Author: sparki

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.

Seattle Residents Blockade Tracks To Protest Dangerous Oil-By-Rail Projects

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seattle

Lockdown at the Anacortes Refinery near Seattle.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Emily Johnston, 206-660-4210

7:45am, Monday, July 28, 2014, Anacortes Tesoro Refinery

*Anacortes – *Three residents of Anacortes and Seattle are currently blockading the oil train facility at Tesoro’s Anacortes Refinery by locking their bodies to barrels full of concrete. Supported by local residents, the three are demanding an immediate halt to the shipment of explosive Bakken oil through Northwest communities, the rejection of all new oil-by-rail terminals proposed for the Northwest, and an end to the refinery’s repeated violations of the Clean Air Act.

“Thursday’s derailment was the last straw,” says Jan Woodruff, an Anacortes resident. “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.”

Last Thursday, July 24th, an oil train bound for Tesoro’s Anacortes Refinery derailed in Seattle, highlighting the dangers posed to Northwest communities. Between nine and sixteen oil trains travel through Seattle and Mount Vernon every week – about five of which are bound for the Tesoro refinery. The day before Thursday’s frightening derailment, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and all nine City Council members sent a letter to the Department of Transportation asking for an immediate halt of oil-by-rail shipments through Seattle.

Despite the extreme controversy over the transport of explosive Bakken Oil, all three of Washington’s oil-by-rail terminals were permitted without full environmental review or robust public consultation, through an obscure local process called a “mitigated determination of non-significance.” The same process was used to approve terminals at the Port of Gray’s Harbor and Shell’s Puget Sound Refinery before being reversed by legal challenges and public opposition.

“It’s no surprise that an industry willing to sacrifice the entire planet to catastrophic climate change doesn’t see a few vaporized towns and cities as ‘significant’” says Adam Gaya, a Seattle resident and member of the group Rising Tide Seattle. “With recent disasters and the accelerating climate crisis we shouldn’t even be considering new oil infrastructure.”

Tesoro’s Anacortes Refinery is no stranger to accidents. In 2010 it was the site of an explosion that killed seven workers; the company was later determined to have committed 39 “willful” and five “serious” violations of safety regulations. Both Anacortes refineries are also longtime Clean Air Act “High Priority Violators”, and Tesoro has announced that new railcars it purchases will be equipped to transport tar sands bitumen. Refineries that process tar sands have higher emissions of pollutants like sulfur dioxide and are more prone to explosions.

“Tesoro and the others are bad actors. If any other group of people exposed us to these risks, they’d be locked up,” says Annette Klapstein, a retired lawyer from Bainbridge Island. “This kind of resistance may seem extreme, but these are extreme times…and the resistance to this craziness won’t end with us.”

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At Least 19 Arrested As Tar Sands Opponents Shut Down Utah Mine Site

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protectOpponents enforce shutdown of Utah tar sands mine today

Cross-posted from Peaceful Uprising

Follow @peace_up_ and @tarsandsresist on Twitter for updates.

July 21, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PR SPRINGS, Utah–About 80 climate justice land defenders right used their bodies today to halt construction of a tar sands strip mine in the Book Cliffs of Utah.

The action is the culmination of a week-long direct action training camp within 2 miles of the mine. Participants of Climate Justice Summer Camp traveled from numerous organizations, states and sovereign tribal nations to learn direct action skills and build networks.

In recent weeks, Calgary, Canada-based US Oil Sands began a new and devastating phase in construction of the first tar sands mine in the United States. Nearly 80 acres of forest and sage land have been leveled.

US Oil sands has construction permits on 212 acres of pristine wilderness and strip mine land leases on 32,000 acres. Opponents say the traditional Ute hunting lands leased by the Utah School and Institutional Trust Land Administration are too fragile and damage would be irreversible.

Numerous states and local governments question the wisdom of tar sands and oil shale projects in the Colorado River Basin. That system—which provides drinking water to 40 million people in the US, Mexico and native communities—is already severely over-tapped and endangered by industrial waste contaminants.

“Indigenous people’s sacred lands for hundreds of generations here would be destroyed after a few generations of American settler colonialism,” says Jessica Lee, on behalf of the land defenders. “US Oil Sands perfectly demonstrates capitalism’s brazen disregard for the climate crisis, human and tribal rights and rights of the planet itself to be free of dangerous corporate parasites.”

The United States Environmental Protection Agency this month joined the crowd demanding answers from the tar sands company. EPA’s letter indicates US Oil Sands may need tribal authorization for their project due to lease acres bordering and sometimes occurring in “Indian country.”

EPA also has concerns about toxic and hazardous waste from the project. The construction site is immediately upstream of one of the major river systems of the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation, the stunning Willow Creek Canyon area. The company has never sought Ute Tribal Government approval.

What is Climate Justice?

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Take Non-Violent Direct Action for Climate Justice!; New York City, September 17-24, 2014

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Take Non-Violent Direct Action for Climate Justice!

New York City | September 17-24, 2014

International Week of Solidarity with Frontline Communities Around the World

solstice_600On September 23rd, political and corporate leaders are meeting at the United Nations in New York City for the Climate Summit 2014. This summit represents yet another step towards the corporate takeover of the UN climate negotiations, and the privatization of land, water and air resources under the guise of a global climate compact.

Meanwhile, as communities on the frontlines of climate change, we are the ones cultivating real, place-based solutions to address the global ecological crises. Indigenous peoples’ communities, communities of color and working-class white communities that are the first and most impacted by the storms, floods and droughts, are organizing to create millions of family-supporting jobs in clean energy, public transportation, zero waste, food sovereignty, community housing and ecosystem restoration.

We are organizing to stop pollution and poverty at the source, confronting the extreme energy corporations causing the climate crisis. As we write, our friends and comrades around the world are putting their bodies on the line to stop the corporations responsible – mining corporations; oil, coal and gas companies; pipelines and refineries; biofuels plantations; nuclear power plants; waste and biomass incinerators, and a myriad other industries profiteering from the destruction of our communities, our cultures and our ecosystems.

From Mesa to Mountaintop, from Hood to Holler – join us as we meet the scale and urgency of the crisis by standing in solidarity with all frontlines of resistance and resilience around the world, and taking non-violent direct action against the corporations driving the extractive economy.

We call on our allies to:

  • Join us in the streets of NYC for a week of creative non-violent actions for Climate Justice
  • Organize a delegation to join the Peoples March & People’s Climate Justice Summit in NYC
  • Organize a creative action in your home community that highlights local solutions to climate change
  • Spread this /call to action/ amongst your respective networks and social media outlets

Our demands of local, national and international decision-makers are simple:

Support us in building Just Transition pathways away from the “dig, burn, dump” economy, and towards “local, living economies” where communities and workers are in charge!

Join us in solidarity – in the streets of New York City, in your own community, and around the world!

Alliance for Appalachia • ACE for Environmental Justice • Asian Pacific Environmental Network • Black Mesa Water Coalition • Catskills Mountainkeeper • Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy • Center for Story-based Strategy • Communities for a Better Environment • Community to Community Development • Cornell Global Labor Institute • East Michigan Environmental Action Council • Energy Justice Network • Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative • Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives • Global Justice Ecology Project • Grassroots Global Justice Alliance • Grassroots International • Indigenous Environmental Network • Institute for Policy Studies • Ironbound Community Corporation • Jobs With Justice • Just Transition Alliance • Kentuckians for the Commonwealth • Labor Community Strategy Center • Labor Network for Sustainability • Little Village Environmental Justice Organization • Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment • Movement Generation • Movement Strategy Center • NAACP Climate Justice Initiative • New York City EJ Alliance • People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER) • POWER • Right to the City Alliance • Rising Tide North America • Ruckus Society • Southwest Organizing Project • Southwest Workers Union • UPROSE

Stay tuned for more information on action plans being developed in the coming weeks.

For more information, and to share your local action plans with us, contact sharon@ruckus.org or nyc@risingtidenorthamerica.org, or go to www.ourpowercampaign.org