By Pennie Opal Plant, co-founder Movement Rights and Idle No More SF Bay
![]() Currently, the Wet’suwet’en are being invaded by the RCMP in effort to enforce a Canadian court injunction that would enable the construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline (natural gas) through their territory. Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have long opposed the project. The route of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (which was owned by Kinder Morgan and sold to Canada for $4.5 billion) has plans to go through Secwepemc territory, who are also opposed to that pipeline. This is a violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Free Prior Informed Consent therein. “A United Nations committee working to end racism is urging Canada to immediately stop the construction of three major resource projects in B.C. until it obtains approval from affected First Nations.” The three major resource projects include the Coastal Gas Link and Trans Mountain pipelines. ![]() Canadian Consulate, Jan 2020 ![]() Chevron Explosion Tar sands oil has a higher sulfur content than conventional crude. In 2012, the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California didn’t maintain a pipe that had weakened to the thickness of a dime from sulfur erosion. Chevron workers were instructed to patch this weakness repeatedly which resulted in an explosion that sent 15,000 residents to hospitals with respiratory issues. Many local residents understand that while Chevron invests a tiny fraction of its profits into the community, it also doesn’t care enough about residents to ensure the plant is vigilantly maintained. ![]() Tar sands oil is extracted in Alberta Canada in an area that is 54,054 square miles. According to the National Geographic, “In most of Alberta, the bitumen is buried so deep that wells must be drilled to extract it, and steam injected to mobilize it, at great energy cost. But north of Fort McMurray the bitumen layer is shallow enough that it can be strip mined in huge open pits. The tailing ponds that hold the “produced water” from mining tar sands are so large they can be seen from space and are some of the biggest human structures made on Earth. They contain heavy metals and toxins from the bitumen separation process.” And, they have leaked into the Athabascan River which used to be pristine. ![]() (Photos by Peter Essick) The areas where the tar sands are extracted was part of the largest boreal forest left in the world. The fossil fuel corporations essentially move into an area to be strip mined and remove the life on the land. The home of trees, shrubs, medicine plants, birds, deer and other animals in this system of life are gone and in their place are toxins. The impacts on people and water are devastating with toxic spills into the rivers, rare forms of cancers, auto-immune diseases and miscarriages. ![]() Given these hard facts, Indigenous water protectors and land defenders like the Wet’suwet’en and the Secwepemc are not only protecting their territories, but are also providing an example to the rest of us on the importance of keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Resources spent on fossil fuel infrastructure from mining to transport to refining to the new plastics plants being built, is money that is not going toward real climate solutions like moving toward zero emissions. ![]() Donate to stop the Pipeline! The Tiny House Warriors: Our Land is Home is a part of a mission to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline from crossing unceded Secwepemc Territory. Ten tiny houses will be built and placed strategically along the 518 km Trans Mountain pipeline route to assert Secwepemc Law and jurisdiction and block access to this pipeline. Pennie Opal Plant is an Indigenous woman living near the Chevron Refinery in Richmond, California. She is co-founder of Movement Rights, Idle No More SF Bay and The Society of Fearless Grandmothers. |