Update in tunnel boring machine saga — community resistance strong

4.8.12 update: 150 Gar­dai to move TBM 5km; Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil begin cov­er-up

4.8.12 update: 150 Gar­dai to move TBM 5km; Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil begin cov­er-up

As those fol­low­ing the sto­ry may have heard by now, the TBM was moved yes­ter­day.

Aware that some­thing was going to hap­pen, cam­paign­ers spent the night at Gle­n­amoy sleep­ing in cars and vans, aware that some­thing was going to hap­pen. Two slept under the bridge. Local res­i­dents near­by told us how the road had sunk 4 inch­es in the last few days, while oth­er parts were ruined from the excep­tion­al traf­fic. We’re sure the Coun­cil will not be so quick to do those repairs…

At 4am, gar­dai began to swarm into the area. 150 IRMS secu­ri­ty also marched up the road. We ran up, but the sheer weight of num­bers kept us back. Ten man­aged to get into the field on the side where the truck was list­ing. Sud­den­ly, 40 IRMS came in and set up a fence. Dig­gers and trucks of stone came in and for the next ten hours, Shell filled in ditch­es and built up a road around the col­lapsed bank. The crane plan had been aban­doned and its seemed the field own­er had giv­en per­mis­sion. Thus, with­out warn­ing the cross­roads were closed to all traf­fic, caus­ing chaos yet again. Shell only lat­er offered its usu­al bland, ‘sor­ry for the incon­ve­nience’ shite.

Rumour is it that the crane stopped the pre­vi­ous day sim­ply turned around and went home after being stopped. And that Shell were des­per­ate­ly try­ing to find a replace­ment – offer­ing 15K for a crane dri­ver alone to do the job, and anoth­er 50K for a crane itself.

Those in the field, hav­ing been giv­en direc­tions to go there when the road was being cleared were told they were being detained there and phys­i­cal­ly pre­vent­ed from leav­ing by gar­dai. After watch­ing the spec­ta­cle close up for a cou­ple of hours, they made their way through oth­er fields to get out.

Mau­ra Har­ring­ton’s van was stopped at Bel­linaboy by Gar­dai and had its back win­dow delib­er­ate­ly smashed by Sgt Der­mot But­ler, the well known bul­ly of the pub­lic order unit – his for­mer part­ner now has a restrain­ing order against them, but in the dubi­ous ranks of May­o’s police, that prob­a­bly puts him in line for a pro­mo­tion. Mau­ra was arrest­ed and charged, though sub­se­quent­ly released and the van returned in what was a bla­tant occa­sion of pre­ven­ta­tive deten­tion.

Anoth­er cam­paign­er also had their car impound­ed; while a third per­son was told their van could only leave the area if a gar­da drove it back to camp. There was quite a pat­tern were known pro­test­ers were being denied right of pas­sage along the road, while oth­er were stopped out­right or repeat­ed­ly harassed and searched. Those walk­ing had their own per­son­al gar­da escort, and every fifty meters from Gle­n­amoy to Bel­linaboy there was at least one gar­da stand­ing – some­one count­ed them and the total there alone came to 80. We heard of check­points set up as far as Ban­gor Erris.

But­ler con­tin­ued his cus­tom­ary inci­vil­i­ty when a local res­i­dent went to Bel­mul­let gar­da sta­tion to have his tax return signed – But­ler opened the hatch and said I’m not sign­ing that for the likes of you, before slam­ming the hatch shut.

Bet­ty Schults, a well known local cam­paign­er, and oth­ers were fol­low­ing the trail of who had giv­en per­mis­sion for the TBM trucks to go up to Gle­n­amoy in the first place. Hav­ing been told that doc­u­men­ta­tion was at the Castle­bar head­quar­ters of Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil, she made the 100km round trip only to receive a phonecall telling her that it was miss­ing from the file just as she arrived.

At 2pm we had news the TBM was mov­ing so we head­ed down to Ballyscel­ly junc­tion to wit­ness it. Vehi­cles were backed up all along it, one local res­i­dent unable to get to her elder­ly moth­er who was at home alone. As usu­al, gar­dai were hap­py to block the road entire­ly for Shell, caus­ing mas­sive dis­rup­tion as even the back­roads were closed off this time.

The twitch­i­ness of An Gar­dai Síochá­na was appar­ent. They were des­per­ate to see this go off with­out any hitch­es. As the tun­nel bor­ing machine came up the road, 38 gar­dai walk­ing in front of the truck alone. IRMS secu­ri­ty were also float­ing around. With such num­bers there was lit­tle that could be done. Punc­tu­at­ing all this was a thun­der­storm right over­head.

The sub­ject of such mas­sive oper­a­tion, which under­lines its impor­tance, it was clear that the TBM would be deliv­ered back to Bel­linaboy. Yet for five days it was stuck at Gle­n­amoy, a nation­al news sto­ry and galviniz­ing the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. Shell was at the cen­tre of the embar­rass­ment; An Gar­dai Síochá­na left red-faced, their abil­i­ty to respond reduced to sim­ple thug­gery; and the bla­tant crim­i­nal col­lu­sion of Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil becom­ing appar­ent once more. Iron­ic, as Fri­day was elven years to the very day that Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil signed their first agree­ment with Shell.

As we sat in a local pub, swap­ping sto­ries of the week, it was clear that there is hard­ly a local who does not believe Mayo coun­ty man­ag­er, Peter Hynes, has not sold his soul to Shell. The ques­tion is for how much. Cer­tain­ly he does not have the trust or respect of any­one up here.

The bat­tle is not over yet. The TBM has not got to where it is meant to, Aghoos. Before that can hap­pen, the road at Ballyscel­ly junc­tion has to be built up so it can turn. More pieces of it have still to arrive. Aghoos is not yet ready for it either, being plagued by flood­ing, while the weight of the TBM is not going to do the frac­tur­ing ground at Bel­linaboy refin­ery any good either.

Shell have shot them­selves in the foot sev­er­al times; not only a huge embar­rass­ment that made nation­al head­lines, it showed the ongo­ing strength of resis­tance com­ing from the com­mu­ni­ty here. As we sat in the pub last night we could hear the buzz of a peo­ple fight­ing back.

As ever the camp is open to all who want to come and sup­port, though you might have to mind the moat and draw­bridge…

Car­toon in Irish News on the sto­ry — http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v247/notanumber/irishnews030812-p16.jpg

———

2nd August 2012

Day three and things are still look­ing bad for Shell. Pro­test­ers and the Irish bog have the upper hand, with Shell receiv­ing flack and Gar­dai hum­bled as crane sent pack­ing.

Day Three in the TBM House
Some­where in Erris idiots at are work…

Most of the day was qui­et around the TBM itself. Fenc­ing was put up and IMRS formed a cor­don around it. We are able to walk up and around the TBM — in places you can reach out and touch the Fion­nu­ala. The turn­ing wheels have caused the tar­mac to scrunch up in quite a few places. The front of the truck has pushed the ditch out two foot, the back axles sit­ting in a pool of water and looks like one of them has buck­led. The road is pret­ty bad­ly dam­aged and it is easy to see why the dri­ver was not going any fur­ther. The load on the back is also push­ing the frame of the trail­er down onto the tires.

Most work was on fin­ish­ing bypass­es around the TBM so vehi­cles could get in and out of Ross­port. Cars are able to get to Ross­port, but the direct route is still not pos­si­ble, mean­ing the road through Gle­n­amoy vil­lage is still being used, caus­ing dam­age to locals gar­dens and the road sur­face is being destroyed by turn­ing lor­ries from Bar­retts & Lennons. Local coun­cil­lors moaned about it and asked for reports from Shel­l’s pet Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil.

How­ev­er, one of the Ross­port 5 and Gold­man Prize win­ner Willie Cor­duff did some­thing about the haulage trucks com­ing through the vil­lage, stand­ing in front of one truck com­ing through. Unfor­tu­nate­ly arrest­ed, but released with­out charge two hours lat­er.

Locals and campers mon­i­tored the sit­u­a­tion all day, every­one in good spir­its enjoy­ing the sight. Even though it under­lines Shel­l’s idio­cy in attempt­ing the whole project in the first place, it is awe­some to see the unbe­lie­ve­able.

Else­where, the two arrest­ed for the Cross­moli­na lock-on plead­ed guilty in Bal­li­na court. One was fined 200 euros on the spot and the oth­er had their pun­ish­ment deferred to the Sep­tem­ber hear­ing in Bel­mul­let, when many oth­ers arrest­ed on pre­vi­ous protests are also hav­ing their cas­es heard.

Gar­dai were around all day, but in small num­bers. Amaz­ing giv­en how much was spent on escort­ing it a day or so ago that they’ve pret­ty much aban­doned it now. Def­i­nite­ly a ques­tion or two to be asked there about a colos­sal waste of mon­ey. Maybe they were get­ting the bol­lock­ing they tru­ely deserved as the trucks could only have been on that road with their per­mis­sion.

Some peo­ple did a bit of dig­ging and it turns out that not only was there a major fail­ure of judge­ment among expe­ri­enced peo­ple who should have known bet­ter about tak­ing a heavy load up a rur­al road through bog­land, but it may also been ille­gal. Accord­ing to the road traf­fic man­ag­ment plan, the approved haulage route ends at the Ballyscal­ly junc­tion to Aghoos. Peter Hynes, the Mayo Coun­ty Coun­cil Direc­tor of Ser­vices / Coun­ty Man­ag­er who always bends over back­wards to help Shell, has said that Shell had all the nec­es­sary per­mis­sions, which, to put it polite­ly is dis­as­sem­bling some­what. Did he real­ly give per­mis­sion for Shell to go up to Gle­n­amoy? Maybe peo­ple should ring his office ((094) 90 24444) and ask to see the doc­u­ments. Heads need to roll on this one.

In answer to some­one’s ques­tion, the trucks came the des­ig­nat­ed route, on the main route past Bal­linaboy to the Aghoos com­pound. They failed to make the turn­ing at the Ballyscal­ly turn­ing where the ani­mal labs are, so con­tin­ued up to Gle­n­amoy / Ross­port junc­tion — to turn around and try from the oth­er direc­tion.

But back to the direct action bit. In the evening reports start­ed com­ing in (and this is the beau­ty of a com­mu­ni­ty wide cam­paign — eyes and ears every­where) that a crane was on its way. Shell were say­ing that the TBM was going to be moved. Mmmh, a lot of peo­ple thought oth­er­wise. Infact, some turned thought into action. Mau­ra was there with her car across the road at Bel­linaboy bridge, hold­ing it up. More sped down there to give sup­port, and before you could blink anoth­er pro­test­er was up on the crane.

The whole road was blocked. Shell work­ers from the refin­ery had to go the long way around, grid­lock­ing the road out from Pul­lath­omas — and, we are told, made to wait by some local res­i­dents none too hap­py at the sight of them.

Mau­ra’s car was pulled out of the way, but the gar­dai end­ed up crash­ing it into the side of the bridge, caus­ing them to aban­don the effort. After a while it was back in place, mak­ing sure the cher­ryp­ick­er to take down the per­son on the crane could not reach them.

Sev­er­al hours lat­er some­where between six­ty and hun­dred peo­ple came to enjoy the sight of the the crane stuck in the mid­dle of the road. While some might moan about the block­age or emer­gency ser­vices, the fact remains that these are the roads of the local com­mu­ni­ty and it is they who are mak­ing the deci­sions that Shell needs to be kicked out — and tak­ing action. This was not a local com­mu­ni­ty annoyed by the road being blocked, but hap­py to see Shell tak­ing anoth­er poke in the eye.

Gar­dai arrived — then called for back­up as they realised they were strug­gling to con­tain the sit­u­a­tion. You could see they were loos­ing it, drag­ging out var­i­ous old faces includ­ing Brett and oth­er faces famil­iar from baton charges sev­er­al years ago; some even thought push­ing young girls around with their heavy hands was appro­pri­ate. They were met with fury.

There was a stand-off, with the gar­dai iso­lat­ing Mau­ra and the crane. More scuf­fles. The cher­ryp­ick­er was tem­porar­i­ly occu­pied with the Gar­dai assault­ing a num­ber of peo­ple to get it back, includ­ing pres­sure-point­ing — the usu­al over-reac­tion from the likes of But­ler and Gill from the Pub­lic Order Cut­ting Team. At least one gar­dai had his pep­per spray out and Brett was try­ing to use his torch as a baton.

For pic­tures, see here http://shelltosea.com/content/pictures-last-night-blocking-tbm-crane

Mau­ra’s car was toed out of the way once more and the per­son from the crane arrest­ed — and giv­en a cheer. The cher­ryp­ick­er itself start­ed list­ing dan­ger­ous­ly as one of its tires deflat­ed.

Then as we read­ied our­selves for the crane to come through, it reversed and dis­ap­peared into the night, last seen some­where beyond Ban­gor… They gar­dai had lost the stom­ach for the fight, it seems. You could hear the hap­pi­ness in the voic­es of the peo­ple all around us. Eleven years on in this long fight, vic­to­ries were still pos­si­ble in the face of Shel­l’s inva­sion. This part of Erris remains free in the hearts of the peo­ple there.

After­wards, peo­ple went back up to Gle­n­amoy to keep vig­il there. Peo­ple con­tin­ue to arrive at camp. This is not over yet.

For a good video of some of the resis­tance of pre­vi­ous nights see http://shelltosea.com/content/youtube-videos-shell-sea-resists-shells-attempt-move-tunnel-boring-machine-rossport-31–7‑201

Some oth­er reports
http://shelltosea.com/content/councillor-appalled-over-shell-truck-blockage-glenamoy
http://shelltosea.com/content/rossport-farmer-arrested-jack-knifed-lorry