Tag: Pipelines

Farmers Reject Nicor’s Pipe Dream

Pembroke Township, Illinois - At the end of a maze of dirt roads lies a 40-acre teaching farm called Black Oaks Center, where local residents gathered on a Sunday in November 2021 for a farmland restoration workshop and community gathering. “If you all want to bust wood again, they’re out there,” said Dr. Jifunza Wright-Carter — who runs the center with her husband, Fred Carter — to the newest arrivals. Some joined the group clearing felled trees for off-grid homesteading, while others stayed inside to warm up and chat.

In addition to raising food and hosting classes, Black Oaks has become a hub for organizing against a proposed natural gas pipeline some locals say threatens the area’s farming way of life, which is rooted in environmental stewardship.

Summit Strengthens Alliances Against Coastal Gaslink Pipeline

The conflict over the Coastal GasLink project is about more than the fate of a single pipeline or the territory of one Indigenous nation. The precedent set here will have far-reaching consequences, and Indigenous nations and leaders from across Turtle Island are paying close attention.

The hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation hosted a Peace and Unity Summit in the town of Smithers on Jan. 15. Wet’suwet’en leaders and representatives of other Indigenous nations gathered to offer solidarity and support in the fight against the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The Wet’suwet’en argue that their Indigenous and human rights, and rights to their territories, are threatened by the multibillion-dollar project, which is backed by the provincial and federal governments.

Canada Coastal Gas Link Pipeline Indigenous Rights Pipelines Wetsuweten

The Indigenous Grandmothers Who Stopped A Pipeline

Cheryl Maloney’s eyes glossed over with tears as she stood near the bank of the Stewiacke River in the middle of Nova Scotia. The news was finally sinking in. Behind her, about 100 people filled plates with spaghetti and fried chicken; the crowd included her 11-year-old grandson, Drake Nevin, one of many children who’d spent most of their childhoods fighting alongside Elders to protect this river system. She saw the drift netters—white fishers who catch shad in these waters—reminiscing, and amber leaves floating on the water like confetti.

Two weeks earlier, Alton Gas, a subsidiary of Calgary-based AltaGas, had abandoned a project that would have pumped 10,000 cubic metres of brine into the mouth of this river each day for as long as a decade, leaving behind subterranean caverns where the company planned to store natural gas.

Energy Environment Indigenous Rights Pipelines

Chester County Residents Protest Mariner East Pipeline Construction

This pipeline project is slated to take natural gas liquids out of the US to overseas markets.

Before reaching the Marcus Hook shipping port, the line traverses 350 miles of personal and public property, 1,227 stream crossings, 570 wetland crossings, and 11 pond crossings; 337 of these crossings disturb what DEP refers to as “special protection” waters.

In addition, there are 129 exceptional value wetlands being crossed, including Marsh Creek Lake in Marsh Creek State Park, a drinking water source for 1.75 million people.

“I decided to take direct action because I do not consent to our government allowing a serial offender that harms the waters of our local reservoir,” said Christine “PK” Digiulio.

Mariner East Pennsylvania Pipelines

Wet’suwet’en Water Protectors Evade RCMP As Police Mobilize For Raid

Two weeks after Wet’suwet’en water protectors evicted Coastal GasLink workers and occupied a key pipeline drill site, water protectors executed a strategic retreat to avoid arrest and violence at the hands of dozens of militarized RCMP. Before a large scale mobilization by police, water protectors vanished into the woods, evading police violence and criminalization. We expect an imminent assault on our people at the direction of Coastal GasLink as we continue to occupy and utilize our yintah.

Indigenous Rights Pipelines RCMP Wetsuweten

Judge Rules Thousands Of Disputed DAPL Documents Are Public Records

A state judge has ruled that thousands of documents related to security during the construction in North Dakota of the heavily protested Dakota Access Pipeline are public and subject to the state’s open records law.

The Friday ruling by South Central District Judge Cynthia Feland is a victory for The Intercept news organization, which sued in November 2020 to get access to the documents for investigative journalism on the topics of “environmental justice, the treatment of Indigenous peoples and workers, and government efforts to suppress First Amendment-protected activities.”

Dakota Access Pipeline Legal System Pipelines Transpare

Prosecutor Sought Enbridge Funding To Prosecute Water Protectors

The Center for Protest Law & Litigation has obtained documents through our ongoing investigation showing that Jonathan Frieden, the lead prosecutor in Hubbard County, Minnesota, who is seeking to jail hundreds of peaceful Line 3 water protectors, sought Enbridge pipeline corporation’s money to fund his prosecutions.

Criminal Justice and Prisons Line 3 Pipeline Minnesota Pipelines

CN Rail Wins Right To Privately Prosecute Rail Blockade Participants

CN Rail has won the right to privately pursue criminal charges against three people who participated in a 2020 rail blockade in northern B.C., despite the fact that provincial prosecutors declined to get involved.

The ruling cements the B.C. Supreme Court’s ability to enforce court injunctions, with or without the participation of Crown prosecutors, who unsuccessfully fought the decision.

A group of people, including three Gitxsan hereditary chiefs, were arrested at a blockade on a CN Rail line in New Hazelton, B.C. on Feb. 24, 2020.

An injunction against the blockade had been issued two weeks prior amid nationwide protests in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs fighting against the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline.

Canada Coastal Gas Link Pipeline Criminal Justice and Prisons Pipelines Wetsuweten

Indigenous Leaders Pledge To Oppose New Enbridge Developments

On November 5, the Canadian oil company Enbridge announced that it plans to increase capacity on its pipeline system that connects a crude-oil storage hub in Oklahoma to the Texas Gulf Coast, now that the Line 3 pipeline linking Alberta and Wisconsin is complete. The Carrizo Comecrudo and other Indigenous groups in the area, along with the Indigenous Environmental Network, have pledged to protect Indigenous sacred sites and oppose future pipeline developments.

Increasing capacity may include building a new pipeline linking the Houston area to the Port of Corpus Christi, more than 200 miles away. In October, Enbridge acquired the Ingleside Energy Center in Corpus Christi, Texas, the largest crude-exporting hub in the U.S.

Enbridge Indigenous Sovereignty Pipelines Texas

Air Board Denies Key Permit For Mountain Valley Pipeline

Today, in a victory for environmental justice, the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board voted 6-1 to deny the air quality permit for the proposed Lambert Compressor Station. The station would have connected the beleaguered Mountain Valley Pipeline to a proposed ‘Southgate’ extension into North Carolina. Had the permit been granted, nearby communities would be subjected to additional air emissions of carbon monoxide, particulate matter 2.5, and formaldehyde — substances known to contribute to respiratory problems, heart disease and cancer. The permit denial is a clear victory for communities working tirelessly to protect their health and homes from corporate polluters — and a major setback for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Environment Mountain Valley Pipeline Pipelines Victory

Battle Over Jordan Cove Energy Project Is Over After Developers Pull Plug

The bitter and protracted battle over the Jordan Cove Energy Project has finally come to a close. The Calgary-based Pembina company formally asked federal energy regulators Wednesday to withdraw authorizations for the proposed pipeline and liquified natural gas export terminal in southwest Oregon.

Pembina’s plan called for a 229-mile-long natural gas pipeline that would have run from Malin, Oregon, on the California border, over the Coast Range to Coos Bay. The gas would then have been super-cooled into a liquified form (LNG), loaded onto ships and exported to Asia.

The proposal raised concerns about environmental impacts to waterways and wildlife habitat. It was also expected to become the largest single emitter of greenhouse gasses in Oregon.

Jordan Cove Oil and Gas Oregon Pipelines

Line 3 Replacement Has Been Completed So Why Are Activists Still Camping Out?

Every few days, Jaike Spotted-Wolf walks over to a well near Camp Migizi to refill several five-gallon water containers. At the camp, where Spotted-Wolf is one of several matriarchs, there is no plumbing, no pipes and no faucets. Residents take turns getting water, which they need for basics such as cooking and showers.

The camp was — and is — one of several resistance camps formed to oppose Enbridge’s now-completed Line 3 project, which replaced a corroding oil pipeline built in the 1960s with a new, larger pipeline. The pipeline runs through northern Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Nearly a month and a half after oil-laden tar sands began flowing through the pipes, activists are still living at Camp Migizi and other sites.

Indigenous Activism Line 3 Pipeline Pipelines Water Protectors

Violence Against Wet’suwet’en And Apparent Police, Industry Collusion

By January 24, 2014, the RCMP’s Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team (CIIT) had produced an intelligence assessment on Criminal Threats to the Canadian Petroleum Industry that notes “violent aboriginal extremists” and includes in Appendix E an article from the Georgia Straight that briefly mentions the Unist’ot’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en nation.

A further document dated April 1, 2015, from the Government Operations Centre (GOC), which compiles information from the RCMP and other agencies, describes an unnamed Unist’ot’en leader as an “aboriginal extremist.”

Within five years of that second report, the RCMP had launched two militarized raids against the Wet’suwet’en.

Canada Coastal Gas Link Pipeline Indigenous Rights Pipelines Wetsuweten

Slew Of Journalists And Land Defenders Released From Custody

Ten people remain in custody in Prince George after a bail hearing for those arrested on Wet’suwet’en territory last week went overtime Monday. Most of those released agreed to a condition that they not return to the Morice West Forest Service Road, the area where Coastal GasLink’s 670-kilometre gas pipeline is under construction from northeast B.C. to Kitimat.Photojournalist Amber Bracken and filmmaker Michael Toledano’s conditions allow them to return to the territory, where they have been covering the ongoing dispute over the pipeline since the first police action occurred on the Morice forestry road in January 2019.

Coastal Gas Link Pipeline Criminal Justice and Prisons Media Pipelines

Activist Interview: The Life Force, And The ‘Pipe Filled With Poison’

Shay Lynn Sampson is determined she won’t be telling her children what salmon used to taste like or what it was like to live close to their land. She is one of the Indigenous people preventing Coastal GasLink (CGL) from running a pipeline under Wedzin Kwa (Morice River), the pristine water source for the Wet’suwet’en and their close downstream allies, the Gitxsan.

Twenty-two-year-old Sampson spoke to me on November 8 from behind a blockade inside a “Tiny House,” purposely built with many other structures to shelter the people putting their bodies on the line to stop the project. Sampson is also the youth engagement coordinator for Indigenous Climate Action. This young Gitxsan woman is helping to ensure the Coastal GasLink pipeline never gets built.

Canada Indigenous Sovereignty Pipelines Youth Activism

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