Category: Wilderness Defence

For the sec­ond time in three days a Shell dredger has been board­ed and occu­pied by a Shell to Sea pro­test­er. As a result all the ships work­ing in the bay have ceased work and returned to har­bour. Reports con­firm that work has been aban­doned due to the action of the pro­test­ers!

A group of 11 kayak­ers set out at 5:30am on Fri­day, meet­ing instant resis­tance on the water from Shell secu­ri­ty boats and safe­ty boats. After avoid­ing the Shell pri­vate secu­ri­ty boats that were attempt­ing to cap­size the kayaks, one pro­test­er man­aged to board the dredger ‘Rezende Bol’ owned by Van Oord, who is sub­con­tract­ed by Shell to do the dredg­ing. This ves­sel along with anoth­er and mul­ti­ple sup­port and secu­ri­ty boats were dig­ging a trench in the seabed in prepa­ra­tion for the gas pipe-lay­ing ship Soli­taire. Work in the bay has been con­tin­u­ous 24 hours a day since Mon­day evening only stop­ping due to the pre­vi­ous dredger occu­pa­tion by Shell to Sea pro­test­ers which last­ed 10 hours. Dur­ing the attempts to board the dredger sev­er­al pro­test­ers were able to climb onto the side of the ves­sel. Exces­sive force was used to pre­vent them from board­ing; one pro­test­er had his thumb bent back­wards by a secu­ri­ty guard and lat­er was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal where tests revealed dam­aged lig­a­ments. Anoth­er pro­test­er who got on board the ship was vio­lent­ly pushed from the deck by two secu­ri­ty guards injur­ing his back, and fell over six feet from the deck into the water. Shell secu­ri­ty were kick­ing and stamp­ing fin­gers of pro­test­ers on the near side of the ves­sel, all the while one pro­test­er man­aged to board the ship on the oth­er side and climb up onto the same crane his friends had pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied just three days ear­li­er.

The kayak sup­port team pre­pared for sim­i­lar shifts as Tues­day, antic­i­pat­ing a long-term occu­pa­tion. Four kayak­ers remained on the water to keep an eye on the pro­test­er while the rest went in to regain ener­gy. The reac­tion of the secu­ri­ty and safe­ty boats was very hos­tile, attempt­ing to cap­size kayaks and sep­a­rate peo­ple from each oth­er. The dri­ver of the Gall­tee (Shell’s pri­vate secu­ri­ty boat) repeat­ed his threat to sink kayaks, dri­ving extreme­ly aggres­sive­ly with no regard for the safe­ty of the kayak­ers.

After the dredgers were towed away, the Gar­da arrived and board­ed the ship in addi­tion to the Shell secu­ri­ty already on the ship. They threat­ened the pro­test­er on the crane arm with forced phys­i­cal removal. Fear­ing for his own safe­ty the pro­test­er jumped from the dredger arm onto the deck and dived into the water. The two sup­port­ing kayak­ers who were still in the water were arrest­ed despite their efforts to com­ply with the Gardai’s instruc­tions. In the water the crane pro­test­er man­aged to avoid cap­ture by the Gar­dai and Shell secu­ri­ty and get to the shore where he scaled a cliff to evade cap­ture. His where­abouts are now unknown but he is safe and well!

Shell claimed that they stopped work­ing in the bay due to a ‘swell’ but sources at Bal­ly­glass pier con­firmed that Van Oord, the sub­con­trac­tor run­ning the dredgers were unwill­ing to work with ongo­ing protest activ­i­ty and the exces­sive use of force by the IRMS (Inte­grat­ed Risk Man­age­ment Ser­vices) .

Today’s actions are proof that resis­tance rocks!

Come to Mayo!

—-

Van Oord are involved as a main con­trac­tor on the Lim­er­ick Tun­nel project, which they’re hap­py to tell you about on their web­site, but there’s no men­tion at all of their involve­ment with the Cor­rib Gas Project. Maybe their green­wash is impor­tant to them some­how, and maybe they don’t fan­cy neg­a­tive pub­lic­i­ty. Why don’t we give them some then, eh?

Van Oord’s web­site home­page:
http://www.vanoord.com/gb-en/index.php

Head office postal address for gen­er­al mail:
Van Oord Dredg­ing and Marine Con­trac­tors BV
PO Box 8574
3009 AN Rot­ter­dam
The Nether­lands

Vis­it­ing address:
Van Oord Dredg­ing and Marine Con­trac­tors BV
Water­man­weg 64
3067 GG Rot­ter­dam
The Nether­lands
T 31 10 447844
F 31 10 4478100
E info@vanoord.com

This is a con­tact for their ‘news­room’, i.e. Media and PR:
A.G.M. (Bert) Groothuizen
Man­ag­er Mar­ket­ing & Pub­lic Rela­tions
T 31 10 4478234
F 31 10 4478100
E info@vanoord.com

On their ‘agen­da’ page there is men­tion of this fol­low­ing event. Maybe they are keynote speak­ers at this con­fer­ence, or that they will have a large trade exhi­bi­tion pres­ence there. Details from the con­fer­ence web­site are sketchy, so more research is need­ed. There are oth­er events for lat­er in the year at which they’ll either attend or par­tic­i­pate in, but I think the event at the end of this month may be a place where Van Oord can be shamed pub­licly about its involve­ment in Shel­l’s destruc­tion of Broad­haven Bay.

The Flood and Coastal Risk Man­age­ment Con­fer­ence 2009 — 30 June 2009 — 02 July 2009
The Inter­na­tion­al Cen­tre, Telford, UK
(Telford is in Shrop­shire, west-cen­tral Eng­land, I think. Near­ish to Birm­ing­ham any­way. The risks in coastal man­age­ment must be enor­mous these days, if this con­fer­ence has to be held in a place as far from the sea as you can get on the island of Britain!)
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/102626.aspx

Allseas are the com­pa­ny that own the Soli­taire. The Soli­taire is expect­ed to arrive with­in the next month. It would be good if peo­ple could also put pres­sure on them before they get here:

http://www.allseas.com/uk

Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030

On Tues­day, after the after­noon con­fronta­tion in Broad­haven Bay which result­ed in one man’s arrest and a cou­ple hours of halt­ed work for the dredgers, the Shell to Sea fleet of kayaks head­ed out on the water a sec­ond time around 6pm and two pro­test­ers man­aged to board one of the dredgers, climb­ing on to the neck of the crane, occu­py­ing it and halt­ing work for 10 hours.

Shell has been con­tin­u­ous­ly dredg­ing in the area since Mon­day evening, inter­fer­ing with pro­tect­ed fish­ing areas for local fish­er­men, defil­ing what was once a pris­tine marine habi­tat full of dol­phins, whales and oth­er marine life, and dis­turb­ing sleep for local res­i­dents. They have buoyed off an ‘exclu­sion zone’ in the pub­lic waters, with boats patrolling the area to make sure no one cross­es into it. There is a diverse assort­ment of ves­sels occu­py­ing the once pris­tine bay; the major­i­ty of these are either car­ry­ing out or assist­ing in the cur­rent dredg­ing and sur­veil­lance oper­a­tions. An Gar­da Siochana (police boat) have also been patrolling the work zone along with two black RIBs; The Lau­ra Emi­ly accom­pa­nied by its twin the Gall­tee, both brim­ming with men dressed in black mil­i­tary fatigues and video cam­eras for film­ing pro­test­ers. Oth­er small­er motor­boats accom­pa­nied the Shell crew, includ­ing ‘safe­ty boats’ and a large white motor launch. There were tug­boats for mov­ing the dredgers, barges for hold­ing the sand being removed from the seabed and, of course, the mas­sive dredgers them­selves.

A group of twelve Shell to Sea pro­test­ers in eight inflat­able kayaks, two hard kayaks, and two rub­ber dingys set out on the water at 6pm for the sec­ond time in one day on Tues­day 2nd June. Three of the kayaks man­aged to evade the secu­ri­ty boats and get close enough to board one of the dredgers. One pro­test­er began to climb the lad­der from her boat while anoth­er kayak­er blocked a secu­ri­ty boat from grab­bing her. The oth­er pro­test­er used the tires on the side of the dredger to board the deck. Once on the boat, both pro­test­ers were climb­ing onto the crane with­in sec­onds. They slid down into the neck of the crane mak­ing it impos­si­ble for the crew to remove them.

Loud cheers were heard from ashore where peo­ple were gath­ered at the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, and the mood on the water was extreme­ly pos­i­tive. ‘Shell to hell’ chants were abound­ing, and there were even some play­ful exchanges between Shell to Sea kayak­ers and a cou­ple of motor­boats. There were vary­ing atti­tudes on dif­fer­ent boats, but not all of the gar­dai or safe­ty boats were unfriend­ly. Both inflat­able kayaks which had been left in the water where the two pro­test­ers had board­ed the dredger were quick­ly recov­ered. One was towed out of the ‘exclu­sion zone’ by a Shell to Sea pro­test­er, and one was brought on board the gar­dai boat and placed back in the water out­side of the exclu­sion zone. The rest of the Shell to Sea kayak­ers remained on the water to ensure the pro­test­ers were not going to be dan­ger­ous­ly removed, then began tak­ing shifts to stay close to them and pro­vide sup­port.

In a sur­pris­ing­ly hon­est con­ver­sa­tion between the kayak pro­test­ers and a work­er on one of the boats, the work­er stat­ed that he ‘admired the per­sis­tence’ of the local com­mu­ni­ty and sup­port­ers who are resist­ing the pipeline. He also said he thought the pipeline plan was ‘rel­a­tive­ly safe’ and assert­ed that some­times risks have to be tak­en. Unfor­tu­nate­ly with a kill zone of up to 200 meters and the uncer­tain­ty of nev­er hav­ing built such a high pres­sure pipeline through a res­i­den­tial area, the risk is high. This is why resis­tance to the pipeline is so strong; as one of the two pro­test­ers who occu­pied the dredger lat­er stat­ed, “Today we took this action in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the local com­mu­ni­ty and to try to pro­tect this beau­ti­ful area from being rav­aged by Shell.”

The rotat­ing shifts of sup­port con­tin­ued on through the night, with small groups of kayak­ers keep­ing an eye on their friends long after the gar­dai had left around 12am. Once it was dark and the gar­dai had left, the mood at sea changed. The Shell secu­ri­ty and the safe­ty boat for the dredger were the only ones left. The Shell secu­ri­ty RIBs became increas­ing­ly aggres­sive towards the kayak­ers. They made mul­ti­ple attempts to cap­size them, and used intim­i­da­tion tech­niques such as turn­ing their lights off until they were up close then sud­den­ly shin­ing flood­lights, dis­ori­ent­ing and fright­en­ing them. One of the kayak crew report­ed feel­ing seri­ous­ly con­cerned that the sit­u­a­tion would esca­late. A secu­ri­ty guard even stat­ed his inten­tion was to sink the boats, a plau­si­ble threat giv­en the recent vicious attack by IRMS on Willie Cor­duff. It was report­ed that the ‘safe­ty boat’ also seemed con­cerned for the safe­ty of the kayak­ers, and may have been their only pro­tec­tion in the sit­u­a­tion.

By 4am, the two pro­test­ers on the dredger were feel­ing very cold and tired, and felt as if they had achieved a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry. They vol­un­tar­i­ly climbed down from the crane, and were ille­gal­ly detained by IRMS secu­ri­ty and brought to Bal­ly­glass pier where they were arrest­ed and charged with loi­ter­ing in a pub­lic place.

Despite the severe dif­fi­cul­ties encoun­tered through­out the night the mood across the camp from the kayak­ing teams and all the sup­port crews was jubi­lant. Hav­ing breached Shell’s secu­ri­ty and made such a sig­nif­i­cant stop to dredg­ing work peo­ple at the sol­i­dar­i­ty camp remain in a defi­ant mood: watch this space for more resis­tance to the dev­as­ta­tion at sea and on the land.