Category: Tar Sands

Tar sands

The Unist’ot’en People Maintain a “Soft Blockade” On the Morice River 30th May

The Unist’ot’en Peo­ple (a.k.a C’ilhts’ekhyu) of the Wet’suwet’en Nation main­tain a “Soft Block­ade” keep­ing pipeline work­ers and sub­con­trac­tors out of their ter­ri­to­ries. The block­ade is locat­ed 66km on the Morice West For­est Ser­vice Road south of the town of Hous­ton BC.

Hun­dreds of sup­port­ers, vol­un­teers, recre­ation­al­ists, and mush­room pick­ers have been able to cross into the guard­ed ter­ri­to­ry by show­ing respect to the ter­ri­to­ry own­ers and answer­ing some sim­ple ques­tions. The ques­tions were as fol­lows:

  1. Who are you?
  2. Where do you come from?
  3. How long to you plan to stay?
  4. Are you work­ing for gov­ern­ment or indus­try?
  5. What is your busi­ness here?
  6. How will your vis­it ben­e­fit the Unist’ot’en Peo­ple?

There were some peo­ple who have cho­sen not to answer any of the ques­tions and were not per­mit­ted into the lands. Some of the peo­ple reject­ed were out­right racist and bel­liger­ent; some peo­ple refused to rec­og­nize the author­i­ty of the ter­ri­to­ry own­ers; and some were sim­ply unable to truth­ful­ly answer any of the ques­tions until they could devel­op a rela­tion­ship with the Unist’ot’en.

The deci­sion to con­trol ter­ri­to­ry traf­fic came when work­ers for the pro­posed Apache/Chevron Frack­ing Gas Pipelines were caught in the ter­ri­to­ry last Novem­ber after being pre­vi­ous­ly warned for tres­pass­ing. The Unist’ot’en have been lead­ing a move­ment among the larg­er Wet’suwet’en pop­u­la­tion to stop ALL pro­posed Pipelines (includ­ing Frack­ing and Tar Sands) from cross­ing their ter­ri­to­ries.

In 2008, the Unist’ot’en along­side the oth­er four Clans of the Wet’suwet’en walked away from the BC Treaty Com­mis­sion nego­ti­a­tion process. They found that since the 1997 Supreme Court of Canada’s Del­ga­muukw v. Queeen Court deci­sion, gov­ern­ment and indus­try have only esca­lat­ed their activ­i­ties on their lands at an alarm­ing rate with­out mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion.

Fre­da Huson, the Spokes­woman for the Unist’ot’en states, “The plain­tiffs in the land­mark Del­ga­muukw Supreme Court of Cana­da case are the Hered­i­tary Chiefs and their mem­bers. Gov­ern­ment and Indus­try are break­ing their own laws when they choose to only con­sult with Indi­an Act band coun­cils. The pro­pa­gan­da writ­ers for the Pacif­ic Trails Pipeline like to say that they have 15 First Nation People’s sup­port, when in fact they have only been talk­ing to Indi­an Act com­mu­ni­ties. That has to stop. This strug­gle to pro­tect our lands is not about hold­ing out for finan­cial gain. It is about pro­tect­ing our lands from destruc­tive prac­tices from indus­try. Our actions will not only ben­e­fit our future gen­er­a­tions but everyone’s future gen­er­a­tions.”

The log­ging road lead­ing into the ter­ri­to­ry is man­aged by the CANFOR log­ging com­pa­ny and CANFOR is tak­ing the lead to begin a mean­ing­ful process of con­sul­ta­tion. The Unist’ot’en are wel­com­ing this new rela­tion­ship with CANFOR and are hope­ful that oth­er indus­try projects will choose to begin ask­ing per­mis­sion rather than imple­ment­ing projects with­out mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion.

Indigenous communities oppose ‘extreme energy’ at Shell’s AGM 20th May

As the busi­ness case for tar sands extrac­tion fal­ters, Arc­tic drilling is sus­pend­ed, and the com­pa­ny is inves­ti­gat­ed for price fix­ing, Shell’s board will be under  pres­sure to defend the direc­tion it is tak­ing at its AGM in The Hague on Tues­day 21 May.photo

Eriel and Mae in the Nether­lands, prepar­ing to take on Shell tomor­row!

Two Indige­nous women, rep­re­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ties impact­ed by Shell’s oper­a­tions abroad, will attend the AGM to con­front the Chair­man and Board over the mas­sive human and eco­log­i­cal rights vio­la­tions and eco­nom­ic dev­as­ta­tion that the company’s oper­a­tions bring to Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties. They will argue that Shell’s deci­sion to pur­sue high­ly risky ‘extreme ener­gy’ projects, like Arc­tic drilling and Cana­di­an tar sands, will have lit­tle long term ben­e­fit for the com­pa­ny, and expose it to both rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age and polit­i­cal risk, includ­ing lit­i­ga­tion.

One of the com­mu­ni­ties rep­re­sent­ed, the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), which resides down­stream from tar sands oper­a­tions, is cur­rent­ly suing Shell for vio­lat­ing past agree­ments that have threat­ened their treaty rights. The com­mu­ni­ty is also active­ly oppos­ing two new tar sands mines Shell is propos­ing to devel­op on their land. For more details, watch the pow­er­ful film above. Legal chal­lenges by oth­er First Nations against tar sands extrac­tion on their tra­di­tion­al ter­ri­to­ries is also increas­ing.

Eriel Deranger, com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber and spokesper­son for ACFN, states:

“Shell’s cur­rent and pro­posed tar sands projects vio­late terms of our treaty, destroy our land and con­t­a­m­i­nate waters crit­i­cal to our sur­vival. The ACFN lead­er­ship has made a com­mit­ment to pro­tect our lands, rights and peo­ple cur­rent­ly being threat­ened by tar sands devel­op­ment. We have tried explor­ing amenable agree­ments and options with Shell only to be dis­ap­point­ed by their inabil­i­ty to com­pro­mise and adjust pro­posed plans to ade­quate­ly work with us which has led and con­tin­ues to lead toward lit­i­ga­tion. Our cul­ture, lands and rights can no longer stand for unabat­ed and irre­spon­si­ble devel­op­ment of tar sands in the region by Shell or any oper­a­tor.”

Shell is also under fire for its Arc­tic oper­a­tions. The com­pa­ny has spent $4.5bn secur­ing per­mits to drill in Arc­tic waters. How­ev­er it has been proven inca­pable of oper­at­ing in the area and has had to sus­pend its plans for drilling this sum­mer.

Mae R Hank, trib­al mem­ber of the Native Vil­lage of Point Hope, Alas­ka, said:

“The Beau­fort and Chukchi Seas are crit­i­cal to the Inu­pi­aq cul­ture and tra­di­tions, and pro­vide a vital habi­tat for the endan­gered bow­head whales, bel­u­ga whales, polar bears, wal­rus­es, seals and migra­to­ry birds. If an oil spill were to occur in the Arctic’s extreme con­di­tions, there is no proven method to clean it up dur­ing Win­ter. Shell is tak­ing a dead­ly risk with Inu­pi­at and oth­er Arc­tic Indige­nous peo­ples’ cul­tures and food secu­ri­ty for short­sight­ed prof­it, while the com­mu­ni­ty faces long term con­se­quences to their sur­vival.”

polar bears by Martha de Jong-Lantink

Shell wants to drill in the Beau­fort and Chukchi Seas, which pro­vide a vital habi­tat for polar bears as well as many oth­er endan­gered species. Pho­to by Martha de Jong-Lan­tink.

In addi­tion, the UK Tar Sands Net­work is bring­ing con­cerns to Shell’s share­hold­ers over oth­er long-term risks to the company’s invest­ments in tar sands.

The tar sands are land­locked, mak­ing them dif­fi­cult and expen­sive to get to mar­ket. The pipelines that present the industry’s only viable solu­tion to this prob­lem – such as Key­stone XL and Enbridge North­ern Gate­way – are fac­ing mas­sive pub­lic oppo­si­tion, and look unlike­ly to be built soon. The price of tar sands crude has dropped as a result. Mean­while, in Europe, the Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive (FQD) is like­ly to strong­ly dis­cour­age future tar sands imports into Europe. Lax stan­dards and lack of ade­quate envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tion have led to sev­er­al high-pro­file leaks and spills in recent weeks, includ­ing the flood­ing of an Arkansas sub­urb with tar sands oil. Mean­while, a recent report by the Car­bon Track­er ini­tia­tive iden­ti­fied an alarm­ing ‘car­bon bub­ble’, argu­ing that 80% of oil com­pa­nies’ cur­rent fos­sil fuel reserves are ‘unburn­able car­bon’, and antic­i­pat­ing a crash in prices as cli­mate reg­u­la­tions kick in.

In March, French oil giant Total pulled out of one of its three Cana­di­an tar sands projects, cit­ing the high costs and frag­ile prof­it mar­gins that are beset­ting the whole indus­try. Total was will­ing to take a $1.65 bil­lion loss rather than press ahead with what has become a bad invest­ment.

Shell will also be crit­i­cised by UK cam­paign­ers for heav­i­ly lob­by­ing the UK gov­ern­ment against the labelling of tar sands as high­ly pol­lut­ing in the Fuel Qual­i­ty Direc­tive. Shell was revealed to have a close rela­tion­ship with its for­mer Chief Econ­o­mist, now Sec­re­tary of State for Busi­ness and Indus­try and offi­cial ‘Min­is­ter for Shell’ Vince Cable, in a let­ter pub­lished last year. The let­ter urged him to hard­en the government’s line against the FQD, a move which was revealed to have hap­pened in leaked doc­u­ments pub­lished last week.

Eriel Deranger, Robert Thompson, Ron Plain, by Ben Powless

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Cana­da and the Arc­tic attend­ed Shell’s AGM last year, but did not feel their con­cerns were tak­en seri­ous­ly. Pho­to by Ben Pow­less.

Suzanne Dhali­w­al, from the UK Tar Sands Net­work, com­ment­ed:

“The risk fac­tors that recent­ly led Total to ditch a major tar sands project are increas­ing. The tar sands are land­locked and expen­sive, and oppo­si­tion to new pipelines has led the price of tar sands crude to drop. Mean­while, the industry’s high emis­sions mean that Canada’s oil is increas­ing­ly look­ing like ‘unburn­able car­bon’. Despite Shell’s fren­zied lob­by­ing, upcom­ing EU leg­is­la­tion on trans­port emis­sions could close off this key future mar­ket and set a prece­dent that oth­er coun­tries will fol­low. Shell should ditch its expan­sion plans before the car­bon bub­ble bursts, expos­ing its share­hold­ers to finan­cial dis­as­ter.”

The Fuel Nightmare Continues

It’s as if the uni­verse is try­ing to tell us some­thing, isn’t it?

It’s as if the uni­verse is try­ing to tell us some­thing, isn’t it?

First, a dis­as­trous month that saw at least 15 sep­a­rate oil spills world­wide, near­ly all of them in North Amer­i­ca. That month also saw an oil barge catch fire after a col­li­sion, and the pub­li­ca­tion of a study impli­cat­ing frack­ing as a cause of earth­quakes.

Now at least 600 gal­lons have spilled from an Enbridge oil pump­ing sta­tion near Viking, Minnesota.Two fuel barges car­ry­ing a nat­ur­al gas deriv­a­tive have explod­ed and are still burn­ing on the Alaba­ma Riv­er. And new reports strong­ly sug­gest that tar sands from Exxon’s Pega­sus Pipeline in Mayflower, Arkansas have seeped into Lake Con­way and are head­ing toward the Arkansas Riv­er.

Dis­as­ters like these bring the real costs of fos­sil fuels into sharp focus, because we can imag­ine our­selves affect­ed by them. But the truth is, dis­as­ters like these are part of every­day life for the peo­ple and oth­er beings liv­ing in areas where fos­sil fuels are extracted—or any oth­er indus­tri­al mate­ri­als, from cop­per for solar pan­els to coltan for cell phones.

If you wouldn’t want oil spilling into your back yard, if you wouldn’t want a strip mine rip­ping open a hole behind your house and poi­son­ing your water, then it’s time to admit that the eco­nom­ic sys­tem found­ed on con­sum­ing these mate­ri­als has got to go. We’ll nev­er have jus­tice or sus­tain­abil­i­ty if we base one group’s “high stan­dard of liv­ing” on the dis­lo­ca­tion and destruc­tion of oth­ers.

 

Lockdown Halts Keystone XL Work in Oklahoma 29th April

Spauld­ing, OK- Mon­day, April 29th, 6:15 AM- Ear­li­er this morn­ing two Texas res­i­dents locked them­selves to machin­ery being used to con­struct TransCanada’s dan­ger­ous and con­tro­ver­sial Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Spauld­ing, OK through Musco­gee Creek Nation land by treaty. Ben­jamin But­ler and Eamon Tread­away Danzig took action today to pre­vent the Cross Tim­bers biore­gion from being poi­soned by this inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline, just as the sur­round­ing wet­lands and res­i­den­tial areas have been poi­soned as a result of Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline rup­ture near Mayflower, Arkansas.  Recent Tar Sands spills in Min­neso­ta and Arkansas, as well as an explo­sion at a Tar Sands refin­ery in Detroit have high­light­ed the urgency in stop­ping Tar Sands extrac­tion and trans­porta­tion.

But­ler and Danzig are act­ing as a part of Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance, a grow­ing coali­tion of groups and indi­vid­u­als ded­i­cat­ed to stop­ping the expan­sion of Tar Sands infra­struc­ture through­out the Great Plains. Their actions fol­low the esca­lat­ing num­ber of work-stop­ping actions that have occurred in Okla­homa this past month.  Both anti-extrac­tion activists cite con­cern of the effect a spill will have in the Cross Tim­bers bio-region that they call home. Their action comes in the wake of the rup­ture of Exxon-Mobile’s Pega­sus pipeline which spilled Tar Sands bitu­men in neigh­bor­ing Mayflower, Arkansas. In addi­tion to the high rates of sick­ness that the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty dis­played, the spill in Arkansas has pol­lut­ed Lake Con­way and has had dev­as­tat­ing effects on local wildlife. The per­ma­nent effect on people’s liveli­hoods and the health of affect­ed ecosys­tems remains to be seen.

“This pipeline is essen­tial for con­tin­ued tar sands exploita­tion which pos­es an immi­nent threat to the health of indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties near the point of extrac­tion, fence-line com­mu­ni­ties around the tox­ic refiner­ies, and ulti­mate­ly the health of every liv­ing being along the route,” said Ben­jamin But­ler, who was born at Tin­ker Air force Base in Okla­homa. “I believe in a more beau­ti­ful world, one where the prof­its of a cor­po­ra­tion don’t out­weigh the health of the peo­ple and the plan­et.”

“These com­pa­nies come through with false promis­es and leave sick­ness and dev­as­ta­tion in their wake,” said Eamon Danzig of Den­ton, TX. “Peo­ple in Mayflower expe­ri­enced faint­ing, nau­sea, and nose­bleeds from the ben­zene gas which sep­a­rates from the dilut­ed bitu­men in a spill and hov­ers above the ground. Leaks, rup­tures, and oth­er acci­dents on tar sands pipelines are so com­mon­place and inevitable that I can’t let this pipeline be built through the Cross Tim­bers.”

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.

Cur­rent­ly, there is staunch resis­tance to the expan­sion of Tar Sands infrastructure—Lakota and Dako­ta peo­ples in “South Dako­ta” have sworn to pro­tect their land and peo­ple from the Key­stone XL, life­long Okla­homans and Tex­ans are con­sis­tent­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion of the inher­ent­ly dan­ger­ous Key­stone XL, and the Unis’tot’en Camp has entered the third year of their block­ade of the Pacif­ic Trails Pipeline.

UPDATE: 11:27AM : Eamon and Ben are both being charged with tres­pass­ing. We need $500 to get them out of jail.

UPDATE:  Eamon has been charged with tres­pass­ing and is being held on a $250 bail in the Hugh­es Coun­ty Jail. We are still wait­ing to find out Ben’s charges.

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UPDATE: 9:18 AM: Lock box has been cut in half with jaws of life. Ben and Eamon have been tak­en into cus­tody by the police.

UPDATE: 9:12 AM: Using jaws of life on the lock box

UPDATE: 9:08 AM: More police and firetruck has arrived

UPDATE: 8:12AM: Anoth­er sher­iff has arrived. Failed at saw­ing

UPDATE: 8:05AM: Pri­vate secu­ri­ty has giv­en the sher­iff a hack­saw. The sher­iff is saw­ing at the lock box

UPDATE: 8:02: Sher­iff talk­ing to Ben and Eamon. The sher­iff is inspect­ing the lock box

UPDATE 7:51AM: Hugh­es Coun­ty Sher­iff has arrived

UPDATE: 7:43 AM: Pri­vate secu­ri­ty try­ing to con­vince Ben and Eamon to unlock

UPDATE: 7:36 AM: More work­ers arriv­ing on site

UPDATE: 7:30 AM: Pri­vate secu­ri­ty has arrived on site. Head of secu­ri­ty has informed us that he is a retired sher­iff of Hugh­es Coun­ty.

UPDATE: 6:20 AM: Work­ers on site

Climate Activist on Day 29 of Hunger Strike

Ear­li­er this month, 350.org founder Bill McK­ibben, wrote about the new move­ment of fos­sil fuel resis­tance that was spread­ing around the world.

This resis­tance is need­ed now more than ever, as glob­al tem­per­a­tures edge towards the 400 parts per mil­lion (ppm) mark for the first time in mil­lions of years, some­thing that is seri­ous­ly wor­ry­ing sci­en­tists. “It looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 ppm lev­el with­out los­ing a beat,” argues Scripps Insti­tu­tion of Oceanog­ra­phy sci­en­tist, Ralph Keel­ing.

One per­son who is part of this resis­tance is a young Amer­i­can activist Bri­an Eis­ter, who has worked with John Kerry’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers, Green Par­ty, Pub­lic Cit­i­zen and was involved in the Occu­py Move­ment.

But now he has put his body on the line for cli­mate change. He is on day 29 of a planned 30 day hunger strike. For near­ly the last month, all he has con­sumed is water, salt and potas­si­um.

Eis­ter is cur­rent­ly camped out­side the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute (API) in Wash­ing­ton, DC, the oil industry’s most pow­er­ful lob­by group.

He is try­ing to raise aware­ness about cli­mate change. “I am on hunger strike,” Eis­ter writes, “because I can think of no action which could ade­quate­ly express the urgency of humanity’s present sit­u­a­tion. There are more than a few trends which, left unchecked, are like­ly to make life impos­si­bly dif­fi­cult for future gen­er­a­tions.”

He argues that, “Giv­en the urgency of what is com­ing, every one of our lives should, first and fore­most, be ded­i­cat­ed to pre­vent­ing this com­ing cat­a­stro­phe.”

Over the week­end, Eis­ter gave an inter­view as to why he is tak­ing what many would argue is rad­i­cal action. His anger is chan­neled towards those in pow­er: politi­cians, the press and of course the oil indus­try itself.

“There are the pol­i­cy­mak­ers, who treat this issue as though we had all the time in the world to fix it. They already know bet­ter,” he argues. “There are mem­bers of the press, who bury sto­ries about the impend­ing ruina­tion of the world’s econ­o­my by glob­al warm­ing on page 13 of the news­pa­per, while con­sis­tent­ly plac­ing sto­ries about mem­bers of con­gress wran­gling over bud­gets on front page. They already know bet­ter.”

Per­haps sad­dest of all, he says: “there are edu­cat­ed, intel­li­gent peo­ple who sure­ly love their chil­dren work­ing for groups like the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute and Amer­i­cans for Clean Coal Elec­tric­i­ty. They already know bet­ter.”

The lob­by­ists at the API do know bet­ter, but like the tobac­co barons before them, they are try­ing to still spin a web of denial and decep­tion over the sci­ence and urgency of cli­mate change.

As the world hur­tles towards 400 ppm, the win­dow for mean­ing­ful action on cli­mate is rapid­ly clos­ing. But, as Eis­ter says, politi­cians, the press and the oil indus­try, all know bet­ter but car­ry on as if noth­ing is the prob­lem.

If Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is to start lis­ten­ing to peo­ple like Eis­ter, one first small step would be to can­cel the Key­stone XL pipeline. But that would only be the first small step of true mean­ing­ful action.

Eis­ter argues, “In our minds, we imag­ine that some­how, some­way, this prob­lem will be solved: how, after all, could a world full of respon­si­ble adults allow all of our children’s lives, and their children’s lives, to be ruined?”

Lockdown Continues in the “Red River Showdown” 25th April

A pro­test­er with the group Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance has stopped con­struc­tion of the Key­stone XL pipeline by lock­ing his arm into a con­crete cap­sule buried direct­ly in the pipeline’s pro­posed path. Fitzger­ald Scott, 42, is the first African Amer­i­can to risk arrest while phys­i­cal­ly blockad­ing TransCanada’s dan­ger­ous tar sands pipeline, and the sec­ond per­son to take action this week. On Mon­day a 61 year old man locked him­self to a piece of con­struc­tion equip­ment effec­tive­ly shut­ting down anoth­er Okla­homa pipeline con­struc­tion site. This week of action, called the “Red Riv­er Show­down,” is intend­ed to pro­tect the Red Riv­er, which marks the bor­der between Okla­homa and Texas and is a major trib­u­tary of the Mis­sis­sip­pi.

The site Scott has block­ad­ed is a wet­land area where crews are attempt­ing to lay sec­tions of the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline direct­ly into the marshy waters. An unde­tect­ed pin­hole leak at this loca­tion would cause can­cer caus­ing chem­i­cals to mix direct­ly into the local com­mu­ni­ty water table.

Scott, who has a master’s degree in urban plan­ning from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, Chica­go, is a long­time activist for social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice. While orga­niz­ing against Key­stone over the past five months, Scott has met many peo­ple strug­gling to pro­tect their homes from TransCanada’s abuse of emi­nent domain.

“I am doing this for the peo­ple who don’t have the finan­cial resources to pro­tect them­selves from a bul­ly like Tran­sCana­da,” explained Scott. “Imag­ine how much worse it is for them – like the most­ly African Amer­i­can neigh­bor­hood in Winona, TX, where pro­test­ers with the Tar Sands Block­ade found holes in welds of the pipeline sec­tion that runs right behind a children’s play­ground, and nei­ther Tran­sCana­da nor the gov­ern­ment will do any­thing about it!”

As con­struc­tion on the south­ern por­tion of Key­stone XL nears two thirds com­ple­tion, no reg­u­la­tors or politi­cians show any will­ing­ness to halt the project or even inspect those faulty welds. Accord­ing to George Daniel, spokesper­son for Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance, “Scott’s action sends a clear mes­sage: because every oth­er avenue has failed to stop this dead­ly project, we will block­ade – all sum­mer and on into the fall, if that’s what it takes.”

Today’s action comes just a few weeks after the dev­as­tat­ing tar sands spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, which has left com­mu­ni­ties across Okla­homa and Texas ter­ri­fied that they may be the next vic­tims of reck­less indus­try prac­tices. Sur­vivors of the spill in Mayflower have report­ed nau­sea, blurred vision, vom­it­ing, and black outs caused by the same blend of raw tar and poi­so­nous chem­i­cal sol­vents that will be trans­port­ed through Key­stone XL.

UPDATE 9:30 AM Work is still stopped on the ease­ment due to the large amount of police and emer­gency equip­ment need­ed for extrac­tion!  Show your sup­port for Fitzger­ald here!

UPDATE 9:10 AM: Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Fitzger­ald and he’s now in police cus­tody. Please show your sup­port with a gen­er­ous dona­tion to his legal fund.

UPDATE 8:49 AM: Anoth­er fire res­cue vehi­cle on scene, offi­cer just com­mand­ed “every­one not involved in emer­gency ser­vices, back off now!” and work­ers retreat­ed slight­ly.

UPDATE 8:30 AM: Half a dozen work trucks, four police cars (3 sher­iffs and 1 state troop­er), four cops, four fire­fight­ers, 2 EMTs, one fire truck and a fire res­cue truck on scene. Spe­cial fire depart­ment equip­ment truck just arrived; large group of offi­cials crowd­ed around Fitzger­ald.

UPDATE 7:42 AM: Sher­iff on scene.

Activist Locks Himself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery Launching a “Red River Showdown” Over KXL South 23rd April

On Earth Day 2013, to mark the close of the State Department’s pub­lic com­ment peri­od for TransCanada’s pro­posed Key­stone XL North­ern Seg­ment (KXL North) pipeline’s Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment (EIS), an activist with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance has locked him­self to a piece of Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery in Okla­homa, tem­porar­i­ly halt­ing work site con­struc­tion. Alec John­son, a 61-year old cli­mate jus­tice orga­niz­er from Ames, Iowa took direct action to defend the Red Riv­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Mayflower, Arkansas com­mu­ni­ty, which is cur­rent­ly reel­ing from last month’s mas­sive tar sands spill. The dis­as­ter, due to a 22-foot long gash in ExxonMobil’s rup­tured Pega­sus tar sands pipeline, has result­ed in chron­ic health prob­lems for near­by res­i­dents and has left Lake Con­way dan­ger­ous pol­lut­ed.

“This is our envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment,” stat­ed artist/activist and Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance spokesper­son Richard Ray Whit­man. “Tran­sCana­da claims its tech­nol­o­gy will pre­vent spills, but that same tech­nol­o­gy was used on the Pega­sus line, too. That didn’t work, now, did it? We are tak­ing a stand to pro­tect our access to clean water. KXL South is already being con­struct­ed with or with­out the North, and the destruc­tion of our water­ways in its path is not a ques­tion of if, but when. No tox­ic pipeline is worth the gam­ble and no com­mu­ni­ties in Texas or Okla­homa deserve the fate of Mayflower, Arkansas.”

While the cur­rent fate of KXL North rests upon U.S. Pres­i­den­tial approval, KXL South’s now lies in the broad-spec­trum oppo­si­tion it has gar­nered in the form of legal cas­es as well as the grass­roots civ­il dis­obe­di­ence cam­paigns by groups like Great Plain Tar Sands Resis­tance and Tar Sands Block­ade. Should KXL North be per­mit­ted to start con­struc­tion, these groups along with grass­roots indige­nous orga­ni­za­tions, sev­er­al Lako­ta Nation trib­al coun­cils, and over 60,000 oth­ers have pledged resis­tance in the form of non-vio­lent direct action to halt pipeline con­struc­tion.

Inter­na­tion­al treaties like the Treaty to Pro­tect the Sacred and strong­ly-word­ed trib­al coun­cil res­o­lu­tions like those recent­ly passed by the Oglala and Ihank­ton­wan Oyate/Yankton Sioux Gen­er­al Coun­cils pledg­ing resis­tance to KXL North “by all means nec­es­sary” indi­cate a tremen­dous uni­ty amongst Great Plains indige­nous nations. The strong reac­tions come after years of inad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tion on the part of Tran­sCana­da with regards to impacts on the Lako­ta Nation com­mu­ni­ties by its tox­ic tar sands pipeline. In rec­og­niz­ing the dire threat to their first med­i­cine, sacred water, the com­mu­ni­ties are also embrac­ing the spir­it of inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty with First Nation com­mu­ni­ties down­stream from tar sands min­ing sites. After years decry­ing the chem­i­cal pol­lu­tion and result­ing destruc­tion of tra­di­tion­al life ways from tar sands exploita­tion in what some affect­ed indige­nous peo­ples refer to as a “slow indus­tri­al geno­cide,” Cree and Dene Nations are expe­ri­enc­ing an upsurge in sym­pa­thy and sol­i­dar­i­ty with their plight.

“I am per­son­al­ly amazed at how resis­tance to the Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline and edu­ca­tion as to what tar sands exploita­tion looks like con­tin­ues to grow every day,” John­son wrote in a state­ment pri­or to his action. “Because it would be irre­spon­si­ble, we’re not stop­ping until the indus­try stops poi­son­ing our futures with lies, unnec­es­sary risks, and death for their prof­it. As long as the tar sands indus­try promis­es it will kill, we will block­ade.”

 

UPDATE 7:30PM – Cor­rec­tion – Friends are being held on a com­bined $9,000 bail and will be spend­ing the night in jail.

Sor­ry for the con­fu­sion, as charges and asso­ci­at­ed bail change.  Our friends are in high spir­its and would like to be bailed out togeth­er.  Hope­ful­ly tomor­row!

Dona­tions have been pour­ing in and we real­ly appre­ci­ate the sup­port!  How­ev­er, we still need some help to get our friends out of jail togeth­er…

Help GPTSR get our friends out of jail here!

 

UPDATE 5:30PM – Four activists are cur­rent­ly being held on a com­bined $14,000 bail

Alec has been charged with crim­i­nal tres­pass for shut­ting down the KXL con­struc­tion site today and is being held on a $3,000 bail.  The charges for the 3 oth­er activists also include crim­i­nal tres­pass.

UPDATE 1:00PM – Ral­ly at the Ato­ka Coun­ty Cour­t­house – Cel­e­brate Earth Day and sup­port our brave activists

Dozens are gath­er­ing after the KXL con­struc­tion site shut­down. Come join a ral­ly hap­pen­ing right now with local indige­nous lead­ers and KXL pipeline activists @200 E Court St. Ato­ka on this beau­ti­ful Earth Day.

See more pho­tos from today’s action here.

UPDATE 11:30AM – Alec has been extract­ed and arrest­ed for shut­ting down a KXL con­struc­tion site – 4 arrests on Earth Day so far

UPDATE 11:00AM – Fire Depart­ment try­ing to remove Alec from KXL machin­ery – Con­struc­tion shut down on both sides of road

UPDATE 10:30AM – Two arrests so far at site of Key­stone XL con­struc­tion shut down – Alec still locked to heavy machin­ery 

Activists with Idle No More South­ern Okla­homa ral­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Alec and Mayflower res­i­dents liv­ing with the health affects of tox­ic tar sands.

UPDATE 10:00AM – LIVE VIDEO: Alec locks him­self to Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery

Watch this live footage shot by live stream­er @jak_nlauren of Alec lock­ing him­self to Key­stone XL heavy machin­ery.  10 min­utes into the video local police show up and arrest Jak for his cov­er­age of the sto­ry.


Video stream­ing by Ustream

Tsleil-Waututh First Nation Sign International Treaty to Oppose Tar Sands Development 21st April

In the lat­est step toward oppos­ing oil pipelines at every port in Cana­da, the Tsleil-Wau­tuth Nation of Bur­rard Inlet signed on to the Inter­na­tion­al Treaty to Pro­tect the Sacred yes­ter­day. The nation held a press con­fer­ence at the Sher­a­ton Wall Cen­tre where new­ly elect­ed Chief Mau­reen Thomas signed the doc­u­ment, wit­nessed by the pres­i­dent of the BC Union of Indi­an Chiefs Stew­art Phillip and nation­al chief of the Assem­bly of First Nations Shawn Atleo.

The West Coast Oil Pipeline Sum­mit fol­lowed the sign­ing.  The theme of the event was urgency, with sev­er­al lead­ers touch­ing on the need to oppose devel­op­ment at a grass­roots lev­el.

Stew­art Phillip told reporters and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers assem­bled that the First Nations of BC are com­mit­ted to using the legal sys­tem to defend their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, but that’s not the only strat­e­gy they’re using.

“More impor­tant­ly, we have com­mit­ted to stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der on the land itself.”

Atleo echoed Phillip’s fatigue with the jus­tice sys­tem and spoke to the urgent nature of the strug­gle not just for Abo­rig­i­nal land rights, but also for envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion for every­one.

“This is not just a North Amer­i­can moment you’re wit­ness­ing,” he said. “The tip­ping point we have reached is glob­al.” He also spoke to the inad­e­qua­cy of the legal avenues avail­able to First Nations to set­tle land claims and hold the gov­ern­ment account­able. He said he doesn’t want to see the courts clogged with cas­es.

“We don’t need to be pulled down into the weeds of whether con­sul­ta­tion has hap­pened.”

Tsleil-Wau­tuth is the first nation whose ter­ri­to­ries are direct­ly in the path of one of the pro­posed pipeline projects to sign the treaty. Phil Lane Jr., hered­i­tary chief of the Yank­ton Sioux nation from South Dako­ta, said one of the key goals of the treaty is get sig­na­tures from all of the nations whose ter­ri­to­ries are direct­ly affect­ed.

The West Coast Oil Pipeline Sum­mit brought togeth­er First Nations lead­ers from across the province as well as activists and busi­ness peo­ple from a hand­ful of dif­fer­ent alter­na­tive ener­gy sec­tors.

The event was host­ed by 2G Group of Com­pa­nies, a con­sult­ing firm whose man­date is to help devel­op equi­table rela­tion­ships between Abo­rig­i­nal and non-Abo­rig­i­nal busi­ness ven­tures.

Econ­o­mist Robyn Allan gave a keynote speech high­light­ing the Harp­er government’s extreme shifts in ener­gy pol­i­cy from the Kyoto Pro­to­col and plans to lim­it bitu­men exports to the cur­rent push to expand tar sands devel­op­ment. She crit­i­cized the mes­sage that the econ­o­my and the envi­ron­ment are on oppo­site sides of the debate.

“This is a fab­ri­cat­ed trade-off designed to put ordi­nary Cana­di­ans against ordi­nary Cana­di­ans,” she said.  

A pan­elist of five speak­ers dis­cussed dif­fer­ent facets of the tar sands debate from the eco­nom­ics of renew­able ener­gy devel­op­ment to the effects of cli­mate change around the world.

Ben West, direc­tor of the tar sands cam­paign for For­est Ethics Advo­ca­cy, dis­cussed the via­bil­i­ty of alter­na­tive ener­gy sources and the ways in which con­ven­tion­al meth­ods of development—such as the con­struc­tion of the Port Mann Bridge to relieve congestion—are often counter intu­itive.

“If we could build our way out of con­ges­tions, LA would be the best city in the world to dri­ve in,” he quipped. For the cost of the $3 bil­lion bridge, he said, Van­cou­ver could build street­car infra­struc­ture to serve the bet­ter part of the city.

“We’re talk­ing about very real tech­nol­o­gy, very real solu­tions.”

Also in atten­dance was Green Par­ty leader Eliz­a­beth May, who stood up to talk about Monday’s vote in the House of Com­mons that will deter­mine whether the Cana­da-Chi­na For­eign Invest­ment Pro­mo­tion and Pro­tec­tion Act (FIPA) will go through.

She said she was impressed by the breadth of infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed through­out the evening par­tic­u­lar­ly fact about how Cana­da imports the con­den­sate required to trans­port bitu­men.

“I don’t think we’re hear­ing about it near­ly enough that we’re cre­at­ing depen­den­cy on Mid­dle East­ern fos­sil fuels rather than upgrade it in Alber­ta and refine it in Alber­ta,” she said, adding that she’s not see­ing the response she’d like from BC politi­cians.

“Where is Adri­an Dix on this project? It does not seem that provin­cial NDP is opposed to this project and that’s a big prob­lem.”

Two Lifelong Oklahomans Halt Construction of Keystone XL Work Site 16th April

BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

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BRYAN COUNTY, OK – Tues­day, April 16, 2013, 8:00AM – Two life­long Okla­homans have effec­tive­ly halt­ed con­struc­tion on an active work site for TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline in Ben­ning­ton, Okla­homa.

Eric Whe­lan, 26, who grew up in McLoud, Okla., has ascend­ed 40 feet into the air in an aer­i­al block­ade that began at dawn this morn­ing.

Gwen Ingram of Luther, Okla., 56, has locked her­self to heavy machin­ery and shut down the con­struc­tion site.

Today’s event marks the fourth act of civ­il dis­obe­di­ence by Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance and comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas.  For the last three weeks, over 300,000 gal­lons of tar sands dilut­ed bitu­men have spil –>led into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

“Key­stone XL sound­ed like a bad idea from the begin­ning,” explained Whe­lan. “The Mayflower spill proves that we shouldn’t be trust­ing these mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tions, like Exxon or Tran­sCana­da, because every spill fur­ther expos­es their crim­i­nal incom­pe­tence. Now, Tran­sCana­da wants to build a tox­ic pipeline through the cen­ter of the coun­try.

“I’m tak­ing action to pre­vent a tragedy like that from hap­pen­ing in Okla­homa.”

The tar sands’ cor­ro­sive nature makes pipelines more prone to leaks than trans­port­ing crude oil, as evi­denced by the Exxon’s Pega­sus pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark.

When spills inevitably do occur, the heav­ier dilut­ed bitu­men sinks in water and into the water table. Key­stone XL’s pro­posed route cuts through the heart­land of North Amer­i­ca, cross­ing the Arbuck­le Simp­son and Edwards Trin­i­ty Aquifer in Okla­homa.

“The Key­stone XL tar sands pipeline would car­ry the dirt­i­est fuel on the plan­et from Cana­da to America’s Gulf Coast’s refiner­ies and ports, and then over­seas for export,” said Gwen Ingram, before lock­ing her­self to TransCanada’s heavy machin­ery.

“I sim­ply won’t allow this pipeline to cross our pre­cious rivers; the North and South Cana­di­an, The Red Riv­er, The Cim­maron and threat­en our drink­ing water.”

UPDATE 9:00 AM — Eric is hold­ing strong on a tow­er 40 feet off the ground in the mid­dle of the Key­stone XL con­struc­tion site

UPDATE 11:15 AM- Fire­fight­ers have extract­ed Gwen Ingram from the con­struc­tion machin­ery.  Gwen held strong in her non­vi­o­lent civ­il dis­obe­di­ence act for sev­er­al hours.

Fol­low more of our actions live on our Face­book and Twit­ter. Sign up to join the resis­tance.

See more high res pho­tos on our Flickr account.

 

Oklahoma Grandmother Locks Herself to KXL Heavy Machinery 9th April

ALLEN, OK – Tues­day, April 9, 2013, 9:00 AM – Okla­homa grand­moth­er Nan­cy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked her­self to a piece of heavy machin­ery effec­tive­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion on TransCanada’s Key­stone

ALLEN, OK – Tues­day, April 9, 2013, 9:00 AM – Okla­homa grand­moth­er Nan­cy Zorn, 79, from Warr Acres, has locked her­self to a piece of heavy machin­ery effec­tive­ly halt­ing con­struc­tion on TransCanada’s Key­stone XL tox­ic tar sands pipeline. This action comes in the wake of the dis­as­trous tar sands pipeline spill in Mayflower Arkansas, where an esti­mat­ed 80,000 gal­lons of tar sands spilled into a res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood and local water­ways.

Using a bike-lock Zorn has attached her neck direct­ly to a mas­sive earth-mover, known as an exca­va­tor, which has brought con­struc­tion of Key­stone XL to a stop.  Zorn is the sec­ond Okla­homa grand­moth­er this year risk­ing arrest to stop con­struc­tion of the pipeline, and her protest is the third in a series of ongo­ing civ­il dis­obe­di­ence actions led by the Okla­homa-based coali­tion of orga­ni­za­tions, Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance.

“Right now our neigh­bors in Arkansas are feel­ing the tox­ic affect of tar sands on their com­mu­ni­ty. Will Okla­homa neigh­bor­hoods be next?” asked Zorn before tak­ing action today. “I can no longer sit by idly while tox­ic tar sands are pumped down from Cana­da and into our com­mu­ni­ties. It is time to rise up and defend our home. It is my hope that this one small action today will inspire many to pro­tect this land and our water.”

Exxon Mobil’s recent Pega­sus pipeline spill has forced local res­i­dents to evac­u­ate their homes due to life-threat­en­ing tox­ins released into their neigh­bor­hood. Local fam­i­lies have expe­ri­enced episodes of nau­sea, headaches, and res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems due to acute expo­sure to dead­ly chem­i­cals, like ben­zene, that are mixed in with the raw tar sands. Pega­sus was car­ry­ing up to 90,000 bar­rels of tar sands a day before it rup­tured and spilled.  The Key­stone XL pipeline is slat­ed to car­ry over 800,000 bar­rels a day; an alarm­ing 10 times the amount of tar sands.

“In the last two weeks alone there have been at least six dif­fer­ent inland oil spills across the coun­try,” said Eric Wheel­er, an Okla­homa native and spokesper­son for Great Plains Tar Sands Resis­tance. “It’s time to stop refer­ring to pipeline spills as acci­dents, it’s now abun­dant­ly clear that leaks are just part of busi­ness as usu­al. Tar sands hurt every­one they touch, from the indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in Alber­ta whose water is being poi­soned, to the Gulf Coast com­mu­ni­ties that are forced to breathe tox­ic refin­ery emis­sions. We’re not going to allow this tox­ic stuff in our beau­ti­ful state.”

UPDATE 10:30AM: Nan­cy Zorn has been extract­ed by local law enforce­ment and tak­en into cus­tody. Please con­sid­er con­tribut­ing to Nancy’s bail fund