Category: Tar Sands

From MI-CATS Press Release:

Mon­day, July 22nd, 2013

This morn­ing Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) is tak­ing direct action near Stock­bridge ‘to halt con­struc­tion of the Tar Sands pipeline 6B expan­sion project of Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion Enbridge. Over 40 Michi­gan­ders have come to oppose the infa­mous corporation’s fla­grant expan­sion of the very same pipeline that spilled out into the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er only three years ago. Enbridge claims they have restored the riv­er after a spill is no excuse to expand the pipeline, expand­ing the pipeline increas­es the risk for every­one.

Res­i­dents are cur­rent­ly halt­ing Enbridge’s con­struc­tion plans by putting their bod­ies on the line in an act of non vio­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence against Enbridge’s plans. At least 6 peo­ple have been arrest­ed so far as police attempt to shut down the protest. 4 peo­ple are cur­rent­ly locked down to con­struc­tion equip­ment and refus­ing to move. Police have arrest­ed their med­ical sup­port team and threat­en to arrest any­one who tries to approach them.

These mea­sures come after the exhaus­tion of every method with­in the law, as it has has become appar­ent from our expe­ri­ences all through­out the state. Our state gov­ern­ment is ready to set aside its own laws and legal process­es to accom­mo­date this for­eign cor­po­ra­tion.

Enbridge itself has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed that their sole pri­or­i­ty is their own bot­tom line, not the health and safe­ty of the peo­ple of Michi­gan, our ecosys­tem, and even their own work­ers.

Michi­gan Coali­tion Against Tar Sands seeks to unite the peo­ple of Michi­gan toward the com­mon goal of stop­ping all trans­porta­tion of tar sands oil in the state and advo­cat­ing against the pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion of tar sands every­where. We work in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the glob­al move­ment against harsh fos­sil fuel extrac­tive prac­tices.

Accord­ing to one per­son who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in this action “This pipeline is a dis­as­ter for Michigan’s water and the glob­al cli­mate. I’m blockad­ing this pipeline to  pre­vent the next spill because I care about Michigan’s air and water. Peo­ple all over the world are tak­ing action in their own com­mu­ni­ty this Fear­less Sum­mer. We need to leave all fos­sil fuels in the ground.” – William Lawrence of East Lans­ing

We will not allow Cana­di­an tar sands to pass through our back­yards. We will no longer allow the same Cana­di­an cor­po­ra­tion respon­si­ble for the tar sands which still lie at the bot­tom of our Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er to place all of us at risk. We are tak­ing this action to pro­tect from anoth­er spill and to ensure a liv­able plan­et for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Loca­tion of the action is the Enbridge 6B ease­ment off of Grimes west of M‑52 near Stock­bridge, MI. Look for the orange con­struc­tion signs and the police pres­ence. ‪#‎micat­s­act‬. Updates on the action will con­tin­ue, as events unfold.

This is MI-CATS’ sec­ond action at the Enbridge 6B pipeline this sum­mer; in the first an activist climbed inside the Enbridge 6B pipe. Fol­low @MichiganCats and @efjournal on twit­ter for updates

24th June 2013, Pro­test­ers locked down to con­struc­tion equip­ment. Pho­tos from @iamed_nc

[UPDATE: Nine peo­ple have been arrest­ed. You can donate to their bail fund at http://gptarsandsresistance.org/donate/ and share this around. They man­aged to shut down the site until a vol­un­teer fire­fight­er report­ed­ly injured one of the lock­down­ers, who is in the ambu­lance cur­rent­ly and whose injuries are unknown to us. Folks soon­after unlocked out of con­cerns for their safe­ty.]

Semi­nole, OK - Ear­ly this morn­ing, eight indi­vid­u­als blocked con­struc­tion of a pump sta­tion for TransCanada’s con­tro­ver­sial Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline on Semi­nole land-by-treaty by lock­ing on to equip­ment in the largest action yet by the Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance. The group took action today, phys­i­cal­ly halt­ing the con­struc­tion process, as a part of an effort to pre­vent the Great Plains from being poi­soned by inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous tar sands infra­struc­ture, as well as demon­strate the neces­si­ty for direct con­fronta­tion with indus­tries that prof­it off of con­tin­ued eco­log­i­cal dev­as­ta­tion and the poi­son­ing of count­less com­mu­ni­ties from “Alber­ta, CA” to the Gulf. This action comes dur­ing the first day of a nation­wide week of coor­di­nat­ed anti-extrac­tion action under the ban­ner of Fear­less Sum­mer.

“As a part of a direct action coali­tion work­ing and liv­ing in an area that has been his­tor­i­cal­ly sac­ri­ficed for the ben­e­fit of petro­le­um infra­struc­ture and indus­try, we believe that build­ing a move­ment that can resist all infra­struc­ture expan­sion at the point of con­struc­tion is a neces­si­ty. In this coun­try, over half of all pipeline spills hap­pen in Texas, Louisiana, and Okla­homa. Look­ing at the main­stream key­stone oppo­si­tion, this fact is invisible—just like the com­mu­ni­ties affect­ed by tox­ic refin­ing and tox­ic extrac­tion,” said Eric Whe­lan, spokesper­son for Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance. “We’re through with appeal­ing to a bro­ken polit­i­cal sys­tem that has con­sis­tent­ly sac­ri­ficed human and non­hu­man com­mu­ni­ties for the ben­e­fit of indus­try and cap­i­tal.”

“The pipelines that poi­soned the Kala­ma­zoo Riv­er and Mayflower, Arkansas, were not the Key­stone XL. Tar sands infra­struc­ture is tox­ic regard­less of the cor­po­ra­tion or pipeline. For that rea­son we are opposed not only to the Key­stone XL, but all tar sands infra­struc­ture that threat­ens the land and her prog­e­ny,” said Fitzger­ald Scott, who was arrest­ed in April for lock­ing his arm inside a con­crete-filled hole on the Key­stone XL ease­ment, and locked to an exca­va­tor today. “While KXL oppo­nents wait with bait­ed breath for Obama’s final deci­sion regard­ing this par­tic­u­lar pipeline, oth­er cor­po­ra­tions, includ­ing Enbridge, will be lay­ing sev­er­al tar sands pipelines across the con­ti­nent. The Enbridge pipelines will car­ry the same vol­umes of the same nox­ious sub­stance; there­fore, Enbridge should get ready for the same resis­tance.”

The Tar Sands megapro­ject is the largest indus­tri­al project in the his­to­ry of humankind, destroy­ing an area of pris­tine bore­al for­est which, if ful­ly real­ized, will leave behind a tox­ic waste­land the size of Flori­da. The Tar Sands megapro­ject con­tin­ues to endan­ger the health and way of life of the First Nations com­mu­ni­ties that live near­by by poi­son­ing the water­ways which life in the area depends on. This pipeline promis­es to deliv­er tox­ic dilut­ed bitu­men to the nox­ious Valero Refin­ery at the front door of the fence-line com­mu­ni­ty of Man­ches­ter in Hous­ton.

Block­aders lock­ing down at pump­ing sta­tion.

Two pro­test­ers have locked them­selves togeth­er on a conex con­tain­er on site

There is staunch resis­tance to the expan­sion of Tar sands min­ing and infra­struc­ture grow­ing across the heart­land of “North Amer­i­ca,” in areas long con­sid­ered sac­ri­fice zones. Cur­rent­ly activists are occu­py­ing an Enbridge pump sta­tion in so-called “Ontario” to pre­vent the rever­sal of the Line9 pipeline. The rise of Idle No More in defense of indige­nous sov­er­eign­ty across Tur­tle Island is in large part to pro­tect lands and waters from tox­ic indus­tries, and peo­ples of the Great Sioux Nation and trib­al gov­ern­ments across “South Dako­ta” are avow­ing their oppo­si­tion to the north­ern seg­ment of the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline.