Category: Unnecessary Developments

Rising Tide Protests TD Bank in Seattle

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Soun

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Sound Ris­ing Tide arrived at a TD Bank office with a 35-foot-long mock pipeline and a funer­al pro­ces­sion to demand they stop bankrolling the Key­stone XL and tar sands extrac­tion.

TD Bank is one of the largest share­hold­ers in the Alber­ta Tar Sands, and was also protest­ed by Ris­ing Tide Philly ear­li­er this year.

After the TD Bank office, they marched to the fed­er­al build­ing to put Pres­i­dent Oba­ma on notice; they have pledged to resist along with over 80,000 peo­ple orga­nized by The Oth­er 98%,CREDO Mobile and Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

Protesters Block Miners from Coromandel Harbour

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30th Octo­ber New Zealand – A group of Coro­man­del pro­test­ers are cur­rent­ly blockad­ing the town’s har­bour in an attempt to stop Sea Hold­ings from tak­ing sam­ples.

The area is part of Sched­ule 4, where the Gov­ern­ment gave con­sent for min­er­al prospect­ing ear­li­er this year, despite promis­ing in 2010 no min­ing would be allowed.

Green MP Cather­ine Delahunty is at the “peace­ful protest”, tweet­ing: “Min­ers have head­ed back to motel try­ing to work how to get around Coro­man­del com­mu­ni­ty but it’s not work­ing!”.

The Gov­ern­ment had orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed min­er­al explo­ration in 7000ha of con­ser­va­tion land in the Coro­man­del, Great Bar­ri­er Island and Paparoa Nation­al Park.

How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment did a U‑turn in 2010 and said it will not remove any land from Sched­ule 4 for min­ing pur­pos­es.

But, in March this year it issued eight con­sents to prospect and explore for coal and oth­er min­er­als in Coro­man­del and Paparoa Nation­al Park.

 

Malaysia: Sarawak Dam Protest Intensifies with Blockades, Confrontations

Baram_blockade_23.10.201326th Octo­ber Anti-dam pro­tes­tors, who on Wednes­day put up block­ades at two roads lead­ing to Sarawak’s next hydro­elec­tric dam near Long Lama in Baram, have warned sta

Baram_blockade_23.10.201326th Octo­ber Anti-dam pro­tes­tors, who on Wednes­day put up block­ades at two roads lead­ing to Sarawak’s next hydro­elec­tric dam near Long Lama in Baram, have warned state elec­tric­i­ty provider Sarawak Ener­gy Bhd (SEB) to remove its con­struc­tion machin­ery from near­by Long Naah with­in three days.

The pro­tes­tors claimed that the pro­posed site for the dam was on their native cus­tom­ary rights (NCR) land.

The machin­ery had been trans­port­ed to the area to pre­pare the con­struc­tion of a 1200 megawatt (MW) dam that would dis­place up to 20,000 indige­nous Kenyah, Kayan and Penans. The dam will also flood a rain­for­est area of 400sq km.

Envi­ron­men­tal group Save Rivers Net­work and pro­tes­tors con­front­ed a group of 30 work­ers who were con­duct­ing rock test­ing activ­i­ties at Long Naah.

The group said the work­ers were told to pack up and leave the native land imme­di­ate­ly.

“The work­ers tried to nego­ti­ate but were told in no uncer­tain terms that there was no need for fur­ther nego­ti­a­tions as the com­mu­ni­ties reject­ed the dam project.”

Save also said that a group of vil­lagers had set up camp at the pro­posed dam site to mon­i­tor the with­draw­al of the work­ers.

The lat­est block­ades added pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment ahead of a key UN meet­ing in Gene­va on Malaysia’s human rights record where UN mem­ber states urged Putra­jaya to respect the rights of the natives.

The UPR process pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty for all UN mem­ber states to state what action they have tak­en to improve the human rights sit­u­a­tions in their coun­tries and to ful­fil their human rights oblig­a­tions. Yesterday’s ses­sion rep­re­sent­ed the sec­ond review of Malaysia, the first being in 2009.

Sarawak deputy state sec­re­tary Datuk Ose Murang was in the Malaysian del­e­ga­tion to Gene­va, Switzer­land.

Mean­while, SEB chief exec­u­tive offi­cer Datuk Torstein Dale Sjotveit, has said he would now like to hear from the “very vocal NGOs and action groups cur­rent­ly in Gene­va, and the organ­i­sa­tion that nom­i­nat­ed Sarawak Ener­gy for the Pub­lic Eye award”.

The NGO that nom­i­nat­ed SEB for the Pub­lic Eye award is the Swiss envi­ron­men­tal group, the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF).

The award hon­ours the most despi­ca­ble and shame­ful com­pa­ny of the year – com­pa­nies with a track record of human rights vio­la­tions, envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion and exploita­tion of their work­ers or involve­ment in cor­rup­tion.

BMF said they nom­i­nat­ed SEB due to its gross dis­re­gard for the envi­ron­ment, the indige­nous peo­ple and mas­sive cor­rup­tion linked to the project.

The win­ner would be picked dur­ing the 2014 World Eco­nom­ic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzer­land in Jan­u­ary.

“We would love to hear from the NGOs on how they pro­pose the state deploy trans­for­ma­tion­al projects that can ele­vate all Sarawakians and lift per capi­ta income across the board if not through hydro­elec­tric projects,” Sjotveit said. – Octo­ber 25, 2013.

New Protest Camp at Wisborough Green and Kirdford Proposed Drill Site

253091804226th Octo­ber A small band of anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers who wished to be known as ‘pro­tec­tors’ have set up camp on land adja­cent to Cel­tique Energie’s pro­posed drill site.

253091804226th Octo­ber A small band of anti-frack­ing cam­paign­ers who wished to be known as ‘pro­tec­tors’ have set up camp on land adja­cent to Cel­tique Energie’s pro­posed drill site.

Many of them have spent time in Bal­combe, protest­ing against Cuadrilla’s drilling activ­i­ties.

Talk­ing from their camp, where they have per­mis­sion from the land own­er to tem­porar­i­ly reside, one of the group said: “I’m here because the coun­try is on the brink of what could pos­si­bly be the most intense envi­ron­men­tal cat­a­stro­phe that we have ever known, and that its sneaked in under the radar of good sense, under the radar of democ­ra­cy, and peo­ple aren’t aware just how dan­ger­ous frack­ing can be, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this coun­try where we are rid­dled with fault lines.”

Tim, who pre­ferred not to give his sur­name and age, added: “It is a mat­ter of great urgency that every body stands up and gets active now.

“We’re all activists now and that is how it is – one way or anoth­er the coun­try is being indus­tri­alised, and it is time for every­body to stand up.”

Fel­low ‘pro­tec­tor’ Pra­j­na spoke of one of our ‘exis­ten­tial rights’ – water, say­ing it is under threat by the process of hydraulic frac­tur­ing which uses high pres­sure water laced with chem­i­cals to stim­u­late oil and gas reserves trapped in rock beneath the ground.

The 53 year old, who trav­els with his 46 year part­ner Kali, spent two months at Bal­combe before arriv­ing in Kird­ford about two weeks ago.

“If frack­ing were to take place in Wis­bor­ough Green and Kird­ford it would be dis­as­trous for this local envi­ron­ment,” said Kali. “But equal­ly it is going to be dis­as­trous for the whole island – poi­soned water sup­plies.

“It is going to affect absolute­ly every indi­vid­ual and if the water is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed than we shall be depen­dent on cor­po­ra­tions who bring it in from else­where.”

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A 27 year old called Dominic added: “I’ve come here to raise aware­ness among local peo­ple about frack­ing – it is an attack on the nat­ur­al ecosys­tems of the area.”

Kris, sport­ing an impres­sive gin­ger mous­tache, said he had been brought up in the oil indus­try and had lived all around the world, but was now total­ly dis­il­lu­sioned with the sec­tor for many rea­sons.

But chief amongst these, he said: “There is a very sub­stan­tial risk of con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing the water table.”

Asked why those we spoke to were ret­i­cent to give their full names, they said it could give the author­i­ties and cor­po­ra­tions a hold over them, and raised con­cerns about the might of the organ­i­sa­tions against which they are cam­paign­ing.

———————————————————————————–

One of the most colour­ful char­ac­ters we spoke to at the Kird­ford camp called him­self Bro Rain­bow. What fol­lows is a direct tran­script of the inter­view with Bro.

How old are you Bro?

Eter­nal

Where’s home?

Where the heart is.

Is that right here now?

Always, hope so, oth­er­wise get an ambu­lance.

Why here right now?

Why right here and now, it’s the only place you can be – here and now – they call it the present – it’s a gift, make the most of it.

Why have you come here?

Because it real­ly actu­al­ly mat­ters. We are one nation, one tribe, liv­ing on a very beau­ti­ful space-ship – they call it Earth, but I call it Plan­et Heart which is just a respelling of Earth.

But actu­al­ly it is not earth, it is two thirds water and so it is plan­et Heart, and she is spin­ning 1,800 mph – can you feel it?

The most amaz­ing life sup­port sys­tem that I am aware of in the moment, and what’s going on? Just delu­sion, tru­ly, and mad­ness. And the future gen­er­a­tions are going to look back and they will just be incred­u­lous at what has been hap­pen­ing up until this point.

Basi­cal­ly, do we tru­ly need it? This gas, this frack­ing, this des­e­cra­tion of the Moth­er, this ruina­tion of our water, our air, our soil – is it need­ed?

Yes, because we need to change our con­scious­ness and we need to rise above, that’s from my heart to yours, that we all might live true.

And here’s a poem:

“Listen’t to the mustn’ts child

Lis­ten to the don’ts

Lis­ten to the wouldn’ts, couldn’ts, shouldn’ts and the won’ts,

Lis­ten very close­ly,

Then lis­ten close to me,

Any­thing can hap­pen,

And any­thing can be,

And in the poten­tial real­i­ty that I want to exist in, this is not hap­pen­ing – ok.

They say that an Eng­lish woman’s home is her cas­tle, I say women because we’re women and man, we’re two sided,

We’re not all right, we’re half right, half left.”

That’s the truth of it, oth­er­wise we’d fall over, and hope­ful­ly, straight up the mid­dle,

Straight up, frack­ing is wrong and that is why I am here because I feel it intense­ly with­in me, and I am vot­ing with my feet and my whole being, to be here to say please, let’s go in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion.

Bless

Remove Your Machinery Within Three Days, Baram Natives Warn Dam Builders

Baram_blockade_23.10.201325th Octo­ber Native com­mu­ni­ties from Malaysia’s remote Baram dis­trict on the island of Bor­neo have warned state-owned elec­tric­i­ty provider Sarawak Ener­gy t

Baram_blockade_23.10.201325th Octo­ber Native com­mu­ni­ties from Malaysia’s remote Baram dis­trict on the island of Bor­neo have warned state-owned elec­tric­i­ty provider Sarawak Ener­gy today to remove its con­struc­tion machin­ery from their lands with­in three days. The machin­ery had been trans­port­ed to the Baram region in order to pre­pare the con­struc­tion of a 1200 MW dam that would dis­place up to 20’000 natives and flood a rain­for­est area of 400 km².

Accord­ing to Sarawak’s Save Rivers net­work, a group of 30 work­ers had been found to con­duct rock test­ing activ­i­ties at the planned dam site at Long Naah. The work­ers were told to pack up and leave the native lands imme­di­ate­ly. “The work­ers tried to nego­ti­ate but were told in no uncer­tain terms that there was no need for fur­ther nego­ti­a­tions as the com­mu­ni­ties reject­ed the dam project.”

Sarawak Ener­gy was giv­en a three-day ulti­ma­tum to remove its machin­ery from the native lands. A group of vil­lagers set up a camp at the planned dam site to mon­i­tor the imple­men­ta­tion of their demands.

Vil­lagers uphold­ing a sec­ond road block­ade site near Long Lama today informed that their block­ade was suc­cess­ful and no new con­struc­tion equip­ment had been trans­port­ed into the inte­ri­or.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion on the dam protest would be released by Radio Free Sarawak (www.radiofreesarawak.org) on SW 15420 KHZ between 7 pm and 8.30 pm local time.

The Bruno Manser Fund calls on the Malaysian gov­ern­ment and on Sarawak Ener­gy to halt all works on the planned Baram dam and to cre­ate full trans­paren­cy on the costs and con­tracts relat­ed to the con­struc­tion of the Murum dam.

Nigeria: Coordinated Mass Protests Shut Down ExxonMobil

pic824th Octo­ber The peo­ple of Eket fed­er­al con­stituen­cy in Akwa Ibom State yes­ter­day embarked on a mass protest shut­ting

pic824th Octo­ber The peo­ple of Eket fed­er­al con­stituen­cy in Akwa Ibom State yes­ter­day embarked on a mass protest shut­ting down the oper­a­tions of Mobil Pro­duc­ing Nige­ria Unlim­it­ed, a sub­sidiary of Exxon­Mo­bil in Ibeno and Eket, in the state

The mass protest was staged simul­ta­ne­ous­ly around Mobil facil­i­ties, the Airstrip in Eket, Mobil Ter­mi­nal in Ibeno and Mobil Hous­ing Estate in Eket.

The protest was in respect of the sum of N26.5 bil­lion oil spill fund report­ed­ly released by Exxon­Mo­bil through the state gov­ern­ment to the four oil pro­duc­ing local gov­ern­ment areas.

The pro­test­ers who chant­ed slo­gans with plac­ards and trum­pets, bar­ri­cad­ed the oil company’s  access gates, while a cof­fin with the inscrip­tion ‘RIP Mark Ward’ was kept at the gates of Mobil Ter­mi­nal in Ibeno, amidst oth­er ban­ners and plac­ards.

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At the Mobil airstrip in Eket, plan­tain suck­ers where plant­ed at the gates while the youths locked the gate with pad­lock in the full glare of a detach­ment of police­men who watched to pre­vent a degen­er­a­tion of the crises.

Also seen at one of the desert­ed gates of the Mobil Ter­mi­nal was a canoe, wrapped with tra­di­tion­al palm leaves and a white fowl, which the Ibeno pro­test­ers claimed found itself to the gate of the ter­mi­nal from the riv­er on its own, and dared author­i­ties of the oil firm to remove the canoe if they had the guts.

The com­mu­ni­ties lament­ed that Mobil was insen­si­tive to their plight, as evi­dent by its refusal to pay the com­pen­sa­tion for the 2012 oil spill inci­dent that result­ed in the dis­charge of more than 300 bar­rels of crude oil into the aquat­ic envi­ron­ment of the oil pro­duc­ing areas.

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Dur­ing the protest march, some promi­nent youth lead­ers under the aegis of Eket Fed­er­al Con­stituen­cy Van­guard led by Mr. Isa­iah Abia and Mr. William Mkpa, strong­ly scold­ed Exxon­Mo­bil for being insen­si­tive to their plight of its host com­mu­ni­ties.

Exxon­Mo­bil, they said, lacked employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for the peo­ple of the com­mu­ni­ty, oper­ate on a deplorable con­di­tion of social infra­struc­ture in the host com­mu­ni­ties, as well as haz­ards result­ing from the exploita­tion by the oil firm.

They warned that fail­ure of Mobil to address the ugly trend would leave them with no option than to put final­i­ty on their oper­a­tion in their land.

The demon­stra­tors also called for the imme­di­ate rede­ploy­ment of the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Exxon­Mo­bil, Mr. Mark Ward, over his per­sis­tent snub of all the over­tures from the com­mu­ni­ties.

Address­ing the protest at the company’s ter­mi­nal in Ibeno, Mr. Isa­iah Abia said there was no going back in call­ing Mobil to order.

He said the protest march came at the expi­ra­tion of the sev­en-day ulti­ma­tum ear­li­er issued to the author­i­ties of the com­pa­ny last week.

Abia said the peo­ple of the areas where total­ly against the notion that Exxon­Mo­bil want­ed to use the oil spill com­pen­sa­tion fund to exe­cute projects in the com­mu­ni­ties, main­tain­ing that such a notion was an attes­ta­tion to the non­cha­lant atti­tude of Mobil.

Burma: Village Protests Shut Down Coal Mine

Coal-mine-300x19924th Octo­ber The Karen Nation­al Union (KNU) in South­ern Bur­ma has sus­pend­ed a coalmine from oper­at­ing in the Pawk­lo area, east of Dawei.

Coal-mine-300x19924th Octo­ber The Karen Nation­al Union (KNU) in South­ern Bur­ma has sus­pend­ed a coalmine from oper­at­ing in the Pawk­lo area, east of Dawei.

The KNU stopped the mine after lis­ten­ing to the demands local vil­lagers made to the polit­i­cal organ­i­sa­tions dis­trict lead­ers.

The KNU Mer­gui-Tavoy Dis­trict 16th Con­gress that fin­ished on the 19 Octo­ber decid­ed that the coal mine in Tha Nay Kler vil­lage area should stop oper­at­ing after KNU town­ship rep­re­sen­ta­tives pushed for its clo­sure.

P’doh Saw Beel­er, chair­man of KNU Mer­gui-Tavoy Dis­trict told Karen News.

“We con­sid­er the vil­lagers demands request­ing the sus­pen­sion of coal min­ing in the Paw Klo area. We will time to inves­ti­gate the issue and talk and lis­ten to local peo­ple about their con­cerns.”

The KNU per­mit grant­ed to a Thai com­pa­ny East Star has been sus­pend­ed, but sources claim the com­pa­ny still has a grant issued by the Myan­mar gov­ern­ment.

East Star is a joint ven­ture with May Flower, a Burmese owned com­pa­ny, that was grant­ed a 25-year con­ces­sion by the gov­ern­ment to mine for coal in the Paw Klo area.

Until the recent cease­fire between the Bur­ma Army and the KNU, the Paw Klo area was a con­flict zone – it is still under the con­trol of the KNU. The com­pa­ny received per­mis­sion from the KNU to mine in 2011. The KNU agree­ment states the com­pa­ny must renew its per­mit every year.

The KNU per­mit lim­its large-scale coal min­ing to a 60-acre area and states that the com­pa­ny is only allowed to mine out­side vil­lage areas to avoid dam­age to farm­land, water­ways and the envi­ron­ment.

Vil­lagers in the Paw Klo area protest­ed against the com­pa­ny and alleged that the min­ing has destroyed their land and has had adverse impacts on vil­lage water sources. Vil­lagers claim that they fear the pol­lut­ed drink­ing water could have a neg­a­tive impact on their future health.

Vil­lagers in Paw Klo, sub­mit­ted a let­ter of com­plaint on Sep­tem­ber 2 urg­ing the KNU to stop coal min­ing in Tha Nay Kler vil­lage.

The let­ter sub­mit­ted on Sep­tem­ber 2 to the KNU Mer­gui-Tavoy dis­trict office states that, “The East Star Com­pa­ny has failed to fol­low the agree­ment made between the KNU and vil­lagers that it [com­pa­ny] will pro­tect against dam­age of the envi­ron­ment and would not harm local lands and peo­ples’ liveli­hoods.”

Solidarity Protests and Blockades Ignite Across Turtle Island in Solidarity with Mi’kmaq

photo of yesterday's solidarity blockade at Esgenoopetitj18th Octo­ber

photo of yesterday's solidarity blockade at Esgenoopetitj18th Octo­ber

The RCMP retreat from the Mi’qmak block­ade has not stemmed the out­rage against the Cana­di­an government’s ruth­less attack yes­ter­day on the peace­ful Mi’qmak block­ade. As South­west­ern Ener­gy attempts to extend the injunc­tion against the Mi’qmak, sol­i­dar­i­ty protests are spread­ing through­out Tur­tle Island.

Numer­ous infra­struc­ture points through­out Cana­da were snarled by indige­nous block­ades in the imme­di­ate after­math of the state inva­sion of the Mi’qmak. At least 30 sol­i­dar­i­ty protests are also being under­tak­en accord­ing to Idle No More.

Accord­ing to San­ta Cruz Indige­nous Sol­i­dar­i­ty, by 3pm yes­ter­day six peace­ful high­way and bridge block­ades had been errect­ed at Roads in Burnt Church (NB), Tobique (NB), Esgenoopetitj (NB), Hamil­ton (ON) and Six Nations (ON).

The Lis­tuguj Mi’Gmaq built a tipi on the Van­Horne bridge, block­ing traf­fic on the Que­bec-New Brunswick bor­der.

In Win­nipeg, pro­tes­tors tied up traf­fic at the inter­sec­tion of Portage and Main, burn­ing a Cana­di­an flag to protest against the Crown’s his­toric betray­al of First Nations treaty rights. Police appeared to be clear­ing the way for the march, halt­ing traf­fic at numer­ous points.

In Mon­tre­al, mem­bers of the Mohawk nation gath­ered to show sol­i­dar­i­ty. Dur­ing the RCMP crack­down on the Mi’kmaq Block­ade, many observers com­pared the state’s repres­sive response to the 1990 Oka Cri­sis, which saw the Mohawk resist devel­op­ment on their lands for months.

New York, Wash­ing­ton, DC, and numer­ous oth­er cities across the US have also seen sol­i­dar­i­ty demon­stra­tions.

There is a call for sol­i­dar­i­ty for today and tomor­row, which hap­pens to be an inter­na­tion­al day of action against frack­ing (the #glob­al­frack­down http://www.globalfrackdown.org/). The day of sol­i­dar­i­ty will use the hash tag #INDIGENIZE, with orga­niz­ers send­ing report backs and media updates to Reclaim­TurtleIs­land [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Mi’kmaq Blockade Update: RCMP Has Withdrawn, Resistance Continues

946395_10153342098695417_350941597_n18th Octo­ber by Trash­fire / Earth First! News

946395_10153342098695417_350941597_n18th Octo­ber by Trash­fire / Earth First! News

After a day of clash­es yes­ter­day, the police with­drew around 7pm to cheers from the crowd.

40 peo­ple are report­ed arrest­ed and 5 police vehi­cles were burned.

No One Is Ille­gal reports these lists of sol­i­dar­i­ty actions – Google Docs

Pow­er­shift Cana­da

Yes­ter­day saw many emer­gency sol­i­dar­i­ty actions includ­ing a major through­way being shut­down in Win­nipeg.

Today is a day of action called for by the Mi’kmaq ear­li­er this week.

Tomor­row is anoth­er day of action against frack­ing orga­nized under the ban­ner Glob­al Frack­down.

 

There has also been a request that sup­port­ers call the pre­mier of New Brunswick to express con­cerns over the RCMP’s actions against the Mi’kmaq – .New Brunswick Pre­mier – David Alward
Email: premier@gnb.ca
Phone: (506) 453‑2144
Fax : (506) 453‑7407

Charges for those arrest­ed includ­ed firearms offences, utter­ing threats, intim­i­da­tion, mis­chief and for refus­ing to abide by a court injunc­tion.

The pro­test­ers arrest­ed were tak­en to three dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties where they are expect­ed in court Fri­day morn­ing around 9:30 to face charges. Police spread the arrest­ed pro­test­ers out in an effort to pre­vent the cour­t­hous­es being over­whelmed by protest sup­port­ers dur­ing the arraign­ments.GAMW1AP

Chief Aaron Sock was among those arrest­ed in the clash. He and a few of his band coun­cil mem­bers were released a few hours after their arrests.

Sock is the leader of the band that has been blockad­ing Route 134 near Rex­ton since Sept. 30.

On Oct. 1, Sock issued an evic­tion notice to SWN Resources of Cana­da. His band and his band coun­cil planned to pass a res­o­lu­tion pre­vent­ing the gov­ern­ment and shale gas com­pa­nies from con­tin­u­ing their work by reclaim­ing all unoc­cu­pied reserve land and giv­ing it back to First Nations.ZNAmSQ1

The road between Rex­ton and High­way 11 has been the scene of the protest, involv­ing a coali­tion of natives and non-natives opposed to shale gas explo­ration.

Pro­test­ers moved into the area on Sept. 30, ini­tial­ly estab­lish­ing a bar­ri­cade to the stag­ing area used by SWN Resources Cana­da to park its explo­ration vehi­cles and equip­ment.

The protest pro­gressed to the point where bar­ri­cades were also estab­lished on the road, pre­vent­ing traf­fic from going through.

SWN Resources went to the Court of Queen’s Bench and suc­cess­ful­ly sought an injunc­tion to end the protest.

Dur­ing a hear­ing, court was told SWN Resources is los­ing $60,000 every day its seis­mic explo­ration trucks remain block­ad­ed in the com­pound off Route 134.

Let's watch that shit again #elsipogtog #mikmaqblockade ... on Twitpic

Video by the Stim­u­la­tor (click for video) and @stimulator on for up to the minute updates

 

Romanian Villagers 3‑day Occupation Forces Chevron to Stop Fracking

pungesti_vaslui_2_5505350018th Octo­ber

pungesti_vaslui_2_5505350018th Octo­ber

US ener­gy giant Chevron said Thurs­day it has sus­pend­ed shale gas test drilling in north­east­ern Roma­nia after three days of protests by vil­lagers opposed to frack­ing.

“Chevron can today con­firm it has sus­pend­ed activ­i­ties in Silis­tea, Pungesti com­mune, Vaslui coun­ty,” a press release read.

The move comes a day after Roman­ian police clashed with vil­lagers who have occu­pied since Mon­day a field to pre­vent Chevron from drilling its first explo­ration well.

The pro­test­ers are afraid of the envi­ron­men­tal and health impact of the high­ly con­tro­ver­sial drilling method used to unlock shale gas, called hydraulic frac­tur­ing or ‘frack­ing’.

The tech­nique con­sists of pump­ing water and chem­i­cals at high pres­sure into deep rock for­ma­tions to free oil and gas, with envi­ron­men­tal­ists warn­ing the process may con­t­a­m­i­nate ground water and even cause small earth­quakes.

Chevron has per­mits to explore for shale gas in three vil­lages in this impov­er­ished part of north­east­ern Roma­nia as well as on Romania’s Black Sea coast.

“Our pri­or­i­ty is to con­duct … activ­i­ties in a safe and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble man­ner con­sis­tent with the per­mits under which we oper­ate,” the group said Wednes­day.