SPOKANE- An estimated 50 individuals braved cooling temperatures and the threat of arrest to show their support for stopping the transportation of coal and oil by rail in Spokane, WA. The rally, drawing individuals from as far away as Montana, highlighted the growing resentment toward large corporation’s desire to use rail systems to transport potential dangerous materials across the country, along with the hazardous and potentially lethal precedent set in the continued use of fossil fuels.
Thomas Schmidt, a local activist, stated: “I know that our culture, based on consumerism, economic exploitation, material accumulation and profit, is exhausting our natural and human resources. Therefore I have decided I must nonviolently take direct action, placing my body in the way to stop their behavior and sincerely to engage them or whoever else will pay attention.”
Schmidt, along with others, stood tall, facing potential arrest as they blocked the rail way. Police from both the United Pacific and Burlington Northern Rail companies arrived roughly ten minutes into the rally. In the end, no arrests were made.
This rally was just one of a growing number nationwide, especially in the Pacific Northwest, drawing attention to an issue that has seen opposition growing on two fronts: public safety and environmental exploitation.
The rally was highlighted by several speakers, including Standing Rock protester Rusty Nelson, Spokane artist and activist Jacob Johns, Dr. Gunnar Holmquist, and “Raging Granny” and recent coal and oil train blockade arrestee Margie Heller.
Early October 10, four water protectors crawled inside lengths of pipeline along the Hudson River to stop Spectra Energy from dragging its 42-inch diameter, high pressure, fracked-methane gas pipeline under the Hudson River alongside the aging and failing Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. Spectra Energy’s proposed AIM Pipeline would bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New England, despite a report from the Massachusetts Attorney General that shows no need for this gas.
In New York, if completed, the AIM Pipeline would carry gas through residential communities and within 105 feet of critical safety facilities at Indian Point, endangering 20 million people in its blast radius. The water protectors also took this action in solidarity with the Standing Rock Tribe water protectors, and their allies, standing up against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. Enbridg, which recently announced that it will purchase Spectra energy, is also a $1.5 billion investor in Dakota Access.
The protectors have been inside the pipeline for more than seven hours. Two support people were also arrested on site and charged with criminal trespass; a third support person was arrested on public property merely on suspicion of illegal activity by association.
Rebecca Berlin, born and raised in Yorktown where the AIM pipeline would connect to the rest of Spectra’s planned pipeline buildout, was one of the protectors who crawled inside the pipe. “Pipelines carrying filthy fossil fuels are putting communities at risk all over the United States – from North Dakota to New York and elsewhere,” she said. “The AIM pipeline must be stopped. Spectra is endangering the community I’ve lived in my entire life. Spectra is putting our wetlands, our children and our lives in danger in order to make profit from selling Liquid Natural Gas, a finite resource and fossil fuel, overseas. We cannot continue to consume so much of earth’s natural resources at the expense of our communities’ well-being. I want to stop Spectra because my community’s health, safety, and wildlife is more important than profit.”
Today’s action is the latest in an ongoing effort to stop Spectra Energy from constructing their Algonquin Incremental Market Expansion project. On August 3rd, both New York Senators wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), calling for an immediate halt to construction of the pipeline; FERC denied the Senators’ request. On February 29, 2016, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo called for an immediate halt to construction while the state conducts an independent risk assessment, although this review was later revealed to be potentially compromised by gas lobbyists close to Cuomo. FERC also denied the Governor’s request. Without further support from elected officials, residents and advocates took matters into their own hands today to directly stop construction.
Mackenzie Wilkins said: “Spectra’s AIM Pipeline, like the Dakota Access Pipeline, and like all oil and gas lines, is a huge health and safety risk to the communities it passes through. If completed, the line would pass within 150 feet of schools, homes, and the Indian Point nuclear power plant and would lock us into decades more of fracking, water and air contamination, and climate destabilizing methane emissions. I am taking action to support communities along Spectra’s Pipeline that are fighting for a more just, sane, and sustainable world.”
Dave Publow said: “There is no reasonable argument for installing a gargantuan gas pipeline–in effect a perpetual pipe bomb–next to a decrepit nuclear power plant. Yet this is what Texas-based Spectra Energy and international Enbridge are doing, and neither of these companies have any connection to our community. Also, we have no functioning regulatory structure that places the safety of our community first. FERC is a rubber stamp machine long removed from accountability. The state permitting process is now based on legal trickery and insider deals. And since the system has failed us, we will have to do this ourselves.”
Janet Gonzalez, a Westchester County resident said: “I’m taking action against Spectra because our country is heading into an energy crisis. We imperil our future by depending on a depleting finite resource. Fracked gas, tar sands, and deep water drilling are the bottom of the resource pyramid. We must transition to a post carbon world with renewables. Otherwise, we risk cooking the planet.”
Judy Allen, one of two arrested support people, said: “Putting a 42” pipeline of fracked gas next to a nuclear plant a mile from the junction of two earthquake faults in the Hudson River is criminally insane.”
FERC has the legal authority to issue a stop work order, yet continues to ignore elected officials’ repeated calls to protect public safety. Two weeks ago, more than 180 organizations representing communities across America called on leaders in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee to hold congressional hearings into FERC’s extensive history of bias and abuse, a proposal that has already received positive feedback from Committee Democrats.
This is the zero hour for the pipeline – Spectra Energy wants to run gas through the pipeline by November 1, which means that it has to be stopped now. Residents and advocates are calling on Senator Charles Schumer to use his influence to stop the pipeline once and for all, and will soon be following today’s action with an action at his office.
More videos from water protectors inside the pipeline:
Resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) at Standing Rock has gained unprecedented coverage. At the center of the story is a thousand-plus miles long pipeline that would transport some 500,000 barrels of oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline is backed by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. And It faces a huge line of Indigenous nations who’ve come together to say “No.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposes the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, because it crosses sacred grounds within the boundaries of the reservation and threatens water sources in the larger region of the Missouri River.
There was no prior consultation or authorization for the pipeline. In fact, the construction of the pipeline is a blatant violation of treaty rights. The territorial and water rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe are protected under the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) and the Sioux Nation Treaty at Fort Laramie (1868)—as well as subsequent treaties.
Indigenous nations across the USA mobilized to protect Standing Rock. There are thousands of people now standing their grounds, including over a hundred Nations from across the Continent. Tara Houska, from the Ojibwa Nation, says this gathering of tribal nations at Standing Rock is unprecedented since Wounded Knee in 1973.
#NoDAPL Peaceful Prayer Demonstration led by the International Indigenous Youth Council at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation on Sept 25, 2016. Photo: Indigenous Environmental Network
Though it’s making less headlines now, the ongoing pipeline resistance has faced the same brand of repression that other megaprojects face in Guatemala, Peru and elsewhere around the world: with violence and impunity. Most recently, over 20 water defenders were arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to trespassing. Earlier this month, pipeline guards unleashed attack dogs (biting at least 6 people), punched and pepper-sprayed Native American protesters.
Such attacks rarely make it to the media, and when they do the media often ends up feeling some of the legal pressures used against native nations. Democracy Now released video footage of dogs with blood on their teeth, which went viral. As a result, Amy Goodman was charged for criminal trespass. An arrest warrant was issued under the header “North Dakota versus Amy Goodman.” The defense of Native territory was combined with claims that “journalism is not a crime.”
Waves of support emerged everywhere. A coalition of more than 1,200 archeologists, museum directors, and historians from institutions like the Smithsonian and the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries denounced the deliberate destruction of Standing Rock Sioux ancestral burial sites. In Washington DC, hundreds gathered outside President Obama’s final White House Tribal Nations Conference in a rally opposing the North Dakota Pipeline.
Unprecedented mobilization led to unprecedented politics. On September 10, the US federal government temporarily stopped the project. A statement released by three federal agencies said the case “highlighted the need for a serious discussion” about nationwide reforms “with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects.”
Dave Archambault, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman, took the case to the United Nations. He denounced the destruction of oil companies and the Sioux determination to protect water and land for unborn generations. The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, responded by calling on the United States to halt the construction of the pipeline saying it poses a significant risk to drinking water and sacred sites.
“I urge the United States Government to undertake a thorough review of its compliance with international standards regarding the obligation to consult with indigenous peoples and obtain their free and informed consent,” the expert said. “The statutory framework should be amended to include provisions to that effect and it is important that the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Advisory Council on Historic Preservation participate in the review of legislation.”
Many more standing against pipelines
Standing Rock has become emblematic of a much broader battle against predatory development. The invasion of Indigenous territory without prior consultation is unfortunately all too common. The disregard of state treaties and environmental regulations is not an exception, but the norm.
Across the Americas, there are hundreds of nations resisting megaprojects on their lands like Standing Rock. Many of these struggles are taking place now in North America. People know that Native Americans protested the Keystone XL pipeline in Oklahoma. But there are many more pipelines that receive little or no media attention.
In Canada, the Energy East Pipeline would carry 1.1 million barrels of crude per day from Saskatchewan to Ontario and on to Saint John, New Brunswick. The pipeline will secure crude exports to the more profitable markets of Europe, India, China and the U.S. But it threatens the lands of more than 30 First Nations and the drinking water of more than five million Canadians.
Nancy Morrison, 85, of Onigaming and Daryl “Hutchy” Redsky Jr., 7, of Shoal Lake 40 stand together at Kenora’s second Energy East pipeline information session.
There is the Northern Gateway Pipeline, which Canada’s Federal Government conditionally approved in June 2014 without prior consultation. The Yinka Dene Alliance First Nations refused the pipeline permissions to enter its territories. There are eight First Nations, four environmental groups and one union now challenging the pipeline in court. Last June, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the project.
The Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation are continuing to resist the Pacific Trail natural gas pipeline in British Colombia. Coast Salish Peoples on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border are opposing Kinder Morgan’s proposed TransMountain pipeline project. In Minnesota, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians are fighting against a set of Enbridge pipelines.
There are many other pipeline struggles around the world, including in Peru, where the Wampis are cleaning up oil spills on their own; and Ecuador, where urban youth and ecologists have joined Indigenous communities in defending the Amazon from further oil drilling in the Yasuni.
What is at stake is Indigenous territory coupled with the greater need for healthy land and clean water for posterity. Resisting pipelines is to defend nature from the tentacles of extractive industries that continue to place corporate interests ahead of human rights and needs even as the climate crisis pulls us to the point of no return. Standing Rock is about Indigenous self-determination as much as it is about restoring relations of reciprocity between humans and nature. Without respect to Indigenous nations there will be no reversing of climate change.
The legal precedent of Bagua
Peru may offer inspiration to redefine rights of extraction–Peruvian courts just absolved 52 Indigenous men and women in the well-known case of #Bagua.
Also known as “Baguazo,” the case refers to the 2009 massacre in the Amazon. Hundreds of people from the Awajún and Wampis nations blocked a road in the area called Curva del Diablo (Bagua, Amazonas) to contest oil drilling without prior consultation on their territory. Several weeks of Indigenous resistance led to a powerful standoff with former-Peruvian President Alan Garcia responding with a militarized crackdown. The military opened fire on protesters on the ground and from helicopters in what survivors described as a “rain of bullets.” At least 32 people were killed, including 12 police officers.
Peruvian forces open fire on the Awajun and Wampis. Photo: unknown
The government tried to cover the massacre by claiming that Indigenous protesters had attacked the police, who reacted in self-defense. Yet autopsies showed that the police were killed by gunfire. The Indigenous protesters were only armed with traditional weapons—they had no firearms of any kind. Nonetheless, 52 peoples were charged with homicide and instigating rebellion in what became the largest trial in Peruvian history. Bagua’s indigenous resistance for water and land is told in the award-winning documentary “When Two Worlds Collide.”
Seven years later, the Superior Court of Justice of Amazonas (Peru) absolved the 52 accused on the basis of Indigenous autonomy over territory. The court determined that Indigenous roadblocks were a “reasonable decision- necessary and adequate- as well as proportional” to defend nature and the “physical and biological integrity of their territory which could have been affected by extractive industries without prior consultation.”
The sentence states that it is “evident that the Indigenous Nations Awajún and Wampis have decided to block circulation on the roads (…) in their legitimate right to peaceful expression based on territorial and organizational autonomy and their jurisdictional authority recognized by the Constitution.”
This marks an important precedent. Peruvian courts showed their autonomy in rejecting fabricated accusations against peaceful Indigenous protesters defending nature. This will hopefully show that the defense of nature, like journalism, is not a crime. Most importantly, the court respected the organizational and territorial autonomy of Indigenous Peoples. Indeed, Indigenous Peoples were right to close the road rather than have their rights violated.
In Bagua as in Standing Rock, Indigenous Peoples have the sovereign authority to block roads to protect territory, water, and the well-being of generations to come. It is time that all courts respect such inalienable rights with the same fervor that Indigenous Peoples defend their territories.
A group of Spokane, Washington citizens are currently protesting on the BNSF railroad tracks off Trent, east of Napa. The action is being carried out to alert the region to the rapidly expanding impacts of climate change. The undisputed leading cause of global climate change is the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil that are currently being transported daily through Spokane in large volumes and destined to be burned.
“Oil and coal trains traveling through Spokane to west coast terminals are kicking the can down the road of adding to green house gases which contribute to global warming whether consumed in Asia or here at home in the United States”, says George Taylor, protester, Veterans for Peace member, and visiting pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in Spokane. “For me, it is a moral issue to stop these trains carrying these fossil fuels.”
Trains from BNSF, Union Pacific, and Canadian Pacific that pass through the city and county of Spokane carry Bakken crude oil from North Dakota, Tar Sands crude oil from Canada, and coal from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. The crude oil is bound for refineries in the Northwest and Canada and will eventually be burned domestically and internationally. The coal is bound for export terminals in the United States and Canada for shipment to Asia to be burned in coal-fired power plants.
“The hyper-pollution won’t stop until the destructive extraction stops, and that won’t stop until ordinary individuals challenge the trafficking of the ill-gotten, obsolete fuel. I am an ordinary citizen, taking an ordinary stand against an extraordinary threat”, says protester and Veteran for Peace member Rusty Nelson.
Veterans for Peace is an international organization made up of military veterans, military family members, and allies. Their focus, through chapters including one in Spokane, has been speaking out against the true impacts and costs of war. However, Veterans for Peace recently released a statement in support of the protest at Standing Rock in North Dakota against an oil pipeline saying, “We understand that different nonviolent struggles for social and ecological justice are linked by the common thread of resistance to subjugation and oppression.”
Today’s action in Spokane for the climate and against the fossil fuel trains comes on the heels of a similar action that took place at the end of August where three Raging Grannies were arrested for refusing to leave the tracks. The three – Nancy Nelson, Margie Heller, and Deena Romoff – were charged with trespass and blocking a train. Separate pre-trial hearings have been set for each, with the first happening next week.
“It is my duty as a patriot and citizen of our city and nation to stand up against big oil and coal exports to China. The fossil fuel filled air of China travels on a jet stream right into North America. We as Spokane residents breathe this air too”, says Maevea Aeolus, who is sitting on the tracks as a nurse, counselor, and Veteran for Peace.
Direct Action Spokane stands in solidarity with ongoing actions around the country working to stop the burning of fossil fuels. Direct Action Spokane is also committed to stopping the transport of oil and coal trains through Spokane and calls on other communities, up and down the rail line, to do the same.
1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty Territory, Cannon Ball, ND—Hundreds of tribal members and allies marched onto active and ongoing construction sites of the Dakota Access Pipeline yesterday. Water protectors brought offerings of prayer, ceremony, drums, and tribal nation flags to construction sites to expose illegal company actions.
Julie Richards, founder of Mothers Against Meth Alliance (M.A.M.A.) based in Pine Ridge, South Dakota stated, “Our ancestors fought for our rights to clean water and to have a good way of life and now we’re fighting to make sure that our daughters and great granddaughters can also have those rights and a better life. All this land is sacred to us—it’s our ancestral homelands and part of the designated treaty territory.”
On September 9, 2016, the United States Army Corps of Engineers issued an order to temporarily cease all work within 20 miles of the Lake Oahe/Missouri River but Dakota Access Pipeline construction crews have used the public’s perception of halted activity to aggressively continue destructive construction within the buffer zone. Each morning hundreds of workers employed to lay and weld pipes, underbore roads, and install valve controls travel by the busloads to dozens of sites, working 6-7 days a week. This activity violates both Federal treaties with the Oceti Sakowin and the Obama Administration’s orders to halt construction.
“We need to be aware that this 20 mile buffer zone is imaginary. They’re still laying pipe—moving it towards us—towards the water we’re protecting. Progress on easements is continuing even though they don’t consider it construction,” stated Kate Thunderbolt, a water protector.
Ms. Thunderbolt went on to emphasize that the action demonstrates how the gathering of over 250 tribes, the largest in decades, represents an ability to escalate the force of peaceful resistance to stop the pipeline.
“We want a unity action to bring all the camps within Oceti Sakown together as one. With our unity we will bring the power of the people to stop this oncoming black snake. From each camp within Oceti Sakown we have the power to come together to show the world we are in unity in stopping their construction of destruction,” added Thunderbolt.
Water protectors have taken it upon themselves to defend their indigenous rights and say if construction continues daily then action to stop construction will also continue daily.
The Red Warrior Camp is preparing for Winter camp. If you’d like to make a donation please visit their website at www.oweakuinternational.org.
Tired of waiting for lands promised by the Colombian government, in 2015, the Indigenous Nasa Peoples from southern Colombia decide to take direct action to reclaim lands that have been industrialized by one of the richest people in the country.
TIERRAS TOMADAS (Reclaiming Stolen Lands) documents the Nasa’s struggle to regain what was wrongfully taken, despite paramilitary threats, riot police and mercenaries.
