UPDATE 5:45 PM: The group of eight activists has been removed from TransCanada offices and taken to Westborough Police Station. Spokespeople for the group say they are unaware of the charges at this time. The group is mostly still chained together with one or two of the chains broken by the authorities. We'll update this post with details as they become available.
Note: at time of this posting - 5:35pm EST - we have been told that the activists are still inside the building...
Westborough,
MA – A group of eight college students from a range of area
schools chained and glued themselves inside the TransCanada offices
at the Westboro Executive Park today. The group entered the building
off of Route 9 in packs of two and three just after 2pm. They then
marched up to the energy behemoth's third floor office, sat in a
circular formation with their backs touching, and began to click-in.
By 2:10, crew members were fully chained and glued to one another,
with fast-drying adhesive dripping from their hands and their bike
locks.
These
aren't nameless activists. Hailing from Brandeis, Tufts, Harvard,
the University of New Hampshire, and Boston University, they launched
a web site in tandem with today's action, complete with names and
bios. While they say that they acted as an autonomous outfit today,
the individuals are aligned with climate action networks including 350.org
and Students for a Just and Stable Future. Today's civil disobedience
was also done in solidarity with protesters in Houston, among other
places. Reports out of Texas show that journalists as well as
demonstrators have been arrested at TransCanada offices there.
In
Massachusetts, the Westborough sit-in is the first of its kind in
protest of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. According to a
TransCanada employee who responded to the action, the TransCanada
office in Massachusetts is not involved in that particular project
(the company's business in New England is mostly in hydropower).
Nonetheless, students from today's action say they're raising
awareness about dirty oil development everywhere, including in New
England. Specifically, the glue-in is an advertisement for
upcoming Tar Sands Free Northeast events on January 23 and 26. From
the press release:
This
week’s protests also foreshadow a cascade of actions planned
against the tar sands for early 2013. A coalition of activists known
as Tar Sands Free Northeast are preparing for actions on January 23rd
and 26th to block a plan to transport tar sands oil through New
England. Canadian activists with the Idle No More movement have
protested the Keystone XL pipeline while 350.org has announced a
20,000 person rally against KXL to be held on February 17th at the
White House . . .
“The
activities of corporations like TransCanada threaten the future of my
entire generation,” said Benjamin Trolio, a senior studying at the
University of New Hampshire. “We need our political leaders to do
their job by standing up for us and taking action to solve the
climate crisis. They can start by drawing a clear line in the sand
and stopping the Keystone XL pipeline.”
The
Keystone XL pipeline is an export pipeline proposed by TransCanada to
carry tar sands oil from northern Alberta across the Midwest to the
Gulf of Mexico. The pipeline has been the subject of intense national
controversy since its proposal in 2008. It has been widely protested
for the risks it poses to the Ogallala aquifer, which supplies
drinking water for 2 million people, as well as for its potential to
dramatically worsen global warming by facilitating the extraction and
burning of the tar sands.
The
Phoenix will be covering the aforementioned demonstrations, as
well as the massive 350.org rally planned for President's Day in DC.
Furthermore, in a magazine feature to be released soon, we'll take
you through the month-long planning process that led up to today's
peaceful standoff in Westborough. This is crunch time in the fight
against fossil fuels, with recent news out of Nebraska setting back
the environmentalist cause, and President Barack Obama expected to
make his decision soon. In Mass, there's also an added new dimension
with Senator John Kerry; if approved as Secretary of State, he'll have to
weigh in on the XL pipeline. We'll be watching...
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