Why First Nations Are Stopping Enbridge's Tar Sands Pipeline

'We're serious about our economy. We want to make sure that it's self-sufficient and doesn't harm the environment—so it lasts forever.'

by Elizabeth Douglass, InsideClimate News, July 31, 2014

First Nations protest against the Harper government's plans for oil sands expansion. Credit: Jen Castro

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British Columbia's First Nations have fought the proposed Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline that would cross their land for years, and they have no intention of letting up just because the federal government recently approved it. They've ignored the wishes of Canadian Prime Minister Harper, shrugged off oil industry promises of local jobs, and rejected offers of part ownership in what could be a lucrative and long-lived project.

In short, they've been impervious to the kinds of political pressure and financial enticements that routinely succeed in smoothing the way for oil-related projects in the United States. How come?

A big part of the defiance comes from the Coastal First Nations, an alliance of aboriginal groups in British Columbia that has no interest in allowing diluted bitumen from Alberta's oil sands to pass through their territories or get shipped through their fishing grounds. The environment is too important to their culture, to their economy and to a succession of generations to come.

And because most First Nations in British Columbia never signed treaties ceding their lands or development rights to the Canadian government, they have been challenging projects in court—and winning. The latest and most significant court victory came in June, when the Canadian Supreme Court upheld aboriginal land titles and rights, and suggested that in places where land claims are not subject to treaties, First Nations may have de facto veto rights over projects on their territorial lands.

Art Sterrit (on right) on a fact-finding visit to Florida after BP's Gulf spill. "That was the biggest oil spill cleanup in history, and they couldn't clean it up. That was the death knell for the Northern Gateway for us."

Art Sterritt, executive director of the Coastal First Nations, has been a key player in the Northern Gateway saga. At 66, he's a goldsmith, sculptor and carver of totem poles and masks. But in serving on a tribal council, then becoming a treaty negotiator, and then joining the Coastal First Nations, Sterritt is following a family history of civic duty and activism. His dad, who turns 101 in early August, is a chief. He's also trying to make the world a better place for his 18 grandchildren.

In an interview with InsideClimate News, Sterritt elaborated on what's driving the First Nations' opposition to the Northern Gateway and why they can't be won over. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

ICN: What is the Coastal First Nations and why was it formed?

Sterritt: We're an association of First Nations. We came together because of what the forest industry was doing. We were acknowledged by the provincial B.C. government as being the government in the region. Now we have ecosystem-based management practices so that you don't log at a rate that will wipe out the forest.

All of our communities have a land use plan. We have a marine use plan. What that means is that we're serious about our economy. We want to make sure that it's self-sufficient based on what's there, and that it doesn't harm the environment—so it lasts forever.

ICN: Why is protecting the environment so important for Coastal First Nations?

Sterritt: The area that we live in represents 25% of the coastal temperate rainforest left on the planet. So this is a very, very significant area. It's an amazingly beautiful area. Tourism is a huge, huge draw. So our communities are moving themselves toward renewable industries—industries that don't destroy the environment. We have carbon offsets that we get out of the forest. As we protect the forest, there's the ability to sequester carbon, which helps with the environment, and in return for that, there's revenue coming in. 

ICN: How did Alberta's tar sands and the Northern Gateway project come into play?

Sterritt: We have invested, over the last 15 years, in excess of $400 million in this exercise [of planning for a sustainable economy]. We depend on the natural environment for the jobs that we have, and there's over 30,000 jobs on the coast of B.C. Right in the middle of all this arrives Northern Gateway, a project which actually jeopardizes everything. All those things we're doing, if you think about it, one oil spill, and all of those are over.

ICN: You don't think the pipeline and oil industry would protect your environment?

Sterritt: You're talking about an industry that doesn't have a culture of cleaning up their mess. Their culture is in covering up their mess with dispersants. We're still looking at what Enbridge did in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. They haven't cleaned that up yet. They cleaned up 10-15% of the oil [from the Exxon Valdez] in Alaska. In the Gulf of Mexico, [BP] cleaned up something like six percent. They don't have the technology to clean up a spill in the ocean. It doesn't exist.

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ICN: What about the promise of jobs and the prospect of an equity interest in the Northern Gateway project?

Sterritt: We're not a bunch of poverty stricken, illiterate people. This is a highly developed society—a culture that's sophisticated in terms of respecting the environment, recognizing what you need to do in order to maintain it, and with a sophisticated art form and languages and everything else. That's what they didn't realize. They just figured, oh we'll flash a couple jobs and a couple bucks under their nose, and they'll just jump up and down. When you have all that, and somebody comes along and offers you a few jobs, it's just a joke. You'll jeopardize more jobs than you're creating.

ICN: What does it mean to have the Supreme Court of Canada recently uphold aboriginal territorial rights?

Sterritt: It's been groundbreaking. What that means is that you can't just ride roughshod over First Nations. They do have rights. They do have title. And the title and rights are enshrined in the Constitution of Canada. Over the last 30 or 40 years, there have been over 200 court cases that First Nations have won where it lays out their right to fish, their right to hunt, their right to an economy, their right to their culture and their societies.

ICN: What is the Coastal First Nations' position on other kinds of economic development?

Sterritt: We're not against development. We are involved in industries that don't have the potential to wipe us out. For First Nations, the first thing they deal with is the environment. If they look at a project and see that the project is going to do irreparable harm to the place they've lived in for tens of thousands of years, it's not going to happen. If a project comes along that is not going to destroy what we already have, you've got a pretty good chance of the project moving ahead. 

ICN: And you include liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects among those that could move ahead? 

Sterritt: We are actively involved in helping develop a responsible natural gas industry. Those ships are big, and they would disrupt some of our harvesting and fishing and stuff, so we're working together to make sure that's done properly. Are you emitting too much carbon into the atmosphere? Are you contaminating the local airsheds where our people live? If there are impacts, they have to be mitigated. That's a pretty good formula for starting a conversation.

ICN: I heard that you went on a fact-finding trip to Louisiana and several other oil states along the Gulf of Mexico in 2011 after the BP Spill. What was the purpose?

Sterritt: We were in the middle of making a decision on whether or not we could support the Northern Gateway project. We had seen that the industry couldn't clean up Alaska, and we figured if anyone could [clean up an ocean oil spill], we would see it there. That was the biggest oil spill cleanup in history, and they couldn't clean it up. That was the death knell for the Northern Gateway for us.

ICN: You talk about an "oil culture" on the U.S. Gulf Coast and elsewhere. What does that mean?

Sterritt: That's the culture that the oil industry is trying to introduce us to. It's one that tries to create dependency from people that live in the region, and once they've created that dependency, they can do whatever they want.

If you look at those oil states, that's what they've done. Some people, even some First Nations people, seem to think that somehow we have to become part of this oil culture. It's not true. We don't need it. We have a really amazing culture. We don't depend on anybody but our environment. That's what it's about for First Nations.

Alberta is heading down that road, and they don't have a plan. A group like Coastal First Nations—well, we have a plan. Our plan doesn't include any industry that jeopardizes the plan.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140731/qa-why-first-nations-are-stopping-enbridges-tar-sands-pipeline

As Keystone XL Dominoes Fall, Time to Arrest Tar Sands Industry

by Tom Weis, EcoWatch, July 31, 2014

We’ve got this.

Thanks to the courageous and indefatigable efforts of pipeline fighters everywhere, the tide has finally turned on Keystone XL. As it becomes increasingly clear that Keystone XL’s northern leg is not going through, it is time to set our sights on ending all tar sands exploitation.

The Obama administration’s latest election year delay on Keystone North is not a victory, but the dominoes continue to fall. Earlier this year, a citizen lawsuit denied TransCanada a route through Nebraska. Last month, it lost its permit through South Dakota. Now it faces a gauntlet of “Cowboys and Indians” vowing to stop it in its tracks.

We cannot let up until Keystone North is vanquished, but all signs point to President Obama nixing TransCanada’s cross-border permit after the November elections. Don’t just take my word for it.

On April 23, Rolling Stone contributing editor Jeff Goodell wrote: “I was told recently by members of the administration that the pipeline would, in fact, be rejected.” On June 18, former Vice President Al Gore wrote in this same magazine: “[Obama] has signaled that he is likely to reject the absurdly reckless Keystone XL-pipeline proposal.”

Both pronouncements come on the heels of former President Jimmy Carter pointedly warning the president that Keystone XL ”will define your legacy on one of the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced—climate change.”

For a president who has suddenly decided to stake so much of his legacy on addressing the climate crisis, approving Keystone North would destroy any shred of credibility on this issue. It would also put an administration that prides itself on outreach to Native American communities in the position of violating the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.

Tom Weis, David Lautenberger, Shane Red Hawk and members of his family and tiyospaye (Lakota for “extended family”) viewing the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie in the National Archives vault in Washington, DC.

I recently had the honor of viewing the Fort Laramie Treaty with Shane Red Hawk and his family in the National Archives vault. There wasn’t time to read every word of the hand-written document, but there was time to absorb the meaning of the “bad man” clause in Article I on the faded first page:

If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent, and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington city, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States.

Tribal leaders mounted on horseback in front of the Capitol Building en route to the “Reject and Protect” tipi encampment in Washington, DC.

Because Keystone North would cross treaty territory, its construction would blatantly violate the “bad man” clause, an arrestable offense the Great Sioux Nation will not abide. President Obama knows this because the presidents of the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes declared on national television their people are “willing to die” to stop it. He also knows this because his senior counselor, John Podesta, visited the “Reject and Protect” tipi encampment on the National Mall in April where this declaration of nonviolent civil resistance was made.

As fate would have it, I found myself standing next to Mr. Podesta at this historic event. I thanked him for his public opposition to Keystone, then asked him to urge the president to use his bully pulpit to speak out against all tar sands exploitation (this includes preventing the tar sands barons from gaining a foothold in Utah’s pristine red rocks country).

We should not be doing business with a misanthropic industry that knowingly poisons First Nations communities in Canada, with immoral disregard for its climate impacts on humanity. Fortunately, the U.S. is in a strong position to help starve Alberta’s landlocked tar sands beast by stopping the flow of tar sands crossing our border.

Last month, retired Navy SEAL Team 6 Commander David Cooper provided powerful ammunition for doing just that with his warning to the State Department that the Keystone pipeline is highly vulnerable to attack: “We need a serious national conversation about what we do to head off an attack. Until then, I’d offer a saying we used on the SEAL teams: ‘If you cannot defend a position, you shouldn’t take it.’ ” His threat assessment described as “the most likely scenario” a spill of more than 1 million gallons of “highly toxic” Keystone tar sands oil.

Caution demands that beyond rejecting the Keystone permit, President Obama order national security assessments on all tar sands pipelines crossing our border, and an immediate shutdown of the built-to-spill southern leg of Keystone XL in Texas and Oklahoma.

We need to heed the indictment of the tar sands industry issued by Ponca Nation matriarch and grandmother Casey Camp-Horinek of Oklahoma: “We’re suffering from environmental genocide from this extractive industry.” The closing ceremony she led on the final day of the “Reject and Protect” tipi encampment was soul searing. Gathered near the White House, we looked on as she knelt in the grass to pour some sacred water. What poured were her tears. We watched in reverent silence as she cried, and cried. The tears she shed were for all who weep for what is happening to our precious Mother Earth.

No more grandmothers must be made to cry. No more First Nations people must be made to die. The tar sand industry’s brutal assault on the human family—and all our relations—must be arrested.

http://ecowatch.com/2014/07/31/keystone-xl-dominoes-fall-arrest-tar-sands-industry/

A rising tide: the case against Canada as a world citizen

The Lancet Global Health, 2(5) (May 2014) e264-e265; doi:10.1016/S2214-109X(14)70199-8

by Chris David Simms a

A generation ago, Canada was perceived to be an exemplary global citizen by the rest of the world: it took the lead on a host of international issues, including the Convention of Child Rights, freedom of information, acid rain, world peacekeeping, sanctions against South Africa's apartheid regime, and humanitarian and development assistance—much of this under conservative leadership.

During recent years, Canada's reputation as a global citizen has slipped, in recent months more precipitously than ever before, and in new directions. The Climate Action Network1 recently ranked Canada 55th of 58 countries in tackling of greenhouse emissions. Results of other analyses2 show a government systematically removing obstacles to resource extraction initiatives by gutting existing legislation, cutting budgets of relevant departments, and eliminating independent policy and arms-length monitoring bodies.

Canada's reputation is further undercut by its silencing of government scientists on environmental and public health issues: scientists are required to receive approval before they speak with the media; they are prevented from publishing; and, remarkably, their activities are individually monitored at international conferences.3 These actions have outraged local and international scientific communities. A survey done in December 2013 of 4,000 Canadian federal government scientists showed that 90% felt they are not allowed to speak freely to the media about their work, and that, faced with a departmental decision that could harm public health, safety, or the environment, 86% felt they would encounter censure or retaliation for doing so.4 These trends are affected by the Canadian leadership's view that multilateralism is a “weak-nation policy,” and by its embrace of what it calls “sovereign self-interest,”5 perceived as the conspicuous pursuit of economic goals and goals of resource-extraction industries. This world view is reflected in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's response to demands for him to end asbestos mining when he promised that “this government will not put Canadian [asbestos] industry in a position where it is discriminated against in a market where it is permitted”6—a response that cast a pall over all Canadian environmental issues.

Domestically, claims by Canada's First Nations communities (whose traditional lands and territories encompass many of the country's natural resources), that environment and livelihoods are being destroyed by the oil sands, tailing ponds, and pipelines used in the oil industry, have been met by the Government tightening the flow of information. In addition to muzzling its scientists, the Government eliminated Statistics Canada's long-form census (a key source of data on vulnerable groups), defunded the First Nations Statistical Institute, shied from adequately measuring toxic air pollutants, and engaged the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Royal Canadian Mounted Police to monitor Aboriginal activists and environmental groups, subsequently sharing this information with industry stakeholders.7 Revelations in January 2014 that the watchdog body mandated to oversee these agencies is led by lobbyists for the resource industries have startled even the most seasoned observers.8

Previously a leader in freedom of information, Canada is frequently cited for its decline in openness, most recently by the Center for Law and Democracy, in co-operation with the Madrid-based Access Info Europe, which ranked it 55th of 93 countries, down from 40th in 2011.9

Harper defends withdrawal of federal funding for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are critical of governmental policy, a reversal of a 50-year tradition of non-partisan support for civil society, saying: “if it's the case that we're spending on organisations that are doing things contrary to government policy, I think that is an inappropriate use of taxpayers' money and we'll look to eliminate it.”10 Consistent with this logic, the Government was able to continue funding NGOs skeptical of global warming and supportive of the asbestos industries.6

As for proscribing a way forward, it makes no sense to make recommendations that presume a level of political commitment that does not exist. However, if “self-interest”5 is the motivating force behind this Government's actions, it ought to develop and implement a global health strategy. Such a strategy would help set priorities, guide decision-making, and create efficiency and cooperation. A global health strategy would also prompt greater fairness and, with less to hide, greater transparency.

I declare that I have no competing interests.

References

1 German Watch. The climate change performance index: results 2013. http://germanwatch.org/en/download/7158.pdf.(accessed April 6, 2014).

2 Holmes B. How Canada's green credentials fell apart. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328585.900-how-canadas-green-credentials-fell-apart.html#.Us6PArQeneD. (accessed April 6, 2014).

3 Jones N. Canada to investigate muzzling of scientists. http://blogs.nature.com/news/2013/04/canada-to-investigate-muzzling-of-scientists.html. (accessed April 6, 2014).

4 The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. The big chill: silencing public interest science, a survey.http://www.pipsc.ca/portal/page/portal/website/issues/science/bigchill. (accessed April 6, 2014).

5 Black D, Donaghy G. Manifestations of multilateralism. http://www3.carleton.ca/cfpj/issue-archive-16.2.html. (accessed April 6, 2014).

6 Benzie R. Harper defends asbestos export despite cancer risks.http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/04/26/harper_defends_asbestos_exports_despite_cancer_risks.html.(accessed April 6, 2014).

7 Hume M. RCMP, intelligence agency accused of spying on pipeline opponents.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/csis-rcmp-accused-of-spying-on-pipeline-opponents/article16726444/. (accessed April 6, 2014).

8 Watson G. Other spy watchdogs have ties to oil business. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/other-spy-watchdogs-have-ties-to-oil-business-1.2491093. (accessed April 6, 2014).

9 Center for Law and Democracy and Access Info Europe. RTI rankings. http://www.rti-rating.org/country_data.php.(accessed April 6, 2014).

10 Kaplan G. Stephen Harper and the tyranny of majority government.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/stephen-harper-and-the-tyranny-of-majority-government/article4268008/. (accessed April 6, 2014)

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(14)70199-8/fulltext

New York Times: Is Canada Tarring Itself?

by Jacques Leslie, The New York Times, March 30, 2014

Credit:Kristian Hammerstad

Start with the term “tar sands.” In Canada only fervent opponents of oil development in northern Alberta dare to use those words; the preferred phrase is the more reassuring “oil sands.” Never mind that the “oil” in the world’s third largest petroleum reserve is in fact bitumen, a substance with the consistency of peanut butter, so viscous that another fossil fuel must be used to dilute it enough to make it flow.

Never mind, too, that the process that turns bitumen into consumable oil is very dirty, even by the oil industry’s standards. But say “tar sands” in Canada, and you’ll risk being labeled unpatriotic, radical, subversive.

Performing language makeovers is perhaps the most innocuous indication of the Canadian government’s headlong embrace of the oil industry’s wishes. Soon after becoming prime minister in 2006, Stephen Harper declared Canada “an emerging energy superpower,” and nearly everything he’s done since has buttressed this ambition. Forget the idea of Canada as dull, responsible and environmentally minded: That is so 20th century. Now it’s a desperado, placing all its chips on a world-be-damned, climate-altering tar sands bet.

Documents obtained by research institutions and environmental groups through freedom-of-information requests show a government bent on extracting as much tar sands oil as possible, as quickly as possible. From 2008 to 2012, oil industry representatives registered 2,733 communications with government officials, a number dwarfing those of other industries. The oil industry used these communications to recommend changes in legislation to facilitate tar sands and pipeline development. In the vast majority of instances, the government followed through.

In the United States, the tar sands debate focuses on Keystone XL, the 1,200-mile pipeline that would link Alberta oil to the Gulf of Mexico. What is often overlooked is that Keystone XL is only one of 13 pipelines completed or proposed by the Harper government — they would extend for 10,000 miles, not just to the gulf, but to both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.

After winning an outright parliamentary majority in 2011, Mr. Harper’s Conservative Party passed an omnibus bill that revoked or weakened 70 environmental laws, including protections for rivers and fisheries. As a result, one proposed pipeline, the Northern Gateway, which crosses a thousand rivers and streams between Alberta and the Pacific, no longer risked violating the law. The changes also eliminated federal environmental review requirements for thousands of proposed development projects.

President Obama’s decision on Keystone XL, expected later this spring, is important not just because it will determine the pipeline’s fate, but because it will give momentum to one side or the other in the larger tar sands battle. Consequently, the Canadian government’s 2013-14 budget allocates nearly $22 million for pro-tar-sands promotional work outside Canada. It has used that money to buy ads and fund lobbyists in Washington and Europe, the latter as part of a continuing campaign against the European Union’s bitumen-discouraging Fuel Quality Directive.

Beginning in 2006, Mr. Harper pledged to promulgate regulations to limit carbon emissions, but eight years later the regulations still have not been issued, and he recently hinted that they might not be introduced for another “couple of years.” Meanwhile, Canada became the only country to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Instead, in 2009 it signed the nonbinding Copenhagen Accord, which calls for Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 17% beneath its 2005 level by 2020. According to the government’s own projections, it won’t even come close to that level.

Climate change’s impact on Canada is already substantial. Across Canada’s western prairie provinces, an area larger than Alaska, mean temperatures have risen several degrees over the last 40 years, causing releases of greenhouse gases from melting permafrost and drying wetlands. The higher temperatures have led to the spread of the mountain pine beetle, which has consumed millions of trees. The trees, in turn, have become fodder for increasingly extensive forest fires, which release still more greenhouse gases. Given that scientists now think the Northern Hemisphere’s boreal forests retain far more carbon than tropical rain forests like the Amazon, these developments are ominous. At least the Harper government has indirectly acknowledged climate change in one way: It has made a show of defending the Northwest Passage, an increasingly ice-free Arctic Ocean link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that winds through Canadian territory.

Nevertheless, the Harper government has shown its disdain for scientists and environmental groups dealing with climate change and industrial pollution. The government has either drastically cut or entirely eliminated funding for many facilities conducting research in climate change and air and water pollution. It has placed tight restrictions on when its 23,000 scientists may speak publicly and has given power to some department managers to block publication of peer-reviewed research. It has closed or “consolidated” scientific libraries, sometimes thoughtlessly destroying invaluable collections in the process. And it has slashed funding for basic research, shifting allocations to applied research with potential payoffs for private companies.

With a deft Orwellian touch, Canada’s national health agency even accused a doctor in Alberta, John O’Connor, of professional misconduct — raising “undue alarm” and promoting “a sense of mistrust” in government officials — after he reported in 2006 that an unusually high number of rare, apparently tar-sands-related cancers were showing up among residents of Fort Chipewyan, 150 miles downstream from the tar sands. A government review released in 2009 cautiously supported Dr. O’Connor’s claims, but officials have shown no interest in the residents’ health since then.

Dr. O’Connor’s experience intimidated other doctors, according to Margaret Sears, a toxicologist hired by the quasi-independent Alberta Energy Regulator to study health impacts in another region near the tar sands operation. Dr. Sears reported that some doctors cited Dr. O’Connor’s case as a reason for declining to treat patients who suggested a link between their symptoms and tar sands emissions.

The pressure on environmentalists has been even more intense. Two years ago Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (who this month became finance minister) declared that some environmentalists “use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest” and “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” Canada’s National Energy Board, an ostensibly independent regulatory agency, coordinated with the nation’s intelligence service, police and oil companies to spy on environmentalists. And Canada’s tax-collecting agency recently introduced rigorous audits of at least seven prominent environmental groups, diverting the groups’ already strained resources from anti-tar-sands activities.

Few Canadians advocate immediately shutting down the tar sands — indeed, any public figure espousing that idea risks political oblivion. The government could defuse much tar sands opposition simply by advocating a more measured approach to its development, using the proceeds to head the country away from fossil fuels and toward a low-carbon, renewables-based future. That, in fact, was the policy recommended by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, a nonpartisan, eminently moderate independent research group founded by another right-leaning prime minister, Brian Mulroney, in 1988. The Harper government showed what it thought of the policy when it disbanded the Round Table last year.

*Jacques Leslie is the author, most recently, of “A Deluge of Consequences: A Riveting Adventure in the High Himalayas.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/opinion/is-canada-tarring-itself.html

From PowerShift in Nova Scotia

Opponents Offer Fierce Resistance to Tar Sands, Enbridge and Keystone XL

by Sparki, It's Getting Hot In Here, February 20, 2014

picture via Portland Rising Tide

Cross-posted from RAN’s Understory

Don’t fool yourselves: Big Oil and their craven politicians aren’t giving up on tar sands or any other dirty fossil fuels.

The only thing that’s gonna stop the tar sands and these pipelines is us.

In 2011, we were all galvanized by the Tar Sands Action to draw a line in the sands on Keystone XL and the tar sands.  Over 1200 of us sent Obama a message to reject the Keystone pipeline’s permits with a sit-in at the White House. The action subsequently propelled the pipeline into a national issue.

In 2012, we were inspired by the courage of the folks behind Tar Sands Blockade, who put their bodies and freedom on the line with tree blockades and lockdowns inside the Keystone XL pipeline itself. Dozens were arrested in the campaign to stop the southern leg of Keystone XL. Many were brutalized by police, charged with felonies, and faced civil litigation at the hands of Canadian oil giant TransCanada.

Now with an ever-expanding web of pipelines and refinery upgrades to drain the Alberta tar sands, the stakes are only getting higher. The Keystone XL pipeline, the Enbridge pipeline, the Energy East pipeline, and dozens of other related projects are quickly becoming the new fronts against devastating fossil fuel extraction and climate change. They are being met with fierce opposition.

Oglala Sioux

In South Dakota, referring to Keystone XL as the “black snake pipeline,” the Oglala Sioux nation and its allies have committed to stopping the pipeline’s construction on their territory if Obama approves the project.

In response to the US State Department’s recently released environmental report, Oglala Sioux president Bryan Brewer, along with organizations Honour the Earth, Owe Aku, and Protect the Sacred, released a statement declaring they will stand with the Lakota people to block the pipeline.

While organizers have said they want to keep their strategy a secret, they’re considering everything from vigils to civil disobedience to blockades to thwart the moving of construction equipment and the delivery of materials. Moccasins on the Ground, an Indigenous-led direct action training group, has laid the groundwork for the past two years with non-violent direct action trainings in these communities. “We’re going to do everything we possibly can,” said Greg Grey Cloud of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe. Grey Cloud said tribes are considering setting up encampments to follow the construction, but he stressed that any actions would be peaceful.

This past weekend, the Oglala Sioux sponsored a two-day strategy conference and training session in Rapid City, called “Help Save Mother Earth from the Keystone Pipeline.”

Megaloads

Since 2010, oil companies like Exxon have transported massive pieces of oil refining equipment from South Korea to Portland, OR via ship. They then send them up the Snake and Columbia Rivers by barge to different ports in Oregon and Idaho. After that, they truck them, via huge house-sized trucks known as “megaloads,” to Alberta over Oregon, Idaho and Montana’s scenic highways and byways.

The oil industry has used every trick and loophole in the book to move that equipment and build out their infrastructure in Alberta. Residents have responded not just with pressure on regulatory agencies and lawsuits, but also with nonviolent direct action.

Since 2011, activists led by Indigenous organizations and Rising Tide chapters in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon have led a campaign to block the tar sands megaloads on the back roads of the Pacific Northwest. In December, Oregon activists successfully blocked megaloads for multiple nights.

More megaloads are scheduled for delivery and more actions are planned throughout the region.

MICATS

Last summer, the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands, or MICATS, took a courageous stand against tar sands oil in Michigan. Over twenty activists were detained while shutting down the construction of Enbridge’s line 6B tar sands pipeline.  Three of them—Vicci Hamlin, Lisa Leggio and Barbara Carter, a.k.a. the MICATS 3—locked themselves to machinery to augment the occupation.

Last month, after a brief trial, these three women were convicted of felonies for their actions. Immediately after their conviction, Judge William Collette revoked their bond and had them returned to custody until sentencing on March 5th. They are facing up to three years in prison for peaceful actions protecting their community and their world.

The prosecution and conviction of the MICATS 3 highlights the lengths that oil companies and its allies will go to silence any dissent. The MICATS 3′s potential jail time highlights the determination of climate and anti-extraction activists to stop the destruction.

In 2011, Wild Idaho Rising Tide put out this call to action:

“Keep up your creativity and resolve under pressure, dear comrades! Allies elsewhere, we are under escalating siege and need you by our sides, either physically or fiscally.”

The words still ring true. Whether Michigan, South Dakota, or Idaho, the fight against tar sands infrastructure is only escalating and it needs all of us.

If you want to get involved and don’t live near any of these infrastructure projects, then sign the Keystone XL Pledge of Resistance and find an action near you. Over 76,000 have pledged to put their bodies on the line to stop Keystone XL and our voices are only getting louder.

http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2014/02/20/opponents-offer-fierce-resistance-to-tar-sands-enbridge-and-keystone-xl/

‘Megaloads’ Of Tar Sands Equipment Face Legal Challenges In Oregon

Climate Progress, February 12, 2014

Oregonians are challenging the permitting of so-called “megaloads” of tar sands extraction equipment to traverse state highways en route to Alberta.

An Oregon non-profit called Act on Climate, in partnership with a local tribal chief, filed a petition in Marion County Circuit Court, Oregon asking the Court to require the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to seek public comment and consult with affected tribes before it issues the permits.

A megaload, refers to an enormous truckload hauled by a rig and trailer that takes up both lanes of a two-lane highway and can’t fit under a freeway bridge. Most megaloads are longer than football fields and require special state permits to drive on highways. A megaload that departed the port of Umatilla in Oregon on December 2, with equipment headed to Alberta was 380 feet long, 23 feet wide and 19 feet tall. It weighed 901,000 pounds including the truck and trailer.

The filing, a “Petition for Review of Agency Decision,” asserts that ODOT failed to meet its legal obligation to assess whether “the public interests will be served” before issuing the latest megaload permit on February 6. This is the third such permit that ODOT has issued since December. The most recent megaload to be granted passage through Oregon, like the two before it, is carrying giant evaporators that recycle the steam injected underground to melt out the bitumen from the Alberta tar sands. This bitumen, once diluted, is what flows through current tar sands pipelines, and what will in theory flow through the yet-to-be-approved Keystone XL pipeline.

“We are dedicated to stopping the Megaloads in Oregon before they reach their destination at the Alberta tar sands,” explained Peter Goodman, who represents Act On Climate. “The Megaloads are not just another oversize industrial cargo, they are the tools needed to contribute to the dirtiest industrial project in the world. 

“Either we rise to the occasion of the Megaload threat before us or we participate, albeit passively, in our own extinction.”

Last summer, the Nez Perce tribe organized blockades along U.S. highway 12 in Idaho in protest of megaloads passing through their tribal territory without proper consultation. In September a federal judge ruled in favor of the Nez Perce Tribe and Idaho Rivers United, This decision blocks any further transport of megaloads along scenic U.S. 12 until the U.S. Forest Service completes a corridor study and fully consulted with tribal officials. The injunction necessitates that the megaloads take a longer route through Eastern Oregon and Southern Idaho in order to get to Alberta.

Members of the activist group Portland Rising Tide and other concerned citizens are scheduled to gather at the Port of Umatilla Tuesday evening for a rally in protest of the third megaload now preparing to start its trek to Canada. In addition to opposing tar sands extraction on the basis of climate concerns, the protesters also fear that Oregon could become a permanent corridor for heavy haul equipment.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/02/12/3279951/protests-oregon-megaloads/