Tag: Bakken

Sheriffs to Evict Water Protectors from Mississippi Stand Camp near Dakota Access Site

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callinFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct 4, 2016

Sheriffs to Evict Water Protectors from Mississippi Stand Camp near Dakota Access Boring Site

CONTACTS  Alex Cohen: 314-971-6304,  Ruby Montoya : 602-769-9332, MississippiStand@gmail.com

Keokuk, IA – Tuesday evening as the sun set over the Mississippi river near Sandusky, Iowa, Suarez, the local Sheriff served an eviction notice to the Mississippi Stand camp where last Saturday over 200 people from local communities and across the country protested peacefully to challenge the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Energy Transfer, the company building the pipeline, is boring under the Mississippi River against the wishes of many local residents.

In the face of such broad support, the Sheriff’s office, Suarez, and county attorney, Micheal P. Short, have decided to take the side of Energy Transfer, which has used eminent domain against local landowners and which threatens sacred and traditional Native territories along the pipeline route.Energy Transfer’s pipeline would move approximatly 470,000 barrels oil per day with capacity to move 570,000 barrels daily from the Bakken fields of North Dakota to be exported out to the gulf. The entire pipeline is projected to create only 40 jobs.

The Sheriff will arrive at the Mississippi Stand camp Thursday, October 6th  in an attempt to evict dozens of campers and local community supporters. Those at Mississippi Stand have vowed to continue taking action to stop pipeline construction as Energy Transfer’s October 31st deadline. With their numbers swelling each day, the camp plans to remain strong and continue its mission in spite of Thursday’s eviction threat and will offer an alternative location for those wishing to support.

The encampment known as Mississippi Stand has been in place since  August 31st and was established in solidarity with Standing Rock, a Lakota camp challenging DAPL in North Dakota, and other Native American efforts to stop construction from destroying sacred and traditional lands. Workers are boring under the Mississippi river 24 hours a day. About 100 people have been arrested while peacefully protesting at the site to date. Public input was not allowed during planning for the pipeline route and permits were hastily granted without proper environmental studies. There are major community concerns around the safety of the project for the quality of the Missouri, Mississippi and Illinois Rivers.

Protectors are calling on supporters to come to camp and to call county attorney  Micheal P. Short at 319-524-9590. Camper Jim Arenz, a 54-year-old from Milledgeville, IL has answered the call stating,  “I’m here for my children and my grandchildren. We have a responsibility to leave them a better world than we inherited. More than 30 million people depend on the Mississippi River for drinking water. None of us get the economic benefits of this pipeline, but when it ruptures all of us will pay the cost.”

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Three Jailed in Oil Train Blockade at Anacortes Tesoro Refinery

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setac

Blockade at Anacortes Tesoro Refinery near Seattle.

For Immediate Release

7/28/14

Seattle, WA: The activists arrived at the Tesoro Refinery tracks at about 7:45am this morning, and finally released themselves shortly after noon, at which time they were taken into custody; the barrels remained on the tracks for about another half-hour while the police awaited equipment to remove them. About thirty supporters had surrounded the blockade; all eventually moved down the hill when police insisted, but remained nearby until the police cars drove off.

Both the arrestees and their supporters stressed the irresponsibility of the fossil fuel companies in sending massive amounts of such dangerous fuel through rural and urban communities across the country.

“Last Thursday’s derailment in Seattle was the last straw. If federal and state regulators won’t stand up to the fossil fuel companies endangering our communities, then we, the people of those communities, will do so,” said Jan Woodruff, an Anacortes retiree, as she sat on the tracks with her arm in a barrel filled with poured concrete. Woodruff was one of three people arrested after several hours of blockading the track, with an oil train right at a stop right behind them.

Retired lawyer Annette Klapstein of Bainbridge was another of the three; “Tesoro and the others are bad actors. If any other group of people exposed us to these risks, they’d be locked up,” she said. “This kind of resistance may seem extreme, but these are extreme times…and the resistance to this craziness won’t end with us.”

Rising Tide Seattle member Adam Gaya, the third arrestee, made a similar point. “People are on the alert: an industry willing to sacrifice the planet to catastrophic climate change doesn’t see a few vaporized towns and cities as ‘significant’. Fossil fuel companies can expect to see more actions like this one, focusing on the most egregious violations of common sense and moral responsibility.”

All three were released on their own recognizance at the end of the day.