The Salish Sea Is Under Grave Risk From the Trans Mountain Pipeline

cross-posted from Common Dreams

by Mary Lovell

This weekend was my 31st birthday, and I had the joy of yelling and skinny dipping in bioluminescent waters, every motion of my body lighting up the waves around me, the salt on my lips. There is little as freeing and as humbling as jumping into cold water, the sea bringing out my inner child, shrieking and playing. I live on the West Coast of North America, on the Salish Sea.

Yesterday, my partner and I processed local salmon to keep in our freezer. We are living near a community with local fishery management, where thousands of salmon return every year. The salmon return brings eagles and osprey, and further up the coast, bears.

We returned the blood, guts, bones, eggs, skin, all that we didn’t use to the inlet the salmon came from, knowing the nitrogen feeds this entire ecosystem. Salmon are the lifeblood of this coast, their silvery scales tough as they determinedly return year after year. The animals that eat this salmon often bring their bones up unto the shores, where the nitrogen from their remains feed the forest, fertilizing the trees. Local Indigenous communities have been subsisting off of this salmon for thousands of years.

At Chief Seattle days in Suquamish, where I live—I was helping to hand out salmon to residents that have lived in this region since time immemorial, and the community thrives with the salmon. Salmon give their whole lives to this place, returning to their homes from thousands of miles away, and give the largest sacrifice one can make, returning their bodies to the river to provide for their young. This is the miracle of life and death, the splash and whirls of salmon dancing their way to demise, a smelly salty and powerful rhythm that defines the region.

Yet, I fear for the salmon’s lives, and for the very backbone of this place, of this community. As industry has logged the region and development steals the trees that once shaded these narrow streams, and water warms from the changing climate, humans are surrounding these beautiful beings with everything from dams to overfishing. The local killer whale that lives from the salmon is endangered because the salmon counts are low, and the increase in vessel traffic means that the sound that they use to hunt together is preventing them from fishing.

A major pipeline expansion—Trans Mountain—is being constructed as we speak, the roar of machines tearing up a swath across this earth, and this pipeline would bring a sevenfold increase in oil tanker traffic to the region. The oil that moves through the existing Trans Mountain pipeline and the related expansion is diluted bitumen which sinks in salt water and is impossible to recover, and the oil tankers that carry it are moving through one of the busiest channels in North America. Just last week there was a shipwreck that led to many gallons of diesel spilling in the region, demonstrating this ongoing risk of shipping accidents. The construction is ongoing in a wild salmon bearing river, in spawning grounds. 

All of what I hold dear is at risk every day from corporate driven expansion, akin to death by a thousand paper cuts. Corporate power has people believing in the almighty dollar over the very essence of our humanity.

One of the major decision makers related to this life threatening industrial expansion is the insurance industry. The industry makes multi-million-dollar deals with pipeline companies lining the pockets of the wealthy, instead of prioritizing the health and well-being of communities.

Liberty Mutual still hasn’t ruled out the Trans Mountain pipeline, and there’s no mystery as to why: money talks. Some of the company’s wealthiest board members have close ties with the oil and gas industry, with important folks in the company’s upper echelons simultaneously profiting off of positions in tar sands companies.

This week Trans Mountain’s insurance certificate expires on August 31st, and is being renewed behind closed doors- the company having filed to keep the insurance information secret. Despite this, people in Denver, Boston, Toronto, Vancouver and Seattle, are taking action at Liberty Mutual, and delivering a petition with thousands of their customers calling on them to drop Trans Mountain—a quarter of a million people signed on in total.

We are taking action because tar sands expansion poisons the water that fish rely on, resulting in deformations and poisoning, increasing cancer rates for communities at the sites of extraction, and driving the climate disasters we see every day from hurricanes to wells going dry.

Years from now, Liberty will look back on this decision with remorse if they continue to support the status quo of corporate power instead of listening to the communities who seek nothing but clean air, food to eat, clean water to drink, and a healthy climate. We deserve better. With billions invested in oil and gas, and insurance contracts for some of the largest expansions of oil and gas in the world, Liberty is currently materially supporting projects that put us all at risk.

The question is, will Liberty leadership change the course? Or will the company keep choosing profit over people. The ball is in your court, Liberty. We know this Salish Sea is worth defending, but do you?

G&R: The Myth of California’s Climate Exceptionalism

cross-posted from the Green and Red Podcast

California prides itself on being more progressive than most on solving the issue of the climate crisis. Whether it’s phasing out the internal combustion engine or promises to take on the state’s many oil extraction sites. There is a notion of “climate exceptionalism” in California’s liberal ruling elite.    But the California state government is captured by oil interests like many others. The pro-industry legislation and political action just comes in different forms.

Listen in: https://bit.ly/3KOH6YN

Flying solo, Scott talks with Gary Graham Hughes (@vozsilvestre) from Biofuelwatch (@biofuelwatch) to discuss the idea of California’s “climate exceptionalism.” They discuss the false solutions to the climate crisis being promoted by industry.  Gary gives us a background on false solutions like carbon capture and storage, “net zero” and market schemes like cap and trade. They also talk about the revolving door of public sector employees, lobbyists for industry and the Big Green non-profit industrial complex. And how corporate media lifts up the ruling classes’ ambitions for climate capitalism and false solutions.

Bio//  Gary Graham Hughes (@VozSilvestre) is the California Policy Monitor at Biofuelwatch and the co-Host/co-Producer of Terra Verde on KPFA in Berkeley, CA.  He also has Masters in Environmental Science from the University of Montana and splits his time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Humboldt County.

Carlton,MN: Water Protectors Halt Work at Three Line 3 Construction Sites

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 12, 2021

Contact: media@resistline3.org or 406-552-8764

 

The “Fight for a Habitable Future on our Planet”

Water Protectors Halt Work at Three Line 3 Construction Sites 

CARLTON, MN: On Monday, July 12th, water protectors stopped work at three Line 3 pipeline construction sites in Carlton County. At all three sites people climbed on top of excavators and chained themselves to heavy machinery. A growing resistance movement has been regularly delaying construction through non-violent direct action since December over concerns about the threats the pipeline poses to water, land, Indigenous sovereignty, and the future of the climate.

Alex, one of the individuals risking arrest today, spoke to why they felt compelled to take nonviolent direct action. They said, “We are all treaty people. We have a responsibility to honor and fight for Indigenous sovereignty, land, and water. I’m here fighting Line 3 as someone who loves the Great Lakes. They’re the largest fresh body of water on this planet and if we destroy them we’ll never get that back.”

Another water protector, Mandy, said “Right now we’re looking at a future with extreme water shortages, accelerating difficulty in growing food, mass human displacement due to natural disasters and manmade disasters caused by fossil fuel infrastructure projects like Line 3. I’m here to fight against ecocide and the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples, and I’m here to fight for a habitable future on our planet.”

The Line 3 pipeline has faced significant resistance in Minnesota since it was first proposed in 2014. The Indigenous-led movement to stop Line 3 has long asserted that construction of the pipeline would violate treaty rights and threaten the health of ecosystems in Anishinaabe territory. In particular, Line 3 construction threatens sacred manoomin (wild rice) lakes and other water bodies which are already suffering from this year’s drought.

Beyond harming the land and the water, pipeline construction also threatens communities along the route. Prior to the start of construction in December of 2020, Indigenous advocates and allies had testified before state agencies that the Line 3 pipeline project was likely to increase rates of human trafficking in the area, particularly for Indigenous women, girls, and relatives. In recent months, several Enbridge employees have been arrested in sex trafficking stings confirming many in the movements’ worst fear: that Line 3 is increasing rates of sexual violence along the route, and likely contributing to the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).

Additional photos, videos, and interviews with movement leadership available upon request.

Camp Migizi: Four arrested in Stop Line 3 action in St. Louis County, Minnesota

Cross-posted from Camp Migizi

On July 10th, off Genew Road in St. Louis County, Water protectors shut down work for a full day at a site where Enbridge was trying to lay pipe. Two water protectors locked to each other through the treads of a machine, while two others climbed up an excavator’s arm, out of reach of police.

About 30 police officers from St. Louis, Carlton, and Aitkin counties responded, as well as State Troopers and a Fond Du Lac Tribal Officer. A large crowd gathered on the roadway to support those locked down, drumming, singing, and rallying for 7 hours in the summer heat.

The comrade who climbed the excavator said, “If this pipeline doesn’t go through Enbridge could go bankrupt. And it would deal a really serious blow to the extraction and oil industry that does so much damage to indigenous lands and lands in general. They’re scared and rightfully so because we’re not backing down.”

Venmo @Taysha-Martineau to support Camp Migizi!