Tar Sands Blockader Disrupts Valero-Sponsored Golf Tournament, Demands Accountability for Manchester

A Tar Sands Blockader disrupted the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio this afternoon during the PGA golf tournament. Douglas Fahlbusch was a standard bearer for the event and used the opportunity to bring attention to Manchester, a low income, predominately Latin@ community in Houston’s toxic East End where Valero operates a refinery that consistently violates EPA and TCEQ (Texas Commission for Environmental Quality) laws and regulations.

Once the tournament reached the 18th hole, Doug changed the sign, ordinarily used to display the players’ names and scores, to read “TAR SANDS SPILL. VALERO KILLS. ANSWER MANCHESTER.” He refused to leave the green and was dragged the entire way off the premises by police.

“Business as usual is over, between the BP spill, the current Arkansas spill, and daily life in Manchester,” Fahlbusch said. “Why won’t Valero tell the Manchester people what it is they are breathing every day?”

NEW TransCanada Tar Sands Pipeline

TransCanada is repurposing an existing filthy fracked gas pipeline to carry more TOXIC TAR SANDS. The pipe will run from Alberta to New Brunswick in the Canadian Maritimes – a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. This pipeline will have the same capacity as Keystone XL, 850,000 BPD. While TransCanada continues to “round up commitments” from investors and oil companies, resistance to the Tar Sands and Keystone XL pipelines and all pipelines proposed to move tar sands continues to increase and make an impact. Here’s a little wrap-up of recent events. 

Protesters at California Fundraisers Urge Obama to Reject Keystone XL

April 5, 2013
Cross-posted from Democracy Now!

President Obama has wrapped up a two-day swing through California to raise money for Democratic candidates in the 2014 midterm elections. In San Francisco, Obama was met by hundreds of protesters urging him to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline as he attended two fundraisers. One of the events was held at the home of the hedge fund billionaire Thomas Steyer, who has vocally opposed the Keystone XL. In his remarks, Obama appeared to justify his failure to aggressively tackle global warming by claiming it is not a top priority for working-class Americans. Describing his take on the typical mindset, Obama said: “You may be concerned about the temperature of the planet, but it’s probably not rising to your No. 1 concern. And if people think, well, that’s shortsighted, that’s what happens when you’re struggling to get by.”

Red Lake Chippewa Blockade Enbridge Tar Sands Pipelines

Cross-posted from Tar Sands Blockade

For over two weeks now, Nizhawendaamin Inaakiminaan (We Love Our Land) has been occupying land directly above four pipelines across an easement that Enbridge has claimed since 1949 when the company, then called Lakehead Pipe Line Company, installed the first of four pipelines across land owned by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa despite not having an easement from the Red Lake Chippewa Nation. These pipes carry toxic tar sands, Bakken oil, as well as Canadian crude. By threatening the local lakes, these pipes endanger the lives and economic livelihood of Red Lake Band members.

The grassroots group of Red Lake Chippewa and Anishinaabe Indians is joined by blockaders and solidarity activists determined to shut down the pipelines, hold Enbridge to account for stealing land, and protest Enbridge’s proposed expansion of the nearby Alberta Clipper toxic tar sands pipeline.

Deutsche Bags, the Keylime XL Pipeline and a Week of Eco-Action to Remember

“…It was later learned that the group’s actions relate to their protest against the construction of the Keylime XL pipeline and finances for the project emanating from Deutsche Bank.”

—Officer Rodriguez, Palm Beach Police Probable Cause Affidavit

No Officer, that ain’t Keylime emanating from Deutsche Bank.

Today kicks off a Week of Action to Stop Tar Sands Profiteers. As you may have heard, the good folks on the front lines of the tar sands resistance have called for solidarity with their ongoing effort of blockades along the route of Keystone XL construction.

What we have below are some lessons learned from an action in Florida last November, where amidst a call for solidarity with Tar Sands Blockaders fighting the Keystone XL pipeline, four people were arrested at Deutsche Bank (one of KXL’s many financiers). The protest took place on Palm Beach Island, a bastion of obscene wealth and elitism in south Florida.

What a buncha Deutsche Bags! Click here to read document

About two weeks ago, the final case of the four folks who got popped on “the Island” was resolved, resulting in a handful of community service hours and a few measly months of probation. More importantly though, arrestees gained access to police records from the action during the pre-trial process (available to you by clicking the images on the right) and they have the freedom to talk more easily now that a few sketchy charges are no longer hanging over their heads. 

We hope some of these seven lessons may come in handy for the folks, both newbies and well-seasoned, who are planning to have an action-packed week: 

Indigenous Leaders Confront Ecuadorian Government in Houston

Coalition storms lobby of Westin Hotel where sacred Amazonian lands are being auctioned by Ecuadorian Government

Westin Hotel at the Galleria in Houston, TX, 2/4/2013–  Tar Sands Blockaders joined indigenous leaders from the Achuar and Shuar tribes who inhabit the Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador along with their allies from Amazon Watch and representatives from Idle No More – Gulf Coast. United in solidarity against dangerous and exploitative resource extraction, the group stormed the lobby of the Westin Hotel in Houston where the Ecuadorian government was making arrangements to auction off land for oil exploration and industrial development without the consent of the tribes who live there. 

Indigenous Organizers to Hold Round Table Meeting on Tar Sands Resistance and Decolonization

Re-posted from our friends at the Tar Sands Blockade

Tar Sands Blockade has been working to amplify the voices of communities who will be most impacted by tar sands exploitation; Indigenous peoples and lands at the point of extraction and Latin@ and African American communities in the Gulf Coast where the tar sands will be refined and shipped to overseas markets in a tax-free trade zone.

On February 14th -18th Earth First! will be hosting it’s annual organizers conference and winter rendezvous. Indigenous land defenders and anti-pipeline organizers will hold a round table on tar sands Resistance and decolonization.  

Tar Sands Blockaders still in jail, and on hunger strike

Today hunger strikers in Houston hit day 20 without food and the three activists who locked down inside the Keystone XL pipe on Dec 3rd are still in jail, facing exorbitant bail.

While jail is oppressive, dehumanizing, and boring, your messages of love and support will help lift their spirits. Please send a letter today… And start making your plans to get out to Texas next month for the TSB Mass Action camp, Jan 3rd – 8th.

For mail to Matt and Glen:

Inmate’s Full Name (1 per letter: Matt Almonte, or Glen Collins)
C/O Smith County Jail
206 E. Elm
Tyler, Texas 75701

*Note: Letters cannot exceed 12” by 15”. Return address with full name is required. Be mindful that the authorities will likely read your letter. Keep it positive and avoid inflammatory language – otherwise it might not be delivered. As a general rule: if in doubt, leave it out.

To write Isabel:

Isabel Brooks
PO Box 849
Kaufman, TX 75142

Click here to see news coverage from the Dec 3rd action

People Barricade Themselves Inside Keystone XL Pipe To Halt Construction

[Continue reading this post, or check here, for updates throughout the day. Join the fight against Keystone XL by coming to our next Mass Action Camp starting on January 3, one month from today!]

For more photos of today’s action, visit Tar Sands Blockade‘s Flickr page.

WINONA, TX – MONDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2012 7:30 AM – Several protestors with Tar Sands Blockade sealed themselves inside a section of pipe destined for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline to stop construction of the dangerous project. Using a blockading technique never implemented before, Matt Almonte and Glen Collins locked themselves between two barrels of concrete weighing over six hundred pounds each. Located twenty-five feet into a pipe segment waiting to be laid in the ground, the outer barrel is barricading the pipe’s opening and neither barrel can be moved without risking serious injury to the blockaders.

The barricaded section of the pipeline passes through a residential neighborhood in Winona, TX. If TransCanada moves ahead with the trenching and burying of this particular section of pipe, it would run less than a hundred feet from neighboring homes. Tar sands pipelines threaten East Texas communities with their highly toxic contents, which pose a greater risk to human health than conventional crude oil. TransCanada’s existing tar sands pipeline, Keystone XL’s predecessor, has an atrocious safety record, leaking twelve times in its first year of operation.

Tar Sands Blockade Calls For Solidarity Actions November 19th

Alright, eco-warriors, consider yourselves on notice. Tar Sands Blockade is stepping our game up, and we’re calling on you to do the same.

We’ll be throwing down in a big way next Monday, November 19^th, somewhere near Nacogdoches, Texas, the heart of outlaw territory in this region for hundreds of years, and we want you to do the same. If you’re close enough or able to travel, of course we’d love to have you here with us, but we also want to see communities rising up and defending their homes from the wanton destruction of extractive industry everywhere.

Obama’s real birth certificate found in Earth First! Journal office…

Yeah, that’s right, we caught Donald Trump snooping around in our stuff, again. He claims he found the certificate hiding under Uncle Ted’s crusty ol’ tighty-whitees that we won in the government auction last year, but never got around to framing on the office wall.

Straying from the Tea Party rhetoric, Trump is now alleging that Obama’s father was not a Marxist organizer or Kenyan goat-herder but an eco-terrorist who actually birthed the original-original ELF (contrary to the claims of wingnut-sell-out “ELF founder” John Hanna). Sadly, both prized items—the unabomber’s undies and proof that Obama was not born to reptilian shape shifters—were found, by the collective’s new short-termer, decomposing in one of the office’s many broken filing cabinets…

Here’s a sneak peak at the cover (tar sands blockade mono-pod!), hot off the press.. Just waiting for the funds to make it out into the mail.

Really though, We were actually just hoping that this absurdity would loosen you up a little in preparation for our desperate plea that you to make a big ‘ol donation to help get the newest (albeit belated) issue of the Earth First! Journal, Lughnasadh 2012, out into the streets and backwoods.

The issue features: Pictures from the front lines of the Texas tar sands blockades; stories of East Coast anti-fracking resistance, the history of mid-west mining struggles; All-out eco-assault on coal extraction in Scotland; and the world-wide Luddite revival!