Category: Action Reports

Wrexham Borras drill site occupied — Please support the camp

Camp banner19.10.2014

Camp banner19.10.2014

GP Ener­gy (who were bought out by Dart who in turn have been bought out by IGas) applied for plan­ning per­mis­sion to do an explorato­ry drill for coal bed methane (CBM) at Bor­ras, Wrex­ham. Frack-off describes coal bed methane as the evil twin of shale gas. Wrex­ham coun­cil refused the appli­ca­tion back in March after at lot of work by local peo­ple to edu­cate the plan­ning com­mit­tee on the dan­gers of uncon­ven­tion­al gas extrac­tion. The suc­cess of this was at least in part due to increased aware­ness of the issues as a result of a test drill hap­pen­ing at the same time in near­by Farn­don. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the Wales Plan­ning Inspec­tor over­turned the coun­cil’s deci­sion ear­li­er this month — on some dis­tinct­ly dodgy grounds — and the site is now under immi­nent threat of test drilling, even though it is in an area where the gov­ern­men­t’s own report has indi­cat­ed CBM extrac­tion isn’t fea­si­ble due to the geol­o­gy.

A pub­lic meet­ing has been called for 23 Octo­ber in Bor­ras but, in advance of that, the site has been occu­pied this week­end and a com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp set up. Sup­port (includ­ing more campers) and sup­plies need­ed. Please get there if you can. Post­code LL13 9TG. There’s a camp Face­book group or you can con­tact Frack-Free Wrex­ham for more infor­ma­tion.

an idyllic spot - let's keep it that way

Camp flier
Camp fli­er

Flier for meeting and camp info
Fli­er for meet­ing and camp info

Around 25 peo­ple were on site this after­noon. Those who had been camp­ing since Fri­day said they were over­whelmed with the num­ber of peo­ple who’d called round to the camp to wish them well and drop off sup­plies, water, build­ing mate­ri­als, camp­ing gear and all sorts of oth­er use­ful stuff. As well as a group of tents in the mid­dle, a com­post toi­let had already been built, as well as a shel­ter by the fire and a kitchen under con­struc­tion.

Com­mu­ni­ty Pro­tec­tion Camps can only suc­ceed with the sup­port of the local com­mu­ni­ty, so if you live local­ly, or fur­ther afield, and care about pro­tect­ing the coun­try­side, air, water, food… (prop­er­ty own­ers might also care about their prop­er­ty val­ues which are liable to plum­met in areas where drilling goes ahead), please call in to the camp and see what’s need­ed. There’s a warm wel­come for all friend­ly vis­i­tors — just turn up. Police pres­ence so far has been low key.

The site is quite mud­dy, par­tic­u­lar­ly around the gate, so bear that in mind if you’re plan­ning to go into the field. If you’re dri­ving, park­ing is pos­si­ble on the verge along­side the gate and if you’re trav­el­ling by bus, the site is about 1 mile from the Holt Lodge Inn. Take the turn­ing near­ly oppo­site the Holt Lodge into Shep­herds Rd. Fol­low this road right to the end, turn left at the T‑junction and the site is on the left just after the Bor­ras vil­lage sign. The C56 bus from Wrex­ham or Chester, both of which have rail­way sta­tions, stops at the Holt Lodge Inn. A camp phone num­ber will be avail­able soon.

Frack Free Wrex­ham
- e‑mail: frack­freewrex­ham [AT] riseup.net

Manitoba Hydro Evicted from Northern Dam Station by Protesters

pimicikamak-first-nation-protest-2

Octo­ber 17th, 2014

Pro­test­ers have forced employ­ees of Man­i­to­ba Hydro out of the Jen­peg gen­er­at­ing sta­tion in north­ern Man­i­to­ba.

The pro­test­ers, from Pimi­cika­mak Cree Nation, deliv­ered an over­sized evict­ed notice on Fri­day to staff at the sta­tion and the employ­ee hous­ing com­plex, both of which are locat­ed on the Nel­son Riv­er in Pimi­cika­mak ter­ri­to­ry.

“The build­ing is emp­ty, locked, undam­aged and under the Pimi­cika­mak flag,” states a release from the Cree Nation, which is locat­ed approx­i­mate­ly 525 kilo­me­tres by air north of Win­nipeg.

A few hydro per­son­nel remain inside the dam itself to mon­i­tor the facil­i­ty. Pimi­cika­mak guar­an­tees the safe­ty and well-being of these peo­ple, and ensures that hydro facil­i­ties will not be dam­aged.”

The pro­test­ers want com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages caused by flood­ing from the dam, which opened in 1979.

“The hydro sys­tem floods 65 square kilo­me­tres of Pimi­cika­mak land and caus­es severe dam­age to thou­sands of kilo­me­tres of shore­line,” Chief Cathy Mer­rick stat­ed in the press release. “Out­ly­ing grave sites have been washed away; Pimi­cika­mak peo­ple have died as a result of semi-sub­merged debris from erod­ing shore­lines and unsafe ice con­di­tions caused by hydro.

“The project has turned a once boun­ti­ful and inti­mate­ly known home­land into a dan­ger­ous and despoiled pow­er cor­ri­dor.”

Jen­peg, which Man­i­to­ba Hydro uses to con­trol out­flows from Lake Win­nipeg into the Nel­son Riv­er sys­tem, is locat­ed about 20 kilo­me­tres from Cross Lake, which is the main Pimi­cika­mak set­tle­ment with some 8,000 res­i­dents.

“This is our home; we will not let it be tram­pled,” said Mer­rick. “This dam has been great for the south but for us it is a man-made cat­a­stro­phe. Hydro needs to clean up the mess it has cre­at­ed in our home­land. Hydro needs to treat us fair­ly.”

She said the provin­cial gov­ern­ment has spo­ken about rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with all hydro-affect­ed peo­ples, and a “new era” of “part­ner­ship” but so far none of that has hap­pened.

The hydro sys­tem pro­duces $3.8 mil­lion worth of pow­er on its five Nel­son Riv­er dams every day, accord­ing to Mer­rick, who not­ed it “has not con­tributed to ‘the erad­i­ca­tion of mass pover­ty and mass unem­ploy­ment’ as was con­tem­plat­ed in the 1977 North­ern Flood Agree­ment.

“The NFA says affect­ed peo­ple will be dealt with fair­ly and equi­tably,” she said, adding, “In many parts of Cana­da, gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies are real­iz­ing that every­one ben­e­fits when the tremen­dous wealth and oppor­tu­ni­ty of the land is shared fair­ly.”

Pimicikamak’s road map to pos­i­tive change includes:

  • A pub­lic apol­o­gy from Pre­mier Greg Selinger for past and present harms suffered​ by all hydro-affect­ed peo­ples and their lands.
  • A com­mit­ment from Man­i­to­ba and Man­i­to­ba Hydro to engage in a good-faith process to ful­fill promis­es in the NFA, includ­ing mea­sures relat­ed to com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal mit­i­ga­tion and max­i­mum employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties.
  • A rev­enue shar­ing agree­ment and/or water rental arrange­ment with Pimi­cika­mak.

“​The Pimi­cika­mak peo­ple will not leave Jen­peg until Man­i­to­ba and Hydro make sub­stan­tive com­mit­ments to fol­low the course out­lined above,” Mer­rick said.

The chief and coun­cil will be meet­ing with provin­cial and hydro offi­cials at the Jen­peg sta­tion on Fri­day.

Hambach: Trees with Platforms Felled

Noname

Octo­ber 17th, 2014

Noname

Octo­ber 17th, 2014

The dai­ly mad­ness con­tin­ues.
This morn­ing activists from the tree ocu­pa­tion “Gruben­blick“ report­ed about an unpleasent vis­it beneath their plat­forms:
RWE, Köt­ters Secu­ri­ty and the Police with a cher­ryp­ick­er. The occu­pa­tion is direct­ly at the edge of the clearcut, no more than 100 meters dis­tance to the hole of the [open cast coal] mine. Some pic­tures from Gruben­blick
The work­ers of the land­mur­der­ing com­pa­ny RWE cut down trees which had plat­forms on them. Soon after the police came by and exam­ined the occu­pied trees of “Gruben­blick“. Pre­sum­ably they made prepa­ra­tions for an evic­tion.

Now it is qui­et again, the activists of Gruben­blick stay in the trees and have a hideous look on the deep­est hole of europe and uncount­able treestumps.

Fracking Protest Camp Set Up to Protect Horse Hill, UK

Campaigners at the Horse Hill site near Horley, photo credit: Marina Pepper

Octo­ber 16th, 2014

Campaigners at the Horse Hill site near Horley, photo credit: Marina Pepper

Octo­ber 16th, 2014

A protest group has set up camp near Hor­ley to pro­tect a site from pos­si­ble frack­ing fol­low­ing news that oil ‘shows’ at Horse Hill after weeks of explo­ration.

Horse Hill Devel­op­ments has been drilling at the Horse Hill site since the begin­ning of Sep­tem­ber with a promise to cam­paign­ers that it would not be frack­ing there, but Frack Free Sur­rey fear the com­pa­ny is test­ing the ground for future projects in the Weald.

The com­pa­ny does not cur­rent­ly have a license to frack, but stat­ed on Sep­tem­ber 18 that “the infor­ma­tion gained through these activ­i­ties will pro­vide valu­able insights into the tech­ni­cal and eco­nom­ic via­bil­i­ty of uncon­ven­tion­al devel­op­ment else­where in the Weald Basin”.

More than 80 peo­ple attend­ed a meet­ing held by Red­hill Greens and Frack Free Sur­rey on Mon­day (Octo­ber 13), to dis­cuss the drilling and the pos­si­ble threat of frack­ing across the weald.

 

 

Rob Bas­to, from Frack Free Sur­rey, said:“If frack­ing goes ahead in the area it could result in thou­sands of wells in the south-east with dis­as­trous con­se­quences – for our local envi­ron­ment and the glob­al cli­mate. We are utter­ly opposed to any new fos­sil fuel devel­op­ment in our area.”

Bren­da Pol­lack, from Friends of the Earth, said cam­paign­ers are con­cerned as many com­pa­nies are now “sala­mi slic­ing” their appli­ca­tions, in order to have a greater chance of suc­cess. Explorato­ry licences are grant­ed in the first stage, which means a frack­ing licence can be eas­i­er to get once indus­tri­al work has already tak­en place on the land.

But Ms Pol­lack said cam­paign­ers were keen not to scare mon­ger.

She said: “We are con­cerned that ulti­mate­ly the com­pa­ny wants to extract shale oil. The site is in the Weald Basin – an area known to con­tain oil trapped in shale rock. While they may be using con­ven­tion­al tech­niques at this test­ing phase, there is every rea­son to believe it could lead to frack­ing.

“Chas­ing dif­fi­cult to reach fos­sil fuels is not the answer to our ener­gy prob­lems. Sur­rey should be invest­ing in clean­er renew­able ener­gy projects to help reduce the impacts of cli­mate change.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Cam­paign­ers have set up camp at the Horse Hill site near Hor­ley

Ms Pol­lack said many peo­ple are con­cerned as Mag­el­lan Petro­le­um

Cor­po­ra­tion, who have a 35% stake in Horse Hill Devel­op­ments, are also part­nered with Cel­tique Ener­gy who recent­ly had an appli­ca­tion turned down to drill at Nine Acre Copse in Fern­hurst.

In Sep­tem­ber, Scott Bradley, chief exec­u­tive of Horse Hill Devel­op­ments Lim­it­ed, said: “We are delight­ed with the progress being made and the drilling per­for­mance to date. We now look for­ward to the next phase of this con­ven­tion­al project and await our tar­get eval­u­a­tion results eager­ly.”

 

Hambach Treesitter Suffers Fall

Noname

Octo­ber 16th, 2014

Noname

Octo­ber 16th, 2014

Heli­copter res­cues fall­en climb­ing activist – climb­ing part­ner arrest­ed with­out rea­son

On Mon­day, a French activist fell down from a 8 metre high plat­form at a for­est occu­pa­tion near the clearcut bor­der of the open cast mine Ham­bach. A heli­copter brought the con­scious acci­dent vic­tim to the near­by hos­pi­tal. Anoth­er for­est occu­pant was arrest­ed by the police dur­ing the res­cue mis­sion and was held at the police sta­tion in Düren for sev­er­al hours with­out rea­son. For 3 years, activists have been protest­ing in the Ham­bach For­est against Europe’s biggest open cast mine, which is locat­ed between Cologne and Aachen.

“Our year­long expe­ri­ence, tuto­ri­als, train­ing ses­sions and inter­na­tion­al secu­ri­ty stan­dards, show: We are pro­fes­sion­als. The secu­ri­ty of the activists is our first pri­or­i­ty.“, explains Nina Wag­n­er, climb­ing train­er and for­est occu­pant. The activists now want to clear the case com­plete­ly and search for fail­ures in the secu­ri­ty pro­ce­dures. It’s the first seri­ous acci­dent since the start of the protest, which is held dai­ly in the for­est, ele­vat­ed from at least 8 metres. “Our activists know, why they do their protest in the top of the trees. We are deter­mined to resist the cli­mate killer brown coal, even at high per­son­al risk.” con­tin­ues Wag­n­er.

Though the res­cue was suc­cess­ful, the activists are very con­cerned about the acci­dent. “She’s in our thoughts, and we hope that she will recov­er from her injuries.” says Wag­n­er. After the fall, the occu­pants react­ed quick­ly and start­ed to imme­di­ate­ly per­form first aid. While one team took care of the emer­gency call, anoth­er removed the bar­ri­cades, which are nor­mal­ly in place to pre­vent an evic­tion by police forces, to clear the way for the res­cue team. In the future, more strin­gent secu­ri­ty mea­sures will be in place in order to avoid anoth­er rare inci­dent like this. The vic­tim, which was able to speak direct­ly after the fall, was brought by heli­copter to the uni­ver­si­ty hos­pi­tal in Aachen.

Ts’ka7 Warriors Burn Down Imperial Metals Ruddock Creek Mine Bridge

fire-handSecwepemc Ts’ka7 Warriors deactivate Imperial Metals Ruddock Creek mine road.

Inter

fire-handSecwepemc Ts’ka7 Warriors deactivate Imperial Metals Ruddock Creek mine road.

Inter­na­tion­al State­ment, Octo­ber 14, 2014

With much dis­cus­sion with Elders Coun­cils and around Sacred fires and cer­e­monies the Secwepemc Ts’ka7 War­riors have act­ed out their col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty and juris­dic­tion to and in the Ts’ka7 area by deac­ti­vat­ing the Impe­r­i­al Met­als Rud­dock Creek mine road.

Impe­r­i­al Met­als Cor­po­ra­tion nev­er asked for or received free, pri­or and informed con­sent to oper­ate in Secwepemc Ter­ri­to­ry.  The Impe­r­i­al Met­als Mount Pol­ley mine dis­as­ter, in the area known as Yuct Ne Senxiymetk­we, the absolute destruc­tion and dev­as­ta­tion of our Ter­ri­to­ry has nev­er been answered for.  No repa­ra­tions have been made.    Instead Impe­r­i­al Met­als con­tin­ues to force through anoth­er mine in our Ter­ri­to­ry while crim­i­nal­iz­ing the Klabona Keep­ers of the Tahltan Nation also exert­ing their juris­dic­tion­al and with­hold­ing con­sent from the same com­pa­ny.

The geno­ci­dal dis­place­ment of the Secwepemc from their Home­lands through star­va­tion, fear and assim­i­la­tion by the state and indus­try being act­ed out by Impe­r­i­al Met­als stops now.  We are com­mit­ted to the ongo­ing pro­tec­tion of our Ter­ri­to­ry.  Our salmon is sacred, our land is sacred, our Women are sacred, our water is sacred and we the Peo­ples, the right­ful title hold­ers are the deci­sion mak­ers and we will pro­tect them.

Agree­ments made by elect­ed chief and coun­cil do not have author­i­ty and do not rep­re­sent us.  This is a warn­ing to Impe­r­i­al Met­als Cor­po­ra­tion:  Leave our Lands and do not come back.  This is a warn­ing to the provin­cial gov­ern­ment: You do not have juris­dic­tion on this Land to issue per­mits to any cor­po­ra­tion.  This is a warn­ing to investors (includ­ing the province), con­trac­tors, sup­pli­ers and sub­sidiaries:  Divest from Impe­r­i­al Met­als Cor­po­ra­tion.  We the Secwepemc, unit­ed, will not allow Impe­r­i­al Met­als Cor­po­ra­tion to con­tin­ue. Secwepemc Law will pre­vail in our Ter­ri­to­ry.
Secwepem­culecw wel me7 yews, wel me7 yews
Secwepemc Ts’ka7 War­riors

Portland Oil Terminal Blocked, USA

rally-wide-shot

rally-wide-shot

Activists form block­ade against oil trains at Arc Logis­tics, crude oil-by-rail ter­mi­nal

NW Port­land, Ore­gon: 100 peo­ple gath­ered in protest this after­noon (9/10/2014) at Arc Logis­tics, Portland’s only crude oil-by-rail ter­mi­nal. Five activists risked arrest by sit­ting direct­ly on the rail tracks to pre­vent an oil train from reach­ing the oil ter­mi­nal. Infor­ma­tion leaked from a work­er at the facil­i­ty revealed that due the con­tro­ver­sial protest, oil ship­ments had been halt­ed for the day. Pro­test­ers, includ­ing those block­ing the tracks have dis­persed peace­ful­ly.

Crude oil trains have caused a great deal of con­tro­ver­sy across the coun­ty. Near­ly a dozen derail­ments have occurred in the past two years, many end­ing in fire­ball explo­sions that have killed 47 peo­ple and caused hun­dreds of mil­lions in prop­er­ty dam­age. Event orga­niz­ers say these trains rep­re­sent an unac­cept­able threat to our com­mu­ni­ties: risk­ing explo­sive train derail­ments, dan­ger­ous spills and leaks, degrad­ing air qual­i­ty, and desta­bi­liz­ing the cli­mate.

“I am an obste­tri­cian, gyne­col­o­gist with a degree in pub­lic health. I have devot­ed my career to pro­tect­ing moth­ers and babies and worked inter­na­tion­al­ly in almost 40 coun­tries. I have taught at Har­vard and Stan­ford. The impor­tance of these efforts now pales,” said Kel­ly O’Hanley, MD, MPH, one of the five activists will­ing to risk arrest if an oil train attempt­ed to enter Arc Logis­tics. “I have nev­er gone to jail but the specter of cli­mate change has moved me out of my clin­ic, out of the hos­pi­tal and out of my com­fort­able liv­ing room – onto the streets and into jail if nec­es­sary.”

Port­land is a choke point for fos­sil fuel trans­port in the North­west. We are draw­ing the line to sup­port all those affect­ed from extrac­tion to the cli­mate-desta­bi­liz­ing com­bus­tion,” says orga­niz­er Mia Reback, “today’s action is intend­ed to send a strong mes­sage that the com­mu­ni­ty will not allow these dan­ger­ous oil trains to come through Port­land.”

Today’s protest con­tin­ues a series of direct actions and resis­tance against North­west oil-by-rail projects. In June, activists with Port­land Ris­ing Tide blocked the Arc Logis­tics site in Port­land when a woman locked her­self to a con­crete filled bar­rel on the tracks. Fol­low­ing that action, com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers across the North­west have set up block­ades at oil facil­i­ties in Ana­cortes, Wash­ing­ton, Everett, Wash­ing­ton and most recent­ly Port West­ward, Ore­gon.

Arc Logis­tics cur­rent­ly ships crude by rail from fracked oil shale in Utah. The first US tar sands mine is under con­struc­tion in Utah and Arc could soon be accept­ing this con­tro­ver­sial fuel. The Arc Logis­tics ter­mi­nal can also receive explo­sive Bakken crude oil from North Dako­ta with­out noti­fy­ing Port­land res­i­dents.

The Cli­mate Action Coali­tion demands that the city of Port­land halts the oper­a­tions of Arc Logis­tics and impos­es a ban on all new fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture that puts our cli­mate and com­mu­ni­ties in jeop­ardy.

###

The Cli­mate Action Coali­tion is: Port­land Ris­ing Tide, NoKXL, 350 PDX, Port­land Rag­ing Grannies, First Uni­tar­i­an Uni­ver­sal­ist Com­mu­ni­ty for Earth Team, PDX Bike Swarm

Legal Fund Here

Kinder Morgan Surveyor Office Blocked by ‘Pipeline’, Canada

mappipe2

Octo­ber 7th, 2014

mappipe2

Octo­ber 7th, 2014

Activists installed a “pipeline” ear­ly this mor­ing in front of the down­town offices of McEl­han­ney map­ping. The adhoc group says the com­pa­ny was taget­ed for its part in sur­vey­ing for the con­tro­ver­sial Kinder Mor­gan pipeline expan­sion plan on Burn­a­by Moun­tain.

The group erect­ed a pvc pipeline, com­plete with drip­ping ‘bitu­men’ and notices to “Get off Burn­a­by Moun­tain.”

From the group’s release:

“Ear­ly this morn­ing the entrance to McElhanney’s down­town Van­cou­ver office was block­ad­ed. The doors were locked, a “bitu­men pipeline” blocked the stairs and posters were past­ed. The action is in response to McElhanney’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in sur­vey­ing for the Kinder Mor­gan pipeline expan­sion project in Burn­a­by .

 

mappipe6_0

“The pro­pos­al aims to increase the num­ber of bar­rels of Alber­ta bitu­men deliv­ered to Burn­a­by and the Sal­ish Sea from 300,000 bar­rels a day to 890,000 a day. This would result in an astro­nom­i­cal and dan­ger­ous increase in tanker traf­fic through the Bur­rard Inlet. The expan­sion cross­es the unced­ed ter­ri­to­ry of many Indige­nous nations and is evi­dence of con­tin­ued oppres­sive col­o­niza­tion and ram­pant cap­i­tal­ist greed.  Resis­tance to this project is strong and unwa­ver­ing!

“The Secwepemc Women War­rior Soci­ety has been vocal­ly opposed to the projects’ intru­sion through the heart of their ter­ri­to­ry, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth Nation has launched a legal bat­tle as well as cre­at­ed a treaty with sur­round­ing nations vow­ing to pro­tect the Sal­ish Sea, even local may­ors are stand­ing up in oppo­si­tion. Despite the resound­ing no from affect­ed com­mu­ni­ties, Kinder Mor­gan is con­tin­u­ing with the project and hir­ing com­pa­nies to do inva­sive stud­ies that are against Coast Sal­ish law and even “Cana­di­an” colo­nial bylaws. No means no and the peo­ple, led by Indige­nous resis­tance are not back­ing down to cor­po­ra­tions!

“This dis­rup­tion has been brought to you by a group of friends who refuse to accept, and are com­mit­ted to resist­ing, the con­tin­ued col­o­niza­tion of indige­nous ter­ri­to­ries by cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment.  We oppose the oppres­sive nature of the oil and gas indus­try in our fight for cli­mate and social jus­tice. We stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with front­line com­mu­ni­ties who are fight­ing destruc­tive and oppres­sive resource extrac­tion projects.”

The office entrance has now been blocked off by Van­cou­ver police.

mappipe1

 

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.

Coordinated Direct Action against Maules Creek Mine Suspends Work at Several Sites

Two protesters scaled a coal loader and dropped a banner at Whitehaven's Werris Creek mine. </p> </body></html>
Two protesters scaled a coal loader and dropped a banner at Whitehaven's Werris Creek mine. (photo courtesy Leard Forest Alliance)

Two pro­test­ers scaled a coal loader and dropped a ban­ner at Whitehaven’s Wer­ris Creek mine. (pho­to cour­tesy Leard For­est Alliance)

Octo­ber 2nd, 2014

Activists protest­ing against a coal project have dis­rupt­ed min­ing oper­a­tions at sev­er­al sites in the Gunnedah Basin, in north­ern New South Wales.

An anti-coal protest group said about 150 pro­test­ers had tar­get­ed four mines and a coal loader oper­at­ed by White­haven Coal, which is plan­ning a con­tro­ver­sial mine at Maules Creek, near Narrabri in the state’s north-west.

Oppo­nents, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal­ists and farm­ers, have said the project and asso­ci­at­ed for­est-clear­ing pose sig­nif­i­cant envi­ron­men­tal threats includ­ing to bio­di­ver­si­ty and water required for agri­cul­tur­al use.

Four pro­test­ers chained them­selves to access points to the Maules Creek project and two scaled the coal loader at the Wer­ris Creek mine and unfurled a ban­ner.

At the Tar­ra­won­ga mine at Bog­gabri a pro­tes­tor climbed a tri­pod struc­ture to block access to the site while, three oth­ers chained them­selves togeth­er across the road.

Two pro­test­ers chained them­selves to a gate at the Roc­glen mine near Gunnedah and anoth­er pair chained them­selves to a gate at the Gunnedah coal han­dling plant.

Police from Bar­won Local Area Com­mand said at least six peo­ple were arrest­ed.

They includ­ed a 27-year-old envi­ron­men­tal­ist who chained him­self to a rail line near New­cas­tle.

Police res­cue offi­cers had to cut the man free and he was like­ly to be charged with tres­pass.

The Aus­tralian Rail Track Cor­po­ra­tion con­firmed the protest had dis­rupt­ed rail oper­a­tions.

The rail line, which is used to trans­port coal into the Port of New­cas­tle for export, was blocked for more than two hours.

Protesters demand inquiry into ‘flawed approval processes’

Helen War, from the Front Line Action on Coal group, said the pro­test­ers want­ed the State Gov­ern­ment to con­duct an inquiry into how the Maules Creek project was giv­en plan­ning approval.

“They’re call­ing for an imme­di­ate stop to work at the Maules Creek mine and for the New South Wales Gov­ern­ment to con­duct a full inquiry into the flawed approval process­es,” she said.

White­haven Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Paul Fly­nn said the protests caused lit­tle dis­rup­tion at Maules Creek, but there were delays at the company’s oth­er active mines.

“The police have been called for each of these activ­i­ties,” he said.

“The real­i­ty of it is, is that it will only be a mar­gin­al impact on us for the day, and unfor­tu­nate­ly again anoth­er wide­spread con­sump­tion of impor­tant valu­able com­mu­ni­ty resources such as the police and police res­cue.

“I’m not quite sure what these peo­ple thing they’re doing by tar­get­ing just inno­cent peo­ple try­ing to do their job.”

Greens leader Chris­tine Milne vis­it­ed an activist camp site near Maules Creek on Sun­day to show sup­port for the ongo­ing protest action.

The par­ty has con­tro­ver­sial­ly sup­port­ed those involved in the unrest, includ­ing activist Jonathon Moy­lan.

Moy­lan was giv­en a 20-month prison sen­tence in July after plead­ing guilty to issu­ing a fake press release that tem­porar­i­ly wiped mil­lions of dol­lars from the company’s books.

Ms Milne said Moy­lan was sup­port­ing the Maules Creek farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty and has had his day in court.

“And that is what you do when you’re an activist but the com­pa­ny hasn’t faced the full face of the law and that is what is wrong here,” she said.

“You’ve got com­mu­ni­ty activists who are pre­pared to take the con­se­quences but the com­pa­ny who gets out of tak­ing the con­se­quences.”