On August 4, activists from the Northwest Convergence for Climate Action took action to target climate criminals in the Portland, OR area.

The action began with a march along the Portland Waterfront, including street theater that featured agents from the “Oil Enforcement Agency” (which first appeared in a July protest) giving out tickets to mock cars for contributing to global warming. The march came to a halt at the Columbia River I-5 Bridge (also known as the Morrison Bridge) that connects Portland with Vancouver, WA.

Here, one activist had unfurled a banner off the side of the bridge reading “Six more lanes equal more sick people – No I-5 Bridge Expansion,” a reference to plans for a new, wider Columbia River Crossing under the Department of Transportation’s Corridors of the Future program. Another activist locked down to the bridge walkway, keeping others (including police) away from the banner. Eventually, the two agreed to leave the bridge and police cited them for criminal trespass.

As part of the Corridors of the Future program to reduce congestion on major trade routes, the federal government has given $15 million for highway “improvements” from State Route 500 in Vancouver to Columbia Blvd in Portland, including the Columbia River Crossing. The day after the protest, President Bush issued an executive order to speed up the environmental review for the plan (see our post on this story above).

After leaving the I-5 bridge, the march proceeded to the headquarters of NW Natural Gas Co., where three women had earlier locked down in the lobby. After a two-hour sit-in, the women unlocked with no arrests.

The activists were protesting NW Natural’s Palomar Gas Transmission project — a 223-mile pipeline that would run through farms and wetlands to connect the Bradwood Landing liquified natural gas import terminal with another pipeline (TransCanada) into California. In recent monts, protesters have deployed stink bombs, dropped banners and built Christmas-tree blockades against the project.