Category: Featured News

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Portland Rising Tide: Climate Activists Disrupt Presentation By Millenium Bulk Terminals to Maritime Commerce Club

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 12, 2013

Portland Rising Tide Media Contact:

David Osborn 503.516.8932

david@portlandrisingtide.org

Climate Activists Disrupt Presentation By Millenium Bulk Terminals to Maritime Commerce Club

Portland, OR – Tuesday: 40 activists with Portland Rising Tide entered the Doubletree Hotel in the Lloyd District and disrupted a Millenium Bulk Terminals presentation on their proposed 50-million ton coal export facility in Longview, WA. Millenium Bulk Terminals, owned by Ambre Energy and Arch Coal, was presenting to the Maritime Commerce Club.

After several dozen members of Portland Rising Tide entered the lobby of the Doubletree Hotel and were asked to leave, the presentation was disrupted an additional two times by activists. The vice president of Millennium Bulk Terminals was served with “coal d’oeuvres” made up of coal dust from coal trains that transport coal down the Columbia River Gorge.

Studies by Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) suggest that 500 pounds of coal can be lost in the form of dust from each rail car. Two activists later stood up and interrupted the presentation with facts about climate change and its impacts on communities.

Portland Rising Tide organized the action to oppose the construction of the coal export terminal in Longview. The action came on the heels of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Philippines leaving an estimated 2,500 people dead. The typhoon was one of the strongest storms ever recorded.

Climate change models predict storms of greater intensity and strength. In response to the crisis, the Philippine climate negotiator Yeb Sano has gone on a hunger strike to protest the lack of progress at the UN COP 19 climate negotiations currently taking place in Warsaw, Poland.

According to Portland Rising Tide Member Yoko Silk, “Millennium’s coal export terminal would fuel the climate crisis and hurt our communities. With examples of the impacts of climate change coming more and more frequently we cannot continue to move forward with this dangerous project. We are committed to opposing this project and will join with the hundreds of people that have pledged to take nonviolent direct action to halt construction should the project move forward.”

Rising Tide is an international group that works to address the root causes of climate change. Today’s action follows the July 27th Rising Tide event at the Port of Vancouver in which over 1,000 people rallied against all of the proposed fossil fuel terminals in the Pacific Northwest. Participants took to the I-5 bridge and kayaks while three climbers rapelled from the bridge to unfurl a banner that read “Coal, Oil, Gas  / None Shall Pass”. Last Monday, activists with Vancouver and Portland Rising Tide blocked entrances to the Port of Vancouver, WA with a community picket line in response to the Port’s re-leasing of public land to Tesoro/Savage for the proposed construction of a 380,000 barrel per day oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver. The port was shut down for half of the day.

 

High resolution photos of today’s actions:

http://portlandrisingtide.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/RTmillennium1.jpg

http://portlandrisingtide.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/RTmillennium2.jpg

All photos are available to use with attribution to Portland Rising Tide.

 

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Portland Rising Tide: Climate Activists Hold Community Picket Against Proposed Oil Terminal

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vancouverFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 4, 2013

Portland Rising Tide Media Contact:
Trip Jennings 541.729.3294
tripjennings1@gmail.com

Climate Activists Hold Community Picket Against Proposed Oil Terminal

Vancouver, WA – Monday: 50 activists with Vancouver and Portland Rising Tide blocked entrances to the Port of Vancouver, WA with a community picket line. Trucks backed up down the block as work was delayed for the morning.

Vancouver and Portland Rising Tide organized the community picket in response to the Port’s re-leasing of public land to Tesoro/Savage for the proposed construction of a 380,000 barrel per day oil terminal at the Port of Vancouver. The terminal would bring oil by rail from North Dakota and likely the tar sands, through the city of Vancouver, WA and load it on to tankers for shipping to refineries and export. The Port of Vancouver has been the site of an ongoing picket line due to unsafe working conditions in their Mitsui-United Grain terminal by another group, the ILWU Local 4.

According to Vancouver Rising Tide Member Kathy Lane, “These trains are a huge risk to our community and if the Port of Vancouver can’t even keep conditions safe for grain terminal workers, how can we expect an oil port run by a company with as terrible a record as Tesoro not to end in disaster? We can’t.”

Rising Tide is an international group with chapters in Portland and Vancouver that works to address the root causes of climate change. Today’s action follows the July 27th Rising Tide event at the Port of Vancouver in which over 1,000 people rallied against all of the proposed fossil fuel terminals in the Pacific Northwest. Participants took to the I-5 bridge and kayaks while three climbers rapelled from the bridge to unfurl a banner that read “Coal, Oil, Gas  / None Shall Pass”.

“Even in the best case, even if there isn’t a spill or explosion for years, this terminal will lock us into our reliance on fossil fuels and climate chaos. Building this kind of infrastructure is fundamentally the wrong way to go, especially with public port land” said Portland Rising Tide member Mia Rebak.

High resolution photos of today’s actions:
http://www.demotix.com/news/3138207/protesters-against-proposed-oil-terminal-shut-down-port-vancouver

http://www.demotix.com/news/3138321/protesters-picket-port-vancouver-over-unsafe-working-conditions

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Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands: Open Letter to the Anti-Tar Sands Movement

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micats-1Open Letter to the Anti-Tar Sands Movement

Dear Movement,

We think it’s time for us to have a conversation: a conversation that can help us address the work we need to do in order to build the true grassroots power than can dismantle the oppressive system that tar sands companies and people in power have worked so hard to profit from. For the past four years we’ve heard “leaders” like Bill McKibben call on us to take action to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, and we’ve responded, dutifully travelling to DC to march and protest as a group. We’ve also watched as decision makers have continuously stalled and appeased this movement by refusing to approve the full pipeline, while still consenting to the production, transportation, and refinement of this toxic substance in more and more places across the continent. It is time for us to do more than submit public comments to a system incentivized to ignore us, or chain ourselves to symbols that will look good for the media. The Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands is writing this open letter to call for a dialogue and action around developing an anti-tar sands movement that focuses on the root causes of this issue and unites communities and groups in a common goal to stop tar sands in its entirety.

It has been incredibly powerful and inspiring to hear so many different voices from those fighting the tar sands system this weekend at Power Shift, but we need to be able to hear each other more – more loudly and more often. We cannot ask our brave leaders whose homes and families are being threatened by poison and destruction to appear in our program, speak to us at this conference, and form a public face for our work if we are not going to embrace their fights wholeheartedly into our movement. We cannot truly believe that we are going to make a difference if we do not acknowledge the true scope of this problem, the need to engage in work that is driven and led by the community and our potential to be our most powerful by working together in a just and compassionate manner.

The constant focus of the tar sands narrative around the President as the ultimate decision maker is both disempowering to communities bearing the burden of existing infrastructure, and disrespectful to those who have been disenfranchised and marginalized by the industrial-capitalist paradigm perpetuated by all leaders within the current system.  This sort of rhetoric feeds a privileged narrative at the exclusion of frontline communities that are seen as merely an excess of “human capital” by the system of which the President is the figurehead.

We are from the occupied territory called “Michigan,” where tar sands oil is still poisoning ecosystems, water, and humans three years after the largest inland oil spill in our history. In addition to this ongoing destruction, our elected officials are allowing Enbridge to expand this same pipeline to more than double its capacity, all while opposition to the kxl has gotten stronger. While kxl is a large part of the problem, it is time for the mainstream movement’s figureheads to stop exclusively referring to this pipeline and discouraging us from working on other tar sands issues. With urgency and strength, we implore all tar sands activists and organizations to reframe this movement to something that is more than a convenient political symbol and into something that can stop the amoral and unlawful devastation of life and our responsibility to it.

In solidarity and frustration,

The Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands

Over a thousand Rising Tiders, Powershifters, and Supporters leave permitted Powershift March Route to Support Direct Action in Pittsburgh

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Monday, Oct. 21 – At around 12:30pm, 10 protesters began a sit-in at the Allegheny County Courthouse, blocking the main hallway in County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s office suite. The protesters called on Fitzgerald to drop plans to open up Allegheny County Parks for fracking.  The County Executive’s office is currently reviewing proposals from natural gas drilling companies to lease the oil and gas rights under Deer Lakes Park for fracking.

The sit-in is part of a day of action against dirty energy to culminate the Power Shift conference.  Over a thousand supporters from Power Shift participated in an un-permitted march to the County Courthouse to support the sit-in, following a rally on the North Shore’s Allegheny Landing earlier this morning.  The marchers arrived shortly after the sit-in began and filled the courthouse courtyard, with dozens joining the occupation of the County Executive’s office.  No one was arrested.

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“Fitzgerald is trying to cut a deal with the natural gas industry without seeking formal input from the residents of Allegheny County on this issue. There is no public participation process, so we have to create it and that’s what we’re doing today with this sit-in. We are bringing our message straight to Fitzgerald that the residents of Allegheny County do not want fracking in our parks.” said Ben Fiorillo of O’hara Township.

Keith Brunner of Rising Tide Vermont was part of the support rally, “We stand in solidarity with the Protect Our Parks campaign, knowing that this fight is part of a much larger movement against all forms of fossil fuel extraction which are devastating local communities and the climate.”

Opponents to the plan to frack the parks highlight the health and safety risks associated with shale gas development.

“This plan will bring many more wells to the Deer Lakes area, and with it heavy truck traffic, noise, stadium lighting, and air pollution, all of which will impact park-goers and nearby residents, whether the well pads are in the parks or not,” according to Jessica McPherson of Pittsburgh who also joined the sit-in.

The three lakes, which give Deer Lakes its name, are all fed by springs, which could also be impacted by fracking under the parks.

McPherson continued, “What I’m most worried about is that fracking under the park will contaminate the groundwater which feed these three lakes these lakes are a destination for hundreds of local residents. An accident like that could ruin this treasured fishing hole and expose park-goers to dangerous fracking chemicals.”

The day of action also included civil disobedience led by the Earth Quaker Action Team at PNC bank branches throughout the city, who are calling on the bank to stop financing mountaintop removal coal mining.