Tar Sands

Company Plans To Strip Mine Oil Sands In Northwest Alabama

May 5, 2014 Stan Diel, www.blog.al.com Educate! Oil, Tar Sands

A company’s plan to strip-mine oil sands near north Alabama’s Tennessee Valley has residents in several counties concerned about declining property values and environmental impact. MS Industries II LLC, a mining company based in Wolf Springs, has acquired more than 2,500 acres of land in Colbert, Lawrence and Morgan Counties. The company’s executives said they intend to use proprietary technology to recover bitumen from sandstone. Petroleum-based bitumen is a primary ingredient of asphalt, and the overwhelming majority of the material that is mined will be used for road paving, CEO Steven Smith said last week. Bitumen can be processed and refined into oil. The material will be surface-mined from pits that typically will range in size from 35 to 40 acres and will be processed in a plant in Lawrence County. The company expects to mine two to three pits at a time with each pit having a production life of up to five years, COO John Christmas said. The project would directly create several hundred jobs with a broad range of wages beginning at $15 an hour, Christmas and Smith said.

Utah Tar Sands:  Promise Or Peril?

May 5, 2014 Dennis Webb, www.gjsentinel.com Educate! Tar Sands

A resource that is undergoing intensive development in Canada is drawing renewed interest in eastern Utah, where any of a number of companies soon could become the first in the United States to produce oil from tar sands for energy use on a commercially sustainable basis. Those efforts are attracting increasing attention for their potential promise or future hazard, largely due to how tar sands development in Alberta, Canada, has boosted energy supplies and economies while causing considerable environmental concern. U.S. Oil Sands is aiming to have a commercial operation with a capacity of up to 2,000 barrels a day up and running by next year in what is called the P.R. Spring tar sands deposit in the Bookcliffs area north of Interstate 70. The Alberta-based company has 32,000 leased acres of state trust lands at P.R. Spring. MCW Energy Group, another Canadian company, hopes to be producing from a 250-barrel-a-day pilot facility in the Asphalt Ridge deposit near Vernal, Utah, as soon as this September, with the possibility of ramping up production quickly to a commercial level if the funding can be obtained to allow it, said company spokesman Paul Davey.

Inside The Unlikely Alliance That Is Remaking The Climate Movement

May 4, 2014 Kristin Moe, www.wagingnonviolence.org Organize! Climate Change, Environment, Tar Sands

In late January of 2013, exactly 150 years after the signing of that first treaty, Spotted Eagle and other activists convened tribal representatives from across the continent on the Ihanktonwan reservation. Their purpose was to ratify the International Treaty to Protect the Sacred from Tar Sands and Keystone XL, a document based on that first 1863 peace treaty. It represented unprecedented unified action from North American indigenous people with one new addition: This new treaty also included a few of the ranchers from the Great Plains, who feel their lands are also threatened by the tar sands pipeline. Spotted Eagle told visitors of how landowners and tribal members had come together in the past, and how they had successfully driven industry off their land. This was a version of the cowboy-Indian story these cowboys hadn’t heard. Meanwhile, Jane Kleeb — an organizer of landowners with Bold Nebraska — was also looking for support for her small but somewhat isolated band of dissidents back home. Phone calls flew back and forth between South Dakota and Nebraska. Kleeb brought ranchers north to meet with Spotted Eagle and other indigenous leaders; the visitors were nervous and polite, unfamiliar with tribal customs – yet it became clear that they were connected by this pipeline, as well as everything they stood to lose if it went through. An alliance looked promising.

Green Group Sues US Government For Hiding Tar Sands Plan

April 28, 2014 Sarah Lazare, www.commondreams.org Resist! Organizing, Pipeline, Tar Sands

The National Wildlife Federation filed a lawsuit this week charging the U.S. State Department is refusing to disclose public information about a pipeline company's possible plans to transport dangerous tar sands oil from Montreal to the coast of Maine. The lawsuit takes aim at the oil industry's repeated claims that there is no plan to transport the dirty oil through New England, despite numerous indications that such a plan indeed exists. A 70-year-old, 236-mile pipeline, owned by Portland Pipeline Corporation (which is majority owned by Exxon-Mobile), currently transports crude oil from freighters in the city of South Portland, Maine to Montreal. Yet, environmental and community organizations say there are strong signs that PPL and parent company Montreal Pipe Line Company is planning to reverse the flow of the pipeline in order to transport tar sands oil from Canada to South Portland where it would then be distributed to international markets via oil tankers and an upgraded terminal.

Thousands March To Reject KXL Protect The Enviornment

April 27, 2014 Resist! Environment, Food and Agriculture, KXL pipeline, Native Indians, Pipelines, Tar Sands

Thousands of people joined the farmers, ranchers, and tribal leaders of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance for a ceremonial procession along the National Mall to protest the Keystone XL pipeline this afternoon. The procession was the largest event yet of the five-day “Reject and Protect” encampment. “Today, boots and moccasins showed President Obama an unlikely alliance has his back to reject Keystone XL to protect our land and water,” said Jane Kleeb, Executive Director of Bold Nebraska, one of the key organizers of Reject and Protect. Legendary musician Neil Young and actress Daryl Hannah were amongst the crowd of thousands who rallied on the National Mall and then marched past the Capitol building. “We need to end the age of fossil fuels and move on to something better,” Mr. Young told the crowd. The day’s procession included the presentation of a hand-painted tipi to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian as a gift to President Obama.

Photo Essay By Jenna Pope: Cowboy Indian Alliance

April 26, 2014 Jenna Pope, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Energy, Environment, Native Indians, Pipelines, Tar Sands

Jenna Pope has been documenting the social movement since the Wisconsin uprising. Her photography always amazes us in how it captures the moment. Below are a few photographs from a photo essay she has published on the Reject and Protect protest in the nation's capital. Jenna describes the action "On April 22nd, a group of ranchers, farmers and tribal communities from along the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline route, called the Cowboy Indian Alliance, came to Washington DC and set up camp on the National Mall to tell President Obama to reject the pipeline." Today is the finale of the Cowboy Indian Alliance in Washington, DC. It is an unusual alliance that set up camp on the Nation's mall to reject the Keystone XL Pipeline. Jenna will be live tweeting at www.twitter.com/JennaBPope We urge you to visit her website to see the full story and her Facebook page for more images. More info here: http://rejectandprotect.org/

As Pipelines & Oil By Rail Increase, Fed Agency Cuts Staff By 9%

April 25, 2014 Elizabeth Douglass, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Energy, Environment, Gas, Oil, Pipelines, Tar Sands

The federal regulator for petroleum pipelines and oil-toting railcars is offering employee buyouts that could shrink the agency's staff by 9 percent by mid-June—a step that has confounded observers because the agency is widely regarded as being chronically understaffed. The job cuts come at a time when PHMSA is already under considerable duress. Politicians and the public have been pushing the agency to more rigorously regulate the nation's aging pipeline network as well as the many new pipelines tied to surging domestic oil and natural gas production. A spate of damaging pipeline spills and oil-by-rail accidents is adding to the workload, exposing PHMSA's shortcomings and intensifying scrutiny of the agency.

Honor The Earth Invites You To DC To Stop Pipelines

April 17, 2014 Winona LaDuke, www.honorearth.org Resist! Climate Change, Environment, Pipelines, Tar Sands

Next Tuesday, April 22, 2014, Honor is joining with Native peoples and ranchers (called the Cowboy and Indian Alliance) from along the pipeline route in Washington, DC, to show Obama and the world that Native Nations will stand firm in asserting our human and constitutionally protected treaty rights in saying NO to the Keystone XL Pipeline. We won’t be leaving DC until the voices of our people are heard. We invite you to visit us at the tipi camp on the National Mall during the week, but urge you to participate on Saturday the 26th in a day of action. Click here to RSVP, and to donate to Honor the Earth’s work to support this action, and the frontline groups opposing this pipeline in their territories. Just as we keep a close watch on the Keystone XL, we must also work to oppose the pipelines of the north, many of which are as big or bigger than the KXL. Honor has been focusing our efforts on the Sandpiper pipeline.

Lakota Tribe Grandmother Teaches Thousands How To Resist To Stop KXL Pipeline

April 13, 2014 Evelyn Nieves, www.alternet.org Strategize! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, KXL pipeline, Tar Sands

Leaders from eight tribes in South Dakota and Minnesota pitched their flags. Participants erected nine tipis, a prayer lodge and a cook shack, surrounding their camp with a wall of 1,500-pound hay bales. Elders said they would camp out indefinitely. Speakers said they were willing to die for their cause. This spirit camp at the Sicangu Lakota Rosebud reservation was the most visible recent action in Indian Country over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. But it was hardly the first ... or the last. On the neighboring Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Debra White Plume, an activist and community organizer involved in Oglala Lakota cultural preservation for more than 40 years, has been leading marches, civil disobedience training camps and educational forums on the Keystone XL since the pipeline was proposed in 2008. White Plume is the founder of the activists groups Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way), the International Justice Project and Moccasins on the Ground...

Urgent Battle On Front Lines Of Pipeline Struggle, Help Needed

April 12, 2014 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Climate Change, Indigenous Rights, KXL pipeline, Tar Sands

The heart of the battle to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline from carrying excavated tar sands from Canada through the US on its way to export lies in a small community in South Dakota. Recently members of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe learned that their Tribal Council was working on a deal to build the power station on their tribal land that will provide electricity to the pipeline. The electricity is necessary to heat the pipeline in order to keep the thick bitumen and chemical additives flowing. In exchange, the community is to receive wind turbines and free electricity. This power station is the heart of the pipeline that will keep the fluids flowing. Without it, the pipeline will not function. That is why members of the Lower Brule community view their struggle to stop the power station as essential. But they are facing opposition not only from TransCanada but also from their own Tribal Council.

Operational Plan For Canadian Police Raid

April 11, 2014 Miles Howe, halifax.mediacoop.ca Resist! Blockade, Environment, Police abuse, Tar Sands

he Halifax Media Co-op has acquired a copy of the 'Tactical Troop Operational Plan' for the RCMP's October 17th raid of the anti-shale gas encampment along highway 134 near Rexton, New Brunswick. Aside from being an interesting glimpse into the mentality of police who prepare such raid plans – where portable toilets are considered to be 'not insurmountable' fortifications, for example – the operational plan also contains valuable and heretofore unknown information. For example, a working group, led by an 'Independent Third Party Negotiator', was engaged in creating an agreement that would have seen SWN, the Houston-based gas company who's equipment had been blockaded inside a compound since September 29th, be “allowed to remove all their vehicles and equipment from the compound.”

5th Annual Tar Sands Healing Walk

April 10, 2014 Tar Sands Healing Walk, www.us3.campaign-archive1.com Organize! Protest, Tar Sands

We are pleased to announce the dates for this years Healing Walk. This years gathering will be a three days with spiritual and educational events taking place on the Fort McMurray First Nation Reservation just south east of Fort McMurray, Alberta. The Healing Walk through the heart of the tar sands will take place on Saturday June 28th. Last year's walk was a great success and we are hoping to make this year even better. We would love to hear your feedback from last years event and would appreciate if you could take the time to answer a few questions in the following survey: We will be sending out updates as we move forward in the planning process. We encourage you to check our our facebook page, twitter and website regularly to stay up to date on the schedule, locations, volunteer opportunities and important notices for this years Healing Walk.

Open Letter To Sioux Tribal Council On KXL, TransCanada

April 8, 2014 Nick Estes, www.oldwars.wordpress.com Resist! Climate Change, Environment, Tar Sands, TransCanada

Not taking a firm stand in opposition to the pipeline places the Lower Brule community at risk as well as the all communities that will be affected by the pipeline’s construction. Access to clean drinking water will also be placed at risk. The proposed route of the Keystone XL Pipeline currently crosses 357 streams and river, namely the Cheyenne River and White River, which are also tributaries to the Missouri River. The pipeline would also cross the Mni Wiconi Rural Water Supply Project, which currently provides fresh drinking water to the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, the Oglala Lakota Nation, and the Sicangu Oyate. More importantly, the pipeline crosses the Ogllala Aquifer, the one of the world’s largest freshwater aquifers. Contamination of this aquifer would result in catastrophic effects that would impact countless people, animals, and plants that depend on this vital source of water.

Rosebud Sioux Set Up Camp To Stop Pipeline

March 31, 2014 Joe O'Sullivan, www.rapidcityjournal.com Resist! Climate Change, Energy, Indigenous Rights, Tar Sands

A new front in the battle against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline is opening up for tribes and others in South Dakota in a rural area near Mission. A group sanctioned by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is setting up a prayer camp near Mission to keep up pressure against the pipeline. The camp will be located off of U.S. Highway 183 near the town of Ideal. Aldo Seoane, project coordinator for the Shielding the People Project, said the tribe has concerns about trouble from pipeline workers and the tribe's sovereign rights being violated by the project. "Rosebud wasn't consulted in the process of getting the pipeline put through," said Seoane. Seoane said part of where the pipeline's path cuts through an area that contains historical and cultural tribal artifacts.

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