Rossport action update

Shell block­ad­ed on the first day
Tri­pod blo­cakd­ing road as first of new fences sit and wait with nowhere to go

At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse, Co Mayo.
At 6.59 this morn­ing a tri­pod was erect­ed by peo­ple from Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp on the road between Shel­l’s Bal­linaboy refin­ery and their com­pound at Augh­osse there­by blockad­ing the road to all incom­ing trucks. Shell were due to move the first lot of fenc­ing from one site to anoth­er at 7am in order to pre­pare and enlarge the exist­ing com­pound in prepa­ra­tion for turf removal before pipe lay­ing, but instead the truck of fenc­ing now sits behind a line of 30 IRMS secu­ri­ty with nowhere to go. Mean­while the head of IRMS, Jim Far­rell, can be seen mak­ing fran­tic phone calls.
Watch this space for more updates through­out the day…

http://www.shelltosea.com/content/shell-blockaded-first-day

10.30 am update
Three and a half hours after it was erect­ed, the tri­pod block­ade is still hold­ing the road and no deliv­er­ies have yet been made. Scones have just been deliv­ered via local sup­port­ers.

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Shell delayed again — 2nd day
27.07.2011
A vari­ety of actions have been tak­ing place all day in order to delay Shel­l’s expan­sion and secur­ing of their new com­pound. Protests and block­ades from 7am to 7pm

On Tues­day 26th July the actions against Shel­l’s pro­posed high pres­sure gas pipeline began at 7am in the morn­ing with 6 peo­ple block­ing the road with an arm tube lock on. No arrests were made. This was fol­lowed by mul­ti­ple block­ades of trac­tors and equip­ment bound for the Augh­oose com­pound. Cur­rent­ly Shell are work­ing on secur­ing their com­pound by putting up stronger fences, lay­ing bog mats and bring­ing in machin­ery. This is in prepa­ra­tion for the peat removal from the area in order to begin lay­ing the pipe.

Peo­ple have been climb­ing up on the back of flat bed trail­ers and on top of var­i­ous trac­tors and trucks. One per­son was on top of a trac­tor for over an hour and a half before being forcibly removed and arrest­ed by the Gar­dai (police) who have been trav­el­ing in con­voy ‘pro­tect­ing’ the trac­tors all day.

Only 2 loads were suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­ered to the com­pound before mid­day. This after­noon has seen con­tin­u­ous dis­rup­tion of the deliv­er­ies, with peo­ple hid­ing along the road and jump­ing out/on the con­voy to force it to stop.

One local per­son suc­cess­ful­ly blocked the road by climb­ing up on top of a lor­ry direct­ly in front of the com­pound.

Its been anoth­er long and amaz­ing day. It is becom­ing clear that the Gar­daí are find­ing the inten­si­ty of the protests frus­trat­ing and that they seem reluc­tant to make arrests. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to keep this lev­el of polic­ing up but it is clear­ly exhaust­ing all of their resources.

This is a crit­i­cal time in the the cam­paign and to keep this kind of protests going we need more peo­ple! There is a mass Day of Action this Fri­day 29th July. If you can come up soon­er or stay for longer it would be great!

For more infor­ma­tion call 085 1141170 or check out www.rossportsolidaritycamp.org or rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.org

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Mayo — Shell’s con­struc­tion stopped for fifth con­sec­u­tive day

– Cam­paign­ers blockad­ing heavy vehi­cles pre­vent con­struc­tion of Shell’s onshore pipeline — Press release from ear­li­er today — more details from today plus pho­tos to fol­low as soon as the folk involved catch their breath!

This morn­ing, 28th of July 2011, cam­paign­ers again suc­cess­ful­ly stopped the first haulage of the day from Shell’s refin­ery at Bal­linaboy to the pro­posed tun­nel­ing com­pound at Augh­oose, Erris. Co. Mayo. Two peo­ple climbed on top of the trac­tor car­ry­ing mate­ri­als for the con­struc­tion site at 7.05am. The cam­paign­ers are cur­rent­ly block­ing all fur­ther Shell trans­port for the fifth con­sec­u­tive work day since Shell attempt­ed to start peat removal on Fri­day the 22nd of July.

The first block­ade of the day last­ed for over two hours. At 9.45 a tri­pod block­ade was erect­ed on the same stretch of road, which is cur­rent­ly block­ing Shel­l’s haulage. Con­tin­u­ous block­ades can be expect­ed until 7pm this evening. Three arrests were made yes­ter­day. There have been no arrests so far today.

Local res­i­dent Bet­ty Schultz protest­ing this morn­ing at Bal­linaboy, said “Tomorrow’s Day of Action marks our con­tin­u­ing oppo­si­tion to the dis­rup­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty and the unique envi­ron­ment we live in. Now is the time to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty of Erris in their cam­paign. Ire­land can’t afford to give away its nat­ur­al resources.”

Peo­ple from around Ire­land are answer­ing this SOS call from Erris, and many are expect­ed to arrive this after­noon and this evening to be ready for a mass Day of Action tomor­row, Fri­day the 29th of July. In advance of the mass action tomor­row, local women gath­ered at the entrance to Bal­linaboy this morn­ing from 7am to show that Shell do not have the com­mu­ni­ty con­sent.

Gle­n­amoy res­i­dent Mary Horan at Bal­linaboy gates said “While in Ire­land we are clos­ing our hos­pi­tals due to lack of funds, Shell have today announced prof­its of 13 bil­lion euros. Shell’s prof­its announced this morn­ing are sick­en­ing to this com­mu­ni­ty whose health and safe­ty has been sac­ri­ficed for Shel­l’s share­hold­ers. Nei­ther Shell nor Enda Ken­ny can hide the injus­tice being done to Ire­land. We will be here until jus­tice is done.”

ENDS
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www.shelltosea.com