Category: Featured News

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Denton Residents Defend Fracking Ban, Blockade Site of First New Frack Well

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Media Release: June 1, 2015

bprt 2Contact: Tara Linn Hunter, 806-535-2012

For Live Updates: Follow @BPRisingTide on Twitter, Blackland Prairie Rising Tide on Facebook

Denton Residents Defend Fracking Ban, Blockade Site of First New Frack Well

DENTON, TX — MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2015– Attempts to drill the first new frack well since Denton residents voted to pass a fracking ban last November have been met with acts of civil resistance. 3 local community members and volunteers with the Frack Free Denton movement blockaded the gates of fracking operator Vantage Energy’s newest well pad in defense of the city ordinance that nearly 60 percent of residents supported at the ballot box.

“How could I sleep at night or look my children in the eyes if I was not here today to mark, with my body as well as my words, this injustice?” Said Adam Briggle, a 37 year old father of two who was arrested for trespassing after blocking the frack site entrance with his body and refusing to leave.

bprt“I have more of a responsibility to do what is right than to comply with an unjust law that directly harms my neighbors and my own family,” said Tara Linn Hunter, volunteer coordinator of the Frack Free Denton movement and cofounder of the musical troupe The Frackettes, whose satirical videos have tens of thousands of views. “ We are no longer pleading with the oil soaked state politicians who have sold us out at the cost of our health and safety. We are taking direct action to enact the will of the people who voted fracking out of our community.”

With the recent passage of HB40, a law that preempts all local control of oil and gas production across Texas, Vantage Energy claims to have legal authority to frack within the city limits of Denton. “A just law would give those exposed to the harms of fracking a meaningful voice. An unjust law would subordinate those voices to the dictates of the powerful and wealthy. HB40 is an unjust law,” stated Briggle.

Also arrested was Niki Chochrek, another member of the Frackettes and a long time Frack Free Denton volunteer. “I believe our community has the right to defend itself from imminent threats,” she said. “The legislature in Austin wants us to believe that we must stand aside and allow ourselves to be poisoned by this reckless industry. I refuse to stand aside, and I believe most people in Denton feel the same way.”

Accompanying the 3 blockaders were a group of supporters who also blockaded the fracking gates until being dispersed by police. Supporters brought several banners, including one with the language of Denton’s fracking ban written large. “Sec.14.201 Prohibition of Hydraulic Fracturing. It shall be unlawful for any person to engage in hydraulic fracturing within the corporate limits of the City.”

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Climate justice groups call for mass actions in lead up to Paris climate talks

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fTSFor Immediate Release: May 20th, 2015

Contact:

Scott Parkin, +1.415.235.0596

Keith Brunner, +1.802.363.9615

Climate justice groups call for mass actions in lead up to Paris climate talks

Rising Tide North America and allies today launched a call to “Flood the System” through a series of coordinated mass actions across the US and Canada in the leadup to the United Nations COP21 climate negotiations in Paris this fall. [1]

Organizers claim that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process has been co-opted by elite interests and that any Paris outcomes will be insufficient to meaningfully address the climate crisis and ensure justice for the majority of the world’s people.

From September to the end of November, Flood the System envisions an escalating series of direct actions and demonstrations targeting the economic and political systems at the root of the crisis, inspired by recent movements led by low-wage workers, immigrants, and communities responding to police brutality.

Plans are already coming together from New England to the Pacific Northwest, where organizers hosted a “festival of resistance” this week involving a massive blockade of the terminal where the port of Seattle is hosting Royal Dutch Shell’s arctic drilling fleet.

“Communities on the front lines of fossil fuel extraction are fighting back,” said Ahmed Gaya, an organizer with Rising Tide Seattle. “From Seattle, to Alberta, to Appalachia, people are organized in opposition to extraction, and taking action to uproot the systems driving the crisis.”

Rising Tide NYC organizer Sandy Nurse said, “Last September four hundred thousand of us were in the streets of New York for the People’s Climate March. The next day, thousands joined the Flood Wall Street march and sit-in, shutting down the heart of global capitalism. Now it’s time to join with and support other movements in rapidly escalating the pace and scale of our resistance to the level of the crises we’re facing.” [2]

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1] https://floodthesystem.net

2] http://www.democracynow.org/2014/9/23/flood_wall_street_100_arrested_at

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Rising Tide North America is a grassroots climate justice network with over 50 chapters, local contacts and ally groups in Canada, Mexico and the United States confronting the root causes of climate change.

Tree-Sit Launched in Burrillville, RI to Prevent Spectra’s Fracked-Gas Pipeline Construction

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fangTree-Sit Launched in Burrillville, RI to Prevent Spectra’s Fracked-Gas Pipeline Construction

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 19, 2015

Contact: Sherrie Anne Andre, 401-474-7666

Nick Katkevich, 401-572-8148, nick@fangtogether.org

Social Service Advocate Launches Tree-Sit to Prevent Pipeline Construction

BURRILLVILLE, RI – A local woman launched a tree sit at the edge of a gas compressor station in Burrillville this morning to prevent its proposed expansion. The station, owned and operated by Spectra Energy, pressurizes and moves gas along the “Algonquin” Pipeline. Spectra is planning to nearly double the capacity of the compressor station as part of the highly protested “AIM” pipeline expansion project.

Sherrie Anne Andre, a member of FANG (Fighting Against Naturals Gas), and a Rhode Island native is holding the tree-sit “indefinitely”. The sit is aimed at preventing the tree clearing necessary for constructing the addition to the compressor station.

Andre is occupying a platform that is suspended 60 feet high on a tree located just yards away from the existing gas compressor station. A banner hanging from the platform reads “Spectra’s Toxins are Trespassing on Our Bodies, #StopSpectra”, highlighting the health impacts that residents face during the extraction, transportation and burning of fracked-gas.

Citing her eight years of professional work as an advocate for survivors of sexual and domestic assault Andre relayed that, “Spectra’s proposed project would hurt families  along the pipeline route and in the areas where the gas is extracted. If I truly believe I am an advocate, then I am exactly where I need to be – participating in a nonviolent direct action to stop this harm.”

In her work with FANG, Andre researches the social impacts connected with the development of fossil fuel infrastructure. “From places of extraction like the Bakken oil fields that saw a 300% increase in sexual assault after industry moved in, to Pennsylvania’s shalefields where hard drug use rates have risen – the fossil fuel industry devastates communities.”

In March the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, charged with reviewing interstate gas pipeline projects, gave initial approval to the AIM pipeline project. Spectra has still has not received final approval from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council.

Last month, protestors delivered a “final notice” to Spectra, giving the company forty days to either cancel the AIM project or face increased community resistance. A national “week of action” targeting Spectra Energy is scheduled to start on June 6th, marking the end of the forty day window.

Sherrie called for people to participate saying “if you also believe that what Spectra is doing is wrong, I ask you to join me in taking action to stop them.”

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Oakland residents deliver “coal” to developer to protest coal export plan

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tagami 2FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2015

Contact:
Jess Dervin-Ackerman, jdervina@gmail.com, (510) 693-7677

Ethan Buckner, ethanbuckner@gmail.com, (612)718-3847

Oakland residents deliver “coal” to developer to protest coal export plan

Demonstration calls on local developer to reverse plan for coal exports at
former Oakland Army Base

***High-res photos from this morning’s demonstration***:
http://bit.ly/1IBa8r4

***High-res video footage from the protest***: http://bit.ly/1FaXI5m

Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA—Oakland residents, elected officials, and
members of local labor, climate justice, and environmental organizations
rallied this morning to oppose developer Phil Tagami’s plan to ship coal
through the city of Oakland. Activists wearing hazmat suits dumped a large
pile of charcoal in front of the Rotunda building at Frank Ogawa Plaza,
where Tagami’s offices are located, to pressure Tagami to withdraw the
proposal. Tagami recently announced plans to transport coal from Utah
through Oakland by rail to a new bulk export facility at Oakland’s former
army base. Tagami’s plan has drawn extensive criticism from local community
and environmental groups, as well as from the City Council and Mayor Libby
Schaaf.

“From extraction to transport to burning, coal allows toxic chemicals to
enter into communities and the environment, causing climate disruption and
deadly diseases. Coal is bad for the climate, community and worker health,
and the environment, and both Oakland and California have standing policies
opposing the export of dirty energy. We call on Mayor Libby Schaaf and the
Oakland City Council to uphold the commitments they have made to keep
Oakland free of dangerous fossil fuels,” said Jess Dervin-Ackerman,
Conservation Manager for the Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter

“As a parent of two young children, I’m not going to sit back and allow our
city to become a shipping hub for something that poisons our air and
contributes to even more climate chaos for my kids to deal with. I believe
that Oakland needs to, and will, join communities in Oregon and Washington
in refusing to sell out our kids’ health so some big companies in Utah can
make a profit,” said Carolyn Norr of Families Against Fossil Fuels.

tagami 3“As a nation, we view ourselves as a world leader of democracy and human
rights, so we should be exporting clean 21st Century renewable energy
technologies to the developing countries, not dumping toxic 19th Century
fuel on them. There is more at stake than just squeezing the last few bucks
of profit out of fossil fuels. Our entire way of living is at stake if we
continue to gamble with the impacts of CO2 on global warming and climate
change. Our communities deserve better than the trade of a few jobs in
exchange for millions of tons of toxic chemicals rolling past our windows.
This is about profit, pure and simple, and very little of that money will
wind up in West Oakland pockets,” said Brian Beveridge, Co-Director of West
Oakland Environmental Indicators Project.

“We are standing at the crossroads of history. Oakland can choose the path
of exporting coal, the path of condemning our children to an unlivable
planet, or Oakland can lead California in building a resilient and just
local economy based on community-owned and controlled clean energy that
creates thousands of family-sustaining, union jobs. We shouldn’t have to
choose between good jobs or our survival, the health of our children and of
the Earth. With East Bay Community Energy, Alameda County’s Community
Choice energy program that we hope will launch in 2017, we can have both,”
said Colin Miller Co-Director of Bay Localize and Coordinator of the Clean
Energy & Jobs Oakland Campaign.

Tagami, who is president of California Capital and Investment Group (CCIG),
previously promised not to allow the export facility at the former army
base be used for exporting fossil fuels. Today’s action will be the first
event in a campaign to push Tagami to keep his promise and reverse plans
for coal exports in Oakland. Coal exports threaten public health, worker
safety, and the global climate.

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