Keystone XLEnvironmentalists begin a summer of protest against Keystone project

Published 26 June 2013

A coalition of environmentalist groups calling itself “fearless summer” launched what it said would be a series of protests against the Keystone XLL pipeline project. Near the city of Seminole, Oklahoma, members of the group shackled themselves to industrial equipment and disruoted work at Keystone-related construction site. Ten were arrested.

Protestors in Oklahoma say they have shut down construction of a pump station Monday in what is believed to be the biggest protest action so far in opposition of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Oklahoman notes that the protestors locked themselves to equipment at the construction site nearby the town of Seminole. The action against the pipeline is the beginning of what activists and environmentalists are calling “fearless summer” —a series of protests and actions aimed, in their words, to protect the country from “extreme energy,” including coal mining and oil.

A spokesman for the group calling itself the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, which   organized the protest, said that four people abandoned the protest for their own safety, another person was examined at the scene before being arrested, and a fifth protestor was treated for a laceration on his arm.

In all, ten people were arrested.

Protest organizers have said that this will likely be the last action taken in Oklahoma, but the group will continue to fight other pipelines from Canada.

“As a part of a direct action coalition working and living in an area that has been historically sacrificed for the benefit of petroleum infrastructure and industry, we believe that building a movement that can resist all infrastructure expansion at the point of construction is a necessity,” spokesman Eric Whelan told the Oklahoman. “In this country, over half of all pipeline spills happen in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Looking at the mainstream Keystone opposition, this fact is invisible — just like the communities affected by toxic refining and toxic extraction.

“We’re through with appealing to a broken political system that has consistently sacrificed human and nonhuman communities for the benefit of industry and capital.”