Standing Rock protesters faced below-freezing conditions, water cannons, sponge rounds, bean bag rounds, stinger rounds, teargas grenades, pepper spray, Mace, Tasers, and even a sound weapon. Officers carried weapons openly and threatened protesters constantly, by many accounts. Hundreds of protesters were injured, and more than two dozen were hospitalized.
As of November 2016, 76 local, county, and state agencies had deployed officers to Standing Rock. Between August 2016 and February 2017, authorities made 761 arrests. One protester was arrested and slammed to the ground during a prayer ceremony; another described being put in “actual dog kennels” with “photos of the types of dogs on the walls and piss stains on the floor” in lieu of jail. She wasn’t told she was under arrest; she wasn’t read her rights. Once detained, protesters were strip searched and denied medical care. Belongings and money were confiscated, the latter never returned.
Law enforcement officers razed the camp in February 2017. The protest may have ended, but aggression against protesters did not. Law enforcement and prosecutors’ efforts to charge protesters with as serious a crime as possible have become battles to convict them and obtain the maximum sentence possible.
During a Oct. 27, 2016, roadblock protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock, several fires were set. By whom, no one knew. Prosecutors charged Little Feather of the Chumash Nation, also known as Michael Giron, and Rattler of the Oglala Lakota, Michael Markus, with “use of fire to commit a felony” as well as civil disorder, anyway. The charging documents cite knowledge of “several fires … set by unidentified protesters.”
Police tactics on Oct. 27, by the way, included the use of pepper spray and armored vehicles. Law enforcement and prosecutors only became more aggressive after President Trump assumed office, at his direction.
Both Little Feather and Rattler opted to plead guilty, not because there was adequate evidence against them but because the mandatory minimum sentence would be 10 years if they were convicted at trial. That was a risk not worth taking: The Guardian has reported that surveys found 84 to 94 percent of the jury pool has prejudged Standing Rock protesters. Little Feather was sentenced to three years in prison. Rattler is expected to receive the same or a similar sentence.
A third protester, Red Fawn Fallis, pleaded guilty to charges of civil disorder and illegal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. She was accused of firing a gun during the protest, though she said she doesn’t remember doing so. The gun in question was owned by an informant who allegedly seduced Fallis. Despite these obvious flaws, she and her attorneys opted not to risk trial, citing both anti-protester sentiment and lacking disclosure by the prosecution. She received a 57-month sentence.
The ongoing experiences of Standing Rock protesters are all the more horrifying in contrast with the recent pardon of Dwight and Steven Hammond. Trump pardoned the pair, who’ve long “clashed” with the federal government, at the behest of a “tycoon” friend of Vice President Mike Pence. Both had been convicted of setting fires on federal land for a 2001 fire, while only Steven was convicted of a 2006 fire. When the mandatory minimum sentence for the pair—who originally benefited from pro-rancher bias—was imposed on appeal, it sparked an armed standoff led by another famous family of anti-government extremists, the Bundys.
Saturday July 14, 2018 – The Secwepemc Women’s Warrior Society is outraged at the arrest of Kanahus Manuel. This morning Kanahus Manuel was arrested by the RCMP, an occupying force that has been criminalizing Indigenous peoples on our own lands and forcing us onto reservations since contact.
Last week the Tiny House Warriors reclaimed an ancestral village to block the planned route of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline. We are currently building solarized Tiny Houses on our land to block Kinder Morgan. By doing this, we are providing housing to Secwepemc families, re-establishing our village sites, and asserting our Secwepemc responsibility to our lands and waters.
As Secwepemc women, we will resist construction on the North Thompson line of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, which is expected to begin by the fall. We are re-establishing a permanent village on our land that the pipeline is trespassing without our consent. We have never provided and will never provide our collective free, prior and informed consent – the minimal international standard – to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline Project or the Man Camps. We are taking a stand against the destructive, genocidal, and assimilative forces that have been visited upon us by colonial Canadian governments since first contact.
We have faced intimidation by the white supremacist RCMP and Park ranger goons of the Canadian state who want us removed from our own lands. We are on Secwepemc lands that neither the federal government nor provincial government has any jurisdiction on. While there is much talk by the federal government about respecting Indigenous rights and reconciliation, the Trans Mountain buy-out expansion and arrest of Secwepemc woman warrior Kanahus Manuel is a declaration of war.
We are Secwepemc women. We are still here. We are unafraid. We carry the waters of our lands within us. We are guided by the warrior spirit of our ancestors. We will defend our lands and lives by any means necessary!
– STATEMENT BY SECWEPEMC WOMEN’S WARRIOR SOCIETY
Saturday July 14, 2018
Unsurrendered Secwepemc territories
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 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
Despite a court-ordered injunction barring anyone from coming within 5 meters (approximately 16.4 feet) of two of its BC construction sites, opponents of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion sent a clear message Saturday that they would not back down.
Twenty-eight demonstrators were arrested March 17 after blocking the front gate to Kinder Morgan’s tank farm in Burnaby, BC for four hours, according to a press release put out by Protect the Inlet, the group leading the protest.
According to the release, the protesters were a mixed group of indigenous people, families, retired teachers and other community members.
“We’re going to do whatever it takes, and by any means necessary, and we’ll show up day after day until we win this fight,” Treaty-6-Mathias Colomb-Cree-Nation member Clayton Thomas-Muller said in the release.
Saturday’s action was an intentional show of civil disobedience.
“Everyone was very aware of the situation, of the possibility of arrest. And everyone was given the chance at any time during the day to leave that zone and not be arrested,” Amina Moustaqim-Barrette, protestor and 350.org communications coordinator, told the Vancouver Sun.
According to the Protect the Inlet website, Saturday’s action will kick off a two-week mobilization from March 18 to March 24. The activists need to prevent Kinder Morgan from completing key clear-cutting work by March 26, when the return of migratory birds will cause delays.
Thursday’s injunction also applies to the pipeline’s construction site at Westridge Marine Terminal, the Sun reported.
According to 350 Seattle, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project aims to triple the amount of Alberta tar sands oil carried from the Canadian Rockies to Burnaby, BC and Anacortes, WA from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. It would also increase oil tanker activity in the Salish Sea and Strait of Juan de Fuca by 700 percent, threatening vulnerable orca populations and other marine animals.
The Trudeau government approved the Trans Mountain expansion in November 2016, but the social action group the Council of Canadians says it is inconsistent with Canada’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris agreement. It is also opposed by over 61 indigenous groups; of the nine cases challenging the project in Canadian courts, seven were brought by First Nations.
Saturday’s action comes exactly one week after indigenous leaders from the U.S. and Canada inaugurated a traditional Coast Salish “Kwekwecnewtxw” or “a place to watch from” in the pipeline’s projected path. While construction started on the Watch House, 10,000 demonstrators marched in solidarity.
Trans Mountain’s lawyer Shaun Parker requested that Justice Kenneth Affleck, who issued Thursday’s injunction, also order the new Watch House removed. Affleck, however, ruled that it could stay, the Canadian Press reported Thursday.
“I’m sensitive to the concern of those who created this Watch House, that it is of considerable significance to them,” Affleck said, further ruling that the pipeline could remove it only if it demonstrated an emergency need, and that it would have to replace it afterwards.
Saturday’s protest wasn’t the only direct action against the pipeline expansion this weekend. 30 “kayaktivists” from a group called Mosquito Fleet surrounded a Kinder Morgan oil barge in Seattle’s Elliott Bay Sunday to protest the increased tanker traffic the project is slated to bring to the Salish Sea, King5 News reported.
Mosquito Fleet’s Zara Greene told King5 that the pipeline expansion would threaten communities on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. “Kinder Morgan is a threat to us all,” she said.
