New York: Fierce Resistance Against the Cricket Valley Energy Plant

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.

RSVP! Scaling Our Climate Resistance Tour: Strategies and Stories from the German Climate Justice Movement

We all know that policy doesn’t get people free. Social change happens when people lead. Not corporations, not politicians… actual people.

But, as climate justice activists and organizers, how do we mobilize the numbers needed to truly stop the fossil fuel industry, topple the systems that let it run amuck, and create truly decentralized and democratized energy systems??

RSVP HERE!!

To answer this question, we’re excited to announce that Rising Tide North America is going on a U.S. tour this February through April with radical climate justice group Ende Gelände to share stories from Germany’s wildly successful mass mobilizations.

  • WHAT: Join German activists from Ende Gelände on their US tour as they share stories from organizing successful mass climate justice mobilizations — including their 6,000 person direct action against enormous open-cast lignite coal mines
  • RSVP: Get tour updates by signing up here.
  • WHERE: Across the U.S.
  • WHEN: February to April (Specific dates are below and here)
  • ONLINE WEBINAR RSVP HERE

A strong and diverse radical climate justice movement — called Ende Gelände (“Here and No Further”) — has been growing in Germany.

Last fall, they organized 6,000 people to collectively block a coal mine. No small feat, right? Demonstrators invaded mining pits, danced in front of the diggers, slept on the railways, and provoked pictures that made the connection between climate chaos and capitalism and exposed the dirty truth behind the German energy transition “Energiewende”.

To be crystal clear, politicians and corporations will not solve the climate crisis.

To win, we need to build a mass grassroots movement that uses direct action to bring down the fossil fuel industry and demand a just transition to decentralized and democratized energy systems. We also need to abolish false solutions like carbon trading and green capitalism; confront far-right “populist” lies for what they are; build international solidarity; use local and municipal power-building strategies; and, take leadership for the first and worst hit by pollution and climate catastrophes.

If the momentum of the Green New Deal and Extinction Rebellion has shown us anything, it’s the importance of building power on the ground and supporting communities taking action to win a world that’s livable for everyone.

Donate to the tour so we can get around!

West Coast: February 21 – March 16

East Coast/Appalachia/Midwest: March 6 – April 2

RSVP link: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/scaling-up-the-resistance-tour-strategies-and-stories-from-the-german-climate-justice-movement?source=direct_link&

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

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.”

###

 

Ft. Worth Weekly: Playing Nice? Alleged Tip Sends The FBI Out To Question Denton Drilling Activists

Playing Nice?
An alleged tip sends the FBI out to question Denton drilling activists.

Wednesday, 11 April 2012 09:45 Photos and story by ANDREW MCLEMORE

North Texas environmental activists frequently feel as though local
officials ignore their protests against gas drilling, but it turns out
it’s easy enough to get the federal government’s attention — if the FBI
thinks you might be planning eco-terrorism.

That’s what happened to University of North Texas student Ben Kessler, a
Marine veteran and dedicated activist on fracking, who spent several
months last fall dodging FBI phone calls that he felt were attempts to
intimidate him and pump him for information about legitimate, peaceful
environmental groups. Kessler is an organizer with Rising Tide, an
international network of environmental groups that sometimes employ civil
disobedience as a protest tactic.

Kessler: “I thought they were going to invade my house.”
In early February, an FBI agent and Dallas police officer came to campus
to question one of Kessler’s professors as well. David Rogers, the FBI
agent who called Kessler repeatedly, told him the agency was following up
on an anonymous tip about environmental activism in the area.

“The first conversation we had, he was kind of lecturing me about
ecoterrorism,” Kessler said. “All of the following conversations were him
basically trying to convince me that I didn’t need a lawyer and should try
to come in as soon as possible.”

For Rising Tide leaders, the monitoring by federal law enforcement sends a
clear message: Back off. “We saw that as an act of intimidation,” said
Scott Parkins, a spokesman for Rising Tide North America.

Lydia Maese, the spokesperson for the FBI’s Dallas office, would not
confirm whether the agency was conducting an investigation. It’s FBI
policy to conduct at least a preliminary investigation of any tip, she
said, though she acknowledged that not every anonymous call results in an
agent spending months trying to contact a college student and his
associates.

“We do investigate any potential ecoterrorism violations that could
potentially cause harm to the public,” Maese said. “We do this hundreds of
times. We are obligated to resolve the matter.”

Continue reading the full article.