Category: Featured News

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Charleston, WV: Water Protectors Shut Down TC Energy (TransCanada) Building

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cross-posted from Appalachians Against Pipelines

Photo Credit: Appalachians Against Pipelines

Today, over 70 of water protectors shut down the TC Energy (TransCanada) building in Charleston, WV in solidarity with Unist’ot’en! 4 people locked down together as part of the blockade, and a warrior flag symbolizing Indigenous power was raised, replacing the US flag outside of the building. Banners on site included, “SOLIDARITY WITH WET’SUWET’EN,” and “JUSTICE FOR MMIW [MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS WOMEN].”

Despite the peaceful nature of the action, DOZENS of cops (primarily from the City of Charleston) responded in force, screaming and violently shoving protesters out of the lobby. They dragged the people whose necks were locked together outside, piling people on top of one another. Folks were repeatedly pushed around and roughed up, but luckily no one was seriously injured. After cops cut the locks around the necks of those locked down, the group dispersed. No arrests were made.

Today’s action was a response to Unist’ot’en Camp’s call for solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en struggle to defend their unceded territory in so-called British Columbia, Canada, from TC Energy’s Coastal GasLink pipeline and the Canadian government. Indigenous people, Appalachian people, and all land defenders stand in solidarity to say WET’SUWET’EN STRONG. SHUT DOWN CANADA. SHUT DOWN TC ENERGY.

Mama Julz, Oglala Lakota and founder of the Mothers Against Meth Alliance, explained her decision to take action, saying, “My territory is experiencing a meth epidemic, and many missing and murdered relatives. All the drugs and sex trafficking come from man camps that TransCanada has brought to my territory. Wet’suwet’en has been experiencing that same violence for years. They have the Highway of Tears, where their missing and murdered relatives are stolen from. It all comes from the pipelines. It’s important to be in solidarity because we face violence from the same industry. Our ancestors traveled and always kept us connected with our indigenous relatives to the North. The waters connect us.”

Photo Credit: Appalachians Against Pipelines

One Dine activist, who traveled from the Four Corners area to participate in the action, said, “I am here to be in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en folks, and to be in support of the sisters who are raising awareness about missing and murdered Indigenous women. In Indigenous ways of life there are no borders, so anything that happens here on Turtle Island is happening to all our relatives. Just like the Wet’suwet’en are fighting man camps in so-called Canada, the reservation where I’m from faced fracking, and there were man camps there too. New Mexico has one of the highest rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women. This is what extracting, mining, drilling, and everything associated with those industries lead to.”

TC Energy is the same company that operates the Columbia Gas pipeline and storage facility here in Appalachia. Indigenous people — including Monocan, Moneton, and Cherokee people — inhabited the hills and hollers of this region for thousands of years before white settlers arrived, bringing with them genocide and forced relocation. The fossil fuel industry and TC Energy in Appalachia today are a continuation of the legacy of colonization.

Photo Credit: Appalachians Against Pipelines

Additional statements from folks who locked down today:

“I am here in solidarity with every missing Indigenous woman, with all of the earth and its peoples who have been pillaged and destroyed by the vicious and relentless systems of capitalist extraction and colonialism. I’m here because there is everything to lose — our means of survival and that of all other life on the planet, and because there has been so much loss. Because there is hope in the tiny rebellions. Unending solidarity with the Unist’ot’en fight, and the Wet’suwet’en people, now and forever.”

“The enclosure of land and extraction of its resources is an age old arm of settler colonial violence. I am here because colonialism is ongoing, because our lives and the lives of generations to come depend upon the liberation of the earth and all of its inhabitants. I am here because indigenous women are being disappeared, and that too is an arm of settler colonialism — the one that assaults the bodies of women, queer people, the vulnerable. We all need to fight together to win.”

To learn more about Unist’ot’en visit: https://www.facebook.com/unistoten/
To donate visit: http://unistoten.camp/support-us/donate/

 

Line 3 Protest at logging site in Cass County, MN

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pic via Northfield Against Line 3

cross-posted from Northfield Against Line 3

WATER PROTECTORS PROTEST TAR SANDS LINE 3 PIPELINE

A peaceful rally held in Northern Minnesota promoted Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice

CASS COUNTY, MN —  20 water protectors held a rally today at a logging site where workers had been patch clear cutting trees along the proposed route of Line 3, the proposed tar sands pipeline expansion owned by Canadian company Enbridge Energy. At 1PM, water protectors from across Minnesota, including organizers with Northfield Against Line 3, rallied for over an hour among large logging equipment and felled trees, chanting “Honor the Treaties!” and “Stop Line 3” before they left the site.

“We are here to send the message loud and clear: Line 3 will not be built! All pipelines spill, and Enbridge has deliberately misled the public. We need real climate solutions, and they must be rooted in honoring Indigenous sovereignty,” said Elizabeth (a pseudonym), one of the water protectors involved in the rally.

This afternoon’s acts of civilian oversight build off of a decade of growing opposition to the proposed Line 3 pipeline, which would transport 760,000 barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada to the western shore of Lake Superior. Despite facing significant delays in court, the company has allowed to begin what it calls “pre-construction,” making today’s intervention a necessary step in enforcing transparency along the proposed corridor. Line 3’s proposed route puts sensitive ecosystems at risk, including 15 watersheds and 215 lakes, and its associated carbon emissions would further destabilize the global climate. Enbridge is still waiting for the verdict on their 401 water quality permit, a crucial oversight from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

pic via Northfield Against Line 3

Today’s action highlights acts of patch clear cutting in a ecologically vulnerable area that directly abuts the proposed Line 3 expansion route. This logging of birch and pine trees is part of a legacy of abuse upon the land and the land’s original inhabitants by logging companies and the state government who bought the land cheaply, making way for decades of violent extraction. While the profits from rotating timber permits are supposed to support township services, the logging occurred in 1855 Treaty Territory, violating the rights of the Anishinaabe people to fish, hunt and gather, and make free, prior and informed decisions regarding any project.

“We must end the perpetuation of settler colonialism and cycle of mindless extraction. We’re here fighting for a livable future for all, because another world is not only necessary, but possible,” said Emerson (a pseudonym), another water protector involved in the action.

Buoyed by the actions of several groups opposing Line 3 in so-called Minnesota and beyond, today’s successful rally will no doubt continue to galvanize the wider movement to stop all fossil fuel projects, especially tar sands extraction, and demand climate justice. Activists came to observe and protest nearby logging to raise awareness of the devastating possibilities of business as usual.

Support Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs and land defenders

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photo credit: Michael Toledano

by Vanessa Butterworth

As I type this, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation is under attack. The hereditary chiefs and land defenders in Canada are being removed from their land by military police to build the Coastal GasLink pipeline, despite having rights and title to their land, since time immemorial.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline poses grave risks to the land, air, water, and climate, and to the Indigenous women living near the fracked gas pipeline route.

Here in the U.S., you can help by calling out the largest funders of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, JPMorgan Chase and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR). Their plans to invest in the pipeline aren’t final and there’s still time to stop them.

Sign the petition and rise up with the Wet’suwet’en people: Demand Chase and KKR stop financing the Coastal GasLink pipeline and stop the violence!

The details of the deal are simple:

JPMorgan Chase, the world’s biggest banker of fossil fuels, is helping funnel more than $5 billion in loans to the company behind Coastal GasLink. And, KKR — a New York City based investment firm with a grotesque reputation for putting profits over employees, people, and the environment — is involved too. It has plans to purchase 65% of the pipeline with Alberta Investment Management Corp (AIMCo).

We need to stop all the funders of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Many people are rising up. A movement of defiant and uncompromising support is quickly building around the globe and taking unprecedented action. Indigenous people and allies in Canada have led railway blockades, port shutdowns, sit-ins at government buildings, and huge rallies that have brought parts of Canada to an economic standstill. Meanwhile, global allies are shutting down Canadian consulates and banks that are funding the pipeline. Today across Canada, there’s a nation-wide student walkout.

Add to the chorus now and we’ll be in touch about what you can do next!

Sign the petition and rise up with the Wet’suwet’en people: Demand Chase and KKR stop financing the Coastal GasLink pipeline and stop the violence!

This is as much of a fight for Indigenous rights as it is for the future of the planet. The Wet’suwet’en First Nation never signed a treaty to cede their land. Pipeline funders must be held accountable for their role in stealing Indigenous lands and fueling the climate crisis.

There is no climate justice without Indigenous sovereignty,

 

New York: Fierce Resistance Against the Cricket Valley Energy Plant

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cross-posted from the Earth First Journal

via Resist Cricket Valley

Report back from the Resist Cricket Valley action last December

By Monica Hunken

After a night of last minute preparations and not a wink of sleep, we loaded ourselves up with backpacks full of rope, zip ties, banners and hand warmers and walked silently under the moonlight into enemy territory; Cricket Valley Energy power plant in Dover, NY.

Meanwhile, our friends were deploying at the entrance, a vintage tractor spray painted neon green and yellow that ten people locked themselves to with chains and steel lock boxes, and radiating out from that; a team of soft blockers, whirling around and stretching out to halt the next barrage of workers lining up along Route 22 at 6am. After a few unsuccessful attempts, we finally discovered the path to the ladder on the stacks, squeezing our packs into the caged cover and painstakingly pulling ourselves up rung by rung almost 300 feet up to the top.
The sun began to rise and we could spot our friends below like a radioactive swarm, drums and singing carried across Harlem Valley over the Great Swamp.

We were no longer hidden by the cover of night and workers spotted us- high alert spread across the plant, a flurry of movement with workers running, pointing and shouting, We saw the plant get shut down piece by piece, the hum of the smokestack ceased. We watched a stream of cars exit as 600 workers were sent home for the day.

But there was still shouting below us, three workers were chasing us up the stacks, yelling at us to come down. I heard them calling to each other- “There’s four men going up!”
At first I panicked and kept climbing and then Creek, a farmer from Seed Song, and I decided to stop and greet them. What did they really think they were going to do? Drag us down? I didnt know.

But they paused on the platform below us. I smiled down at them. I saw his name on his hard hat, Tony, “Hi Tony, how you doing?” and I explained the situation, that we weren’t going to damage any property and would come down when we were ready. They told us they could not run tests or carry on construction of the plant with us being up there for safety reasons. I felt my spine rattle with excitement. The workers were disappointed we weren’t coming down but explained the dangers to look out for up there and headed back, but not without confiscating our toilet bucket first.

At the top, Ben, a farmer from White Pine, 2 miles from the plant, was ecstatic, dancing, hooting and hollering. We began tying up yellow and purple flags along the edge of the platform, a crown of flare, and set to deploy a banner but, having organized this whole thing with practically no budget, the material we got was inadequate for the strong winds up on the smokestacks. We set up a sort of workshop up there in the space between the three stacks, trying out different methods for hanging the banner as safely as we could. In the end, after maybe eight hours of brainstorming and attempts, we decided against it. Workers and police were below us tracking our every move, probably dumbfounded by all our activity. We were delirious from exhaustion and were holding off on drinking much water or food so we could maintain our presence as long as possible, but happy as hell that we made it up and our friends were down below making a ruckus.

The plant, furiously trying to get back on construction deadlines, seems to be working 24 hours a day now in order to be in operation by 2020.

via Resist Cricket Valley

We watched the rally build in ferocity down below, The Stop Shopping Choir arrived in prom dresses like a thread of flowers shaking and swirling their skirts, the Tin Horn Brass Band showed up blasting trumpets with choruses of Bella Ciao. The police were overwhelmed and it took hours for them to call in State police from as far as Albany to arrive on the scene.

From our birds eye view, only being able to see shapes and color, the shift in power was clear. The police moved in militant stiff lines, controlled and sparce. The tractor blockade moved like the earth, flowing rivers, sun rays stretching out in circles and spores, undefinable, mysterious and radiant, sometimes quiet and reverent, sometimes bursting in song and chant.
We witnessed the land around the plant, the winding Great Swamp that Cricket Valley is siphoning for cooling treatments, every now and again a train would pass, directly behind the plant, nothing but a line of trees in between, nothing to protect the land or people from this monolith, this ticking time bomb.

The last of our friends were being ripped out of the lockboxes, the sun rays laid out around the little tractor, defiant and delightful. I could hear echoes of their names- Jeanne! Jeanne! Jim! Jim! Margaret! Iris! as the crowd erupted into cheers while the heroes were being taken away. And then they were all gone off to be processed and we were left alone with the setting sun, the cold getting sharper. We managed to rest for a moment, Creek even fell dead asleep on the platform. George watched in wonder as he was able to move the stack across from us with a gentle push of his foot, it swayed in the wind and we tried not to worry. Sitting on top of a dying industry that is spitting and clawing to stay alive to profit the few. So proud to be there with some of the most humble, non-patriarchical, committed and gentle men I’ve ever known.

We reassessed our situation. We had planned to stay until 6pm but by 4:30pm, people needed to pee and eat something warm. Temperatures were dropping and we had successfully shut down the plant for the duration we had planned. We began to dismantle and prep to leave.
Just then a helicopter began to fly circles around us. The smokestack started revving up again and they were banging on it down below yelling garbled rants at us, waves of reverberation shooting up the stacks. The cavalcade arrived, about 15 SUV cop cars, a cherry picker, a group of men in army fatigues and climbing gear. One man on a loud speaker began calling up to us. “You’ve made your point. The protest is over. Come down now!”
We slowly began our dissent with the officer on the loud speaker continually demanding- be careful!. and a drone camera taking video of us.

When we got to the cat walk, they took our belongings and brought us all the way down the ground. The military crew went racing up scouting around the top platform to see if we had left anything dangerous I suppose. The zip tie cuffs were cutting off my circulation in the van as I waited for the all the vehicles to clear out and take us to the precinct.

Now it begins, I thought. We’ll be here til Monday at least. I prepared myself for the long weekend alone. But when we pulled into the cutest little precinct I’d ever seen, the arresting officers were complaining about their Saturday night dinner plans and were trying to get us out as quickly as possible. It dawned on me that we were getting DATs- Desk Appearance Tickets and would be released that night. I had never fathomed this outcome. I would see my friends tonight, I would sleep in a bed, I would see the stars that we had grown so close to in our brief stay in the sky. I was the first of the four to be released. Kim leapt out of a car, bright and electric as always and embraced me, followed by a crew of beautiful organizers who had been caring for each other, tending to the action and the post-action driving people out of jail to trains and homes all day long. And still they came to pick us up with love and spirit to share.

It wasnt until I was driving back to Brooklyn the next night, after a day of cleaning up our safe house, I pulled over at a rest stop and hung my head and sobbed in relief and tiredness. We kept our people safe. No one died. We shut down the plant with a rowdy neon burst of life. Power to the people.