Blockadia and Ferocious Love: This is how it’s done.

Naomi Klein describes Ferocious Love and Blockadia in her book, “This Changes Everything”:

The power of this ferocious love is what the resource companies and their advocates in government inevitably underestimate, precisely because no amount of money can extinguish it. When what is being fought for is an identity, a culture, a beloved place that people are determined to pass on to their grandchildren, and that their ancestors may have paid for with great sacrifice, there is nothing companies can offer as a bargaining chip. No safety pledge will assuage; no bribe will be big enough. And though this kind of connection to place is surely strongest in Indigenous communities where the ties to the land go back thousands of years, it is in fact Blockadia’s defining feature.

 

A weekly vigil has sprung up in Northfield at the proposed site of a compresser station. This action started with one or two people. Last week it was 25.

Many people have been working tirelessly to stop the monstrosity that is the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline.  From understanding the complexities of the energy business, politics, and law, to spreading the word, making phone calls, contacting legislators, speaking up, writing, organizing, learning,  documenting the fight and the beauty of this place, making signs and standing, standing up. This is the latest installation in our story of ferocious love for our land, the region, the habitat, the creatures that share this place with us,  and our children.

“Love will save this place”.

Click here for an Yes Magazine interview with Naomi Klein, speaks about Blockadia.

Click here for Info on the vigil in Northfield, Gulf Road every Thursday 4:30-5:30

Thank you, Deirdre Derchin Olson for these gorgeous photos!

Check out all the dates below and join in.  Bring hiking boots / Rain or Shine

More info here 

Photo: Rene Theberge

Wednesday, August 5th

6:30 pm Rally
Signs, Songs and Chants

7 pm Hearing
Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board

Greenfield Community College 
1 College Drive
Rally outside Dining Commons, hearing inside

This Wednesday, August 5th, the Energy Facilities Siting Board (EFSB) is holding a hearing to help inform the Commonwealth’s position at FERC. We can use our rally and this hearing to tell Governor Baker that Western Mass says no to the pipeline!

Read more here at the No Fracked Gas In Mass website

Here’s the full notice with information on how to submit written comments (by August 13th). 

 
Once again the Greenfield Middle School was filled to capacity with nearly every seat occupied by pipeline opponents, who repeatedly were on their feet waving signs with the names of the 55 towns and cities in Massachusetts that have passed resolutions against the pipeline.  Twenty- five elected officials spoke passionately about their opposition to the pipeline.

Many of them called for a restart of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission environmental scoping process based on the fact that Kinder Morgan released their 6500 page, 79 volumee report last Friday, July 24th – giving participants only five days to respond.   Another source of frustration was concern about the incomplete nature of this report.

One hundred members of the public signed up to speak.  FERC staffers agreed to stay until everyone who wanted to speak had their chance; the hearing lasted until 11:45 PM and about two thirds of those who wanted to speak were able to stay late enough to have their number called.

Comments were thoughtful and heartfelt, and covered a wide range of issues including the devastating environmental impact of the pipeline.  People spoke about  climate change, wetlands, rivers and farmland. Residents of Northfield highlighted their multiple concerns about the gigantic compressor station proposed for their town, citing its many toxic effects. Kinder Morgan’s attempts to build the pipeline through protected lands and its impact on environmental justice communities were also highlighted. Speakers emphasized the urgency of moving now to renewable energy sources and the many jobs that will result.  Residents spoke movingly about their love of our region, and their commitment to preserve our way of life and rich ecosystem for our children and grandchildren.

photo by Rene Theberge

ReNEWable MASS

Comments are due to FERC Aug 15, 2015.

As always, www.nofrackedgasinmass.org has a wealth of detailed information about the pipeline fight.

link to FERC permit info

link to FERC Scoping announcement

Example FERC comment from Rachel Branch:

July 14, 2015, 11:00 a.m.
Docket No. PF14-22-000
COMMENT ON SCOPING MEETINGS

I am Rachel I. Branch, a Citizen of the United States of America, a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and therefore claim standing to oppose the issuance of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) permit for the Kinder Morgan/Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company, L.L.C., and its Northeast Energy Direct Project.

Prior to my questions for the Scoping meetings, I expressly and respectfully request that these meetings be postponed until all the Kinder Morgan/Tennessee Gas resource information is supplied to FERC.  It is essential for postponement so that those of us opposing this project have all the information available to pursue specific, fact-based, pertinent questions for the Scoping meetings.  I further strongly respectfully request that these meetings be held in the cities and towns directly impacted by the proposed pipeline and compressor stations.

Questions:

1.  Will Kinder Morgan/Tennessee Gas (KM/TG) assure FERC and all Americans, with no equivocation, that public health and public safety will be paramount and protected BEFORE pursuing this project?

2.  Will KM/TG be required to supply all environmental studies and those entities that performed these studies to FERC for the public’s perusal?

3.  Will KM/TG be required to supply the amounts paid, and to whom, for those studies?

4.  Will KM/TG be required to provide all public health and public safety assurances, backed up by factual specificity, BEFORE any proposed pipeline construction is begun?

5.  Will KM/TG be required to provide all public health and public safety assurances, backed up by factual specificity, BEFORE any proposed compressor station construction is begun?

6.  Will KM/TG be required to prove the necessity of this proposed pipeline with studies verifying the actual need, and, once again, supply information pertinent to how much was paid and who compiled such studies or information?

7.  Will KM/TG be required to provide answers to all questions without being allowed to respond with “TBD,” as its use allows omission of information FERC and the public need?

8.  Will KM/TG be required to state, unequivocally, the actual cost of the proposed pipeline and be specific in regard to environmental protections for human beings, the ecosystem, the air, the water, the soil, the wetlands, the extraordinary biodiversity that sustains the beings that cannot speak for themselves in our woods, our hills, our mountains, our lakes, ponds and streams, and the extraordinary biodiversity that sustains life and our earth?

This matter before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is so crucially vital that every avenue available to the Commission must be given the highest priority for the good of the American people, your sworn obligation to protect the public health and public safety, and the understanding that the Commission’s integrity must not be compromised and is sacrosanct and inviolate.  Anything other than thorough transparency is not acceptable, unconscionable, and does not protect our Constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Respectfully submitted,

Rachel I. Branch
999 Massachusetts Avenue
North Adams, MA 01247-2231
Telephone:  413-664-0134

Contact for CAN Divestment Legislation subgroup:

Darcy DuMont at dumont140@yahoo.com

Working with the MassDivest Coalition and DivestOurPensionsNow, CAN  supports efforts to remove fossil fuel companies from the Massachusetts pension fund and from college, faith-based and institutional endowments. Visit MassDivest.org for information about pending legislation and actions you can take.

  This past Sunday we came together in Northampton to protest the Bomb Trains, and to remember the victims at Lac Megantic, Quebec .  The protest vigil commemorated the two-year anniversary of the deaths of 47 people and the destruction of the town of Lac Mégantic, Quebec when a train carrying Bakken crude oil derailed and exploded there.   Arranged by members of Climate Action Now/350MA and the Unitarian Society of Northampton’s Climate Action Group.  Photo by Rene Theberge.

Read more about the bomb trains here

Press coverage in MassLive here