Tar Sands Week of Action

Women's ENews correspondent Melinda Tuhus posted an excellent feature story about women working to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. A short excerpt:

WASHINGTON (WOMENSENEWS)--Melina Laboucan Massimo is a Lubicon Cree from northern Alberta, Canada, who wants people to understand the magnitude of tar sands mining devastation to her community.

One single site of tar sands extraction near where she lives is the size of Washington, D.C., she said. "So think of your city being completely scraped out, and that's what's happening to our homeland."

She and other women gathered at a restaurant here on the evening of the largest environmental demonstration in U.S. history, on Feb. 17, to tell their stories of opposing TransCanada Corporation's Keystone XL pipeline project, which would bring hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of tar sands from northern Alberta across the entire U.S. mid-section to the Texas Gulf Coast for refining and export.

Massimo discussed ancient forests that have been chopped down to create a moonscape.

"The boreal forest is an ancient forest," Massimo told the gathering. "It's pristine; it's beautiful. A lot of our medicines are there; a lot of wildlife. It's such a beautiful area they call it the Lungs of the Earth. There are already 2,600 oil and gas wells taking up 70 percent of our territory."

This week is Stop Tar Sands Week of Action. More than 50 organizations and 30 planned actions are involved -- including one yesterday in Oklahoma City.

Of tar sands and corporate profits.

This is just a quick post in honor of my friend Stefan Warner, who was arrested with seven others at a civil disobedience action near Schoolton, Oklahoma today. Stefan, working as part of the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, chained himself to a piece of equipment that is being used to construct part of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance is holding a training camp for activists March 18-22 in the Ponca City area, and encourages people who are interested in working with them to attend.

If this pipeline is constructed, it "could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health," according to Friends of the Earth.

According to newsok.com:

Calgary-based TransCanada has proposed a 1,700-mile pipeline, dubbed the Keystone XL, to carry oil derived from tar sands in Alberta to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast. Although the northern leg of the project has not received federal approval, the company currently is constructing the 485-mile southern portion of the pipeline that will transport oil from storage facilities in Cushing, Okla., to Texas, said TransCanada spokesman David Dodson.

The man who locked himself to the machinery, called a side boom, was removed after he was lowered to the ground and a local fire department used a pair of bolt cutters to free him, Conn said. A spokesman for the environmental group identified the man as Stefan Warner, a youth pastor from Harrah.

For in-depth background about the XL Keystone Pipeline, I recommend Michael Klare's excellent post at CommonDreams.org