Year: 2012

Earth First! Blockades TECO Coal Plant at RNC in Tampa

  By

by Everglades Earth First! (view original at EF! Newswire )

“You Built This Disaster” banner spoofs RNC motto (“We Built this”)

UPDATES: Seven people in total were detained for blocking the roads which stopped all traffic into the coal plant for near four hours. Six were locked down in the road and one was dragged off the top of the truck.

Over one hundred people showed up to support the blockade, many on the buses who traveled down with the Occupy Wall Street contingent from NYC, and dozens of media outlets in town for the RNC reported on the action.

In the end, no one was arrested, as it seemed the police used a strict policy of controlling the perception of protests by avoiding conflict all week.

Regardless, in the end this action not only succeeded in closing access to a massive coal power plant for hours, it also linked the plant’s operations to the corporate-funded political system, and even shut down the Port of Tampa temporarily (and freak out a nearby IKEA who happen to be in the midst of anold-growth logging controversy), just by the threat of our presence!

What follows is a press release from Everglades EF! released at the start of the action:

Apollo Beach, FL—In the climax of the 2012 Republican National Convention, protestors with Earth First! have blocked access roads to TECO’s Big Bend coal plant on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay. The environmental action group is citing corporate influence in politics and ecological impacts of fossil fuel dependency as reasons for the disruption.

One of two lockdowns along the road, blocking all truck access to the TECO plant

This year’s RNC was funded by an estimated $55 million in corporate pay-offs, with corporations including the Tampa based-TECO Energy, along with Chevron, Duke Energy and Exxon Mobil.

According to a report by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) last year, power plants are the number one polluters in the US and Florida is the third dirtiest state in power plant pollution. NRDC found TECO’s Big Bend plant to be in the state’s top most polluting smoke stacks.

Earth First! activists chose this day for their protest in order to highlight Mitt Romney’s plan to expand what the group calls the “energy empire” which favors the interest of big donors in oil, gas and coal industries.

Romney’s top energy policy advisor is the wealthiest oilman in the country and according to data analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics, Romney has already raised more from mining interests than Bush or McCain raised from these industries in their entire campaigns.

Locally, TECO’s Big Bend plant has a long history of pollution. In year’s past, it was declared Florida’s number one dirtiest power plant by Florida Consumer Action Network, the plant was documented discharging waste into Cobia Bay in Apollo Beach, and was the first in the state for coal waste.

But that’s not all. TECO has also been called one of the nation’s worst offenderswhen it comes to mountaintop removal coal mining. In coal mining regions of the Appalachian Mountains, TECO has ruined entire communities to maximize their profits. Kentucky coalfield resident Doug Justice worked in the coal mines for 22 years and said “I have never seen an outfit treat a community the way TECO Coal has done us.”

In response to the devastation from floods caused be TECO’s mining in 2002, Granville Burke of Letcher County, Kentucky, had this to say: “I wish TECO had never started mining above our home. Protection for families like ours is supposed to come from the state and federal regulatory agencies, but instead they look the other way as coal companies destroy entire communities for the sake of profit.”

“Dirty energy becomes dirty politics. We can’t afford to stand by and watch it anymore. We have to fight back.” Said Rachel Kijewski, an organizer with the Earth First! movement in Florida.

Seven Texans Blockade Truck Carrying Keystone XL Pipe In Livingston, TX

  By , ,

Press Contact: Ron Seifert, 843-814-2796, ronseif@gmail.com

BREAKING: 4 Blockaders are Locked to Truck Carrying Keystone XL Pipeline in Livingston, TX!

Pipe truck stuck at entrance of yard, stopping construction on the Keystone XL pipeline

LIVINGSTON, TEXAS – August 28, 2012 – Just minutes ago four landowner advocates and climate justice organizers locked themselves to the underside of a massive truck carrying 36″ pipe intended for Keystone XL construction. The truck is parked, idled at the entrance of the pipeyard, rendering construction activity impossible. Seven blockaders total are onsite risking arrest. Blockaders from the Red River valley to the Gulf Coast and beyond have united to realize their collective vision of a world without toxic tar sands pipelines. Today’s message is clear: the people are rising up to defend their homes.

This act of peaceful civil disobedience comes in the wake of a recent court decision condoning TransCanada’s use of eminent domain for private gain. Last week Lamar County Judge Bill Harris ruled in a shockingly abbreviated fifteen-word summary judgment that Texas farmer Julia Trigg Crawford cannot challenge TransCanada’s claim that it is entitled to a piece of her home. The underwhelming ruling was emailed to Ms. Crawford’s attorney late in the evening of August 15 from the Judge’s iPhone.

The arrogant disregard levied at landowners like Julia Trigg Crawford for simply not consenting to have a tar sands pipeline permanently bisect their homes is what motivated Houston businessman Ray Torgerson to take action with the Blockade. “The fact that this corporation can check a box on a form and steal someone’s land is insulting,” Ray says. “We are here to defend our homes and stand with landowners like Julia.

Further emblematic of the disrespect small town families like the Crawfords have faced throughout Keystone XL legal proceedings, Ms. Crawford received first notice of the ruling from a reporter seeking comment who had been blind carbon copied on the County Judge’s email ruling.

“It was heartbreaking to hear a generational family farm like the Crawford’s can be taken away by a multinational corporation,” exclaims blockader Audrey Steiner, a linguistic anthropologist from Austin. “I’m here to change the direction our country is taking.”

The concerns of the blockaders today go well beyond TransCanada’s appalling contempt for property rights. As Tammie Carson, a lifelong Texan living in Arlington explains, “I’m doing this for my grandchildren. I’m outraged that multinational corporations like TransCanada are wrecking our climate. The planet isn’t theirs to destroy, and I’m willing to take a risk to protect my grandchildren’s future.”

Denny Hook, a retired minister from Gainesville Texas, describes himself as “An environmentalist that happens to be a minister.” In taking action today, Hook hopes to inspire more people to join the movement. “Things are so dire that if all of us don’t rise up we won’t make it. This pipeline is the difference between Earth on the edge and Earth over the edge.”

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of Keystone XL.

“The blockade is an expression of people who have spent years using every available avenue afforded to them, and nothing has worked,” explains Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ron Seifert. “The urgency of this crisis is galvanizing supporters who understand that doing nothing involves a greater risk than taking action.”

###

Wild Idaho Rising Tide: Upcoming Megaloads Protests Hearings & Trial

  By , ,
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 26, 2012

 

Contact: Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide

P.O. Box 9817, Moscow, Idaho 83843

WildIdahoRisingTide.org & on facebook

208-301-8039

 

Megaload Protester/Monitor Hearings & Trial

On Monday, August 27, at 4 pm, in the Latah County Courthouse (522 South Adams Street, Moscow), Judge John Judge will preside over a jury pre-trial and motion hearing addressing pending charges against Helen Yost for allegedly throwing a protest sign at a vehicle and air-kicking (attempting assault or battery?) in the direction of a police officer, while the last ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil tar sands megaload crossed Moscow on March 6.  At a June 13 motion in limine hearing, attorney Ben Onosko representing Helen argued that the Moscow city laws under which she was cited for throwing an object at a highway vehicle do not define a module hauled on a vehicle but only describe vehicles and people in vehicles, suggesting that her charge be dropped.  Prosecutor Rod Hall and the judge countered that Idaho state law clearly delineates vehicles, loads carried on such conveyances, and persons in vehicles and that Moscow city codes are subordinate to state laws.

The court issued a decision denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss the misdemeanor citation, but the prosecution re-opened a previously time-limited offer to drop the attempted battery charge if Helen would plead guilty to the sign-throwing violation.  (For more information about this June hearing and motion, listen to the KRFP Radio Free Moscow Evening Report on Wednesday, June 13, between 6:44 and 5:18 at http://radiofreemoscow.org/2012/06/20120613/.)  The case is scheduled for a jury trial on September 14, but Ben has negotiated a pre-trial change in terms and resolution.  At this Monday’s 4 pm hearing, Helen will plead guilty to disturbing the peace instead of throwing an object at a vehicle, and the court will dismiss her attempted battery citation.  Like Cass Davis and Jim Prall, she will present for court records a statement explaining her intentions for her actions and their context.  Please consider supporting Helen with your hearing attendance, as she affirms our shared community motivations for non-violent civil disobedience to obstruct the largest climate-wrecking industrial project on Earth.  She will also request a jail sentence rather than a fine for bouncing an assertive but harmless six-ounce foam-board sign reading “If one oil company is successful, many more will follow. ~Port of Lewiston” off a 425,000-pound aggressive and violent piece of tar sands processing equipment (see attached photo).  Whether David’s stone ultimately toppled Goliath on Highway 95 remains to be seen (with plenty of breaking information about this later!).

Meanwhile in Kootenai County Court in Coeur d’Alene, on November 18, 2011, a prosecutor dismissed Sharon Cousins’ August 27, 2011, infraction of parking a vehicle on a controlled-access highway, and Judge Robert Caldwell ruled during an April 11, 2011, infraction court trial against Helen’s citation of failure to use a vehicle safety restraint (seat belt).  Both charges resulted from Idaho State Police (ISP) officer Ronald Sutton approaching Sharon’s SUV stopped along Highway 95 about ten miles south of Coeur d’Alene, as four women monitored a megaload that had encountered a 150-person protest and six arrested blockaders on the previous night.  The ISP trooper requested IDs from all of the vehicle passengers and accused Helen Yost and Cici Claar of resisting or obstructing an officer and arrested and jailed them.

In a misdemeanor pre-trail hearing on February 17, Spokane attorney Karen Lindholdt presented a motion to suppress Claar’s and Yost’s obstruction charges, as the arresting officer had no lawful reason, besides unwarranted parking and seat belt infractions, to ask for the passengers’ IDs.  Idaho state troopers consequently violated both defendants’ Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure.  Although Cici has since dropped her case and Kootenai County Judge Caldwell dismissed the suppression motion, Moscow lawyer Ben Onosko has substituted counsel on Helen’s lawsuit and, after numerous requests for discovery of the prosecution’s evidence, will propose at 10:30 am on September 5 that Judge Caldwell reconsider his decision to reject the defendant’s earlier motion to suppress and/or dismiss her obstruction charges.  If this pre-trial conference and trial does not attain success, megaload monitors and our regional resistance community anticipate plenty of prevailing arguments concerning civil liberties, constitutional case law, and corporate police states at Helen’s ensuing full jury trial in Coeur d’Alene at 8:30 am on September 17, the anniversary of Occupy (the megaload routes!).

The Time Has Come: A Call to Action Against the Keystone XL Pipeline

  By , ,

Originally posted on tarsandsblockade.org

The Time Has Come: A Call to Action

By Ben Kessler

By signing up to take action at tarsandsblockade.org, you joined thousands of others in taking a courageous stand against the dark tide of fossil fuels that threatens our life on this planet.  All of us have different stories that lead us to this place, but we share in being inspired, hopeful, and determined to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.

Now, it is time for our stories to join together and bend the arc of history towards a future without tar sands.  We are issuing a call – starting this September, your courage is needed in Texas.  The path ahead requires great courage. The odds are stacked against us; money is overwhelmingly tipped in TransCanada’s favor. But we can win – we plan to win.

As we recently announced, construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XL, running through Oklahoma and Texas, has begun. Our task is clear: through peaceful and sustained direct action, we are going to bring construction to a halt – permanently. Of some things we can be sure: It will be difficult. It will be hot. Many of us will be arrested. Our resolve will be tested and our commitment strained. The government and the corporations know this, and they will try to exploit it; they are determined to see us fail. What they aren’t equipped to deal with is our joy, our resolve and our passion. No force on Earth can make us forget what is at stake. No violence, no repression, no method at their disposal can extinguish our belief that the future of life on Earth depends on us uniting to put an end to the tyranny of oil.

Let’s be clear about what is at stake. The Alberta Tar Sands is a reservoir of extreme fossil fuels vast enough to single-handedly spell death for the climate, if we are foolish enough to extract and burn it. The nearly 2000-mile path of the Keystone XL pipeline, Big Oil’s tar sands-transporting monstrosity, will create a permanent environmental disaster zone, bringing ruin to countless communities and threatening the health and water supply of millions. The carbon contained in this filthy resource will rocket us past all meaningful tipping points, sending our atmosphere into a catastrophic spiral of warming. Ice caps will melt and our temperate plains will turn to deserts as our food supply cooks and half of the species on this Earth fade into the eternal sleep of extinction.

This simply will not stand. The situation is too dire to wait for political or economic solutions.  When you join the Tar Sands Blockade in Texas, be assured that you are joining a movement that intends to win. We believe the time for symbolic arrests to prove a point has passed, and our strategy reflects this belief. With wood and concrete, stone and water, steel and flesh, we will pit our bodies and our spirits against the engines of destruction. One day at a time, we will mire TransCanada in a struggle that will give new meaning to the term “sustained direct action”.  Nothing less can accomplish our goal.

Let’s face it, the environmental movement has been losing. We have been losing because we refuse to be honest with ourselves. Small campaigns, small goals, and small actions aren’t enough. Community organizing to resist fossil fuels will always serve as the foundation for our movement. But if we are to defeat the biggest and most destructive energy projects, we are going to have to find a way past the failing status quo. Tar Sands Action set a new precedent for civil disobedience actions in this movement. It had the right idea, the right vision, but a flawed political analysis. Now we know that the corporations won’t stop unless we make them stop.

In 2011, political prisoner Tim DeChristopher shared his vision of ending Mountaintop Removal with a massive, rolling wave of mine site occupations. It is clear that a similar effort will be required to bring down the KXL. We know that Texas is a long journey for some, and that the privilege of leaving work isn’t available to everyone. We want you to come because this is not just another action. If we succeed, we will redefine the fight for a livable future in this country.  Following in the footsteps of the largest climate civil disobedience actions in decades, there can be no doubt that it is time for the largest disruption of fossil fuel business as usual.

With your participation, Tar Sands Blockade will turn the tide against TransCanada, and make other fossil fuel giants think twice before trying to trample the dignity, health, and autonomy of our communities and ecosystems. We can’t do it without you.

This is a pivotal moment in history, and it is unlikely that there has ever been a more important fight in the history of our species. Our actions right now will determine whether our children, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren and the countless generations to come, long after we have turned to dust, have a living and healthy planet to thrive on. We recognize the gravity of the situation. We understand the magnitude of the challenge we face. We embrace the courage we must summon. We acknowledge the sacrifices that must be made. We are ready. We ask only that you join us.