Tag Archives: gas

Mora County tells Shell to Frack Off

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Local opposition is slowing Shell’s plans to drill for “tight gas” in Mora County in North-Western Arizona. Until recently, extracting “tight” or “shale gas” wasn’t economically viable, due to the smaller quantities dispersed across a wider rock deposit. However, new techniques known as “hydraulic fracturing” or “fracking” allow oil & gas corporations to access these deposits, leading to aggressive new exploration and drigling programmes. Fracking involves injecting a slurry of sand and chemicals at high pressure into the rock. The fracking fluid weakens and fractures the surrounding rock, making it more permeable to the surrounding gas. Concerns over toxicity, health risks and pollution of water have led to much opposition to the technique by local communities in the US.

Shell (in the shape of Houston-based and wholly-owned SWEPI) has been pushing hard to drill for gas in Mora County. However, many of the 5,000 inhabitants of Mora are highly concerned. The Mora County Declaration of The Public Welfare states that 

“The connection between our land, our water and our people has sustained our culture since the first settlements in Mora County and our future depends on keeping these connections strong. Water is a vital link which, if severed from the land, will also fragment our people from their land. The allocation of our limited water resources must recognize traditional subsistence agricultural and grazing activities as a priority over other types of more profitable land uses. Water is not just a commodity to be bought and sold or exploited for short-term gains. Water is the life blood of Mora County’s traditions, culture and land use. A sustainable future for Mora County requires protection of the most valuable resource for our communities – the water!”

Local residents have formed concerned citizen’s groups including Drilling Mora County.

Statements by local residents include this:

“I have spent my whole life in Mora County. Given that, it is naturally close to my heart. I learned at an early age, that each and every drop of water is precious. When you have to haul a jug down the hill each day to get your water out of the spring, water gains a whole new meaning. There aren’t many places left where you can drink straight out of the ground and not fear becoming ill from it. If unregulated oil and gas development enters Mora County, our children and grandchildren will never have that experience.

Mora County is a quiet place with a small population of approximately 5,000 people and the dubious distinction of being the 17th poorest county in the country. Abundant clean water, healthy wildlife, and an agriculturally based community reside on the sloping hillsides and in the green rolling valleys. If our county does not implement an ordinance such as the one in Santa Fe County, this could all be replaced with polluted water supplies, the all-night hum of gas wells, sick wildlife that is not fit to eat, and a population suffering the adverse health effects that so often accompany hydraulic fracturing.

A couple of years ago, KHL landmen came asking land owners to lease their mineral rights. These leases not only sign over mineral rights, but they also sever the landowners water rights from their property, which is a direct contradiction to our declaration of the public welfare. It appears that these leases will be sold to Royal Dutch Shell who is loudly touting their “good neighbor” policy and insistently claiming that we don’t need any form of legal protection because they have their own oversight boards. From observing history, I think it’s safe to say that all forms of power with the potential to be destructive need outside oversight to guarantee people’s safety. The Federal Government does not regulate the oil and gas industry, so it is up to individual counties to protect themselves.

Industry has told us that the chemicals they use are safe, and hydraulic fracturing poses no risk, yet there are many examples of illness and water contamination caused by industry, and they are adamantly against Mora County implementing an ordinance similar to Santa Fe’s. We need to ask the questions, if hydraulic fracturing is so safe and wonderful, then why do they feel the need to rewrite our Comprehensive Land Use Plan, and why are they so against a protective ordinance? An industry representative recently suggested to our county commissioners that if we wanted an oil and gas ordinance we should adopt one such as the one in Rio Arriba county. I have not read Rio Arriba’s oil and gas drilling ordinance, but given that it was suggested by industry, I am fairly sure that it offers little to no actual protection for the county.

Our resistance of unregulated oil and gas development must be based on facts, not emotions. It is difficult to set feelings aside when one is contemplating the destruction of all they hold dear; however, success depends on clear thinking and careful consideration of all facets of the situation. It is important to remember that industry representatives are quite good at what they do and are compensated very well for their time.

The oil and gas industry is not emotional, it is detached and calculating, with enough money to say whatever it wishes. The integrity of truth, and the knowledge we gain by educating ourselves is the power we have as citizens. We have the opportunity to protect Mora County before it is destroyed like Trinidad Colorado, Aztec New Mexico, Dimock Pennsylvania, Grandview Texas, Pavillion Wyoming, and so many other places in the United States.

You cannot eat money, and you cannot drink gas. This community is capable, and has a long history of, being self-sustained. Preserving that which cannot be replaced by any amount of money is an opportunity we cannot afford to pass up.

Turkmen environmentalist jailed as EU builds relationship with regime

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Andrey Zatoka, environmentalist and civil society leader from Turkmenistan, was sentenced to five years in prison after being framed for assault in Dashovuz, Turkmenistan, on October 29, 2009.

On October 20, 2009, Andrey Zatoka was arrested by the police in a Dashovuz bazaar, after he was attacked by an unknown man while buying groceries for his birthday. When Andrey approached the police for help, they arrested him instead of protecting him. Andrey was a well-known civil rights & environmentalist activist, raising concerns about the impacts of fossil fuel development. Here’s Amnesty’s Urgent Action for Andrey.

European governments have stayed unsurprisingly quiet. One of the pillars of EU “energy security” strategy is construction of the Nabucco pipeline, to run from Turkey to Austria. The pipeline is intended to bring natural gas from Central Asia and the Middle East directly to Europe, without relying on Russian gas or infrastructure. Moving ahead with Nabucco relies on commitments by gas producing countries that they will sell to Europe. With Azerbaijan’s mega-Shah Deniz field unable to provide enough gas to fill Nabucco itself, attention has focused on Turkmenistan’s resources. The EU has lobbied hard for gas to be pumped west, as opposed to east to China, north to Russia or south to Iran.

Much of Turkmenistan’s Caspian territory remains unexplored, with estimates for gas reserves ranging from 4 to 38 trillion cubic metres. British oil companies, including BP, have made repeated overtures to the Turkmen government in the last two years, in the hope of securing exploration licences. Developing fields under the Caspian and exporting the gas would be comparatively for BP, as its Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan lies close to the marine border with Turkmenistan and its South Caucasus Gas Pipeline already pumps gas across the Caucasus and into the Turkish grid.

The EU and British oil companies eagerness to access Turkmen fossil fuels enables the regime to continue repression. Kate Watters of Crude Accountability, who focus on impacts of oil development in the region, argued that Andrey Zatoka’s arrest indicates “that the west has traded away protection of human rights for access to hydrocarbons.”

A recent statement by those concerned citizens within Turkmenistan described the situation:

“There is absolutely no freedom of speech in the country. All news media is affiliated with and strictly controlled by the government. Any public expression of differing opinions is impossible. Repression includes interviews and publication in foreign mass media. Access to the Internet continues to be censored.

There is no pluralism in the country. There are no political parties. All political and social activity is strictly controlled by the authorities. It is impossible for NGOs to work legally. All civic activists are under constant control of the secret police, undergo psychological pressure, and are subject to physical threats made against them and their relatives.

The Constitution of Turkmenistan does not include the right to freely leave the country. As a result, citizens are frequently denied the freedom to leave the country or are pressured and manipulated when applying for the right to leave Turkmenistan. Journalists, civil society activists, and the relatives of those in prison are forbidden from leaving the country.

Carbon offsets –> more gas flaring in Nigeria

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Another reason why CDM and carbon offsets is not the way (or even an efficient way) to deal with climate change.

Flaring gas from oil projects in Nigeria (and elsewhere) is a crazy practice and a human rights abuse, causing acid rain, sickness and heavy local pollution, as well as enormous carbon emissions.

There are proposals that oil companies such as Shell operating in Nigeria would receive CDM licences to reduce gas flaring. That is if an oil project ends its burning off of gas and thus reduces its emissions, it can sell carbon credits to companies in the North who haven’t cut their emissions.
Outcome: Barkindo, Group Managing Director of NNPC (Nigerian National Oil Company), lobbies the Nigerian Parliament not to ban gas flaring by 2010, as they’re currently debating to do. Because if they do that, no oil company will get CDM credits years down the road!

According to next, Barkindo said:

“We have opted for the implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism not only to enhance our mitigating efforts as a developing country but also to do it in a win-win manner,” he said.

He also said that the National Assembly should reconsider its bill that seeks to prohibit gas flaring beyond 2010 as, according to him, “any act or law introduced to stop gas flaring will erode the additionality criterion of getting any project registered with the CDM executive board.”

Mr. Barkindo said no investor would like to stop gas flaring, except through the implementation of the Clean Development Mechanism.

Shell-to-Sea Activists Served With Prison Sentences

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Niall with Garda, the Irish police force (photo: Hugh Egan)
Activists in Mayo, Ireland have been resisting Shell’s efforts to lay an illegal onshore pipeline in their community. The courage of these activists, who have risked jail sentences and put their lives on the line, has succeeded in delaying the construction of the pipeline frustrating Shell’s plan to access Ireland’s gas fields. Shell-to-Sea is  an inspiring example of how local struggle can halt an oil giant in its tracks, but their efforts have also brought harsh penalties from a judicial system where the odds are stacked against them.
Below is the latest update from Rossport Solidarity Camp, Mayo, Ireland. The full update can be read here.
In Bellmullet court on Thursday, five Shell to Sea protesters were up for
hearings on charges ranging from last August 2008 to this June 2009. Judge
Anderson dismissed several charges on technical points but was very harsh
in serving two of the campaigners with four and eight month prison
sentences.
garda).
Maura Harrington, a well known Shell to Sea campaigner and spokesperson
who has already spent time in Mountjoy prison twice this year for acts of
civil disobedience against Shell, was given a four month prison sentence
for Section 8 public order charges (failure to obey the directions of a

Community resistance in Rossport continues

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Maura Harrington – imprisoned for her opposition to Shell: “We all have successes and failures. I was a teacher, my failures work inside the gates at Glengad and Bellanaboy, my successes are outside the gates”.

Second email from George, supporting the community resistance against Shell’s gas plans in Rossport, Ireland:
I drove over to Rossport with Paul yesterday. As we drove alongside the estuary with its sandbanks in celtic designs we talked about the Six Counties. Paul said that he wished now that he had paid more attention to the situation there before because he felt similar things were happening here. ‘People in Ireland don’t like hassle, they wish the north would break off and float away’.

Martin asked me out on the boats again to help bring in a catch of mackerel for a restaurant. He’s offered me work on his boat. We went out with his daughter’s boyfriend this time. The wind was up and there was a strong swell outside the harbour. We dropped the lines fast over the side, watched the bubbles rise up as the weight sank. Martin used the fish scanner to spot the shoals without success. Instead we watched where the gulls were on the sea, and found fish there.

When the gas was discovered the local priest announced that the area ‘which previously only knew emigration and starvation would see jobs and prosperity’. Shell bought off local leaders, like the priest.

He went so far as to fly out in a company helicopter to bless the wellhead. Betty and Fritz arrived too late to a local consultation early on to see him at the bar surrounded by shell men buying him pints. It was enough, they said. At that time the only dissenting voice was Sister Majella, recently returned from Nigeria who warned they would ‘do to you whatthey did to the Delta‘.

Martin says they were never in danger of starving because they had the fish from the sea. Like Pat, he tried emigration, working for a time in New York on construction. He remembers leaving work in the evening with Irish workmates and going down to the British Embassy. It was the time of Bobby Sands’ hunger strike and they waved black flags waved in the streets.

Yesterday in Belmullet they jailed Maura and Niall for four and eight months respectively. We stood around Niall in court after the verdict as he gave instructions. One after another local people came up and shook his hand or hugged him. We hugged and he held onto my hand. Then he was taken out to a waiting cop car.

At the station I got permission to see Maura. She winked at me and gave a statement. In it, she reflected that the judge had asked if all her former pupils from her 36 years as a
teacher were potential anarchists. “We all have successes and failures. I was a teacher, my failures work inside the gates atGlengad and Bellanaboy, my successes are outside the gates”.She asked for a paper,
some money and cigarettes.

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of a pipeline explosion in Belgium which killed 24 people. To commemorate this
we organised a candlelit walk on both sides of the estuary. Every large gust of wind blew out most the candles, but people enjoyed being able to come together, particularly after court. In the rain afterwards fifty of us raised cups of tea and hot chocolate to Niall and Maura.

Free Speech Radio Network invited me to produce a feature on Rossport which I’m keen to work on but first I’m coming back to England next week for my sister’s birthday. Soon after that it’s the Climate Camps. I’m going to give a workshop on deportations on charter flights at the Irish Camp.

Fishing in Rossport

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This will be the first in a series of emails from my friend George who is in Rossport, County Mayo, Ireland, supporting the local community in their resistance to Shell’s plans to build a high pressure gas pipeline through their village.

Martin O’Donnell is Pat O’Donnell’s brother, whose boat was sunk by masked thugs in June.

Walking along the road from Poll a’tSomais putting up signs on the telegraph poles and talking to people in their gardens and on the road. Bridgette Mc’grath saw us on the road and came outside to pick out which sign she wanted outside her pub: ‘No Consent’. Further up Eamon brought us a ladder to help us nail ‘Shell Out’ to a pole outside his house.

On Tuesday I went out with Martin O’Donnell, the chief’s brother, in his fishing boat. St. John and I drove over to Porthurlain early in the morning where the fishing boats are moored. Martin was already out on his boat, ‘You’re late!’, when we arrived and picked us off the jetty, the motor giving off black smoke.

His two crew, Sandy and John leant on the rail. Sandy was my age, and had been fishing with Martin for five years. John was an older man in yellow oilskins who had been with Martin for twenty years. We motored out of the harbour rolling slightly with the swell. Just outside the harbour we stopped. John and Sandy brought down the lines from the reels above our heads. Each line had hooks and brightly coloured lures attached to it. They lowered the lines over the side, hand over hand. When they came back up each hook had a mackerel on it. The fish were pulled through rollers and dropped into buckets. Then the line was dropped again. They flapped about in the fish boxes drumming the sides, all shining in the morning sunshine. But Martin was dissatisfied, ‘not big enough’.

So we left to pull up nets. Sandy hooked the marker buoy and attached the end of the net to the winch. Martin went below and started the motor. The nets reeled in. Full of red crabs. John and Sandy pulled these out of the nets and snapped the claws off and tossed the shell over the side. Gulls gathered. They filled a box with crab claws. The crabs damage the nets explained Martin. They were hoping to catch monkfish and flatfish. We did catch some – Martin pulled a monkfish out of the nets and showed us the lines of sharp teeth. They have a lure they dangle in front of their mouths which they use to catch unsuspecting small fish. But mostly we caught crabs.

Each green net is a mile long and we pulled in five on tuesday. After the first net we motored along the coast, past stacks and arches in the cliff and the green fields above. We passed a basking shark- a large shadow beneath the surface. The next net was worse than the first. About halfway through the winch motor stalled. We looked over the side and hanging below us in the water was a grey ray with a wingspan as long as a dining table, still alive. Martin shook the nets and it swam free. We caught dogfish too and threw them back.

But the fishing was bad. ‘There’s a recession out here too’. The government subsidy is down, fuel prices are up, and the catch is down.

Martin thinks this is why most of the fishermen accepted Shell’s money, ‘They don’t think longterm. I want to preserve this way of life.’ There used to be 38 fishing boats at Porthurlain, now there are just 15. Just three years ago the government banned salmon fishing locally, a large source of income. If the refinery discharge pipe goes into the sea, Martin fears the market value of the fish will drop further.

I was in the wheel house talking with Martin when there was a call from the deck. Just alongside the boat was a pod of dolphins. They swam close, almost touching the sides and jumping through the wash from the motor. John and Sandy gutted the fish on deck. The gulls swooped on the scraps in the water. They filled around three boxes of fish and another of crab claws. ‘A lot of hard work for nothing’.

Back on shore these were packed in ice and sent to Dublin to the fish market. I made some recordings and then helped haul in the nets, some with little more than seaweed in. In the final net we pulled up a crayfish which martin gave to the solidarity camp. Like some giant red insect.

A lot of the fishermen have lost gear during the Solitaire’s work. He lost nets and others lost their pots. Martin turned to me while we were untangling one of the nets ‘I think we’ve lost the battle at sea, George’. He was clearly frustrated with the fishermen he feels sold out to Shell.

Speaking to Betty yesterday, she also felt that if the fishermen had worked together they could have stopped the Solitaire. But people here are preparing for the land based actions.

I kayaked around the headland into the other bay recently. The water there was as clear as it was the first time we paddled out in Broadhaven, you could see the bottom even in the deepest part.

Update on Rossport: Resistance to Shell’s Onshore Gas Pipeline

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Rossport Solidarity Camp MeetingFrom the village of Rossport, on the west coast of Ireland, the movement resisting Shell’s attempts to build a gas pipeline through the community is calling for international solidarity. The struggle is entering its most critical stage to date – this summer, years after the project was due to get underway, Shell will finally attempt to bring the pipeline onshore. The operation will be supported by a huge deployment of force, both from the state and Shell’s security guards. They will face unprecedented opposition from local people who have not given their consent to the project, but stopping the pipeline and the threats it poses will not be easy, and support is needed.

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