence has spread throughout the government since he was appointed to the role of recuiting business leaders to advise government departments. A variety of other actions are planned across the country throughout the day.

Unconventional gas, including Shale Gas, Coal Bed Methane (CBM) and Underground Coal Gasification (UCG), are threatening to spread thousands of wells across the British Isles. The first application for an unconventional gas development in Britain, 14 sites with 22 wells and over 20km of pipelines, was submitted to Falkirk Council by Dart Energy. Most areas off the country face some sort of threat and the climate implications of these processes are frightening.

Dressed in orange boiler suits and wearing gas masks 6 campaigners from Frack Off London erected a 20ft drilling rig outside the home of Lord Browne to highlight the peer’s involvement in UK unconventional gas development. The government has just announced that they are ending their gentleman’s agreement with Cuadrilla to suspend fracking operations in Lancashire and it could start again in Lancashire within months.

The government has plans to sell off large parts of the country next year for unconventional gas exploitation. The Chancellor, George Osborne, is also expected to announce the setting up of an Office of Shale Gas to expidite the process of fracking the country. The government is also plotting to short circuit local planning proceedures and green-light applications directly from central government, ensuring local communities have no chance to object.

Dozens Wounded in Mayanmar Coppermine Protest

Security forces used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to clear protesters from a copper mine in northwestern Myanmar, wounding villagers and Buddhist monks in the biggest use of force against demonstrators since the reformist government of President Thein Sein took office last year.

Security forces used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to clear protesters from a copper mine in northwestern Myanmar, wounding villagers and Buddhist monks in the biggest use of force against demonstrators since the reformist government of President Thein Sein took office last year.

Monks and other protesters had serious burns after the crackdown at the Letpadaung mine near the town of Monywa. Protesters who oppose the mine’s impact on villagers and the environment had occupied the area for 11 days.

The police action risks becoming a public relations and political fiasco for Thein Sein’s government, which has been touting its transition to democracy after almost five decades of repressive military rule.

Photos of the wounded monks showed they had sustained serious burns on parts of their bodies. It was unclear what sort of weapon caused them, or whether the burns were caused by their shelters catching fire from whatever devices police used.

Activists interfere with international mining conference in Finland

“There is no such thing as socially and environmentally sustainable mining!”

Today in Espoo, Finland, a meeting of bureaucrats and industrialists  entitled Confe

“There is no such thing as socially and environmentally sustainable mining!”

Today in Espoo, Finland, a meeting of bureaucrats and industrialists  entitled Conference on Socially and Environmentally Responsible Mining was disrupted by the group Hyökyaalto (“Tidal wave). The following statement was released today:

With the Northern mining boom the mining industry, famous for it’s chemical emissions, is threatening waters and ecosystems in various locations, where clean nature offers the most possibilities for local people. It is grotesque that the people involved gather to discuss the mining industry as a sustainable activity while every emergency dam in the Talvivaara mine is leaking poisonous waste into Vuoksi waters.

The action is a protest against the industry and the state’s attempt to legitimize mining by discussing its “sustainability”. Protesters are reminding people that no such thing as “responsible”, “sustainable” or “green” mining exists. The Talvivaara mine in Sotkamo, Eastern Finland is a clear example that the only green things caused by mining are the polluted swamps and waters. The mining industry, famous for its chemical emissions, threatens the waters and other ecosystems crucial to everyone living in the surrounding areas. The action is arranged in solidarity with the Stop Talvivaara movement and all the people to whom mining industry causes suffering around the world.

The environmental activists feel that direct action is the only strategy left to make a difference since the Finnish government has decided to support mining and ignore the critical voices from the people completely. Thus, the public opinion has no impact in the parlamentary system. A revealing example of this is that the opening speaker for the two-day greenwashing conference is Heidi Hautala from the Finnish Green party.

The organising group of this protest, Hyökyaalto demands immediate shutdown of Talvivaara mine and abandoning all other mining plans.

www.hyokyaalto.org

Stop the mining boom!

Activists Lock Themselves to Trucks Outside Valero’s Houston Refinery

Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline

HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –

Activists Begin Sustained Hunger Strike, Demand That Valero Divest from Keystone XL Pipeline

HOUSTON, TX – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2012 8:00AM –-Longtime Gulf Coast activists Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey Jr. have locked their necks to oil tanker trucks destined for Valero’s Houston Refinery in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade’s protests of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline. Valero Energy Corp. is among the largest investors in TransCanada’s toxic tar sands pipeline that will terminate near the community of Manchester, located in the shadow of Valero’s refinery. Not only are Wilson and Lindsey blockading the Valero refinery, the two lifelong friends have also vowed to begin a sustained hunger strike demanding that Valero divest from Keystone XL and invest that money into the health and well-being of the people of Manchester.

With a 90% Latino population, Manchester’s relationship with the Valero refinery is a textbook case of environmental racism. Residents there have suffered through decades of premature deaths, cancers, asthma and other diseases attributable to the refinery emissions. With little financial support for lawsuits and without the political agency necessary to legislatively reign-in criminal polluters like Valero, the community suffers while Valero posts record profits.

“All my life the Gulf Coast has been an environmental sacrifice zone, and enough is enough,” declared Diane Wilson, who spent over twenty years organizing to stop chemical plants from dumping toxins directly into Gulf waters. “Keystone XL will bring to dirtiest fuel on the planet right down to the Gulf, where already overburdened communities like Manchester will be forced to suffer even more. After decades of toxic air in Manchester, I refuse to just let them continue to punish this community. I won’t eat until Valero divests from Keystone XL.”

Wilson, a fourth-generation Gulf Coast shrimper, is no stranger to civil disobedience. After years of fighting industrial pollution in her hometown of Seadrift, TX, her willingness to use civil disobedience in the struggle for clean water and the successes it wrought for her community changed the landscape of environmental justice along the Gulf Coast.

Newly designated by the Waterkeeper Alliance as the San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper, Bob Lindsey Jr. was born and raised in Calhoun County, which has highest rate of cancer of any county in TX. Lindsey also has a shrimping heritage stretching back five generations. His sister has had four episodes of cancer, and his father and nephew both died of rare disorders while in their forties. All of these diseases are traceable to the chemical facilities around which Bob’s family members lived and worked.

“Me? I’m healthy. They’re the ones I’m fighting for. We have to be prepared to fight for those who can’t fight for themselves or who are too afraid to fight for themselves. That’s why I’m here.”

“Diane and Bob’s decision to hunger strike in protest of TransCanada’s Keystone XL and challenge Valero’s longstanding disregard for the health and safety of the people of Manchester pushes the boundaries of the Gulf Coast environmental movement yet again, explains Ramsey Sprague, a Louisiana Gulf Coast-born Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson. “Manchester deserves justice as do all communities treated as energy sacrifice zones. Corporations like Valero and TransCanada cannot seem to function without violating the health and safety of the people everywhere from Alberta to Manchester.”

Mapuche Indians Fight New Airport in Southern Chile

“This is a project that reflects the occupation…of Mapuche territory,” said Iván Reyes, an indigenous leader staunchly opposed to the construction of an international airport in the southern Chilean region of Araucanía.

Reyes, an agricultural technician, said the construction project was approved thanks to an environmental impact study “based on lies” that was carried out by Arcadis Geotécnica, the Chilean subsidiary of a Netherlands-based international consulting and engineering company.

The study “says there will be no impact on communities in the area. But in a later analysis, we detected that the base line and measurements had been manipulated,” he said.

The new airport, whose construction was actually approved in 2005, is now one of the most high-profile projects of the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera. It is being built in Quepe, 20 km from the city of Temuco and nearly 700 km south of Santiago.

The La Araucanía New International Airport, which will replace the Maquehue Airport, will have a 2,440-metre runway and a 5,000-square-metre passenger terminal.

Temuco, which is halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes foothills, is in the middle of prairies, pasture and farmland, and forests.

Although a few Mapuche communities support the new airport, which they see as a step forward for the region in terms of economic and cultural development, many others are staunchly opposed, arguing that it will undermine biodiversity and the environment, and will destroy their ancestral territory.

The Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, number nearly one million in this country of over 16 million people, and the struggle for their ancestral land in the south of the country has frequently pitted them against large landholders, logging companies and other private interests.

At the age of 23, Tranamil is already a Mapuche leader, in charge of the religious life of his community, Rofue. He is tenaciously opposed to the construction of the airport, which he describes as “a gateway to invade Mapuche territory.”

Tranamil, or “machi Fidel” as he is known by the local community, is one of the most active indigenous leaders in the area. He has been arrested several times, and his home is frequently searched by the police. Since 2005, his mother has been living with seven pellets in her right knee, after a harsh police crackdown on a protest.

The house where Tranamil and his mother live is warm and quiet. They raise pigs and chickens, and have a small vegetable garden.

“But soon, airliners will be landing every minute. That will not only violate our spiritual life but also our culture and harmony,” he said.

He also said that to build the airport, “between 200 and 300 hectares of native (old-growth) forest will be cut down, and lost forever. It would take 400 years for the trees to grow back to their current height.”

Evictions and Destruction on the ZAD Airport Protest Site

The ZAD airport protest site in France is still being evicted, a process that started on the 16th October. The zone is gradually being militarised but there are HUGE numbers of protesters and seemingly more every day. We're still fighting and it is not over!

 

The ZAD airport protest site in France is still being evicted, a process that started on the 16th October. The zone is gradually being militarised but there are HUGE numbers of protesters and seemingly more every day. We're still fighting and it is not over!

 

The ZAD is an airport protest site in the west of France about 15 miles north of Nantes. The airport project was first proposed over forty years ago and has faced constant local resistance ever since. The project is in the hands of the multinational company Vinci, who also provide us with such « services » as prisons, motorways and nuclear power stations. It is the particular pet project of Jean Marc Ayrault, the former mayor of Nantes and current Prime Minister of France. In 2009 the area hosted a climate camp, since when the empty houses, fields and forests have been gradually filling up with people disgusted enough by the idea of this project to stay and resist. The reasons for staying are as diverse as the people but the occupiers are united by an idea that fighting capitalism is an important part of every day life.

Until the second week of October you could still arrive on the ZAD and tour around over 30 diverse squats spread across the two thousand hectares of threatened land. The people united there to organise together and fight the airport project but life was far from unpleasant. You could visit the beautiful straw bale house bakery which provided the whole area with free price delicious organic bread twice a week, the numerous collective gardens, the home made wind turbine to provide electricity, an incredible range of cabins on the ground and in the trees made from collected materials, and you probably would have been able to go to a concert, join us on an action, help us organise and come to a few workshops to learn to climb, or knit, or maybe build a rocket stove.

Right at the moment though we don't seem to be leaving ourselves much time for knitting workshops. On Tuesday 16th October the large scale evictions of the place we call home started, and they weren't messing around. Riot vans arrived en masse from six in the morning and had already evicted seven squatted houses and burned down a large cabin by ten o'clock in the
morning. Approximately 1200 police were mobilized for this so-called 'operation Cesar', protecting the workers who use plain white vans, hiding their company names. Since then we have seen nearly all of those houses razed to the ground, and most of the other houses, cabins and homes evicted and destroyed. We have also nearly all inhaled a deeply unhealthy amount of tear gas and seen enough blue vans and uniforms to last a lifetime.

November 17th marked a huge change in this struggle. Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 (depending who you ask) people were united together on the ZAD for the huge Reoccupation Demo. This involved a march from the nearby town of Notre Dame des Landes (where the demo stretched for nearly eight kilometres) and a chestnut plantation close to the centre of the ZAD where huge numbers of people got to work building new cabins. All day it was hard to move without getting in the way of people hammering, sawing and carrying heavy things into the forest. Witnessing this collective energy, and around ten large cabins fly up in the course of an afternoon is something I feel sure no one who was there will forget. More than that, I hope that every single person who squelched through the mud that day now feels a part of the ZAD, and that we will not lose this collective force and feeling of strength.

Since then there has been vast amounts of construction happening all over the ZAD. In fact it is hard to find a place on the zone where you can't hear hammering. Unfortunately for the last few days this has been accompanied by the all-too-familiar sounds of concussion grenades and tear gas bombs. All of the newly constructed tree houses and the ground-level cabin in the Rohanne Forest were once again destroyed on Saturday in a constant cloud of tear gas. Despite being attacked and gassed all day, the huge number of supporters on the ground stayed until long after dark, until the police finally crawled back to where they came from. The new cabins from the reoccupation demo remain but they seem at risk of being destroyed soon. During the weekend there were huge numbers of injuries for the first time since the evictions started, and also instances of police attacking barricades in the middle of the night. They are now militarising the zone, staying all night on the roads to stop us from moving around, and gradually upping the pressure.

We got the message yesterday that the evictions will stop if we stop building, and I can smile as I type that I feel quite sure that will not happen. We will continue to build, and continue to fight against this oppression and this useless senseless project. We will not let them win so easily. There are more of us than ever and it is impossible not to feel strong, even as they destroy our homes again and again. We have ever more people to keep rebuilding.

There is a call out for solidarity actions on our website (www.zad.nadir.org)

The struggle continues for us, and we welcome the support of those as disillusioned as us with this company, the state, and the control on our every day lives. It's far from over, this is just the beginning.

Call out for actions during the moment of eviction of the ZAD
 https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article175

new call out for occupation
https://zad.nadir.org/spip.php?article348

WAKE UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNTRYSIDE FROM NEW PLANNING LEGISLATION

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

 

             THE  LOOSE ANTI OPEN-CAST NETWORK

 

WAKE-UP CALL TO PROTECT THE COUNRTYSIDE  FROM  LARGE SCALE MINERAL DEVELOPMENT ISSUED BY CAMPAIGN GROUP

PR 2012 -15                                                                           28/1/12

Does a company want to dig a big hole near you? Is it interested in trying to extract sand, clay. gravel, stone or coal? If it is, and the site is going to be more than 100 hectares, then why not suggest to the owner that they can sidestep going to the Local Authority and have the planning application considered by a new ‘fast- track’ method. Label it a ‘Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project’ and it can then be decided on, in a year, by a  Planning Inspector who, unlike local people and locally elected representatives, will not know the site, will not be affected and will not know you.

Far- fetched ideas?  Unfortunately not. These ideas are part of the proposals in the Government’s Growth and Infrastructure Bill now before Parliament. It will enable secondary legislation to be passed that, in its present form , will allow an applicant to by-pass the local democratic decision making process and have their application treated as a Major Infrastructure Project. The Government have initiated a public consultation process on the proposal entitled  ‘Nationally significant infrastructure planning: extending the regime to business and commercial projects: consultation’ which can be downloaded from here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nationally-significant-infrastructure-planning-extending-the-regime-to-business-and-commercial-projects

The Loose Anti Opencast Network (LAON) has analysed what the effect would be if the legislation was in place now on opencast mine proposals. There are 11 possible or actual proposals for opencast mines in England currently. Under these proposals, decisions about the four largest could be taken out of the hands of the Local Authority and given to a single unelected person to decide. Our Briefing Note “ Growth and Infrastructure Bill: Proposed 100 Hectare Threshold” published along with this Press Release @

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/11/503382.html

 outlines further why The Loose Anti Opencast Network argues against this proposal and urges other community and environmental groups to urgently study these proposals and voice their objections.

All responses, on forms provided in the consultation document, have to be in by 7/1/13.

About LAON

The Loose Anti-Opencast Network (LAON) has been in existence since 2009. It functions as a medium through which to oppose open cast mine applications. At present LAON links individuals and groups in N Ireland (Just Say No to Lignite), Scotland (Coal Action Scotland), Wales (Green Valleys Alliance, The Merthyr Tydfil Anti Opencast Campaign), England, (Coal Action Network), Northumberland, (Whittonstall Action Group, Halton Lea Gate Residents)) Co Durham (Pont Valley Network), Leeds, Sheffield (Cowley Residents Action Group), Kirklees, (Skelmansthorpe Action Group)  Nottinghamshire (Shortwood Farm Opencast Opposition), Derbyshire (West Hallum Environment Group, Smalley Action Group and Hilltop Action Group) , Leicestershire (Minorca Opencast Protest Group) and Walsall (Alumwell Action Group).

Contacting LAON

Steve Leary LAON’Ss Co-ordinator, at infoatlaon@yahoo.com

You can now follow LAON on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/Seftonchase

 

 

Sizewell Nuclear Power Stations Blockaded

26.11.2012

The road leading to Sizewell nuclear power stations A & B has been blockaded since 6:45 this morning. The protestors are still there (9:00).

 Waste of Our Future

26.11.2012

The road leading to Sizewell nuclear power stations A & B has been blockaded since 6:45 this morning. The protestors are still there (9:00).

 Waste of Our Future

At 6:45am this morning campaigners opposing nuclear new build blockaded the entrance to EDF’s Sizewell facility in Suffolk limiting access to the site by visitors to the site. This is the second time in three days that EDFs nuclear facilities have been targeted by activists, following hot on the heels of Friday’s dawn Blockade at Hinkley Point in Somerset.

EDF began their Consultation on the 21 Nov, and the public have just eleven weeks (until the 6th Feb 2012) to wade through the 342 pages of consultation documents. The glossy Brochures encourage us to play an ‘active’ role in the consultation, so here we are. Said mom Nikki Clark, “The government’s energy policy and changes to the planning system are pre-emptively denying people the opportunity to raise their legitimate concerns about nuclear power. This makes acts of civil disobedience extremely important as without this there is no other way to raise these issues.” She went on to say “If the process already underway at Hinkley Point in Somerset where I live is anything to go by, then the public here at Sizewell can expect a sham process which is nothing more than a cynical box-ticking exercise designed to allow EDF to claim that they have ‘listened’ to people’s concerns. The new process that the government has introduced to ‘fast-track new nuclear’ is totally undemocratic and therefore, illegitimate.

On Friday the government announced that “they have reached a landmark agreement on energy policy that will send a durable signal to investors”1 so that they can introduce the Energy Bill next week however most commentators believe that The Electricity reform Act is more about subsidising new nuclear that it is about subsidising ‘low carbon technology, the proof (if any were needed) lies in the fact that the governments proposals as they stand will hamstring genuinely renewable projects2.

On-shore wind would only require a strike price of around £80 per megawatt hour compared to the minimum ‘strike’ price of around £165 per MW/h that would be needed to subsidise new nuclear build. This would not be the only ‘subsidy-that-isn’t-a-subsidy ‘ that nuclear power would require. Said Mell Harrison, Education Director at a local Eco-centre “The biggest ‘subsidy-that-isn’t-a-subsidy’ that this industry will receive will be the one that comes in the form of highly toxic radioactive waste legacy they plan to store on-site at new build facilities. The cost of these subsidies will be borne by our grandchildren both physically and economically in around sixty years time when EDF get to leave the waste where it is and return ‘custody’ of it to our grandchildren. This will be in the form of highly dangerous waste that will require a minimum of a further hundred years cooling in-situ before anyone can even begin to think about packaging it for any further ‘storage’3

Said local campaigner Helen Swanston “Most people around here don’t realise that EDF were given the go ahead recently to build a dry storage facility to house the backlog of 1,466 tonnes of radioactive waste that is accumulating on site. The reason for this accumulation is because the technocrats of yester-year promised that the ‘waste issue’ would be resolved ‘in the future’ making fantastic promises about magical disposal facilities that would materialise in the not too distant future. These are the same empty promises that todays technocrats and politicians are making to us now. We are no closer now to any kind of interim storage facility let alone any kind of final resting place for nuclear waste.” The government’s so-called policy of voluntarism has seen only one set of local authorites even consider ‘volunteering’ and even they seem to have cold feet having deferred any decision to get involved until January of next year.4 EDF plan to create 3500 tonnes of waste from their twin EPR reactors 5

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Notes to Editors:

1 –DECC press release Re Energy Reform Act:  http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/pn12_0146/pn12_0146.aspx

2 – Dr David Toke is Senior Lecturer in Energy Policy in the Department of Political Science and International Studies in the University of Birmingham (UK). He was a key player in the campaign to establish feed-in tariffs for small renewable projects in the UK, the legislation for which was passed in 2008  http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/are-tories-anti-bourgeois-left-or-just.html

3 –The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Argoone National Laboratory in the U.S highlighted the dangers associated with the new high burn up fuel in 2008 in a conference where ‘They say that fuels with a burn-up above 45 GWd/tU cause previously unforeseen safety problems’  http://www.robedwards.com/2008/04/nuclear-super-f.html

4 – There is deep unease about trusting government enough to comitt to the process to find location for a nuclear waste dump with concerns about the abscence of laws governing the process as well as concerns about the unsuitable geology in Cumbria.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/oct/03/three-month-delay-nuclear-waste-burial-cumbria

5 – Peter Lux is a local person concerned about Sizewell  http://www.plux.co.uk/3500-tonnes-of-spent-fuel-may-be-produced-by-sizewell-c/