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Dene Trappers Block Oil Companies in Northwestern Saskatchewan, Canada

November 21st, 2014

The Dene people of Ducharme, who have made a living from the land for centuries, have found access to their trap lines blocked by security gates. Life-long trapper, Don Montgrand, reported, “When I drove up to my trap line, a helicopter followed overhead of me, all the way. That’s 106 km.”

On Wednesday, November 19, 2014, a road block [was] established 8 km north of La Loche, Saskatchewan to prevent numerous oil companies road access to exploration camps beyond that point.

Trappers are making a stand because for the past 6 ½ years, there has been a mad rush on mineral and oil exploration. This along with the province’s ‘let it burn’ forest fire policy in the region which has decimated wildlife and destroyed cabins has had a serious impact on their ability to make a living and thrive in a culturally sustainable way in their own home territory. “It is taking food off of our table,” says Bobby Montgrand.

We’ve had enough! The animals are disappearing. Even the minnows are dying in the lakes. All of the chemicals they are dumping and burning in our local landfills and what they are leaving in the bush and running into the lakes. Even the people are dying of cancer and some are pretty young. We buried six in the last few months when we used to see maybe one person die of cancer in a year,” claims Don Montgrand.

The trappers are concerned that they are being ignored and driven off of their lands by oil and mineral companies, like Cenovus from Calgary, Alberta. “When these companies are done destroying our north there will be nothing for our children to live on,” stated Bobby Montgrand.

Contact: Don Montgrand (306) 822-3181 or Bobby Montgrand (306) 822-2704
Email: susnaghe@sasktel.net

Burnaby Mountain update: police storm camp, non-lethal rounds used against treesitter

20th November 2014

New Lockdown after Treesitter Shot with “Less Than Lethal” Round

[UPDATE: Recent arrest number is around 18 as of 2:30pm]

Local activist and video journalist Devin Gillan has reported that RCMP officers admit shooting the treesitter with a “less-than-lethal” shotgun round. (The same thing occurred when police extracted protestors from the Willits treesit in California.)

The Burnaby Mountain protest persists, however, as one protestor has locked herself to a cement block on site, and refuses to move.

Police are reportedly shoving people towards a new cordoned off area.

According to Burnaby Mountain Updates:

“RCMP arrests on Burnaby Mountain will not deter opposition to Kinder Morgan

“So far, as of 2 pm, RCMP have arrested fifteen Burnaby Mountain land defenders standing upto Kinder Morgan’s injunction. Twelve of those fifteen have already been released, with minimal civil contempt of court charges. The three others are visible to our legal and jail support team. None have been taken to jail.

“Those arrested include and pictured here are the brave land defenders Erin, Kaleb, Adam and Sut-lut who have all been maintaining the camp for months, as well as our tree-sitter friend who has been camped out above borehole 2.

“Hundreds of supporters are on-site to witness and to send a clear message that the arrests will not deter opposition and this pipeline will not get built!”

More than 70% of the residents of Burnaby disapprove of Kinder Morgan’s TransMountain pipeline passing through Burnaby Mountain, and stress that the pipeline is passing unlawfully through public lands. First Nations have demonstrated that it is unceded land, and Kinder Morgan is not abiding by the treaties in place.

The pipeline threatens to increase oil flow from the Alberta Tar Sands to the Pacific coast via British Columbia threefold.

Treesitter in Tense Standoff as RCMP Storms Burnaby Mountain Camp

protestors lock arms as the police move in

Sirens are blaring on Burnaby Mountain this morning as the Canadian RCMP storm the blockade against the TransMountain pipeline.

According to the Burnaby Mountain Updates Facebook page:

“9 am update from Burnaby Mountain. Four arrests confirmed including two caretakers who have been holding down for months Kaleb and Erin, six additional people are holding in the campsite and refusing to leave. There is a public rally—which is completely safe—on the other side of the police line, 30-40 people are here already, everyone please come to the hill. Police have blocked road to traffic so you need to walk in and you will be informed to stay within ‘protest area’.”

According to the most recent updates, the number of arrested has reached elevent, including Kaleb and Erin who have stayed at the camp for months, and Adam Gold from the Heiltsuk First Nation. Donate to the legal fund here.

Adam Gold of the Heiltsuk First Nation being arrested

According to the latest reports, the treesitter has warned RCMP officers against shooting him with beanbag munitions, and is not wearing a harness. He has threatened to jump if police attempt to remove him. Police with climbing gear are currently on site.

First Nations members have arrived with drums, and have joined the protest.

Burnaby Mountain is the site of Kinder Morgan’s projected TransMountain’s pipeline, which would triple the amount of oil moving from the Tar Sands to the Pacific Ocean.

An injunction against the protest camp was granted to Kinder Morgan on Monday, but the RCMP did not move into the camp until this morning.

According to Staff Sergeant Major John Buis of the RCMP, “RCMP have strived [sic] to balance the need to maintain public safety and civil order with a democratic right to hold demonstrations. In many cases, the Burnaby RCMP has facilitated that right, and in the case of the protesters on Burnaby Mountain, we have established a lawful assembly area for those who wish to continue to protest peacefully and lawfully.”

Protestors assert that the RCMP is acting violently in a colonial reaction to a peaceful encampment on public lands (unceded Indigenous lands) that has the support of over 70 percent of the local population.

There is a livestream broadcasting the events as they unfold.

Land defenders at Burnaby Mountain are calling on people to come and support the camp at the site. There is a “safe zone” for protesters, and the road in is still accessible at the moment.

Protesters Block Runway in Philippines to Stop Aerial Spraying

photo courtesy Interface Development Interventions

November 17th, 2014

Hundreds of residents barricaded the runway of the community airport in Surallah town in South Cotabato on Monday in protest of the aerial spraying activities of a banana plantation company operating in the area.

Around 300 protesters gathered at the Allah Valley Airport in Surallah at around 4 a.m. and occupied a portion of the runway in a bid to stop the aerial spraying activities of foreign-backed Sumifru Philippines Corporation.

The company, which operates banana plantations in Surallah and T’boli towns, had been using the airport as base of its aerial spraying operations.

Omar Azarcon, coordinator of the protest action, said they launched the mobilization to pressure local government leaders to decisively put a stop to the aerial spraying activities of Sumifru.

He said the protesters are composed of parishioners from Surallah and other areas within the Diocese of Marbel, which covers the provinces of South Cotabato, Sarangani and this city.

“We’re calling on the provincial government of South Cotabato and the municipal governments of areas affected by the aerial spraying activities to pass ordinances that will totally ban them,” he said in a radio interview.

Citing results of their recent fact-finding mission in the affected areas, Azarcon claimed that they have documented three deaths and numerous cases of various illnesses that were directly caused by the aerial spraying activities.

He said the three fatalities came from communities situated near the banana plantations of Sumifru in T’boli town.

He said they found a significant number of residents who have been suffering from various illnesses like asthma and contact dermatitis in the affected communities.

“These were caused by herbicides and fungicides sprayed by airplanes commissioned by Sumifru these past several years,” Azarcon said.

Fr. Joy Pelino, coordinator of the Diocese of Marbel’s Social Action Center, said that aside from health hazards, the aerial spraying activities also pose serious threats to the area’s environment.

He said the chemicals sprayed by Sumifru’s airplanes could contaminate the Allah river system, which traverses the provinces of South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat.

Pelino said Allah River’s headwaters are located in the municipalities of Lake Sebu and T’boli, where the banana plantations are located.

Azarcon said they will sustain their protest actions until local officials would act on the matter.

The municipal government of Surallah issued a five-day permit or until November 23 for the protest actions.

“But we might extend our mobilization if we will not get decisive actions from our officials,” he said.

Sumifru officials were not immediately available for comment.

Sources said the company already pulled out from the airport on Sunday the aircraft and chemicals that it uses for the aerial spraying activities. (MindaNews)

ZAD Calls Out for International Day Against Police on November 22nd

November 22nd: an international day against police violence and repression

The repression that falls on those who oppose the mafia-like projects of politicians is ever more violent.

The Socialist party coming to power hasn’t changed anything.

The police, the gendarmes and the army injure and mutilate as much as ever, maybe even more, surfing on the wave of fascism that is rising up under the guise of a world economic crisis, and thanks to their weapons, becoming always more efficient with the emphasis on military technology.

Even more worrisome than constantly increasing war budgets is the unwillingness of cops, gendarmes, soldiers and their politician bosses to take responsibility for their violence. The omnipresence and unrestrained usage of flashballs, defensive ball launchers, and explosive grenades are some concrete examples.

The discourse is also simplified, glossed over, and the violence made to seem mundane. When we ask the cops in front of us if they are proud to have killed, they smile or threaten us. One of the police authorities in the Tarn recently affirmed that those who oppose the “forces of order” should expect violence and eventual injury.

And, some days ago, the police killed. Again.

We, who were gathered together in Testet to fight against this deathly project of the Sivens dam, we lost a friend. In the early hours of Sunday, October 26th, a few meters from soldiers of the State, armed and protected by their weapons and shields, Rémi Fraisse was murdered by the armed branch of the State.

By the level shot of a mercenary’s grenade, most likely aimed at his head, the explosive hit between the base of his neck and his shoulder. This despite that even the internal laws of the armed branches of the State forbid level shots at a certain distance and also forbid aiming at the head, or with some weapons, aiming at all.

This was not an accident. It’s even surprising that such a drama hasn’t happened earlier. The attacking police, gendarmes, and soldiers brake their own laws every day (of the evictions). We’ve lost track of the knees, hands, stomachs and heads that have been targeted. Their extraordinary and illegal violence leaves its trace on all of us, whether physical or emotional. This time it took someone with it: Rémi Fraisse.

But even if Rémi’s murder is headlining the nightly news and embarrassing the government, don’t believe that it’s an exception.

At the end of August, an “illegal” migrant died in a car with the BAC (a notoriously violent undercover police force) while being brought to the airport. It was almost ten years ago that the teenagers Zyed Benna and Bouna Traoré died hiding in an electric transformer after being chased there by the police. We’re not even mentioning deaths in war for economic interests, in Mali or elsewhere…

We’ve stopped counting on the charges pressed by those close to the ones murdered by an armed branch of the State. None of these trials have resulted in prison sentences.

We want rapid and implacable justice for the murderers in the armed branches of the State.

We demand that starting now, there is a legal amnesty for all those arrested for their opposition to the Sivens dam, who we consider to be almost political prisoners.

We also demand the total disarmament of the multiple armed branches of the State, to end the murders, the “mistakes” and the violence of police, gendarmes, and military.

Thus we join the call of the ZAD of Notre Dame des Landes to demonstrate everywhere against police repression on Saturday, November 22nd, 2014.

We call upon every person and every group that feels concerned by the danger represented by the State’s police forces to make actions and protest from wherever they are.

Let’s make November 22nd a national and international day against the violence of armed branches of the State, but let’s not forget that every day, before and after the 22nd, is a good day to make an insurgency against the existence of an institution which mutilates and murders for a “law-based” state and their profitable, mafia-like, and devastating projects.

Indignons-nous !

proposal–

Where did it come from, the grenade that killed Rémi? Strategic proposal for what comes next.
Rémi was killed by a police concussion grenade, Sunday October 26th. What happened to him could have happened to any one of us, anywhere. Some days later, Thursday the 30th, in a northern neighborhood in Blois, a young man lost an eye to a state rubber bullet. Saturday in Nantes, a demonstator took a rubber bullet to the face and lost his nose. How many times must history repeat itself?

We are not making demands to State power, for the conviction of the cop who shot him, or the resignation of a higher police official, or even the Minister of the Interior. For the death of Rémi to resonate everywhere and provoke a real movement, we propose to organize ourselves locally and nationally against the infrastructures that maintain order.

These are the infrastructures which make possible the terrorism of the State, which we are confronted with in the “ghettos” as well as in our social movements. These are the infrastructures which organize the police occupation of our territories and our existences. It is also them who are deployed as soon as a movement of opposition or contestation adventures outside of traditional paths cordoned off by powerlessness.

France is an expert in maintaining order, by neutralizing all efforts of people to rise up/bring themselves up. It exports globally it’s knowledge, weapons, and forms to many foreign police forces. It has also participated in crushing movements across the world, as in the insurrections of the Arab Spring in 2011. Didn’t Michèle Alliot-Marie brag to have provided French expertise in counter-insurrection to the Ben Ali regime? Paralyzing the infrastructure of the police is an act which, outside of the national context, supports all those who organize to struggle in other places and have to dodge French bullets.

The factories that make grenades, uniforms, and equipment for the police, their vehicles and their televised propaganda, the logistical platforms that organize food supplies for the troops; for us they are all targets. Outside of occasional confrontations or deployments, the continued existence of the armed group known as the national police depends on these resources.
The announcement that a certain type of offensive grenade has been suspended will not bring about a “return to calm”. What’s at stake in this movement, born on October 25th, is disarming the police. Flashballs, tasers, concussion grenades, have sufficiently mutilated, injured, or killed in these past couple of years.

We are no longer in the era of Malik Oussekine or Vittal Michalon*. Not a single union, not a single leftist organization called out for people to take the streets after Rémi’s death. They are in fact so afraid of the streets, they are reduced to organizing virtual protests like those proposed by the Green Party (#occupysivens).

What can we expect from the “Occupiers” who “condemn the violence of both sides” by carefully omitting which camp is equipped for war and which has a few cobblestones? That one side kills people and the other expresses their rage by breaking windows? At a time when the left is decomposing, when the far right are on the upswing, why is there not a single reaction from leftist political parties, NGO’s, or unions, after this police murder?

This week, 90 protests were organized in around 60 cities. We address our call-out to this autonomous power in the making. The collective emotion expressed in rage and contemplation is legitimate, but won’t be enough to change the situation.

We call for a long term strategy, consisting of harassing and collecting information on all those who support repression, to disrupt all the technical ways which permit it to be armed, to move, to feed itself, and more. These objectives encompass a diversity of tactics that correspond to the resources and limitations of groups and individuals. Noise demos outside police stations and barracks, verbal harassment of patrols, suing the police for injuries, sabotage, street demos; it’s the simultaneous usage of all these tactics that will help us to establish a favorable “rapport de force” against the police, in our neighborhoods and in our struggles.

A call-out is coming soon to organize demos in front of police weapons manufacturers. A list of strategic places will also appear soon. This is a strategic proposition that we are addressing to all those that are assembling, agitating, and organizing so that the backlash against this latest police murder spreads and grows.

*Malik Oussekine was killed by police in the student strikes of 1986, and Vittal Michalon in an anti-nuclear demonstration in 1977

from Anarchist News

USA: Everglades Earth First! Lockdown Halts Destruction of Florida’s Briger Forest

November 7th, 2014

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FL— Community activists with Everglades Earth First! have halted what they call Kolter Development’s “illegal” construction in Palm Beach Gardens’ Briger Forest. A disabled vehicle is sitting in the road at the construction entrance to the site and two people have locked their bodies to it. This week work crews began clearing trees for the construction, which has been mired in controversy for years. If completed, the development would destroy the 681-acre Briger Forest, one of the largest unprotected forests of its size in the southern region of the state.

Update: Three activists have now been arrested, while the van continues to blockade the entrance to the construction zone. Donate to their bail fund.

“We’re here stopping a crime; the illegal destruction of the Briger Forest. Kolter Group Co. is violating the Endangered Species Act and operating without all the proper permits fully approved,” Said Ryan Hartman. “The time for compromise is over. If we don’t take direct action and put our bodies on the line to protect what we have left, developers will pave over and pollute every last inch of this place.”

Groups like Everglades Earth First! and the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition (PBCEC) have been fighting to protect the Briger Forest since 2010. Last winter a justice department lawyer admitted to PBCEC’s lawyer Bill Eubanks that there were no practical alternatives to site layout designs that could both benefit continued snake use of the site and also satisfy the project’s purpose and need, effectively sentencing to death any Eastern Indigo Snake on the property. The Eastern Indigo Snake is one of 13 state and federally listed animal and plant species whom the Briger is suitable to support. A member of PBCEC is also appealing permits for construction needed from the South Florida Water Management District. Beyond the legal challenges the groups have gathered hundreds of petition signatures, held demonstrations and even staged a six-week tree-sit in the forest to protest the development.

“Kolter and Palm Beach County have had a corrupt deal from the beginning. It is a crime against nature for developers to keep bulldozing over wild South Florida in order to perpetuate an animal torturing biotech expansion agenda.” Said Ashley Lyons.

Since the early 2000’s, Jeb Bush has tried to lure the Biotech industry to Florida with heavy state and local subsidies including this project and the construction of a campus for biotech company Scripps Florida. In the past few years Scripps has received about half a billion dollars in state subsidies for new facilities and has an agreement to lease the county owned portion of the property for $1 dollar a year ensuring their corporate
welfare for years to come.

With the construction of a massive primate breeding facility in Hendry County, the “progressive” biotech industry is solidifying it’s future of inhumane animal testing and Scripps will be no exception. Scripps in Lajolla, CA has a history of testing on primates and Scripps Phase II will more than likely vivisect primates if constructed.

Everglades Earth First! promises to continue fighting the development every step of the way.

“We’re going to fight this project until it’s stopped because this forest is worth fighting for.” Said Rachel Kijewski.

For more information visit www.ScrapScripps.info

UPDATE: Three Arrested at Everglades EF! Briger Forest Blockade, Jail Support Needed!

According to most recent reports from Everglades Earth First!,”The three arrested during the Briger Forest blockade are in custody at Palm Beach County Jail. Each are facing multiple misdemeanor charges. Bail has yet to be set. The blockade reportedly stopped workers from entering the site for over four hours.”

At least 22 cop cars, an emergency field force vehicle, and a mobile command unit were on site, and both people participating in the lockdown were arrested, along with the support person.

Support direct action, and help us continue to defend the Briger Forest before it’s too late! Donate to these brave individuals’ legal funds here: https://www.everribbon.com/ribbon/view/16764

With the construction of a massive primate breeding facility in Hendry County, the “progressive” biotech industry is solidifying it’s future of inhumane animal testing and Scripps will be no exception. Scripps in Lajolla, California, has a history of testing on primates and Scripps Phase II will more than likely vivisect primates if constructed.

Everglades Earth First! promises to continue fighting the development every step of the way.

“We’re going to fight this project until it’s stopped because this forest is worth fighting for,” said Rachel Kijewski.

For more info on the blockade and its reasons, click here.

A Sabotage Report on Biotech Labs from Chile

November 7th, 2014

[from Earth First! Newswire: Editor's Note: The following piece is a loose and expanded translation of an article posted by 325 on October 28th.]

The evolution of science, as a dominative means of objectification, has solidified into a self-proving entity that is intervening with the very cyclical networks of nature. We, as sentient people, are in revolt against its confining movement and role as a facilitator of militarization, psychiatry, specism, anthropocentrism, and heteronormativity within this current patriarchal era.

With such motivation, we are currently focusing our actions on biotech labs that are leading studies in genetic intervention, and fertilizing a branch of science that manipulates the very fibers of life. Not only are humans regenerating stem cells, meddling with plant properties, and experimenting on animals, but are doing so with the sole intention of “improving” our existence. Such a mentality is a societal construct based upon the notion that humanity cradles the authority to transgress fellow beings.

In raw defiance, we chose specific locations in which there is a concentration of genetic research and, on the morning of October 28^th, painted the façades with green and yellow to portray our solidarity with nature and our dedication to active rebellion from here on out.

Lema, one of these labs, concentrates on biochemical research in the fields of endocrinology and nefrology, and is heavily involved in remolding human genetics; hormonal experiments, adjustment of the body’s chemical make-up, and nuclear medicine are all unraveling within its walls.

We also arrived at the corner of San Pablo to smear the windows of Campus Lab, a building whose activity also revolves around invading the body with technology called PCR. This instrument was designed to play with our molecular design in hopes of preventing infection and postponing the beautiful and inevitable descent of mortality.

We are fabricating artificial purity, a permeating image of the human body that redefines our ecological relations and the concept of ‘health’ and ‘natural movement’—although disassociating ourselves from our surroundings is rather impossible. Furthermore, the equipment of Campus Lab serves to identify individuals with the intention of lubricating the judicial machine and increasing incarceration rates.

In Nunoa, GeneXpress operates as another company dedicated to supplying the biotech industry with more data, funding, and progressive materials. It aims to infuse the medical field with genetically modifying innovations, while avoiding public scrutiny. We proceeded to smear their walls as well.

We realize that our action was a small gesture; however, we are being called to exercise our resources from an array of perches, and are prepared for more elaborate forms of destruction. And so, today we have decided to organize and resist the very structures of science, a perceptual approach that is fostering tension not only on the economic level, but also at the roots of how we perceive ourselves and, consequently, how we project and interact with the environment.

We don’t simply seek to generate ‘alternative’ practices, but rather to destroy the shadowing pillars through direct action. Nor do we believe that someone who chooses to ingest tapsin to alleviate the flu is a mere conformant; we move to question impeding paradigms, as well as the very ideological strands and everyday actions that maintain them. To our bodies being explosions of thought and sensations of creative retaliation!

Zapatistas: Government Kidnapped Defenders Against Highway Destruction

November 6th, 2014

Joint Declaration from the National Indigenous Congress and the EZLN on the Cowardly Attack by Government forces against the Ñatho Indigenous Community of San Francisco Xochicuautla on November 3, 2014:

To the Ñatho Indigenous Community of San Francisco Xochicuautla

To the National and International Sixth

To the Peoples of the World

Today once again, our brothers and sisters of the Ñatho Indigenous Community of San Francisco Xochicuautla have defended their territory against the destruction and voracious ambition of those above who want to impose their highway project at any cost and in violation of Mexican and international law.

Not content with having laid waste to the forests, the bad governments of Enrique Peña Nieto and Eruviel Ávila Villegas have kidnapped our sisters Felipa Gutiérrez Petra (67 years old), Rosa Saavedra Mendoza (54 years old), and Francisca Reyes Flores (28 years old), and our brothers Armando García Salazar (50 years old), Venancio Hernández Ramírez (57 years old), Domingo Hernández Ramírez (57 years old), Mauricio Reyes Flores (28 years old) and Jerónimo Flores Arcelino (73 years old).

We warn those above, in case they have forgotten, that as peoples and communities who have walked a long journey of resistance in defense of what we are, what we were, and what we will be, we will not tire of planting rebellion where they cut the flowers, oaks, and firs; we will not tire of building resistance where they impose the machinery of destruction.

The roots of Xochicuautla and the other originary peoples and indigenous communities reach deep into our hills and countrysides, far deeper than their highways, and they are far stronger than attempts to uproot us from this Mexico that today cries for its young people, murdered and disappeared by the Bad Government.

This government, which is not satiated by filling the prisons with rebellious men, women, children, and elderly, has again taken by force the freedom of indigenous brothers and sisters. They have done this to our Yaqui brothers and our Nahua brothers from the volcano region, and to so many others whose pain we also share. To all of these brothers and sisters we want to say that we walk in the same struggle, as peoples and communities who call ourselves the National Indigenous Congress.

And to the deaf ears of the bad governments, we say that we know they are scared. They demonstrated this with the 500 riot cops and police helicopters they brought today to Xochicuautla, where next December we as indigenous peoples and communities will converge to share our rebellion, our struggle, and our seeds of resistance.

Their pain is our pain, their rage is our rage!

November 3, 2014.

Never Again a Mexico Without Us

National Indigenous Congress

Indigenous Revolutionary Clandestine Committee—General Command of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation.

from Censored News

Fourth Consecutive Day of Work Stoppage at Australian Coal Mine

Update: 7am Police Search and Rescue arrive at the scene

MAULES CREEK 5 November 2014: Batman returned today to shut down Whitehaven’s Maules Creek project. A person dressed as Batman has scaled Whitehaven’s largest excavator, the Hitachi Super Digger. This action comes on the heels of Monday’s report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) finding that damage to the environment caused by fossil fuel use continues to increase. Today is the fourth consecutive day of the Release the Bats Act Up stopping work on Whitehaven sites.

The Hitachi ex8000 Super Digger is a key piece of ‘ultra class’ mining machinery with an 800 tonne scoop capacity. This equipment is essential if Whitehaven is to get coal out on their forever-shifting date for first coal.

Lewis Laurence, 23, who is on the excavator said “We want to draw attention to the human cost of climate change, the real cost of this mine to the global community. What happens here affects fishermen thousands of miles away, who may no longer have homes to return their boats to. Instead of asking ourselves, ‘Where were we? What did we do?’ We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing now?’ ”

The United Nations IPCC report suggests that we are doing very little, warning of catastrophic climate change just around the corner if we do not act now. According to the IPCC a predicted increase in the global temperature of 2⁰C is a threshold beyond which impacts would be irreversibly damaging. Whitehaven’s Maules Creek project is increasingly detrimental to our climate and environment, globally as well as on a local scale.

“Whitehaven have been given permission to destroy a large portion of the Leard State Forest for open cut coal and will leave behind a ‘void pit’ which will collect water and poison the local aquifers,” said Mr. Laurence

“Whitehaven will face no charges and will accept no responsibility for their destruction unless people stand up,” said Emily Rose, Leard Forest Alliance Spokesperson

The Leard Forest Alliance is calling for a stop work order on the Maules Creek project while a full and proper audit of the planning and approvals process at state and federal levels is conducted.

“This mine should never have been approved. The potential damage to local aquifers and impacts on climate display a single-minded interest in profit from our state and federal government. We must heed the international consensus, and leave coal in the ground,” said Ms. Rose

This last week has already seen a number of Whitehaven sites shut down through peaceful civil disobedience including: the co-owned Idemitsu and Whitehaven Tarrawonga Haul road, access to the Maules Creek mine site, the Maules Creek Hitachi excavator, as well as Whitehaven’s Narrabri North underground mine which also halted a supply train carrying 6000t of coal.

There have been over 270 people arrested as part of the campaign to defend the Leard State Forest.

Further Information:

Emily Rose
Leard Forest Alliance Spokesperson0401 214 729

Meret MacDonald
Leard Forest Alliance Spokesperson0402 017 027

Twitter updates @FLACCoal and #LeardBlockade

from Front Line Action on Coal

Australia: Two Lock to Coal Conveyer Belt in Continuing Protests

November 4th, 2014

UPDATE 8:30AM (Australian Eastern Time): Police and Police Rescue have arrived on the scene.

10:50: Jamie and Serenity have been arrested in the line of protecting our climate and water, and have been taken to Narrabri Police station.

MAULES CREEK, 4 November 2014: In the second day of Leard Forest Alliance’s (LFA) “Release the Bats” Initiative against Whitehaven Coal two people have locked themselves to a conveyer belt in the Whitehaven-owned Narrabri North underground mine.

Serenity Hill, 37, and Jamie Yarnald, 32 immobilised the belt as part of a weekend of protest against the controversial Whitehaven-owned Maules Creek coal mine project. If this mine is allowed to continue its operations, Whitehaven will deplete the groundwater aquifer by up to two metres.

“Working with farms and food has shown me first hand just how important clean usable water is for our survival. So the contamination or lack of our precious water is very concerning for me,” said Ms. Hill, a food systems analyst whose action with Mr. Yarnald halted mine operations for the course of the morning.

LFA spokesperson Phil Evans said “The IPCC report released yesterday warns that if we continue with the disregard for our environment we have shown, by 2050 we will see catastrophic climate change.” Evans called upon the NSW government to “say neigh to coal this Melbourne Cup day.”

The LFA is calling on the NSW government to stop work immediately on the scandal-plagued Maules Creek project and to conduct a full inquiry into the planning and approval methods that allowed this project to proceed.

“Coal needs to stay in the ground for us all to have a liveable, breathable climate. 80% of coal needs to stay in the ground for us to avoid catastrophic climate change,” said Mr. Yarnald. His arrest with Ms. Hill adds to the over 270 arrests this year in a continuous effort from the community led, non-violent Leard Blockade campaign.

Further Information:

Emily Rose
Leard Forest Alliance Spokesperson
0401 214 729

Phil Evans
Leard Forest Alliance Spokesperson
0490 064 139

High Resolution Photos: mediafire.com/folder/6kj6m626b81xy/4_November_2014

Twitter updates @FLACCoal and #LeardBlockade

from Front Line Action on Coal

USA: 15 Arrested as Anti-Gas Blockade in Finger Lakes Enters Third Week

November 3rd, 2014

Entering the third week, starting at 7:00 AM this morning protesters blocked the gates of Texas-based Crestwood Midstream’s gas storage facility on the shore of Seneca Lake. 15 people were arrested at about 9:00 AM after Crestwood called the police. Last week, ten protesters were arrested in acts of civil disobedience blocking the gates, just as the 15 people did today. Protesters have held blockades at the Crestwood gate since Thursday, October 23; on Wednesday, October 29, they began blocking two of the gates to Crestwood. Notably, the ongoing protests also included a rally with more than 200 people at the Crestwood gate on Friday, October 24^th.

Friday, October 24^th marked the day that major new construction on the gas storage facility was authorized to begin. The ongoing acts of civil disobedience come after the community pursued every possible avenue to stop the project and after being thwarted by an unacceptable process and denial of science.

The unified action is called ‘WE ARE SENECA LAKE’. More information and pictures of the actions over the previous weeks are available at www.WeAreSenecaLake.com.

The protests are taking place at the gates of the Crestwood compressor station site on the shore of Seneca Lake, the largest of New York’s Finger Lakes. The methane gas storage expansion project is advancing in the face of broad public opposition and unresolved questions about geological instabilities, fault lines, and possible salinization of the lake, which serves as a source of drinking water for 100,000 people. A Capital New York investigation recently revealed that Governor Cuomo’s DEC excised references to the risks of underground gas storage from a 2011 federal report on methane contamination of drinking water and has allowed key data to remain hidden.

*Note that the WE ARE SENECA LAKE protest is to stop the expansion of methane gas storage, a separate project from Crestwood’s proposed Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) storage project, which is on hold pending a Department of Environmental Conservation Issues Conference.

The 15 people arrested today are: Lyn Gerry, John Dennis, Mariah Plumlee, Bob Henrie, Laura Salamandra, Elan Shapiro, Lindsay Clark, Darlene Bordwell, Jodi Dean, Ruth Young (former Schuyler County Legislator), Paul Passavant, Stephanie Redmond, Joanne Cipolla Dennis, Martha Ferger, and Kenneth Fogarty.

Ruth Young of Horseheads, a former member of the Schuyler County Legislature, was among those arrested today, said, “We’re standing on what used to be a part of my legislative district in Schuyler County. I am embarrassed and saddened to see what is going on here, I’m sad to see that some of the people in this district are actually supporting this endeavor to store gas in a very unstable salt formation.”

John Dennis, PhD, of Lansing, who was arrested today, said, “I’m worried about water quality, there are severe salinity problems already, and I’m almost certain those will get worse because we think the existing problems are caused by gas storage started in 1964.”

Mariah Plumlee of Covert, a mother of three who was also arrested today, said, “I think it’s really important to do this, and if everybody did this then we wouldn’t have this problem. We moved here almost ten years ago because we knew it would be a wonderful place to raise a family.”

Lyn Gerry of Watkins Glen, a radio host in Schuyler County, arrested today, said, “Our elected officials have let us down, so we have to take matters into our own hands. I love Seneca Lake, I love this area. I’m not from here originally, I’ve traveled 3,000 miles to come to this beautiful place by this beautiful lake to live, and I’ve come from a place that greed has already destroyed. So I know what a land being destroyed looks like. So now, my back is to the wall and I must defend what I love.”

Note, press are encouraged to come to the court arraignment – for the ten protesters arrested on October 29^th – on Nov. 5th starting at 6:00 PM at the Reading Town Hall, 3914 County Rt. 28, Watkins Glen.

As they have for a long time, the protesters are continuing to call on President Obama, U.S. Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, Governor Cuomo, and Congressman Reed to intervene on behalf of the community and halt the dangerous project.

Recently, the Tompkins County Legislature approved a resolution that opposes gas storage on the lakeshore, as well as the Yates County Legislature. In so doing, they joined the Board of Supervisors of both Ontario and Seneca counties, which previously passed motions opposing gas storage, along with the Geneva City Council and the Watkins Glen Village Board.

In spite of overwhelming opposition, grave geological and public health concerns, Crestwood has federal approval to move forward with plans to store highly pressurized, explosive gas in abandoned salt caverns on the west side of Seneca Lake. While the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has temporarily halted plans to stockpile propane and butane (LPG) in nearby caverns—out of ongoing concerns for safety, health, and the environment—Crestwood is actively constructing infrastructure for the storage of two billion cubic feet of methane (natural gas), with the blessing of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

Background:

Local businesses and wineries are part of broad opposition to Texas-based Crestwood-Midstream’s proposal to use old abandoned salt caverns along Seneca Lake to store millions of barrels of liquid petroleum gas (LPG) and billions of cubic feet of natural gas. The proposal has generated opposition from over 200 businesses, over 60 wineries, 13 municipalities (including neighboring Watkins Glen) and thousands and thousands of residents in the Finger Lakes region who are concerned about the threat it poses to public health and safety, one of the state’s largest supplies of drinking water, the local economy, and the area’s growing wine and tourism industry.

Residents, wineries and other local businesses have issued emergency calls to President Obama, U.S. Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, Congressman Reed and Governor Cuomo to immediately step in and stop this reckless project that threatens the heart of the Finger Lakes, many people’s health and the drinking water source for 100,000 people.

Additionally, an investigative journalist with DC Bureau recently uncovered other scientific objections to the project, to which FERC did not give due consideration in issuing approval. Independent scientists have warned about the unstable geology of the salt caverns, including the fact that a 400,000 ton chunk of rock – roughly the size of an aircraft carrier – had given way in the very cavern that the company proposed to use for gas storage.

Furthermore, in August, Dr. Rob Mackenzie, a retired CEO of Cayuga Medical Center, a hospital about 20 miles east, raised objections. An experienced risk analyst, Mackenzie prepared a formal quantitative risk analysis of the Crestwood methane gas proposal. Mackenzie analyzed accident events — major fires, explosions, collapses, catastrophic loss of product, evacuations — at salt cavern storage facilities in the United States dating back to 1972. He concluded that the risk of an “extremely serious” salt cavern event within Schuyler County over the next 25 years is more than 35%.

According to Energy Information Administration data uncovered by Mackenzie – reported by Peter Mantius of DC Bureau – gas storage facilities in salt caverns in the United States have had high rates of problems. Between 1972 and 2012,there have been 18 “serious or extremely serious incidents” at U.S. salt cavern storage facilities, Mackenzie wrote, citing EIA data. That translates to an incident rate in the US of about 60%.

Mackenzie also found that nine of the 18 salt cavern incidents involved large fires and/or explosions; six involved loss of life or serious injury; eight involved evacuations of between 30 and 2,000 residents; and 13 involved extremely serious property losses.

Seneca Lake is economically critical to the region and New York State. A recent report on the state’s grape and wine industry showed that it contributes $4.8 billion to the New York State economy every year, supporting the equivalent of 25,000 full-time jobs, paying over $408 million in taxes, and generating over 5.2 million wine-related tourism visits. The Finger Lakes region, in particular, has gained increasing prominence as home to world-class wines, with many wineries earning awards in national and international competitions. Governor Cuomo highlighted the success of the industry at his 2013 Governor’s Cup Wine Competition in Watkins Glen, exactly where the gas storage facility is being proposed for location and this past summer, a Seneca Lake winery won the 2014 Governor’s Cup.

The region has become so widely known for its winemaking that vintners from the international community have begun to invest in the area as well.

The Finger Lakes is also considered a world-class tourism destination, with Shermans Travel naming it the #1 Lake Vacation in the world last year.

In addition to the over-industrialization such a storage facility would cause, salt cavern storage is historically unsafe. It presents the potential for explosive accidents and water contamination along the Finger Lakes. Salt cavern storage represents only a small percentage of gas storage facilities, but is responsible for the majority of instances of catastrophic failure. In 2001, gas migrated 7 miles from a salt cavern storage facility in Kansas, came up in abandoned brine wells and exploded, killing two people, destroying buildings and evacuating residents. There are many such abandoned brine wells just three miles from the proposed facility in downtown Watkins Glen, NY.