Activists’ Fears Confirmed by Newly Released New York State Multi-Agency Report Showing Dangers of Siting AIM Pipeline Next to Indian Point Nuclear Facilities
Croton-On-Hudson, NY Sunday, June 24, 2018 — Residents of towns near the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline gathered today at a fundraiser where Governor Cuomo was scheduled to appear, to tell the Governor to immediately shut the “Algonquin” Pipeline down. Today’s protest is a response to the New York State multi-agency Risk Assessment regarding co-locating a high pressure, high volume fracked gas pipeline alongside the failing Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant; the report was due over a year and a half ago and its executive summary was released on Friday evening. This report substantiates arguments made for years by community members, experts, and elected officials that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) did not sufficiently consider risks and other concerns before constructing the “Algonquin” Incremental Market (AIM) Pipeline expansion alongside Indian Point.
In February 2016, the Governor ordered the New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES), Department of Public Service (DPS), Department of Health (DOH), and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to undertake the Risk Assessment. Last year, construction was completed on the AIM Project, a high-pressure, 42’ inch diameter, fracked gas pipeline that runs under the Hudson River and within 110 feet of critical safety infrastructure for the aging and failing nuclear plant. The pipeline was completed after years of protest from the community and beyond, and in direct opposition to objections from elected officials at all levels. Further, this pipeline was built despite a report from the Massachusetts Attorney General showing that the additional capacity was not needed for the region to meet its energy needs.
While Governor Cuomo was a no-show at the event, activists did speak with Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, demanding the state act immediately now that it has evidence of the risks posed by the pipeline. Despite attending the fundraiser only a few miles from the plant, the Lieutenant Governor said she wasn’t well versed on the topic and couldn’t speak to the state’s next steps. “How can the Lieutenant Governor attend an event only a stone’s throw from the plant and not be aware of the risk assessment that was released only 48 hours ago saying the home she was standing in was in danger?” asked Courtney Williams, a Peekskill resident who attended the rally with her young daughter. “We’ve been pressing the state on this for years. The fact that she was unable to speak to us about this is just more evidence that New York State isn’t doing its due diligence to protect us.”
“For years we have been saying that none of the Federal agencies were evaluating all the necessary risks when they granted permits for this pipeline. The Risk Assessment executive summary released on Friday is clear evidence that an independent contractor and four State agencies agree that there are too many unanswered questions to accurately assess the risk of running a high pressure, fracked gas pipeline right by Indian Point. The Governor must stop the the flow of gas at least as long as so many questions remain unanswered,” said Amy Rosmarin, co-founder of Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE).
“This Risk Assessment could have been completed and released before the AIM Pipeline construction was finished,” said Tina Volz-Bongar, from Resist Spectra. “Now we are in a situation where gas is flowing through a pipeline for which proper safety determinations were not made. We are calling on the Governor to go to FERC and ask for an immediate stay to halt the gas flow alongside and under Indian Point,” she continued.
“Given what the Risk Assessment says, it is incumbent upon the Governor to direct the Public Service Commission to use its authority under PHMSA (Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration) to turn off the AIM Pipeline and do a proper safety and risk assessment without residents living daily with the potential danger of fracked gas under the plant,” said Nancy Vann, co-founder of Safe Energy Rights Group (SEnRG).
Today, community members and groups called on the Governor to shut the pipeline down by directing the Public Service Commission to exercise its authority over pipelines under PHMSA (Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration).
“While the probability of pipeline incidents is low, the proximity to the Indian Point nuclear plant makes the potential consequences of such an event very significant,” said the agencies in their press release. “Additional scrutiny and monitoring to better understand and reduce risks associated with the Algonquin pipelines is warranted. FERC must engage in further action to mitigate and investigate potential risks.”
The Tabasará River, one of the largest in Panama and the source of life for the indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé people, was emptied to carry out maintenance work on the Barro Blanco Hydroelectric Dam last week, leaving thousands and thousands of the more than 30 varieties of fish and crustaceans to perish in the mud.
Ricardo Miranda, general coordinator of the 10 de Abril Movement representing the affected communities, standing in the mud and rubble just upstream of the dam, picked up a half-meter-long catfish, holding it up for the camera.
“I would like to take the opportunity to denounce the Generadora del Istmo SA (GENISA), the owner of the Barro Blanco Project,” he told a local cameraman who uploaded it to YouTube. “I also denounce the FMO Bank of the Netherlands and the DEG Bank of Germany, for financing a project like this, which has caused irreversible damage to the environment.”
Initial reports of the death of fish and photos that were sent last week from the Ngäbe community of Kiad were initially singled out as false, Miranda said in a telephone interview on Thursday.The Ministry of the Environment of Panama, MiAmbiente, sent personnel to investigate the death of fish on Sunday, May 13. The agency confirmed in a press release that there had been a fish die-off and that the company had reported the need to lower the water level for maintenance work.
The inspectors of MiAmbiente see the devastation, apparently from the platform of the dam. (Ministry of the Environment)
Miranda, who grew up in the Tabasará River along with his family, now lives on the other side of the Ngäbe-Buglé district, but went to the river as soon as he heard the news. Upon arrival he found thousands of fish dying in the sun. Coyotes ate the dying fish and one person picked up some to carry. The river had been virtually emptied, leaving the riparian population exposed to a vast expanse of mud, according to Miranda, who observed only a few puddles of muddy water just above the dam.
MiAmbiente promised in its press release on Monday that “the surveillance of the site will be maintained in order to guarantee compliance with the regulations that apply to these events and that actions have been taken to guarantee the normal development of natural resources in the zone.”
Five Ngäbe-Buglé communities live along the river and have fought constantly against the dam since it was proposed for the first time. When the river flooded, it destroyed its food forest and the cocoa and coffee crops it depended on for sustenance. Thick mosquito clouds, previously unknown in the area, became common. Fishing became much more difficult, but it was still possible. Now, with the death of fish, they are left without a source of protein, said Miranda. In addition, the river, which also depend on water, is surrounded by 18 hectares of deep mud, and reaching the river to cross to the nearest town has become an almost impossible situation.
The residents of the Ngäbe community of Kiad observe the fish that die in the river in front of their homes. The access to the river has become a daily calvary for the community, which must cross it to leave their village. (Photo: Movement 10 April)
The government offered to pay the communities to relocate, but the Kiad community in particular has refused to accept – on the one hand for its principles, but on the other hand because the adjacent area and the community itself is a sacred site, which It houses several collections of prehistoric petroglyphs that have been the site of ceremonial meetings where the Ngäbe-Buglé people have traditionally connected with their ancestors.
“Obviously when you see this situation, you feel a very great impotence because all this is what we warned,” said Miranda, dismayed. “Then when we enter and see an ecological disaster at the mercy of the presence of the government and a company whose only interest is to profit, causing irreversible damage and death, both to animals and people, because here it is attempting against the feeding of the same inhabitants of the communities that live on this. ”
The Ngäbe leader, Weni Bagama, observes the damage to her community of Kiad and its surroundings by the floods caused by the Barro Blanco dam in February 2017. (Photo: Tracy L. Barnett)
The emptying of the river occurred in the final days of the public comment period for the draft report of the Environmental and Social Compliance Unit (SECU) established to monitor activities related to UNDP. The researchers concluded that UNDP violated its own protocols in the dialogue process that aimed to defuse the conflict surrounding the Barro Blanco dam. The projects (mainly a series of round tables held in 2015 and 2016 and a program to support reforms within the main government agency in charge of the Barro Blanco project) were financed at a cost of more than $ 66 million dollars.
The report was a response to the formal complaint filed on August 22, 2017 by the April 10 Movement, which represents the communities affected by the project. A final report will be issued when receiving and analyzing public comments.
Residents of the affected community of Kiad, one of the five indigenous communities of Ngäbe Buglé inundated by the dam, reviewed the report on their mobile phones from the muddy bank of their sacred Tabasará river. Since the floodgates were closed more than a year ago and destroyed the agricultural base of the community and many homes, residents have had great problems sustaining life.
“We have already read the report and, in general terms, we agree,” said one of the leaders of the April 10 Movement, Adelaida Miranda (Weni Bagama, by her name Ngäbe). “The report makes analysis completely on how the processes went, and investigated. That report is not only an office report but those people came to the area and did interviews, they saw the situation of the reservoir and then they issued that in the report. We are satisfied, of course this does not solve everything, but at least we agree where SECU admits that the United Nations did not fulfill the role it had to play. ”
The results of the draft SECU report included the following:
• The UNDP Country Office in Panama did not apply the required environmental and social assessment procedures to the projects in question.
• UNDP did not prepare a stakeholder analysis and participation plan before the roundtable, as required for UNDP commitments to Indigenous Peoples – commitments that present moderate (and probably significant) risks to communities.
• UNDP did not comply with the due diligence, transparency, consultation / consent and rights of indigenous peoples requirements after the Roundtable Dialogue concluded around June 2015. UNDP, for example, did not ensure consistency with the warnings and conclusions of the UN Special Rapporteur. including warnings that inadequate consultation and consent processes were the source of most of the problems related to the respect and protection of indigenous rights, and the necessary measures to guarantee respect for those rights.
Dr. Donaldo Sousa, president of the Association for Environmental Rights in Panama City, said that the draft report seems to validate the demand presented by his association in 2016, against all those involved in the Barro Blanco hydroelectric project, including the company, government and non-government officials such as UNDP, which was the first and only criminal complaint against a hydroelectric dam project in Panama to date.
“This report clearly demonstrates that this complaint that we introduced was well founded and this project should have been suspended as a precautionary measure because of the damage it was going to cause, and they did not do so. The problem was that he had the support of international organizations as important as UNDP, it is logical that there is an element that has been decisive in this case; but corruption and impunity that exists in this case has also been decisive. And the economic interests that have been put forward once more, destroying the environment and above all impacting in a violent way the communities that live there. ”
For Weni Bagama and her family, each day has become an odyssey, but they have no intention of giving up.
“We are still fighting,” said Bagama. “We ask the United Nations for an apology and we also ask the national authority to cancel that project, because right now we are walking around here seeing the disaster that has caused the emptying …. We have not waived the cancellation of that project. We are still fighting, because the fight is not over. ”
Ngäbe leader Weni Bagama (right) was among those arrested during protests at the Barro Blanco dam. (Photo: Oscar Sogandares)
We are writing with the smell of tear gas rising from our fingers. The springtime symphony of birdsong is punctuated by the explosive echo of concussion grenades. Our eyes are watering, less from the gas than the sadness; because our friends’ homes, barns and organic farms are being destroyed. Bulldozers, supported by 2500 riot police, armored vehicles, helicopters and drones, are rampaging through these forests, pastures and wetlands to crush the future we are building here on the to the zad (The zone à defendre).
We are calling on you to take solidarity actions everywhere, it could be holding demos at your local french embassy or consulate, or taking actions against any suitable symbol (corporate or otherwise) of France! And if you are not too far away, bring your disobedient bodies to join us on the zone. If the French government evicts the zad, it will be like evicting hope.
For fifty years, this unique chequerboard landscape was the site of a relentless struggle against yet another climate wrecking infrastructure – a new airport for the nearby city of Nantes. Farmers and villagers, activists and naturalists, squatters and trade unionists wove an unbreakable ecology of struggle together and three months ago on the 17th of January, the French government announced that the airport project would be abandoned. But this incredible victory, won through a diversity of creative tactics from petitions to direct action, legal challenges to sabotage, had a dark shadow. In the same breath that declared the abandonment, came the announcement that the people occupying these 4000 acres of liberated territory, the 300 of us living and farming in 80 different collectives, would be evicted because we dared not just to be against the airport, but its WORLD as well.
Since that victorious day, the battle has transformed itself and is now no longer about a destructive infrastructure project, but about sharing the territory we inhabit. We stoped this place from being covered in concrete and so it is up to us to take care of its future. The movement therefore maintains that we should have the right to manage the land as a commons (see its declaration The Six Points for the Zad because there will never be an Airport). Today this is the struggle of the zad (zone to defend) of Notre Dame Des Landes.
The zad was launched in 2009 after a letter (distributed during the first french climate camp here) written by locals inviting people to occupy the zone and squat the abandoned farmhouses. Now the zone has become one of Europe’s largest laboratory of commoning. With its bakeries, pirate radio station, tractor repair workshop, brewery, anarchitectural cabins, banqueting hall, medicinal herb gardens, a rap studio, dairy, vegetable plots, weekly newspaper, flour mill, library and even a surrealist lighthouse. It has become a concrete experiment in taking back control of everyday life.
In 2012 the French state’s attempt to evict the zone to build the airport was fiercely resisted, despite numerous demolitions 40,000 people turned up to rebuild and the government withdrew. The police have not set foot on the zad since, that is, until Monday morning, when at 3am the gendarmes pierced into the zone.
On day one they destroyed some of the most beautiful cabins and barns, but yesterday we stopped the cops from getting to the Vraies Rouge, which happens to be where one of our negotiators with the government lives. Destroying the house of those that agreed to sit at the table with you was a strategic mistake. The fabulous zad press team used this as the media hook and today we are winning the battle of the story. If enough people get to the zone over the next days we could win the battle on the territory as well. We need rebel everything, from cooks to medics, fighters to witnesses. We doubt this rural revolt will be finished before the weekend, when we are also calling people to come and rebuild en mass.
Already solidarity demonstrations have taken place in over 100 cities across France, whilst the town halls of several towns were occupied. Zapatistas demonstrated in Chiapas Mexico, there were actions in Brussels, Spain, Lebanon, London, Poland, Palestine and New York and the underground carpark of the french embassy in Munich was sabotaged. They will never be able to evict our solidarity.
Post your reports on twitter @zad_nddl #zad#nddl and to our solidarity action email soutienzad@riseup.net for more info in English see Zad Forever and watch this video to see what is being destroyed.
Spokane Judge Allows Necessity Defense; Washington State Appeals
Spokane – On March 8, Spokane District Court Judge Debra Hayes issued an order allowing for the necessity defense in a jury trial scheduled to start April 23, 2018, involving a climate change protestor’s alleged delay of oil and coal trains in September 2016. On March 30, the Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office appealed Judge Hayes’ ruling.
In September 2016, the Reverend George Taylor joined with fellow Veterans for Peace members to block coal and oil trains from passing through Spokane. Their action followed a similar action by the local Raging Grannies. All six protestors were charged with trespass and obstructing a train; five pled guilty for various reasons. Rev. Taylor chose to go forward to trial, and filed a motion asking the judge to allow him to present a “necessity defense,” i.e., that he committed one harm (trespass and blocking a train) to prevent greater harms (climate change and risks of oil train derailments).
After hearings on June 26 and August 21, 2017, Judge Hayes ruled that Taylor may present the necessity defense to the jury to justify his alleged civil disobedience. She noted, “Civil resistance is breaking a law to uphold a higher law when the threat is imminent and every legal means has not resulted in policy change.” (Order at p. 8).
“Climate change is real, and neither government nor industry is taking appropriate action to address it. Citizens therefore must bring their own voices and actions to bear to try to stop destruction of the planet,” said defendant Rev. George Taylor.
In this case, the necessity defense is based on two distinct environmental dangers to the Spokane area posed by transport of fossil fuels by train.
First, the incineration of rail-transported coal and oil will contribute to climate change, which poses existential threats to the planet and all species, as soaring temperatures cause extreme weather patterns, disrupt ecosystems, and alter and destroy basic resources necessary for human life, including water availability and agricultural production.
Second, rail transport of Bakken crude oil is extraordinarily dangerous as demonstrated by oil train derailments and explosions throughout North America, including at Mosier, Oregon on June 3, 2016.
Judge Hayes’ necessity order was supported by testimony of two experts: Dr. Steve Running, Professor of Global Ecology at the University of Montana and co-author of the 4th IPCC Report on Climate Change for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize, and Prof. Tom Hastings, Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, and author of several books on civil resistance, including A New Era of Nonviolence (McFarland 2014).
Judge Hayes’ necessity order made numerous findings, including:
The failure to act more forcefully to abate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will lead to harms that are severe, imminent, and irreparable, both at a global level and regionally in the Inland Northwest (Order at p.6);
Civil resistance can be effective in bringing about social change; historic victories such as de-segregation and women’s suffrage have resulted from civil resistance and the same result could be accomplished for environmental protections, resulting in institutional, corporate and public policy changes (Order at p. 7); and
When all other legal means have been taken, and those attempts have not resulted in change, the judicial branch is the last, best hope. (Order at p. 8).
“The judge nailed the problem: climate change is already causing adverse harms to the Inland Northwest ecosystems, which will in turn hurt people. And these harms will worsen. She found that it is reasonable to allow a jury to decide whether these harms outweigh George Taylor’s resistance actions for which he has been charged criminally,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, Taylor’s attorney.
2016 saw the hottest global temperatures ever recorded; 2017, the second hottest year. The 400 parts per million of CO2 barrier has been exceeded – a key indicator of climate change – and the global average temperature continues to climb toward the two-degree Celsius threshold, a level that the international community has agreed should not be breached. This rise is expected to unleash even more erratic and devastating climate events such as the extreme wildfires experienced in the West and the devastating hurricanes that hit Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. In the U.S., we have long known that climate change is occurring but have failed to take action. Thirty years ago The New York Times reported that Climate Change Has Begun, Expert Tells Senate, but efforts to head off catastrophe have been continually delayed and thwarted by the fossil fuel industry.
The unholy and hated corporate leviathan known as Dominion Energy has begun felling trees for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a project poised to cross hundreds of rivers and streams and bore underneath the Appalachian Trail. Dominion’s ACP (along with EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline) disproportionately target communities of color and working class families in Appalachia. These projects have been rammed through via Dominion’s political and economic monopoly over every aspect of Virginia’s energy economy.
Dominion has already commenced with clearing and surveying using crews from Utah and Texas, despite their ear numbing promises of jobs for Virginians. We send out cheerful greetings to comrades everywhere.
Water Is Life! Death to the Black Snake!
– Three Sisters Camp
