Category: Action Reports

Five Arrested in New York Anti-Fracking Sit-In

“Spec­tra Show­down” protest against frack­ing in New York City, Sep. 6, 2012

“Spec­tra Show­down” protest against frack­ing in New York City, Sep. 6, 2012

“Today [Sep 6] the ongo­ing protest called “Spec­tra Show­down,” [in New York City]has final­ly turned into the scene of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence that the group has been antic­i­pat­ing. At least two peo­ple have been report­ed­ly arrest­ed.

“After pre-con­struc­tion in July, Spec­tra Ener­gy begins a new phase of con­struc­tion today that has involved ship­ments of mate­ri­als on a barge on the Hud­son and from the West Side High­way. Spec­tra hard­hats were seen on peo­ple dig­ging at 8:30 this morn­ing right next to the bike path while pro­test­ers gath­ered next to them. A barge with a crane was on the Riv­er. The pro­test­ers held ban­ners but it wasn’t until after 10 AM that it was tweet­ed that two were arrest­ed.

“The protest has been against hydrofrack­ing (a process being used to drill for nat­ur­al gas in the Mar­cel­lus shale fields of Penn­syl­va­nia and the gen­er­al biore­gion).”

 

ALF FREE 123 DUCKS FROM FACTORY FARM

“In Nor­folk UK on the 26th of August 2012 a cru­el fac­to­ry farm breed­ing ducks for meat in which they were fed on growth exhil­a­rat­ing chem­i­cals and have no access to water for swim­ming and liv­ing in their nat­ur­al way, had it’s fence cut open, doors smashed in and 123 pris­on­ers freed and sent to lov­ing tem­po­rary homes, soon to be freed back into the wild.

“In Nor­folk UK on the 26th of August 2012 a cru­el fac­to­ry farm breed­ing ducks for meat in which they were fed on growth exhil­a­rat­ing chem­i­cals and have no access to water for swim­ming and liv­ing in their nat­ur­al way, had it’s fence cut open, doors smashed in and 123 pris­on­ers freed and sent to lov­ing tem­po­rary homes, soon to be freed back into the wild.

This is not hard, all of you com­pas­sion­ate peo­ple CAN JUST DO THIS! Take action tonight. Hit them hard and hit them often right where it hurts. You do not have to be a nin­ja to lib­er­ate, you just need good bolt cut­ters, some strong box­es and homes offered by peo­ple you can trust.

Until all cages are emp­ty and all pris­on­ers freed from abuse and exploita­tion, we will con­tin­ue the war.

For Lib­er­ty and Jus­tice for all

The ALF”

 

Flurry of Anti-Fossil Fuel Direct Actions

Three activists from Tar Sands Block­ade locked them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment near Saltil­lo, TX this morn­ing, shut­ting down the con­struc­tion site com­plete­ly.

Three activists from Tar Sands Block­ade locked them­selves to con­struc­tion equip­ment near Saltil­lo, TX this morn­ing, shut­ting down the con­struc­tion site com­plete­ly. As of the lat­est update, work­ers and police had all left the site, leav­ing the block­ade intact.

The action is the third so far for Tar Sands Blo­cakde, a group devot­ed to stop­ping TransCanada’s plan to expand the Key­stone XL Pipeline to trans­port oil from the Alber­ta Tar Sands to Texas. It fol­lows only days upon an August 28 action, when four activists locked them­selves to the under­side of a truck actu­al­ly car­ry­ing a piece of the planned pipeline. A total of sev­en pro­test­ers were arrest­ed, but not before all Key­stone con­struc­tion trans­porta­tion for the south­ern seg­ment was shut down for a full day.

 

In an unre­lat­ed action tar­get­ing big ener­gy infra­struc­ture, more than 150 pro­test­ers from Ever­glades Earth First! and Occu­py Wall Street block­ad­ed the access roads to TECO’s Big Bend coal plant on the east­ern shore of Tam­pa Bay, FL on Aug 31, coin­cid­ing with the last day of the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Tam­pa.

Accord­ing to a press release, “Earth First! activists chose this day for their protest in order to high­light Mitt Romney’s plan to expand what the group calls the “ener­gy empire” which favors the inter­est of big donors in oil, gas and coal indus­tries.” TECO was also cho­sen for its involve­ment in moun­tain­top removal coal min­ing.

The plant was suc­cess­ful­ly block­ad­ed for near­ly four hours. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed. And as a bonus: the action led freaked-out author­i­ties to tem­porar­i­ly shut down the Port of Tam­pa!

Parma: Three mobile phone masts set on fire in solidarity with imprisoned comrades (Italy)

We receive from anony­mous mail and trans­mit:

We receive from anony­mous mail and trans­mit:

In the night between 29th and 30th August we set three mobile phone masts on fire in the vicin­i­ty of Par­ma west exit on the A1 high­way. The land­scape where the masts stood include, in the space of a few hun­dred metres, a rail­way track with adjoin­ing yards, pow­er plants, a high­way, inten­sive farm­ing facil­i­ties, fac­to­ries and lux­u­ry vil­las. Many of these infra­struc­tures feed the mega mon­ster of the tech­no­log­i­cal and indus­tri­al machin­ery and the insa­tiable thirst for ener­gy and mobil­i­ty required by the west­ern civ­i­lized lifestyle.

Each of these struc­tures only inspires us to destroy them and the desire to put an end to this absurd world, as we are proud to be untame­able social mis­fits! To all the indomitable war­riors burn­ing with the instinct of free­dom!

This is for you, Mar­co, broth­er and com­rade! May action spread for all our com­rades in prison!

Sol­i­dar­i­ty with Elisa, Ale, Katia, Ser­gio, Pao­la, Ste­fano, Giu­lia and Peppe in prison for oper­a­tion Ardire, to Gabriel Pom­bo Da Sil­va and the inves­ti­gat­ed in oper­a­tion Man­gia­fuo­co.

 

‘Long-Live Luciano Tortuga Cell – International Conspiracy for Revenge – FAI / FRI’ attack electrical substation with incendiary device in Manado (Indonesia)

From Mem­bakar Senj[a]:

From Mem­bakar Senj[a]:

It’s always a rea­son to say that the lack of num­bers is the main rea­son. But for us the only obsta­cle is fear. The­o­ries, rea­sons and sit­u­a­tions are the walls of the labyrinth which always became a rea­son for obstruc­tion and restric­tion. As well as the accu­sa­tions that the kid­nap­ping of two mem­bers, of our com­rades Bil­ly and Eat, is a bar­ri­er to the ongo­ing actions for destruc­tion.

On August 23, at a pow­er plant in Kota­mobagu, North Sulawe­si, we put an incen­di­ary device that failed to ignite. We were dis­ap­point­ed with our­selves and the abil­i­ty of each indi­vid­ual who was involved in the attack. But on the oth­er hand, we learned that no one should regret. Tonight August 31, we re-com­mit to do the same “crimes”. Leav­ing the device in order to burn an elec­tri­cal sub­sta­tion in Tumint­ing, Man­a­do.

The goal is clear. We are angry. Real­ly angry!

This action is also as a response and as an answer to the unlim­it­ed sol­i­dar­i­ty from many rebel­lion com­rades and companer@s.

To the uncon­trolled and brave com­rades in the dark­ness of Bolivia, Chile, Mex­i­co, Greece, Argenti­na, and Eng­land as well as to oth­er places that were nev­er men­tioned.

To Olga and all the com­rades from Con­spir­a­cy of Cells of Fire and Tasos The­ofilou who was recent­ly arrest­ed because he was an anar­chist. Also we do not for­get to men­tion The­ofi­los Mavropou­los, Gabriel Pom­bo da Sil­va, Rami Syr­i­anos, and Mar­co Camenisch who are under­go­ing a hunger strike. All of you are rebels who inspired us despite the fact that you are seized behind bars.

To Luciano Tor­tu­ga and Mario Lopez, also nev­er for­get to men­tion Ivan Sil­va and Car­la Ver­dugo in Chile. Hen­ry Zegar­run­do, Juan Aliste Vega, Fred­dy Fuentevil­la Saa, Marce­lo Vil­lar­roel Sepúlve­da also are an inspi­ra­tion. Do not for­get to dis­si­dents like Felic­i­ty Ryder, Nikos Mazi­o­tis and Pola Roupa also last­ly to K. The fugi­tive mem­ber of the Long Live Luciano Tor­tu­ga Cell, Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front (FAI / FRI).

But with ful­ly of shame in our face we men­tion our two broth­ers in strug­gle, mem­bers of Long Live Luciano Tor­tu­ga Cell, Infor­mal Anar­chist Fed­er­a­tion / Inter­na­tion­al Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Front; Bil­ly Augus­tan and Rey­hard Rum­bayan (Eat). Also do not for­get the brave one of Kulon­pro­go; Tuk­i­jo. For those we send our greet­ings with the lights of fire from the street. To them we are send­ing our love.

These actions are also as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of anger and dis­ap­point­ment.
Impa­tience for those rebels who after attacks returned to run and hide and spent long time to keep wait­ing, includ­ing us.

Com­rades, it is time to strike back.
Do not wait. Time to light it up!

Long Live Anar­chy!

USA: Six Arrested Blocking Road in front of Duke Energy HQ During DNC

Pro­test­ers sit­ting on a ban­ner that reads “Duke is destroy­ing our earth with tax­pay­er dol­lars” were arrest­ed Thurs­day after­noon at the inter­sec­tion of Try­on and Stonewall streets, near the Duke Ener­gy build­ing. Pho­to: Meghan Cooke

Six pro­test­ers were tak­en away in hand­cuffs ear­li­er Thurs­day near the cor­po­rate head­quar­ters for Duke Ener­gy. They had locked arms and were sit­ting on top of a ban­ner claim­ing that the ener­gy com­pa­ny was harm­ing the envi­ron­ment.

Two dozen offi­cers sur­round­ed them and even­tu­al­ly lift­ed up the pro­test­ers, who refused to move. They then put them into pris­on­er trans­port vans.

Just before her arrest, 26-year-old Christi­na Mounce of Casper, W. Vir­ginia, crit­i­cized the util­i­ty com­pa­ny for burn­ing coal and run­ning nuclear pow­er plants.

“We want Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to stop accept­ing their cam­paign mon­ey,” said Mounce, a marine biol­o­gist. “The pres­i­dent is set­ting a hor­ri­ble exam­ple by being linked with them.”

The demon­stra­tors at Stonewall and Try­on streets said they were demand­ing an audi­ence with Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Ener­gy.

The oth­ers arrest­ed were Amelia Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Audrey Camp­bell, 22, of Boul­der, Colo.; Richard French, 39, of Farm­ing­ton, N.M.; Matthew Good­sell, 56; and Michael Joseph Stew­art, 25, of Lake­wood, Colo. All were charged with imped­ing traf­fic.

Count­ing Thursday’s deten­tions, a total of 25 pro­test­ers were arrest­ed or tak­en away in hand­cuffs dur­ing the three-day con­ven­tion, which end­ed Thurs­day night.

 

Fracking on trial verdict

An envi­ron­men­tal activist who climbed a drilling rig in a protest against frack­ing in Decem­ber last year was today found guilty under the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court. She was ordered to pay a £250 fine and £750 costs.

An envi­ron­men­tal activist who climbed a drilling rig in a protest against frack­ing in Decem­ber last year was today found guilty under the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court. She was ordered to pay a £250 fine and £750 costs.

Yes­ter­day two oth­er defen­dants were cleared of charges of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass as part of the same court case. (1)

On 1 Decem­ber 2011, pro­tes­tors from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide occu­pied the test drilling rig, at Cuadrilla Resource’s Hes­keth Bank site, Lan­cashire, shut­ting it down for 13 hours. (2) (3)

Dur­ing the tri­al, it emerged that Cuadrilla had con­tin­ued drilling for two months after their plan­ning per­mis­sion had expired.

In her final sub­mis­sion, the defence bar­ris­ter, Far­raht Arshad said of her client:
“As a con­cerned cit­i­zen no oth­er avenues were open to her.”

She jus­ti­fied this state­ment by the evi­dence giv­en in the tri­al by DECC (4) and Lan­cashire Coun­ty Coun­cil. DECC, the licenc­ing author­i­ty, uses the off-shore oil reg­u­la­tions to licence on-shore frack­ing oper­a­tions and
stat­ed that they are not inter­est­ed in polic­ing breach­es of envi­ron­men­tal law which is the job of the local plan­ning author­i­ty and the Envi­ron­ment Agency.

The local coun­cil plan­ning offi­cer made it clear in his evi­dence that he only had lim­it­ed resources and few pow­ers to police devel­op­ers. The gen­er­al expec­ta­tion from these reg­u­la­tors is that com­pa­nies will reg­u­late
them­selves.

It was clear­ly estab­lished dur­ing tri­al that Cuadrilla Resources had flout­ed the peri­od of their plan­ning per­mis­sion by two months, and had failed to com­ply with their own method state­ment relat­ed to the pro­tec­tion
of birdlife from the near­by Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est. As a result they were poten­tial­ly in breach of the Wildlife and Coun­try­side Act. Nei­ther DECC nor the local coun­cil appeared to be con­cerned about tak­ing action to pre­vent this crime.

Despite these facts, Judge Ward reject­ed the defence’s argu­ment that the activists were pre­vent­ing a crime.

The con­vict­ed activist said:
“This ver­dict con­firms my view that the reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties are hope­less­ly inad­e­quate at their job and don’t have the pro­tec­tion of the envi­ron­ment as a pri­or­i­ty. Com­pa­nies like Cuadrilla are allowed to flout their oblig­a­tions with impuni­ty, while con­cerned cit­i­zens are crim­i­nalised.”

Hydraulic frac­tur­ing is a method of extract­ing gas in shale rock. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. In the
Unit­ed States numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, affect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. (5) (6) (7)

There are twelve licens­es to frack for shale gas in the UK, five of which are held by Cuadrilla resources in Lan­cashire. (8)

*Notes*

1. To have com­mit­ted the offence of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass (sec­tion 68 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994) it need­ed to be shown that the defen­dants had:
* Tak­en dis­rup­tive action beyond just tres­pass­ing on pri­vate prop­er­ty. The pros­e­cu­tion failed on this first point.
* Dis­rupt­ed a law­ful activ­i­ty, in this case the drilling oper­a­tions of Cuadrilla.

2.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2011/dec/01/fracking-lancashire-hesketh-bank-cuadrilla

3. Pho­tos of the action are avail­able at:  https://secure.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/

4. DECC – Depart­ment of Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change is the licenc­ing author­i­ty for frack­ing oper­a­tions and all fos­sil fuel exploita­tion in the UK.

5. ‘Cracks in the Façade: EPA Traced Pol­lu­tion of Under­ground Water Sup­ply to Hydraulic Frac­tur­ing’ (Aug 2011 – EWG)
 http://static.ewg.org/reports/2011/fracking/cracks_in_the_facade.pdf

6. ‘Methane con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of drink­ing water accom­pa­ny­ing gas-well drilling and hydraulic frac­tur­ing’ (May 2011 – Duke)
 http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/pnas2011.pdf

7. ‘Shale gas: a pro­vi­sion­al assess­ment of cli­mate change and envi­ron­men­tal impacts’ (Jan 2011 – Tyn­dall Cen­tre)
 http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/sites/default/files/coop_shale_gas_report_final_200111.pdf

8.  http://frack-off.org.uk/new-homepage/bad-guys/locations/

*For more infor­ma­tion see:*

www.risingtide.org.uk
www.frack-off.org.uk
www.frackingontrial.org

Protesters chained to fence outside Inergy gas facility in New York

[UPDATE: 3 arrest­ed for block­ade.]

[UPDATE: 3 arrest­ed for block­ade.]

I am chained to a fence out­side an Iner­gy facil­i­ty near Watkins Glen, New York, and I am not alone.

We are protest­ing the gasi­fi­ca­tion of New York. We don’t want frack­ing in this state (or any state), and we don’t like Inergy’s plans to build a gas stor­age hub in Seneca Lake salt cav­erns.

We believe that:

1. Inergy’s plans are reck­less and dan­ger­ous. Salt Cav­ern stor­age facil­i­ties are more acci­dent prone than any oth­er type of gas stor­age facil­i­ty. 

2. Even if noth­ing goes wrong, there will be plen­ty wrong. The Iner­gy project will change the char­ac­ter of our rur­al area by increas­ing the lev­els of traf­fic, noise and pol­lu­tion. Just the pol­lu­tion alone will kill peo­ple, and gas devel­op­ment will sure­ly harm our exist­ing win­ery, agri­cul­tur­al and tourism indus­tries.

3. Iner­gy can’t be trust­ed. Iner­gy has been caught in so many lies and is keep­ing so many secrets that it has no cred­i­bil­i­ty what­so­ev­er. It can­not be relied on as a guardian of pub­lic safe­ty.

4. The Iner­gy project is clear­ly meant to facil­i­tate the frack­ing of New York, Ohio and Penn­syl­va­nia. We adamant­ly oppose frack­ing and con­sid­er it cat­a­stroph­ic fol­ly. We want the Iner­gy project stopped because of its own lack of mer­it, and also as part of the larg­er effort to stop frack­ing.

5. We resent the fact that, even though we live here, we have been giv­en no say in what hap­pens to our area. We know, for exam­ple, that the DEC is keep­ing secrets for Iner­gy. And we know that the DEC sent pro­posed frack­ing reg­u­la­tions to the gas com­pa­nies for review, before final­iz­ing them and releas­ing them for pub­lic com­ment. No such oppor­tu­ni­ty was afford­ed to the industry’s oppo­nents. We can­not remain silent while a demon­stra­bly biased agency makes deci­sions behind closed doors that could for­ev­er change our way of life.

Australia. Climate Change activists step up opposition to coal in Hunter Valley protests from mine to port

A ban­ner drop at a con­struc­tion site for a new coal loader ter­mi­nal at the Port of New­cas­tle in the New South Wales Hunter Val­ley end­ed when police instruct­ed the 60 metre crane be low­ered to the ground.

A ban­ner drop at a con­struc­tion site for a new coal loader ter­mi­nal at the Port of New­cas­tle in the New South Wales Hunter Val­ley end­ed when police instruct­ed the 60 metre crane be low­ered to the ground. The Pro­tes­tors say they were not giv­en warn­ing of this action and alledged it imper­iled their lives.

“We are dis­mayed with the actions of police here today.” said spokesper­son Steve Phillips. “We con­duct­ed a peace­ful protest, with trained and expe­ri­ence climbers, and safe­ty as our pri­or­i­ty. NSW Police respond­ed with gross neg­li­gence and dere­lic­tion of duty, and placed two lives at risk. Our climbers were not even warned before the crane was low­ered.”

Coal Export Terminal construction obstructed

Activists entered the NCIG coal ter­mi­nal site in New­cas­tle before dawn to peace­ful­ly stop con­struc­tion of new coal port facil­i­ties. Two expe­ri­enced climbers scaled the 60 metre high con­struc­tion crane to unfurl a ban­ner read­ing “Stop the coal rush! For health, water & cli­mate.”

The two activists were both arrest­ed and charged with ‘enter enclosed land’. They have now been released and will appear in New­cas­tle local court on 9th Octo­ber. Both activists have been report­ed as safe and well, and are hap­py with the protest today which stopped work on the coal port ter­mi­nal site for two hours.

The protest was the fourth con­sec­u­tive stop-work action against NSW coal projects this week. Activists tar­get­ed expan­sions of the three major ele­ments of the coal chain – mines, rail­way, and port infra­struc­ture – to high­light the mas­sive expan­sion of coal min­ing and infra­struc­ture tak­ing place in NSW, and its impacts on pub­lic health and the envi­ron­ment.

“NSW is in the grip of a coal rush. Pub­lic health, water­ways, ecosys­tems, and the glob­al cli­mate are under assault,” said Steve Phillips. “Local com­mu­ni­ties are resist­ing the coal rush at every step of the way, chal­leng­ing new mines and port devel­op­ments that place the prof­its of coal com­pa­nies ahead of the pub­lic good.”

Accord­ing to Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle who organ­ised today’s protest there are 34 coal mine pro­pos­als cur­rent­ly before the NSW Plan­ning Depart­ment, most of which would pro­duce coal for export through New­cas­tle. New­cas­tle is the largest coal export port in the world, and the port ter­mi­nal expan­sion will add 66 mil­lion tonnes per year export capac­i­ty if allowed to go ahead. In 2004, port through­put was around 78 mil­lion tonnes, or 10 per cent of the world’s total trade in coal

“But both State and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments have tak­en the side of the coal com­pa­nies. NSW Plan­ning Min­is­ter Brad Haz­zard and Fed­er­al Envi­ron­ment Min­is­ter Tony Burke con­tin­ue to approve every coal project that arrives on their desks. Com­mu­ni­ties are cry­ing out for help, but gov­ern­ments are ignor­ing them.”

 

“Enough is enough. We need to stop the coal rush. It’s time for State and Fed­er­al gov­ern­ments to stop kow­tow­ing to the min­ing com­pa­nies, and get behind com­mu­ni­ty demands for a clean, renew­able future.”

A spokesper­son for Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle said the actions of police today which imper­iled the lives of two activists will be report­ed to the NSW Ombuds­man.

 

Coal Crusher occupied at Boggabri coal mine

On Mon­day two activists did a ban­ner drop in cen­tral New South Wales, where activists scaled a coal-crush­ing plant at Bog­gabri Coal Mine on the Gunnedah basin.

Accord­ing to a media release by the pro­tes­tors the NSW Gov­ern­ment has recent­ly approved a four­fold expan­sion of the Bog­gabri Coal Mine. The two pro­tes­tors dropped a ban­ner say­ing: “Stop the Coal Rush: Pro­tect Health, Water, Cli­mate”. After more than 8 hours atop the coal-crush­er two pro­tes­tors were arrest­ed and tak­en to Narrabri Police Sta­tion. The men were protest­ing against the destruc­tion of Leard State For­est, in the Gunnedah Basin, for three open-cut coal mines. A major expan­sion of the Bog­gabri coal mine was approved by the NSW Gov­ern­ment in July despite com­mu­ni­ty and envi­ron­men­tal organ­i­sa­tions alledg­ing huge eco­log­i­cal impacts and over­whelm­ing com­mu­ni­ty oppo­si­tion.

At the same time on Mon­day activists from Quit Coal dropped a huge ban­ner over the the Vic­to­ri­an State Par­lia­ment entrance say­ing ‘Coal is the sin­gle great­est threat to civil­i­sa­tion and all life on our plan­et’ Prof. James Hansen, NASA. Why is Bail­lieu fund­ing coal?”

Tripod stops construction on coal railtrack expansion

Between today’s protest and the protest at Bog­gabri coal mine Ris­ing Tide New­cas­tle also protest­ed on Tues­day the upgrad­ing of rail infra­struc­ture and build­ing a third track in the Hunter Val­ley to increase the load capac­i­ty for export­ing more coal.

The Mait­land to Min­im­bah Third Track project is being con­struct­ed by Hunter 8 Alliance, which is a con­sor­tium of engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny GHD, con­struc­tion com­pa­ny John Hol­land, and the Fed­er­al­ly owned Aus­tralian Rail Track Cor­po­ra­tion. The project aims to lift coal haulage capac­i­ty on the Hunter rail cor­ri­dor to 200 mil­lion tonnes per annum. It includes con­struc­tion of 23km of new rail track, and recon­di­tion­ing of 9km of exist­ing track. The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment grant­ed $114 mil­lion, through the ARTC, to the project.

Activists accessed a Hunter 8 Alliance site at Ruther­ford and erect­ed a wood­en tri­pod to block access to the site. Activist Ned Haughton scaled the 10 metre high struc­ture, where he remained for the next five and a half hours. Haughton was arrest­ed and charged with obstruc­tion.

Steve Phillips, spokesper­son for protest organ­is­ers Ris­ing Tide, said: “This rail­way con­struc­tion project is designed pure­ly for the ben­e­fit of coal cor­po­ra­tions, yet it is being paid for with tax­pay­ers mon­ey. Why are tax­pay­ers dol­lars being hand­ed over to rich min­ing cor­po­ra­tions, in order to prop up a pol­lut­ing indus­try that is destroy­ing human health and the envi­ron­ment?”

 

“There is a coal rush under way in NSW, and pub­lic health, water­ways, ecosys­tems, and the glob­al cli­mate are under assault. Mas­sive coal mine projects, coal haulage projects, and coal port projects are in the pipeline. If all these projects go ahead, the con­se­quences will be dev­as­tat­ing.” con­clud­ed Steve Phillips. “We call on State and Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ments to aban­don their infat­u­a­tion with min­ing com­pa­nies, and their addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. It’s time to take a stand and stop this coal rush before it’s too late.”

Sources:

Fracking on trial: lawfulness of Cuadrilla’s fracking operation remains in doubt

Yes­ter­day, three peo­ple from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide were on tri­al for a sec­ond day at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court fol­low­ing their action (1) which shut down Cuadrilla Resources’ hydraulic frac­tur­ing (2) site beside the Rib­ble Estu­ary in Lan­cashire in Decem­ber 2011.

Yes­ter­day, three peo­ple from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide were on tri­al for a sec­ond day at Pre­ston Mag­is­trates Court fol­low­ing their action (1) which shut down Cuadrilla Resources’ hydraulic frac­tur­ing (2) site beside the Rib­ble Estu­ary in Lan­cashire in Decem­ber 2011.

Two of the defen­dants went free when it became clear that the charges against them had been poor­ly framed. They had been charged with aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

A defen­dant from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide com­ment­ed:
“It’s great to go free but the threat that frack­ing pos­es to com­mu­ni­ties and the envi­ron­ment has not gone away. It is very like­ly that Cuadrilla will be frack­ing at sites in Lan­cashire in the near future. Do we trust a com­pa­ny that is pre­pared to flout its plan­ning per­mis­sion to han­dle a very dan­ger­ous tech­nol­o­gy like frack­ing?”

To have com­mit­ted the offence of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass it need­ed to be shown that the defen­dants had:

· Tak­en dis­rup­tive action beyond just tres­pass­ing on pri­vate prop­er­ty. The pros­e­cu­tion failed on this first point.

· Dis­rupt­ed a law­ful activ­i­ty, in this case the drilling oper­a­tions of Cuadrilla.

On Tues­day in court, the Head of Plan­ning from Lan­cashire Coun­ty Coun­cil, Alyn Peri­go, con­firmed that Cuadrilla were oper­at­ing out­side the peri­od of their plan­ning per­mis­sion. Cuadrilla had in fact con­tin­ued to drill two months beyond their agreed time lim­it. Mr Peri­go also con­firmed that by drilling in win­ter they had failed to meet a key con­di­tion to safe­guard bird life from the adja­cent Rib­ble Estu­ary Site of Spe­cial Sci­en­tif­ic Inter­est. The defence argued that this may have result­ed in a breach of the Wildlife and Coun­try­side Act.

Yes­ter­day the pros­e­cu­tion had hoped to call Pat War­ing, (3) an Ecol­o­gist employed by Cuadrilla Resources, to attempt to demon­strate that Cuadrilla had not been oper­at­ing unlaw­ful­ly at the time of the protest. In the event Mr War­ing was not pre­pared to appear for the pros­e­cu­tion. This left the pros­e­cu­tion with the chal­lenge of try­ing to demon­strate ‘law­ful­ness’ with­out an expert wit­ness. In the event this was left unde­ter­mined as the pros­e­cu­tion had already failed on the first point.

The case against a third defen­dant will con­clude this morn­ing. She faces a dif­fer­ent charge under sec­tion 69 Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Pub­lic Order Act 1994, which is fail­ing to leave land as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble when direct­ed to do so by the senior offi­cer at the scene.

Notes

1. On Decem­ber 1st 2011, activists from Bris­tol Ris­ing Tide occu­pied a drilling rig oper­at­ed by Cuadrilla Resources at Hes­keth Bank beside the Rib­ble Estu­ary. The action stopped drilling for 13 hours before the occu­piers came down of their own accord. Pho­tos of the action are avail­able at https://secure.flickr.com/photos/71113300@N08/

2. Hydraulic frac­tur­ing is a method of extract­ing gas in shale rock. Huge amounts of water mixed with tox­ic chem­i­cals are forced into the ground at high pres­sure, a large pro­por­tion of which are nev­er recov­ered. In the Unit­ed States numer­ous spills of these flu­ids have con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed irri­ga­tion water, affect­ing food sup­plies, and the health of sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. There are twelve licens­es to frack for shale gas in the UK, five of which are held by Cuadrilla resources in Lan­cashire.

3. Ear­ly in 2011, Pat War­ing of Ecol­o­gy Ser­vices UK Ltd, was employed by Cuadrilla to pro­duce the doc­u­ment: Method State­ment – Birds, set­ting out how Cuadrilla could min­imise dis­tur­bance to the over­win­ter­ing and nest­ing birds that fre­quent Hes­keth Bank beside the Rib­ble Estu­ary SSSI. The pro­duc­tion of this doc­u­ment, and com­pli­ance with its con­tents, is a require­ment of Con­di­tion 22 of Cuadrilla’s Plan­ning Per­mis­sion for the explorato­ry drilling oper­a­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion see:

www.risingtide.org.uk
www.frack-off.org.uk
www.frackingontrial.org