Tar Sands Waste Piling Up in Detroit

by Ian Austen, Cross Posted from The New York Times

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.

And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.

The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

The coke comes from a refinery alongside the river owned by Marathon Petroleum, which has been there since 1930. But it began refining exports from the Canadian oil sands — and producing the waste that is sold to Koch — only in November.

“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground,” said Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan state representative for that part of Detroit. “Nobody knew this was going to happen.” Almost 56 percent of Canada’s oil production is from the petroleum-soaked oil sands of northern Alberta, more than 2,000 miles north.

TransCanada Reps Kicked Out of Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation

Cross Posted From Tar Sands Blockade

“You’re not welcome here… We’ve said no from day one.”

And with these firm words the TransCanada representatives were kicked out of Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation last week. The seemingly aloof TransCanada officials showed up at the Tribal Office in Eagle Butte, South Dakota in an attempt to win the tribe over to the pipeline, but were met with a swift, firm response. Robin LeBeau, Cheyenne River Sioux Councilwoman for District 5, saw them in the parking lot and promptly told them off.

The encounter was caught on video:

Cross Timbers Earth First! Shuts Down KXL Construction Site

Cross Posted from Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance

UPDATE: 9:16am- Holly and Bailey have been extracted and are now in police custody. Show Holly and Bailey some love by donating to our bail fund.

UPDATE: 8:42am-Holly and Bailey are still locked down, despite dangerous attempts to remove them by the Houghes Co Sheriffs and the Holdenville Fire Department. Show Holly and Bailey some love by Donating to our bail fund.

UPDATE: 8:30am-A Deputy from the Hughes Co Sheriffs department is full-force swinging a sledgehammer at one of Holly and Bailey’s lockdown devices. This is VERY dangerous. They are also now using a Jack Hammer. Call the Hughes Co Sheriffs and tell them this behavior is unacceptable. Phone Number: (405) 379-2203

UPDATE: 8:03am: The Fire Department is shielding their activities by holding up a tarp to block the view.

                       Call the Holdenville Fire Department and tell them their job is not to hurt people!

Phone Number: (405) 379-2413

UPDATE: 8:01am-Holdenville, OK Fire Department is on scene and wielding axes.

UPDATE: 7:52am-Two Hughes Co. Sheriffs vehicles have arrived on scene

UPDATE: 7:00am-Work trucks arrive and then leave

Hughes County, OK, May 14th, 7 am

Early this morning Bailey and Holly, both of whom are local Oklahomans and with Cross Timbers Earth First!ers, walked onto an Keystone XL active construction site in Hughes County, Oklahoma and locked themselves to concrete filled barrels obstructing the use of heavy machinery used in the construction of the pipeline.

Bailey and Holly are part of Cross Timbers Earth First! , a regional chapter of the Earth First! movement, which has been carrying out ecological direct actions for over 30 years.  According to its members, Cross Timbers Earth First! also endorses Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, a growing coalition of groups and individuals dedicated to stopping the expansion of tar sands infrastructure throughout the Great Plains.

Fourth Generation Oklahoman, Founder of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker House, Locks Himself to KXL Construction Equipment

Cross Posted From Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance
Follow this developing story at GPTSR’s website

Wewoka Oklahoma-Monday, May 13th, 7 am

Early this morning Bob Waldrop, 60,
fourth generation Oklahoman and prominent Oklahoma City community member
walked onto an active construction site for the Keystone XL pipeline in Seminole County and
locked himself to an Excavator, a piece of heavy machinery used in the
construction of the pipeline. Waldrop took a stand today in defense of the
land and the human and non-humans that depend upon it to survive.

Waldrop, as a founding member of the Oscar Romero Catholic Workers House,
is a part of Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, a growing coalition of
groups and individuals dedicated to stopping the expansion of Tar Sands
infrastructure throughout the Great Plains. His action follows an
escalating number of work-stopping actions, of which there were five in
April alone, in Oklahoma.

TransCanada files suit to prevent the “encouraging” of “resistance” to the KXL

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

On Monday, May 6^th, TransCanada filed a suit to prevent individuals from resisting the construction of the southern leg of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline which is being built to transport diluted bitumen from the Athabascan Tar Sands project in “Canada” to refineries on the Gulf Coast. 

The suit was filed in Atoka County, OK, and named 21 individuals and Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance as defendants, seeking to prevent defendants from “trespassing or interfering with construction” as well as prohibit them from “organizing, communicating, encouraging or inciting resistance” to the Keystone XL.   This lawsuit is a part of a broader corporate campaign of criminalizing dissent and delegitimizing opposition to this dangerous project, similar to Exxon’s deliberate exclusion of press which amounted to a media blackout at the site of the Pegasus pipeline rupture, which released 5,000 barrels of diluted bitumen into residential Mayflower, AK.

The judge refused to make a ruling on individuals who were not arrested in Atoka County, as well as the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, and dropped the prohibition on “organizing, communicating, encouraging, or inciting resistance.” The three remaining defendants in Atoka County currently have a temporary restraining order enjoining them from trespassing or interfering with construction of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance is a coalition actively resisting the construction of the Keystone XL in Oklahoma through direct action, as well as resisting corporate censorship, misinformation, and scare tactics. Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance stands in solidarity with communities who have fought to shed light on the effects that toxic extraction and byproducts of refining have on their daily existence, despite intense State, Corporate, and media repression.

Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance would like to echo the sentiment expressed by Michael Bishop in his resistance to TransCanada—“Fuck off, we’ll fight you.”

Utah Tar Sands Action Camp July 21-28

Cross Posted from Seeds for Peace

This summer, people from across the country will come together to stop the first tar sands mine in the USA from ever breaking ground. Activists from Utah-based organizations Peaceful Uprising, Canyon Country Rising Tide, Before it Starts, and more have joined forces to make sure this is a powerful and effective moment in the growing movement to stop extreme extraction.

The Canadian petroleum corporation US Oil Sands, Inc is targeting the remote state lands of eastern Utah to be the first tar sands project in the USA. Because political and regulatory objections are diminished in Utah, this project at PR Spring now has the green-light from the state to begin commercial operations.

If companies like US Oil Sands can prove that these types of dirty extraction operations are economically viable in Utah, then more tar sands and oil shale projects will spring up across the region. The legal efforts to stop this  project have stalled construction, but time has run out. It is now time for people to come together and say NO Tar Sands in the US, NO Tar Sands anywhere!

Utah Tar Sands Resistance Disrupts Energy Conference

UPDATE: New video of Utah Tar Sands Resistance Action:

 

by Brittany Green-Miner and Caroline Connolly, Cross Posted from Fox 13

SALT LAKE CITY – Protesters stormed an energy conference at the University of Utah on Tuesday, criticizing the university for holding a meeting that focused on tar sands development in the western United States.

Shouting at a crowd of potential investors and researchers, protesters with the Utah Tar Sands Resistance said a tar sands project in Utah would destroy the state, temporarily halting discussion over oil development projects in Utah.

“People will be coming from all over the country this summer to stop the U.S. Oil Sands mine from happening,” one protester said.

“Lockdown”: Tar Sands Blockade vs. Keystone XL Pipeline (Video)

 

From YouTube: “LOCKDOWN,” is a ten minute documentary by Mutual Aid Media on the Tar Sands Blockade–a group of activists and landowners in Texas who have built a campaign to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. This short doc follows activists as they plan an action camp, lead workshops, and execute a lockdown. We hope that this piece can be used to help promote direct action as well as gain support for Tar Sands Resistance campaigns.

To get involved visit: tarsandsblockade.org , gptarsandsresistance.org , nokxl.org
For more information about Mutual Aid Media, please visit our website at: mutualaidmedia.com

Canada’s Aboveground Environmental Activists Seen as ‘Threat to National Security’

by Stephen Leahy, Cross posted from The Guardian

Monitoring of environmental activists in Canada by the country’s police and security agencies has become the “new normal”, according to a researcher who has analysed security documents released under freedom of information laws.

Security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organise petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

The RCMP, Canada’s national police force, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) view activist activities such as blocking access to roads or buildings as “forms of attack” and depict those involved as national security threats, according to the documents.

Protests and opposition to Canada’s resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said. In 2011 a Montreal, Quebec man who wrote letters opposing shale gas fracking was charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Documents released in January show the RCMP has been monitoring Quebec residents who oppose fracking.

Two Activists Lockdown to Protect Cross Timbers from Tar Sands

Cross posted from Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance[Scroll down to the bottom of this post for a chronology of today's events, and be sure to visit www.gptarsandsresistance.org and donate to these folks bail funds! Oh yeah, did we mention that this is the 5th action in Oklahoma in the past month?]

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Spaulding, OK- Monday, April 29th, 6:15 AM- Earlier this morning two Texas residents locked themselves to machinery being used to construct TransCanada’s dangerous and controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in Spaulding, OK through Muscogee Creek Nation land by treaty.