California has become the newest battleground state in the fracking fight that is already being waged in states like Pennsylvania and New York. Why?

The short answer is the Monterey Shale. It’s a massive oil deposit that is trapped in the shale formations underneath Los Angeles and most of California’s Central Coast and Central Valley regions (as well as all of the sources of drinking water for the people living in those regions). It was considered too difficult to reach to be worth it until fracking technology came along.

The rush to exploit the Monterey Shale’s reserves has spurred three bills moving through the California state legislature that would halt all fracking in the Golden State until its impacts can be studied more fully, not unlike what has happened in New York and New Jersey. Unlike New Jersey’s ban, which expired in January, the California legislation would require further legislative action to lift. It also stipulates that fracking cannot be done close to valuable water sources, and that all chemicals used in the process must be disclosed.

Environmentalists oppose fracking because of the many dangers, known and unknown, that it poses to the environment and human health. Contamination of water supplies is the major concern, as is the amount of fresh water required by fracking operations, and the fact that injecting water and chemicals to fracture the ground is maybe not a great idea in earthquake-prone California.

Current regulations in California around fracking are very much on the weak side, according to Clean Water Action. The agency responsible for overseeing fracking does not require a permit before a company can frack, and doesn’t even know where all the fracking wells in the state are, let alone what went into them and what dangers they may pose to surrounding communities.

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Every night is Earth night!

On June 11, masked eco-warriors carried out a daylight raid on the exploratory drill site for a proposed iron mine in Wisconsin’s Penokee Hills.  Read on below for the anonymous communique, a list of the companies involved in this dastardly project, and some above-ground ways to get involved in the struggle.

From Wisconsin Anarchy:

On Tuesday, June 11th, some wild ones awoke to the sound of a drill rig and flatbed trucks driving up the ridge of the Penokee Hills in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Idea Drilling LLC were attempting to drill the first of eight core samples that would be used to determine the quality and quantity of iron ore in a 22-mile long stretch of the Penokee Hills, slated for open-pit mining destruction by Gogebic Taconite. Forty percent of Lake Superior’s wetlands lie downstream from the Penokee Hills, as does the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation, whose members depend on healthy waterways for their wild rice and fish. Surely, the amount of waste rock present in this type of mining would result in sulfides and heavy metal pollutants being exposed to these precious waterways downstream and would change the land that human and non-human lives depend on for survival forever. Making the preliminary stages of this mine as expensive as possible to send a clear message to financiers that this is an extremely risky investment is one strategy that was being pursued in the following action.

Wearing t-shirts and bandannas for masks, about fifteen wild ones sprang into action, added their own lock and chain to the gated entrance and built several barricades out of small boulders and downed trees. This was done on the access road in order to delay the anticipated police response for what was to happen. Once arriving to the site where the drill workers and managing geologist were, folks took the space over for about an hour. They jumped on trucks and the collection tank and threw pieces of equipment like pickaxes, fire extinguishers, and shovels down the hillside into the thick of the woods. Fences were knocked over and broken and personal cigarettes were raided out of one of the company vehicles as workers and the manager stood in awe. When it was discovered that the manager was taping all of this for evidence, their camera was snatched, broken, and thrown into the woods. Minutes later, a smart phone was snatched for the same reason and it met a similar fate.

At this point, some of the workers escaped the site in a company vehicle in order to find reception to call the police, because cell phones and CB radios do not work once you are on top of the ridge. We stayed about 10-15 minutes longer, but then decided to leave in order to avoid arrests. We disappeared into the woods and were able to outwit and outrun sheriff deputies on ATV’s because we know the terrain better than they do. We were able to inflict damages upon the company in the form of an entire day of labor costs through the disturbance and subsequent police reports that their workers had to spend their shift doing, as well as shatter their sense of security.

Another outcome of the protest is that Gogebic Taconite will be forced to hire private security for the company contracted to do exploratory drilling in the Penokee Range. Ashland and Iron County sheriff’s deputies were on the scene Tuesday, but Ashland County Sheriff Mick Brennan said they can’t afford to staff the drill site 24/7, so that kind of security is up to the mining company.

May the costs continue to be imposed and may the security guards and mining managers cower in fear.

-some wild coyotes

?

The Players:

Gogebic Taconite (GTAC)- Hurley, WI

Wisconsin Manufacturing and Commerce (WMC)- Madison, WI

Idea Drilling LLC- Virginia, MN

Cline Resource and Development Company-  Beckley, WV

Hillsboro Energy LLC- Hillsboro, IL ?

Foresight Energy- Palm Beach, Florida

Carlyle Group- Washington DC

Chris Cline, who owns a 33,413-square-foot mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, and a home in his native Beckley, West Virginia, where his 150-acre property contains a lake, and a go-kart track. Cline also owns the 164-foot (50 m) luxury yacht Mine Games, which has five staterooms and its own submarine. Chris Cline is the industrial mining magnate who owns the parent company of Gogebic Taconite, Cline Resource and Development Company, Foresight Energy and Hillsboro.

From the Earth First! Newswire:

Visit the Penokee Hills Mine Site

by Carl Sack, adapted by Bruce Noble, Madison Action for Mining Alternatives

Need some summer time action?  Get some fresh air, fish in a Class II trout stream and help STOP an open-pit iron mine.

The Lac Courte Orielles Band of the Lake Superior Ojibwe has received an Iron County conditional use permit for a 5 acre piece of land near the site of Gogebic Taconite’s (GTac) proposed open-pit mine and the Penokee Hills  “ghost towns” of Moore and Plummer, WI.  On May 30, the Wisconsin DNR approved a permit for GTac to do exploratory drilling at eight sites.  GTac is expected to begin drilling on Saturday, June 8. So, now is an important time to witness the company’s activities as well as gather archeological evidence and endangered species sightings that may be useful for halting the mining activity in court.  Come relax in the woods while giving your vacation a PURPOSE.

The Lac Courte Orielles have named their adventure the Harvest and Education Camp.  Many primitive campsites are available with easy access from Hurley and Ashland.  All are welcome from a few hours to several days or weeks.  Try the pan-fried walleye, great conversation and a chance to explore impressive archeological sites scattered along the forested ridge west of the Tyler Forks River.

The Camp is located off State Highway 77 that runs between Hurley and Mellen. Look for Moore Park Road, west of Upson and seven miles east of Mellen – if you’re traveling west from Hurley you know you’ve overshot the mark by about one-half mile if you cross from Iron into Ashland County.  More about the camp can be found at www.unitedindefenseofthewater.com

Feel free to contact Bruce Noble a gasp.madgmail (dot) com.

An indigenous man is arrested near Elisipogtog First Nation during a protest against shale gas exploration, Jun 14, 2013. Photo courtesy @1tnb

from APTN National News

Twelve people were arrested Friday morning by the RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] at the site of a sacred fire as part of an on-going protest in New Brunswick over seismic testing in the area.

RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Chantal Farrah said the arrests were made because people were attempting to block trucks and workers.

Farrah said seven men and five women were taken into custody on Route 126 outside Moncton near Elsipogtog First Nation.

The sacred fire was lit by members of Elsipogtog on June 11 beside a highway where seismic testing vehicles are searching for shale gas deposits.

Opponents of the exploration fear that once the company, SWN Resources Canada, finds shale gas, it won’t be long before it employs a controversial drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to get at it.

Photos on social media show some of the arrests, including one that appears to be a man holding a sacred pipe, with his hands in plastic cuffs.

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Anti-tar sands protest greets Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to London, Jun 13, 2013

From Earth First! Action Reports:

As expansion of oil pipelines is reined in, oil trains are rolling out. Since last fall, the volume of oil shipped by rail from the Alberta Tar Sands and the Bakken Fields of North Dakota has increased dramatically. As Cory Morningstar reported in the April 12 edition of Counterpunch, this strategic shift in the delivery system from pipelines to trains heading for fossil fuel refining and export facilities has already made an end run around campaigns to stop new pipelines. The question now is whether British Columbia, Oregon and Washington State — the refining and export terminals destination for many of these oil trains — are capable of dealing with the consequences of suddenly becoming “crude zones”. All the evidence so far suggests they are woefully unprepared.

In the May 15 edition of Bakken Oil News, it was reported that the Bakken Fields alone could bring upwards of 200 million barrels of crude oil by train to Northwest ports and refineries each year. While the first Bakken oil train arrived last September, all five Washington refineries handle or plan to handle oil trains. Five new terminals are proposed for Washington ports.

In 2008, railroads in the US carried 9,500 carloads of crude; in 2012, that number grew to 200,000. Due to the boom in fracking oil from shale, US oil production is projected by 2020 to exceed that of Saudi Arabia. As reported yesterday at Business Week, several big pipeline projects will be finished in the next couple of years, including the southern leg of Keystone XL. In the meantime, oil trains are on a roll.

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Also check out more information on a weak point in shipment by rail here.

Mi’kmaq woman Susanne Patles in prayer at an anti-fracking protest, as New Brunswick RCMP confer, June 9 2013 (Photo: M. Howe)

by Miles Howe / Halifax Media Coop

ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK – About 25 RCMP officers in uniform, along with about a dozen police cruisers, today [June 9] continued to flank equipment owned by gas exploration company SWN Resources Canada as they proceeded with their seismic testing of highway 126 in Kent County, New Brunswick.

Pushing the scattered crowd of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people back “50 metres distance” from the southward approaching seismic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrested one demonstrator and chased another into the woods before arresting Susanne Patles.

Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scattered a line of tobacco between herself and the approaching police, then proceeded to draw a circle of tobacco in the highway, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two minutes, the police proceeded to arrest Patles. An officer Bernard noted that she was being charged with mischief.

Today’s two arrests follow another three made last Wednesday, when people again placed themselves in the path of SWN’s thumpers. Residents fear that the tests will lead to hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – of the area.

Lorraine Clair, arrested on Wednesday, continues to recover from nerve damage suffered from the rough treatment handed down on her by RCMP officers.

Resistance to SWN’s presence, which is located in a part of traditional Mi’kma’ki territory known as Signigtog – or district 6 – has so far been strong. Thumper trucks have for days now been met with people who object to fracking from the surrounding communities, as well as supporters from around the Maritimes who are now beginning to flock towards the focal point of the highway.

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The Argentine branch of the international environmental organization Greenpeace marked World Environment Day–a United Nations-sponsored event held each year on June 5–with a protest highlighting damage that the pro-mining policies of José Luis Gioja [see Update #1162], governor of the northwestern province of San Juan, could have on Argentina’s San Guillermo Biosphere Reserve. Eight Greenpeace activists climbed the Civic Center building in the city of San Juan and unfurled a 20-meter banner with a photograph of a puma and a caption reading: “Gioja: no mining in San Guillermo.” The activists were arrested and taken to the central police station.

The Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation has two open-pit gold mines in San Juan province: the Veladero mine and the massive Pascua Lama mine, still under construction, which extends from San Juan province into Chile’s Huasco province. San Juan province also hosts part of the large San Guillermo reserve, which includes both swampy lowlands of the Chaco region and Andean highlands. Greenpeace says that Barrick’s mining projects endanger Andean glaciers, a major source of water for the region, and the animals and vegetation in the reserve; the group has launched a “Save the San Guillermo Campaign” and as of June 5 had gathered more than 320,000 signatures from Argentine citizens on an internet petition. Barrick insists that the mines won’t affect the reserve.

On May 24 rightwing Chilean president Sebastián Piñera’s government ordered construction work suspended on the Chilean section of the Pascua Lama mine; the project’s completion may be postponed for years [see Update #1179]. In Argentina the center-left government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner continues to back the massive open-pit mining projects that environmental activists refer to as “mega-mining.” Greenpeace’s June 5 demonstration fell on a day when Gov. Gioja, a Fernández ally, and national officials were scheduled to present a “Plan for Management of the San Guillermo Reserve.” Once the plan is approved, San Juan province will receive $7 million from Barrick designated for care of the reserve. (Perfil (Buenos Aires) 6/5/13; Adital (Brazil) 6/5/13)

Ngobe-Bugle protestors block a highway in a Feb 2012 protest against exploitation of their land. (AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)

From Weekly News Update on the Americas:

Members of 27 campesino communities in the San Francisco district of Panama’s western Veraguas province held a protest on June 7 to demand the cancellation of permits given for the construction of the Lalin 1, Lalin 2 and Lalin 3 hydroelectric projects on the Gatú river. The protesters charged that there were irregularities in the environmental impact studies for the dams. They also said that they hadn’t been consulted on the projects and that the companies involved were ignoring an order from San Francisco’s mayor to suspend construction. The communities proposed the promotion of cooperatives, ecological tourism and farming based on ecological principles as alternatives to what they consider the government’s bad development policies. The demonstration ended without incident, although the protesters complained about the presence of investigative and anti-riot police. Veraguas’ governor agreed to start negotiations with the campesinos. (Radio Temblor (Panama) 6/7/13)

Meanwhile, the indigenous Ngöbe Buglé are continuing to protest the Barro Blanco hydroelectric project in their territory in the western province of Chiriquí [see Update #1170]. According to Ricardo Miranda, a spokesperson for the Apr. 10 Movement, various communities in the area carried out actions on May 24 to demand the project’s cancellation. Miranda called on traditional Ngöbe-Buglé leader (cacica) Silvia Carrera to give up on the negotiations being held with the government at the United Nations (UN) office in Panama City. Even though an independent study mandated by a UN report last year still hasn’t been completed, Generadora del Istmo, S.A. (GENISA), the Honduran-owned company building the dam, says the project is now 40% complete. The company indicated that it was reforesting the area around the dam to compensate for clearing done in the construction. (Radio Nacional de Venezuela 5/27/13, some from Prensa Latina)

The Land is Not for Sale! A community in resistance to La Parota dam.

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than a year after the government of the Mexican state of Guerrero made it clear that it would not approve any plans for La Parota dam, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has included the dam in its most recent report on its upcoming plans. The commission hopes to begin construction within the current six-year presidential term.

Maybe that’s why the government has started trying to introduce paramilitaries into the resisting communities.

Of course, the communities that would be flooded out by this dam (designed to provide electricity to the port of Acapulco and, eventually, hundreds of miles north into the southwest United States) have maintained a solid, no-compromise resistance and remain organized. And all the government’s attempts to expropriate their land have, thus far, been declared illegal and invalid.

Not to mention the fact that the Guerrero government is still committed not to approve La Parota if the dam would have any effect on the environment, if affected communities do not accept it, and if affected people are not fairly compensated. So it looks like the CFE has an uphill fight ahead of it.

The Council of Ejidos and Communities in Opposition to La Parota Dam (CECOP) already defeated La Parota once. They can do it again.

That said, wouldn’t it be great if we could tear down this whole oppressive system so that our friends and allies didn’t have to keep fighting the same battles over and over again?

Police massed near ongoing anti-fracking protests on First Nations land in New Brunswick, Canada

By Tim Fontaine / APTN National News

It was another day of protest in New Brunswick as Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and their supporters voiced their opposition to shale gas exploration in Kent County.

About 100 people have gathered near the town of Birch Ridge, NB, where SWN Resources Canada and their subcontractors have equipment and vehicles used for shale gas exploration stored.

SWN Resources Canada is one of the largest companies involved in shale gas exploration in the province. Many Mi’kmaq and Maliseet are opposed to the exploration, saying that it will eventually lead to ‘fracking’ and cause serious harm to the environment, especially water.

First Nations also say there was insufficient consultation done by the province.

Amateur video and photos show a heavy RCMP presence at the site of today’s protest, although the situation remains peaceful.

This is the fourth day of protests in New Brunswick, sparked when members of the Elsipogtog First Nation seized a vehicle belonging to Stantec, which is a Fredericton-based company subcontracted to SWN Resources Canada.

One of the protesters is Susan Levi-Peters, once Chief of Elsipogtog and former candidate for the provincial NDP. She says frustration is building with shale gas exploration and with the RCMP.

Levi-Peters says with tensions running so high, the province’s Premier David Alward should halt further shale gas exploration until all sides can come together and discuss the path forward.

But she and others warn that with opposition against shale gas exploration so high, it’s unlikely First Nations will agree to allow the industry to develop.

Here’s a brief timeline of events:

Tuesday, June 4

Members of Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick surrounded a vehicle owned by Stantec that was parked at a restaurant near the community. RCMP intervened and brought the vehicle to the local station. Community members followed and refused to allow the vehicle to leave. The vehicle was eventually returned to the company and no arrests were made. Following the incident, New Brunswick’s Energy Minister issued a call for protests to remain peaceful.

Wednesday, June 5

Around 100 people from Elsipogtog and surrounding communities gather on provincial route 126, at the SWN Resources Canada site. Witnesses say although the protest was peaceful, a large contingent of RCMP moved in and arrested 3, including a 16-year-old. The Chief of Elsipogtog, Arren Sock, issued a statement saying that the community is opposed to shale gas exploration and that Mi’kmaq voices must be heard. He also issued a call for calm among protesters, urging them to remain peaceful and lawful.

Thursday, June 6

Another afternoon of protests on route 126. Around 100 gather again and there was a heavy RCMP presence but no arrests are made.

Friday, June 7

Over 100 are gathered at the site on route 126, including St. Mary’s First Nation Chief Candice Paul. Chief Paul has been opposed to the shale gas industry since the province announced exploration would begin over the winter.

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