Frack Check WV » blockade

“NO COAL, NO GAS” Campaign Activists Jailed & Fined in New Hampshire

Duane Nichols — Tue, 17 May 2022 01:16:48 +0000

Young people seeking to reduce climate change effects

Sentenced for Coal Blockade, Climate Activists Vow to ‘Continue to Do What Must Be Done’

From an Article by Julia Conley, Common Dreams, May 16, 2022

After being sentenced to four to six months in a county jail and thousands of dollars in fines for participating in a coal train blockade in New Hampshire more than two years ago, four climate campaigners say they will be “undeterred by these sentences” and will continue to fight the use of fossil fuels by powerful profit-driven corporations.

The activists are members of the grassroots No Coal, No Gas campaign in New England, which organized a blockade of a train that was shipping 10,000 tons of coal to Merrimack Station power plant in Bow, New Hampshire in December 2019.

Convicted of criminal trespass and railroad trespass, Dana Dwinell-Yardley and Daniel Flynn were sentenced Friday to four months in a county jail while Johnny Sanchez and Jonathan O’Hara were sentenced to six months. They were also ordered to pay more than $6,200 to PanAm Railways in restitution and fines totaling $5,580.

The campaign halted the train at three different locations, delaying the shipment by several hours. Prosecutors focused largely on the fact that the No Coal, No Gas campaign is part of a larger climate justice movement, while Judge Andrew Schulman of the Merrimack County Superior Court did not allow the defense to present evidence explaining the campaign and the history and efficacy of other social movements.

“These defendants are part of a movement,” said defense attorney Logan Perkins at the sentencing, which followed a three-day jury trial in March. “[That fact] is significant and we would have welcomed the opportunity to tell you more about the significance of that in a competing harms hearing, or in a competing harms defense presentation in which we would have been permitted to discuss how the science of social change has clearly identified the power of nonviolent social movements to effect change where all other approaches fail. We asked permission to share this and were denied.” Also, “If a self-proclaimed sympathetic judge can’t look beyond the status quo and the absolute protection of the industries that are actively endangering all of our futures, then we are in dire straits.”

During the trial in March, Perkins and the judge disagreed over the relevance of other social movements including the fight for civil and voting rights from Black Americans, with Schulman claiming that nonviolent action like the train blockade was not warranted as a response to the climate emergency and the continued use of coal at Merrimack Station—the last coal-fired power plant in New England.

Jonathan O’Hara has said that he and his co-defendants and supporters would be undeterred by Schulman’s decision. “It’s this fortitude and grounding in a sense of justice and rightness that will power us to continue to do what must be done,” he said.

O’Hara says he was not surprised by the judge’s sentence, which he called “absolutely clarifying about the state of climate action in the country.” Also, “I came here today hoping for justice, but not expecting justice, and I got what I expected,” said O’Hara. “If a self-proclaimed sympathetic judge can’t look beyond the status quo and the absolute protection of the industries that are actively endangering all of our futures, then we are in dire straits.”

The defendants spoke at the sentencing about the effects Merrimack Station has on its community. Noting that in one hour of burning coal, Merrimack Station emits as much carbon as the average American does in 26 years, Sanchez asked the judge, “Does justice look like allowing coal to still be burned in New England when we know the consequences? When we know that it contributes to higher rates of lung disease? Cardiac disease? To cancer? When we know it contributes to rapidly increasing global temperatures? To food insecurity? To fires?” Also, “That is why, back in December of 2019, I believed, as I do right now, that every second that we stopped those trains from delivering thousands of tons of harmful and unnecessary coal was my moral obligation,” he said.

Rev. Kendra Ford, a Unitarian Universalist minister and member of No Coal, No Gas, said the sentence reflects how “our legal system doesn’t seem to be able to respond to current circumstances.” Also, “The urgency of climate collapse is terrifying, and yet the court’s decisions today is focused on protecting profits for companies in the fossil fuel industry,” Ford said. “The judge seemed more concerned that these non-violent activists disrupted profits than the fact that the continued use of coal is causing irreparable harm to the planet.”

Anti-fracking Blockade in Moshannon State Forest of Northcentral PA

Duane Nichols — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:18:50 +0000

: Marcellus EarthFirst! Blockade

The Web-site for the Earth First organization presents the following information:

Tree-Sitters Halt Fracking Operations in PA Forest

Activists from Marcellus Earth First! have erected a slash pile blockade and two tree sits blocking an access road to an EQT hydro-fracking site in Moshannon State Forest in Clearfield County, PA., halting drilling operations set to begin this week. The blockaders were joined by 40 supporters and concerned citizens, who turned around a Halliburton truck.

The blockade is trying to stop the further destruction of Pennsylvania’s state forests—more than half of which have already been leased for drilling—and call attention to the devastating effects of hydrofracking on the state’s communities. The sitters’ anchor lines are blocking the road by crossing each other and the road, and if an anchor line is cut a sitter will fall. This action has been coordinated as the post-Rendezvous action.

Each Summer Earth First!ers and allies come together to skill share, take part in discussion workshops, and keep it wild in our last remaining wilderness places in the US. Following a week in the woods, we take part in an action in support of the local organizers hosting the camp out, also know as the Round River Rendezvous, or Rondy.

Today’s blockade is the latest in a series of escalating actions of resistance to the destructive impacts of hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale. Last May, residents of Butler County occupied the office of State Representative Brian Ellis, demanding accountability for widespread contamination caused by horizontal drilling. In June, seven families, along with dozens of supporters, blocked the entrance to the Riverdale Mobile Home Community to prevent their imminent eviction at the hands of Aqua America PVR.

Aqua sought to destroy their homes and construct a water withdrawal facility permitted to extract up to three million gallons of water from the Susquehanna River daily for use in fracking. Residents were able to maintain the blockade for 12 days. On June 17, 1,000 and passed a “people’s resolution” banning hydrofracking. Most recently, a 31-year-old landowner from Athens County, Ohio chained herself to concrete barrels and shut down operations at one of Ohio’s 170 injection wells, which contain about 95% of the toxic and radioactive fracking waste generated from Pennsylvania drilling. Ohioans stormed the statehouse in Columbus

Momentum in the anti-fracking battle will continue to build across the Marcellus and Utica shale regions throughout July. Next weekend, residents from Ohio and beyond will gather at an anti-fracking action camp in Youngstown and prepare to enforce the “people’s resolution” against fracking. The upcoming months show the beginnings of a national rebellion against extractive industry across the board. On July 28, anti-frackers from across the nation will gather in Washington D.C. for “Stop the Frack Attack,” the largest mobilization against fracking ever.

In West Virginia, Appalachians and allies will stand together at the “Mountain Mobilization” and shut down an active strip mine the last week of July. In Montana,the “Coal Export Action”, a ten-day campaign of civil disobedience at the beginning of August will target coal shipments from strip mines in the Powder River Basin, overseas. And later in the month, Texas residents have called for the “Tar Sands Blockade” to block the recently approved southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Where the government has failed to act to protect communities and the earth from the ravages of an out-of-control energy industry, the people are rising up to resist. No matter where you live, you have the opportunity to join the fight for our future. Find your place, stand your ground, and in the words of Mother Jones, “Boogie Chilluns.”

UPDATE, 7/8/2012, 11:53 am:
Police making vague threats at blockade about assault rifles going off and wandering through blockade with assault rifles. However, at the rally they said there’s a sick bear up the road that needs to be put down, and not to freak out if a gun shot is heard.

Police initiated another round of negotiation with the rally insisting folks move the debris that’s in the road because it’s a safety risk, making veiled threats about things escalating if that doesn’t happen. Police have informed people it’s illegal to block the road, but have not given any order to disperse, they said “if it doesn’t happen [dispersal] they don’t want things to escalate.” Otherwise, situation unchanged.

UPDATE 7/8/2012, 10:14 am:
State police on scene at supporting rally.

UPDATE 7/8/2012, 10:10 am:
Two tree-sitters blocking the well pad access road–their anchor lines are crossing the road and each other, and if an anchor line is cut a sitter will fall. There’s also a slash pile in the road. No police on seen and apparently no security either.

UPDATE 7/8/2012, 9:30 am:
Marcellus Earth First! and supporters have set up a blockade at an EQT well pad in the Moshannon Pennsylvania State Forest. An additional group of 40 supporters are holding a rally down the road, and have blocked a Halliburton truck. The activists plan to stay as long as they can.