Keystone XL protesters face hefty bail after arrests
Protesters trying to save the world by sitting in trees or blocking equipment used to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline are learning that environmental activism can be a ticket to lengthy jail time in East Texas.
Matthew Almonte, Glen Collins and Isabel Brooks landed in jail in Tyler on Dec. 3, charged with misdemeanour criminal trespass, resisting arrest and illegal dumping, following efforts to stop work on the TransCanada Corp. pipeline. Each has asked for a reduction in the $65,000 bond that must be posted to get out pending trial, without success.
The trio joined more than 30 others arrested since October near Tyler and Nacogdoches as they tried to halt work on the $7.6 billion pipeline that would bring products of Alberta oilsands to Houstonarea refineries. U.S. President Barack Obama blocked the northern U.S. leg, citing environmental risks in Nebraska. An updated review of a revised route may be released in days. The southern end runs from Oklahoma through Texas.
“This is the front line where the climate debate comes onto the ground and you can come over and kick it,” said Eddie Scher, a Sierra Club spokesman. The Washington-based group calls itself the largest, most effective U.S. environmental advocate. “There isn’t an inch of space between us and the blockaders.”
Dozens of mostly 20-something activists have pitched tents on a ranch outside Nacogdoches, a city near the site of the state’s first oil well. The camp provides a staging area for protests, which have included perching in trees on the route and locking people to construction equipment.
“Gangs of tree sitters who trespass and defecate on landowners’ property don’t understand Texas values and culture,” Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said in an essay posted on his website in October.
No state elected officials have lent public support to the protests, which, if successful, may curb the energy boom in Texas, the nation’s biggest oil producer. Blocking interstate pipelines would threaten the economic viability of Houston refineries, which support thousands of jobs, Tom Zabel, a TransCanada lawyer, said in an Oct. 4 court hearing.
At least five groups are fighting the Keystone route across their property, while about 95 per cent of landowners favour the project for financial reasons, said John Johnson, a rancher in Douglass who has leased acreage to accommodate the pipeline.
Pipeline protesters are a small minority and are the type of people who always are unhappy about something, Johnson said. “I think the pipeline has been fair in its dealings.”
The Keystone project became a cause celebre last year among supporters of environmental activists, who say extracting oil from oilsands releases three times more carbon dioxide than conventional drilling and worsens global warming. Actress Daryl Han- nah was charged with criminal trespass and resisting arrest during an Oct. 4 pipeline protest in Wood County, near Tyler. Hannah, 52, spent less than six hours in jail before being released on $4,500 bond, court records show.
Hannah protested in support of Eleanor Fairchild, 78, who was also arrested Oct. 4 on charges of trespassing on land she leases to TransCanada. TransCanada, which says on its website it expects to win approval for the northern leg early next year, has consistently prevailed in court over opponents to the southern section of the 2,151-mile (3,460-kilometre) pipeline.