Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) is behind both the Bayou Bridge project and the more infamous DAPL, but the parallels run deeper than a mutual stakeholder. Just like in DAPL, those who resist the project are drawing connections between past wrongdoings, conditions today, and a future climate.
In central Pennsylvania Ellen Gerhart’s property lies about midway along the length of the Mariner East 2 pipeline that reaches from west to east across the state. It is slated to carry a variety of natural-gas liquids under high pressure to the coast and then exported onto the international markets. This project is not without opposition, however. The Gerhart family are one of a number of private property owners across the state who object to their land being confiscated using eminent domain laws and used to further global climate destabilization.
A new resistance camp, called L’eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life), opened over the weekend, on June 24. Based in southern Louisiana, the camp is against the 163-mile long Bayou Bridge Pipeline. The camp, according to a press release emailed to Colorlines, is made up of indigenous and environmental justice communities. Described as a “floating camp,” it sits among Louisiana’s wetlands and contains numerous indigenous art structures that are on rafts.
The Bayou Bridge pipeline will be the last leg of the Dakota Access, carrying oil fracked in North Dakota to Louisiana. The final stretch of the project, if built, will span 162.5 miles from Lake Charles to St. James, cutting through the Atchafalaya Basin, a national heritage area and the country’s largest wetland.
Industry and government claims that Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will boost prices for heavy Canadian crude have no basis in reality, says one of the nation’s top energy analysts. In a brief yet damning report David Hughes, a former federal government energy researcher, concluded that tripling the pipeline’s capacity won’t deliver an extra $73 billion in revenue over two decades as claimed by Kinder Morgan.
Was all the work to try to keep the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines from being built done in vain now that Donald Trump occupies the White House? Not if you ask this week’s guest on Sea Change Radio, Kandi Mossett, a leading organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network.
This year, following the president’s actions, opponents and supporters in Nebraska are preparing for the second round of a momentous confrontation over the Keystone XL pipeline. Montana and South Dakota already have approved construction. The Nebraska Public Service Commission, though, has not.
Almost a full decade since first applying for a presidential permit, TransCanada looks set to finally receive go-ahead in the U.S. for its massive $8-billion Keystone XL pipeline.
Now we’re at a point where we can name currency, debts, big finance, big extraction, consumer values, advertising, the global corporate state. We can name that common colonizer, that common enemy and we have to address it and own it for what it is because we are all part of it. For me, I’m just one soul that has to be willing to sacrifice something in order to liberate from this thousand year old enemy.
A more accurate reckoning of the economic benefits of pipelines needs to consider the negative impact of pipelines on other parts of our economy.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed executive orders advancing the controversial Keystone XL (KXL) and Dakota Access (DAPL) pipelines, prompting a tsunami of outrage and vows of bold resistance from the Indigenous activists, climate campaigners, and countless others who have fought against these projects.
How different would the world be if the grace and poise shown at Standing Rock were to influence our wider political culture? Very different.
