by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 15, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation
by Red Warrior Camp
Mandan, ND… Water protectors stopped construction at two Dakota Access Pipeline sites on September 13, northwest of Mandan through nonviolent direct action.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. CST, two water protectors “locked down” to heavy equipment at the first action site. One of the individuals was locked onto the machine for nearly 7 hours.
Trained medics, media, legal observers and police liaisons were on hand to offer support and were also arrested.
Separately, water protectors successfully and peacefully stopped construction at the second site. A worker pepper sprayed one of the water protectors before leaving the scene.
Law enforcement began to arrive within the hour, followed by a large bus load of police dressed in full riot gear. An initial police line was formed with officers toting pellet guns. Filing in behind them was a second line of officers pointing large semi-automatic rifles at the water protectors.
The water protectors were immediately told that they were trespassing and subject to arrest. Morton County Sheriff’s office confirmed that there were 22 water protectors in custody by 4:00 p.m. The majority of those arrested are charged with Criminal Trespass, a Class B Misdemeanor.
The two individuals who locked down to the equipment are charged with Criminal Trespass, Disorderly Conduct, and Obstruction of a Government Function.
The Morton County Jail booking process of the water protectors continued on into the evening hours. Jail officials informed the Camp’s legal team that the ND States Attorney, Al Koppy, had ordered that only a North Dakota licensed attorney could visit the jailed water protectors, which is a violation of their constitutional right to counsel of their choosing for initial consultation.
The volunteer legal team assisting the water protectors called upon Chad Nodland, a local attorney who was also met with resistance by Morton County Jail staff. Although some of the inmates had been processed, the jailers informed Nodland that he would have to wait until all 22 arrested were processed before he could speak to them individually.
Morton County Sheriff’s Office refused to comment at press time. The water protectors’ bond hearing is scheduled for 1 p.m. CST on Wednesday, September 14th at Morton County Court House in Mandan, ND.
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by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 3, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation
By Direct Action Spokane
Shortly before noon on August 21, a group of Spokane citizens occupied BNSF railroad tracks to protest the transport and eventual burning of fossil fuels in defense of climate change. The peaceful, non-violent direct action consisted of 30 protesters and eventually three arrests. The three people arrested were Nancy Nelson, Margie Heller, and Deena Romoff, all of whom are associated with the group Raging Grannies – an activist group dedicated to nonviolence in the name of social and environmental justice. The charges against each are obstructing a train and misdemeanor trespass.
Today’s action in Spokane blocked a number of rail lines including an empty oil car train headed east and a fully loaded coal train headed west. The track occupation stopped all rail traffic for over one and a half hours.
“There is incredible denial surrounding this issue of fossil fuels and no one is talking about the perils that await us if government and societies do not take action now,” said Deena Romoff, one of the arrestees, in a written statement that she read during today’s protest. “This is why I need to take action now…I can no longer wait!”
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.
“Transporting fossil fuels is done for one purpose only: they will be burned”, said Margie Heller in a prepared statement. “If burned, they will add to the greenhouse gases which are already causing serious climate change. Continuing to add to climate change factors puts the health and perhaps the very existence of future generations at risk”
Direct Action Spokane stands in solidarity with on-going actions around the country working to stop the extraction, transportation, processing, and 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.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Sep 1, 2016 | Lobbying
Featured image: Leaders from Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation recently boarded a BC fish farm to serve an eviction notice. Photo by Alexandra Morton.
By Andrew Nikiforuk / The Tyee
The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw, whose traditional lands includes much of the Broughton Archipelago, have boarded two Japanese-owned fish farms and delivered eviction orders to remove their operations from unceded territories over the last six days.
On Aug. 15, three Dzawada’enuxw traditional leaders served an eviction notice to a Cermaq/Mitsubishi salmon farm on the Burdwood Islands, and on Aug. 18 boats from the communities of Gwayasdums (Gilford Island), U’kwa’nalis (Kingcome Inlet) and Alert Bay arrived at the Sir Edmund Bay fish farms run by Cermaq/Mitsubishi to conduct a cleansing ceremony.
Melissa Willie, an elected councillor for the nation, said about 40 people participated in the cleansing ceremony and that more demonstrations are planned later this week.
Willie said a cleansing ceremony was necessary because fish farms have been clouded by a lot of “negativity” and environmental impacts, and her people wanted to do something positive.
“We will do a cleansing of our waters once we get these fish farms out,” Willie told The Tyee.
The Martin Sheen, a research vessel loaned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to biologist and anti-fish farm activist Alexandra Morton, witnessed and filmed the delivery of the eviction notice as well as the cleansing ceremony.
Morton, a long-term foe of the controversial industry, is on a two-month mission to investigate the state of corporate fish farms, do research on virus prevalence, and provide a platform for First Nations.
Some nations support fish farms on their territory, while others such as Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw have been fighting them and their impacts on wild fish for 30 years.
The eviction notice follows a number of developments, including the federal government’s decision to extend fish farm licences from one to six years despite recent evidence found by federal scientists of a “potential” heart disease in farmed Atlantic salmon samples collected from one B.C. fish farm.
Members of the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw were also shocked earlier this month when Melissa Willie visited a Cermaq farm and opened the lid of a blue-coloured tote containing dead fish netted from the facility.
Both Willie and Morton identified what they said looked like several wild salmon and other native fish (possibly herring and eulachon) in the pile. Fish farms do not have a licence to feed or harvest wild fish.
But in an Aug. 18 press release, Cermaq denied the dead fish were wild and said they were young farmed salmon.
“The small salmon carcasses found in the mort totes are Atlantic salmon grown from our own broodstock, not Pacific wild salmon as alleged. In fact, the tote in question was at our broodstock site, where we grow salmon that are several years apart in age. The age difference results in both small and large fish that, if they die, go into the same tote,” explained their press release.
Willie disagreed with Cermaq’s view of things.
“Wherever you have fish farms, there will be wild fish entering those pens. It is common sense. We all know that the herring stay by some of the farms and feed there.”
In the same press release, Cermaq accused the Sea Shepherd Society of trespassing on private property, making unsubstantiated claims, and having “taken samples of dead fish without permission and without following any proper scientific procedures.”
In contrast, Willie said her people would like to thank Sea Shepherd for joining them in their fight.
Notice gives three months to pack up
The eviction notice gives the corporate farms three months to pack up their operations.
It also demands that no more farmed fish be transferred into the First Nation’s traditional territory and that the nation be allowed to take fish samples from the farms anytime it wants to determine what types of disease or parasites might be present.
“The people who are benefiting from these farms are benefiting over the suffering of our people,” said Dzawada’enuxw hereditary leader Farron Soukochoff in a press release.
The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations have opposed corporate salmon farming on the grounds that open-net feedlots invite diseases and waste that have had a deleterious impact on wild fish, including herring and five varieties of Pacific salmon.
“We, the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw view the destruction of wild fish by the fish farming industry as part of the long history of genocide forced on our people by the governments of Canada,” reads an Aug. 18 press release. “Salmon are essential to our well-being and the well-being of our world.”
According to a recent report, the number of young wild salmon leaving Dzawada’enuxw territory in the spring of 2015 could have been reduced by nine to 39 per cent due to sea lice from salmon farms.
Along with the eviction notice, the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw have set up a website called “cleansing our waters.”
Approximately one-third of the corporate feedlots growing Atlantic salmon along B.C.’s coast are located on Dzawada’enuxw territory.
A 2008 scientific study found that wild salmon populations declined wherever corporations have set up industrial fish farms in the ocean including Norway, Scotland, Ireland and Canada.
“We have heard the words of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that honouring the rights of First Nations are a ‘sacred obligation’ to the Liberal Government of Canada,” said Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw hereditary leader and chief councillor Willie Moon at a cleansing ceremony at the Sir Edmund salmon farm at the entrance to Kingcome Inlet.
“Our people have spoken: we want salmon farms out of our territory.”
In a prepared statement, Jeremy Dunn, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, said that the industry has 20 agreements with First Nations that cover “78 per cent of the annual harvest of farmed salmon.”
“Our members are always open to meeting and discussing issues with First Nations and would like to develop agreements in areas where they do not exist today,” added the statement.
Dunn told The Tyee that many First Nations have tried to evict corporate farms in the past but later signed financial agreements with the industry.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 30, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation
By ResistAIM
Brooklyn, NY – Concerned New Yorkers blocked the doors of National Grid’s downtown Brooklyn office at noon on Monday, August 29 to protest their support of Spectra Energy’s AIM Pipeline, a -brooklyn-demanding-national-grid-stop-support-spectra-energys-dangerous-aim-pipelinehigh-pressure methane gas pipeline that will bring fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New England. Members of 350Brooklyn.org, 350NYC.org, and ResistAIM came together to demand that National Grid end their contract agreement with Spectra Energy. The pipeline’s route runs 105 feet from infrastructure critical to the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in New York’s Westchester County. “National Grid is risking the safety of the 17 million people who live within 50 miles of the aging Indian Point reactor so it can sell gas in other parts of the country and the world,” says Mimi Bluestone of 350Brooklyn, one of eight people arrested as part of the day’s action. “Our governor and our US senators have called on the federal government to withdraw its authorization for this pipeline. But without National Grid’s end-of-pipeline agreement to buy this gas, the project could not be economically viable.”
Both elected officials and local residents have repeatedly raised concerns about the pipeline’s safety. This past February, Governor Andrew Cuomo asked the pipeline’s builder, Spectra Energy Corp of Texas, to suspend the project pending an independent safety analysis. “The safety of New Yorkers is the first responsibility of state government,” Cuomo said in making the request. In May, New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has jurisdiction over the pipeline, to halt construction pending such a study. Spectra Energy and FERC have denied the governor’s and the senators’ requests.
The AIM (Algonquin Incremental Market) pipeline is designed solely to deliver natural gas to New England; New York is simply a “pass through” state. The pipeline will enter New York in Rockland County, pass under the Hudson River, and then cross Westchester County en route to Connecticut. Built in the 1970s, Indian Point Nuclear Power complex remains active and contains decades of spent radioactive nuclear fuel, while over 17 million people live within 50 miles of Indian Point. National Grid, a British multinational, expanded into the United States beginning in 2000 by buying a number of local utilities in New England and New York, including the successor to Brooklyn Union Gas. It is a major potential customer for the natural gas that the AIM pipeline would transport to New England and so has the power to determine the financial viability of this project. Last week, National Grid withdrew its petition for a 20-year contract on Spectra’s Access Northeast project; however, National Grid is still expected to purchase gas flowing through the AIM Pipeline and so activists in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York are continuing to call on National Grid to cancel the contract.
The AIM pipeline is scheduled to be completed in November 2016, which calls for immediate action. On Monday evening, following the arrests at National Grid, concerned New Yorkers are gathering at the Brooklyn home of Senator Charles Schumer to encourage him to stand with New Yorkers by making a public appearance to denounce the pipeline and calling for a Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – more details can be found HERE.
350.org is a national organization working to keep carbon in the ground and to build a new, more equitable low-carbon economy. Its affiliates like 350NYC and 350Brooklyn work on local issues related to climate change. ResistAIM is a coalition of environmental advocates, Westchester residents and concerned New Yorkers that have been taking nonviolent direct action to stop the AIM Pipeline since November 2015.
A map of the AIM pipeline’s route: http://www.spectraenergy.com/Operations/US-Natural-Gas-Operations/New-Projects-US/Algonquin-Incremental-Market-AIM-Project/
A map of the pipeline’s proximity to the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant: https://sape2016.org/2015/07/16/nuclear-regulatory-commission-withheld-and-misrepresented-critical-information-used-to-evaluate-and-approve-the-siting-of-the-spectra-aim-pipeline-alongside-indian-point/
For Cuomo’s position: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-29/cuomo-seeks-halt-of-spectra-algonquin-gas-line-for-safety-review
For Senator Gillibrand and Schumer’s position: https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/schumer-gillibrand-urge-ferc-to-suspend-construction-on-aim-pipeline-expansion-until-independent-health-and-safety-studies-are-conducted
For 350NYC: https://350nyc.org/
For 350Brooklyn: http://350brooklyn.org/
For ResistAIM: www.resistaim.com
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 27, 2016 | Obstruction & Occupation
By Deep Green Resistance Seattle
A coal train entering Bellingham, Washington has been blockaded by a fossil fuel resistance group, including members of Deep Green Resistance. This blockade, part of an ongoing regional campaign against fossil fuels, has been standing strong for six hours – with no end in sight.
Beginning at four PM this afternoon, protestors erected a portable tripod structure in the middle of a rail bridge crossing Mud Bay south of Bellingham. One protester has climbed to the top and will stay until removed by police.
The organizers of the blockade say that fossil fuels must be stopped to save the planet from global warming.
When asked about her motivation for joining the resistance movement, one Deep Green Resistance member responded, “We won’t be complicit in a global catastrophe. The government and the capitalists are working together to kill the planet. We’re going to work together to stop them.”
With two refineries sitting north of town and a tar sands pipeline running underneath, Bellingham has been in the sights of the fossil fuel industry for decades. The struggle to keep fossil fuel transportation out of the small city has been ongoing. The Lummi Nation and other local resisters recently defeated plans for a major coal export terminal. However, coal merchants continue to push for the project.
The protest also delayed passenger trains, but organizers aren’t overly concerned. When asked about possible inconveniences to travelers, a protestor responded, “What’s inconvenient is losing your island to rising sea levels, or having your home flooded in Baton Rouge, or digging mass graves in Pakistan in anticipation of heat waves.” She also noted that Amtrak was notified to minimize delays in passenger transportation.
From Deep Green Resistance Seattle: http://deepgreenresistanceseattle.org/resistance/direct-action/activists-stage-coal-train-blockade-bellingham-train-stopped-5-hours-counting/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 22, 2016 | Lobbying
Featured image: Dakota Access Pipeline Protest In North Dakota. Photo Credit: “No Dakota Access in Treaty Territory – Camp of the Sacred Stones”
By International lndian Treaty Council
Ft. Yates, North Dakota, United States: On Thursday, August 18, 2016 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) jointly submitted an urgent action communication to four United Nations (UN) human rights Special Rapporteurs. It cited grave human rights and Treaty violations resulting from the construction of the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline in close proximity to the Standing Rock Reservation by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST) stands in firm opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline would carry nearly half a billion barrels of crude oil a day, and would cross the Missouri River threatening the Tribe’s main water source and sacred places along its path including burials sites. The urgent communication was submitted to UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights defenders; the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation; and Environment and Human Rights, as well as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. It requests that they urge the United States to halt the human rights violations and uphold its human rights and Treaty obligations to the Standing Rock Tribe. It was also forwarded to key officials in the U.S. State Department, Department of Interior and the White House.
The urgent communication focuses on violations of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty and other International human rights standards to which the United States is obligated. It also cites actions against human rights defenders, including arrests and other forms of intimidation, violations of the human right to water, and lack of redress and response using domestic remedies. The submission noted that this action violates Article 32 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms the obligation of States to obtain Indigenous Peoples’ free prior and informed consent before development projects affecting their lands, territories or other resources are carried out. The Lakota and Dakota, which includes the SRST, were part of the Sovereign Sioux Nation, which concluded the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty with the United States. The United States has legally-binding obligations based on this Treaty to obtain the Lakota and Dakota’s consent before activities are carried out on their Treaty lands.
The urgent communication also highlights environmental racism in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination Convention (ICERD) to which the US is legally obligated. It notes that the United States has permitted Energy Transfer to divert the pipeline’s route from near the mainly non-Indigenous population of Bismarck, ND to disproportionately impact the SRST.
A primary concern expressed by the Tribe is potential devastating effects on its primary water source. SRST Chairman Dave Archambault II, who was among those arrested and is also being sued by the company for obstructing the pipeline’s construction, stated on August 15th “I am here to advise anyone that will listen, that the Dakota Access Pipeline is harmful. It will not be just harmful to my people but its intent and construction will harm the water in the Missouri River, which is the only clean and safe river tributary left in the United States.”
In response to the Tribe’s opposition, Dakota Access LLC, the developers of the $3.8 billion, four-state oil pipeline, has waged a concerted campaign to criminalize and intimidate Tribal leaders, Tribal members and their supporters who have consistently been peaceful and non-violent. The IITC and SRST are calling upon the UN Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders to call upon the United States to immediately cease all arrests and other forms of intimidation, drop any pending lawsuits, and ensure that all legal charges against these human and Treaty Rights defenders be lifted. The urgent action communication cited this case as an example of the criminalization of Indigenous human rights defenders around the world, as noted by various UN bodies.
Despite 28 arrests reported to date, the peaceful protesters have succeeded in temporarily halting the pipeline’s construction. A hearing is currently scheduled for next week in federal court to consider the Tribe’s request for an injunction. Construction has reportedly been halted until the hearing, providing an important initial victory for the Tribe and their supporters.
The joint urgent UN communication requests the intervention of these UN human rights mandate holders to call upon the United States to uphold its statutory, legal, Treaty and human rights obligations and impose an immediate and ongoing moratorium on all pipeline construction until the Treaty and human rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, including their right to free prior and informed consent, can be ensured.
Editor’s note: for more current news on the Dakota Access Pipeline, see U.S. Government Bans Native American Tribe From Protesting On Their Own Land – Send In Police To Remove Protesters and Dalrymple signs emergency declaration to manage public safety at Dakota Access Pipeline protest near Cannon Ball
