Street Roots • Dec. 2-8, 2016
News
Page 5
Leonard
Higgins
works on
closing a
block valve
on Spectra
Energy
Corp, ’s
Express
pipeline in
Montana.
The mission
(continued from page 4)
hat morning, Higgins was one of five
climate activists who pulled off the most
expansive, coordinated takeover of fossil
fuel infrastructure ever attempted in the
United States.
Over the course of one hour, Higgins and
his four counterparts stopped the flow of
Alberta Tar Sands oil over the Canadian-U.S.
border.
One after another, in 15-minute increments,
they manually shut down five pipelines spread
across four states carrying 2.8 million barrels
per day of what environmental groups and
activists have often referred to as “the dirtiest
oil on the planet”
Calling themselves “Climate Direct Action,”
the group of activists also released an open
letter to President Barack Obama
"The message being
sent by these extreme
charges is clearly
directed at others
who might consider
protesting the fossil
fuel industry and its
infrastructure. And at
a time when conversa
tions around climate
change and our role in
it are more important
than ever, that mes
sage is clearly meant
to stifle the legitimate
conversation around
the. role the industry
plays."
ACLU
that morning, asking that he
invoke the National Emergencies
Act to keep the pipelines closed.
They chose Oct. 11 because it
was an International Day of
Prayer and Action, the last of
four such events to raise
awareness of the Standing Rock
protests of the Dakota Access
Pipeline.
The operation began at 6:30
a.m. Pacific time at the
“communication center” in
Seattle, where Jay O’Hara, a
prominent activist and co-founder
of the Climate Disobedience
Center, began placing calls to the
pipelines’ operators.
First, a call was placed to the
oil distribution firm Enbridge,
warning its employees that in 10
minutes, two activists were going
to shut down Pipelines 4 and 67
SABRINA KING,
in Leonard, Minn., where they
WYOMING'S POLICY
DIRECTOR had pinpointed a location housing
block valves to both lines.
The warning calls were made to give each
company the opportunity to close its pipelines
remotely, following proper safety protocols that
would be less likely to cause damage.
Four supporters, one at each site, live-
streamed the activists on Facebook as proof
that they were on location and prepared to
shut the valves.
A second warning call was made by activists
on location to the emergency numbers that
were posted on site, giving the control centers
one last opportunity to shut the valves
remotely before they broke into the enclosures
to manually shut down the pipelines.
The activists, now known as the Valve
Turners, each wore a hardhat and reflective
vest - the required safety equipment for
entering the enclosures.
They all carried industrial bolt cutters, along
with a chain and padlock they would use to
lock the valves closed once they were shut off.
At approximately 6:45 a.m., Enbridge
remotely shut down its lines in Minnesota, just
as two activists from the Seattle area, retired
attorney Annette Klapstein, 64, and freelance
writer and editor Emily Johnston, 50, were
beginning to close the two valves manually. It
was the only company to shut down the lines
remotely.
Fifteen minutes later, a mental health
therapist from Seattle named Michael Foster
manually shut off TransCanada’s Keystone
pipeline in Walhalla, N.D. He had to use the
weight of his body to crank the giant wheel,
bringing him close to exhaustion.
Next came Higgins, who, despite his
struggle with the chain, was able to shut off
Spectra’s pipeline close to his 7:15 a.m. target.
Lastly,'in Anacortes, Wash., Ken Ward, a
59-year-old from Corbett, Ore., who’s spent
most of his career working for major
environmental and public interest
organizations, manually closed Kinder-
Morgan’s Trans-Mountain pipeline at 7:30 a.m.
Each closure was followed with a live-
streamed statement from the Valve Turner,
explaining why he or she felt a need to take
matters into their own hands.
Higgins had plenty of time to leave the
enclosure before law enforcement arrived if he
had wanted to. He and Ingalls both said it was
at least 45 minutes before two Chouteau
County Sheriff’s Office deputies, who’d been
summoned by Spectra Energy Corp., arrived
on the scene.
He showed the deputies the bolt cutters and
broken chains, and he explained what he had
done and offered a brief explanation of why. He
said he wasn’t trying to defend his actions - it
was neither the place nor the time for that.
Trying to get away unscathed was never part
of the plan. They saw Oct. 11 as the beginning
of a “year of action,” as their battle in court
would be just as important
What the Valve Turners didn’t predict was
that six others - four supporters and two
documentarians - would also be arrested and
face felony charges.
In Minnesota, Brooklyn-based climate fight
documentarian Steve Liptay reportedly
received criminal charges in the mail, and in
North Dakota, Emmy Award-winning
filmmaker Deia Schlosberg was arrested onsite
and charged with three conspiracy-related
felonies.
Schlosberg faces up to 45 years in prison for
filming the action, although she asserted in a
video for The Real News Network that she had
no part in planning the event and was standing
on public property while filming.
While the unnamed documentarian with
Higgins was questioned and released,
Chouteau County sheriff’s deputies arrested
Ingalls, Higgins’ supporter, after questioning
and releasing him twice.
Ingalls, an environmental-studies major at
University of Washington, said he was about
five miles outside of Fort Benton, Mont., when
he was pulled over and taken into custody.
He and Higgins traveled to Montana
together in a rented Ford SUV after meeting
with the other Valve Turners and supporters at
Johnston’s Seattle home to finalize plans on
Oct. 9.
The two rented a room at Pioneer Lodge
Motel in Fort Benton, and they drove up the
highway and a couple of miles down a gravel
road the day before to time how long it would
take to get to the enclosure. They didn’t want
to get there too early, because hanging around
could draw suspicion, and they couldn’t be late
because the first warning call from Seattle was
going to be made at 7 a.m. sharp.
Higgins was charged with felony damage to
property of critical public service and
trespassing, and Ingalls was charged with
aiding and abetting those activities. They could
each spend up to 10 years in prison if
convicted - the lightest sentences faced among
the Valve Turners.
A European-funded study released in June
2015 by the Polaris Institute found: “In the
U.S., documents related to Keystone XL show
that TransCanada had access to the highest
levels of security services, including the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The
company also worked to influence how local
police forces dealt with activists, such as
suggesting the use of specific criminal charges
- including terrorism charges - against them.”
In North Dakota, it’s the Valve Turner who
shut down TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline
who faces the harshest criminal charges.
Foster could receive fines of $94,500 and a
sentence of up to 81 years in prison - a life
sentence for the 52-year-old.
ACLU Wyoming’s policy director, Sabrina
King, said the arrests of those involved in and
documenting the pipeline shutdown are just the
most recent in a string of increasingly harsh
prosecutions against climate activists and the
journalists who report on them. In a piece she
wrote for the national American Civil Liberties
Union, she stated, “The worst punishment is
reserved for those protesters who engage in
nonviolent civil disobedience to call attention to
the fossil fuel industry’s practices.”
She concluded that “the message being sent
by these extreme charges is clearly directed at
others who might consider protesting the fossil
fuel industry and its infrastructure. And at a
time when conversations around climate
change and our role in it are more important
than ever, that message is clearly meant to
stifle the legitimate conversation around the
See RECONNAISSANCE, page 8