TransCanada Pipeline Protest in Fifth Week

By William Boardman, Reader Supported News

27 October 12

Reader Supported News | Perspective

 

fficially, it seems, the Tar Sands Blockade was supposed to be over in mid-October, when The New York Times, having thus far ignored the story, announced that it was a "last-ditch bid." But Tar Sands Blockade, a grassroots coalition of Texans opposed to the Keystone XL pipeline, is still there, still occupying the treehouse blockade it mounted September 24, still trying to hold up construction of TransCanada's $7 billion pipeline that will bring hot, toxic tar sands oil sludge from Canada for global markets.

Two more people joined the tree-sitters this week, bringing the number of tree blockades to four, as blockaders maneuver in response to TransCanada's effort to build around the original blockade. One of the new tree-sitters is Cat Ripley, 20, a veteran pipeline protestor who last year helped stop another TransCanada pipeline near Portland, Oregon, when the builders withdrew their permit application.

Presidential candidate Mitt ("if I have to build it myself to get it here, I'll get it to America") Romney and President ("I'm all for pipelines") Obama both support the Keystone XL pipeline, and both claim - falsely - that it will contribute to the chimera of American energy independence. While both candidates are also all but silent on climate change, former US Army chief of staff General Gordon Sullivan and the other ten retired officers of the CNA think tank's Military Advisory Board say unambiguously: "Climate change is and must be recognized as a threat to our national security."

Sometimes lost in the details is the basic argument about tapping the Alberta tar sands in Canada, since tar sands oil is much more toxic than oil from previously exploited reserves. Because the Alberta reserve is vast, it's a significant hedge against oil shortages, and has drawn heavy investment from the oil industry, including PetroChina. Because tar sands oil is so toxic, environmentalists warn against it. As James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in The New York Times last May: "If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate."

Tar Sands Resistance Spreads Across U.S. and Canada

TransCanada pipeline construction sites offer clear confrontation points in the oil/climate struggle, with resistance growing wherever pipelines have threatened to go lately, whether Nebraska or British Columbia, Vermont or Texas, where the Tar Sands Blockade's action has entered its second month.

Two days after the Times' virtual "obituary" on Tar Sands Blockade, more than 50 supporters swarmed the construction site and later posted video of their actions and security reactions. October 15 was the biggest action of the blockade to date, with protestors outnumbering security officers roughly 3 to 1. The main purpose of the action was to re-supply the nine tree-sitters, but protestors also disrupted construction for the day as they ran around the site, some locking themselves to equipment. Dozens more demonstrated against TransCanada from nearby public land, and there were solidarity rallies in Austin and Denton, Texas, as well as Washington, DC, New York City, and San Francisco.

Security officers made eight arrests and tackled a 70-year-old Cherokee woman, but police violence did not reach earlier levels when officers tortured two protestors, a man and a woman, using chokeholds, pepper spray, and tasers, while the pair was chained helplessly to a backhoe.

The October 15 action came after TransCanada had clamped down on the area with police-state tactics, as reported by Firedoglake: "Enlisted off-duty police officers are intimidating, harassing and arresting just about anyone they think is trespassing, even if those people happen to be on property they own. And, officers who are acting as armed henchmen for TransCanada have arrested three journalists in the past twenty-four hours for simply being there to report on resistance to the pipeline construction."

Times Reporter Leans Pro-TransCanada, Ignores Basic Issue

One of those arrested on October 10 was Times reporter Dan Frosch, whose dismissive October 13 story minimized the size and significance of the confrontation while heavily quoting TransCanada spokesmen without balancing views. For example, Frosch quoted TransCanada's statement that "the company was making sure that work sites were safe, 'even for those who are breaking the law and trespassing on these locations,'" as if there were no opposing point of view.

The Times reporter also reported, as if it were true, the TransCanada claim that "the company was respectful of those people whose land it needed," when the opposite is easily documented. And for the self-described "paper of record," Frosch chose to quote only two resigned and passive landowners, rather than any who have been actively resisting on-site or in court.

In a gesture of journalistic malpractice, Frosch omitted any mention of his own arrest or the arrest of the photographer with him or the arrests of three other journalists, none of whom were apparently charged. He did mention the arrest of Daryl Hannah and others, but not their excessive bail or over-charging by local authorities.

TransCanada Avoids Direct Confrontation, at Least for Now

After its initial sanction of extreme violence against the protestors, TransCanada has apparently managed to keep its security officers relatively restrained except for the occasional roughing-up or hog-tying. The multi-billion dollar Canadian company's more recent actions have included numerous court suits against landowners and protestors, including a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, known as a SLAPP suit, a form of litigation that has been limited by statute in 28 states other than Texas.

The SLAPP suit is a notorious form of legal bad faith, designed not so much to be won (or even taken to trial) by the plaintiffs, but rather to intimidate, silence, censor, and exhaust the resources of opponents who are typically, as with environmental groups like the Tar Sands Blockade, incapable of matching the resources of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Even before the SLAPP suit, TransCanada had aroused anger among landowners by its use of eminent domain to take control of their land along the pipeline route. Texas law expects eminent domain to be used for a public purpose, and the Texas Supreme Court has ruled similarly in recent cases, but the Texas Railroad Commission continues to allow eminent domain claims based on earlier custom. The question is currently on appeal, but the pipeline construction continues.

The failure of the state of Texas to protect Texas landowners has aroused considerable anger and resentment, as expressed by Edwin Tullos in a letter to the Dallas Morning News: "As a landowner in rural Texas, I find use of the law by a company to override landowners' rights for a profit venture extremely disconcerting. The interpreting of the law by state level government officials in this matter demonstrates their intent to use it to void any law protecting private landowners from profit oriented consortiums including foreign companies - as this one is. How secure are we in our homes when the state - not federal - orders our homes seized to assure the profit of their donors?"

TransCanada Harasses Tree-sitters with Light and Sound

TransCanada has maintained low level pressure on the tree-sitters, with round-the-clock security waiting to arrest anyone who might come down and anyone who might try to bring supplies. The company has also maintained floodlights on the treehouses all night, powered by noisy generators, making sleep difficult. For some reason, TransCanada turned off the lights and generators the night of October 24, according to retired colonel Ann Wright, who visited with the tree-sitters without incident.

That same day a Louisiana woman chained herself to the gate of a TransCanada equipment yard, preventing trucks and other heavy equipment from going to work until sheriff's deputies cut her chains with bolt-cutters and arrested her. Cherri Foytlin, mother of six and wife of an oil field worker, posted her intentions in advance in a video and on her blog, Bridge the Gulf, acting in solidarity with an another anti-pipeline movement in Canada.

In British Columbia in western Canada, massive and widespread opposition has emerged to try to stop another pipeline intended to bring molten tar sands oil from central Alberta to an oil tanker port in Vancouver on the Puget Sound. On October 22, thousands of people took to the streets of the provincial capitol Victoria to make their views known to the provincial legislature and Premier Christy Clark. Two days later the protest spread across the province as more than 60 local communities joined hands in solidarity against the pipeline plan, with significant media attention

Texas Land Commissioner Calls Blockaders "Eco-anarchists"

An elected official, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, called the blockaders names in an October 16 op-ed piece that begins, inaccurately: "I've recently learned that a bunch of out-of-state, self-appointed 'eco-anarchists' think they know better than Texans and have arrived to save us from ourselves. They're trying to block the Keystone Pipeline Gulf Coast Project, the pipeline that's under construction in East Texas that will create thousands of jobs and lessen our dependence on foreign oil."

This provoked a number of hostile letters and comments in opposition in the Dallas Morning News and elsewhere around the state. The Tar Sands Blockade is a native Texan effort with supporters from other states.

National mainstream media coverage, like the Times', has been spotty and behind the curve: on October 15, the Washington Post "discovered" the three-week-old civil disobedience in the treetops; on October 17 an Associated Press report said "a battle is brewing over an unlikely project, an oil pipeline"; and on October 19 the Los Angeles Times reported on 78-year-old Eleanor Fairchild's October 4 arrest (with actress Daryl Hannah) to protest the pipeline's damage to her farm and livelihood.

Regional mainstream media coverage has been somewhat more attentive, with the Fort Worth Weekly running a lengthy, balanced overview piece on October 17. Similarly, regional TV has aired some coverage, but the Tar Sands Blockade of TransCanada's pipeline has apparently not yet been covered by any national TV news network or program.

---

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.