MORE THAN A HUNDRED PEOPLE GATHER IN MONROE COUNTY TO RESIST FRACKING AND PIPELINES IN THE WAYNE NATIONAL FOREST. LONG TERM RESISTANCE CAMP LAUNCHED.
22 May, 2017
Monroe County, Ohio.
After a three-day long action training conference near the Wayne National Forest, organizers from multiple groups have launched a long-term resistance encampment to defend the Wayne National Forest from fracking and fracked gas pipelines.
The action training conference was hosted by Southeast Ohio’s Appalachia Resist!, a direct action environmental justice group known for blockading the oil and gas infrastructure that threatens the rural communities where they live, as well as the recent action where a group member shut down an intersection in front of Chase Bank in Columbus to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The conference was attended by more than a hundred water protectors, land defenders, organizers and community members from around the state and region, who agreed on the goal to stop Energy Transfer Partner’s accident-ridden Rover Pipeline project, as well as Eclipse Resource’s plan to frack the Wayne National Forest. A wide variety of groups and organizers were represented, such as Keep Wayne Wild, the American Indian Movement of Ohio, Torch Can Do, Earth First!, Camp White Pine, Resist Enbridge Line 5, Radical Action for Mountains and People’s Survival, Tar Sands Blockade, the Buckeye Environmental Network, and the Athens County Fracking Action Network. “People from a lot of different backgrounds, walks of life, and organizing ideas are coming together,” said Crissa Cummings, 45, of New Marshfield. “We are sharing skills and building strategies. Companies like Energy Transfer Partners and Eclipse Resources can expect a wall of resistance.” Trainings included Strategic Direct Action, Environmental Justice and Environmental Racism, and Pipeline Resistance Strategy. Childcare and meals were provided.
Peggy Gish, 73, of Athens County says, “I’ve lived in Southeast Ohio for more than 40 years. I’ve farmed this land. 70% of the Rover Pipeline will go under farmland. We’ve seen the damage they can do. Energy Transfer Partners is the one building this pipeline, and they’re the same greedy corporation that brutalized the Standing Rock Sioux and built the Dakota Access Pipeline. We saw what they did there. We saw how they treated communities and families, children and grandmothers and people who were praying, all so that a few greedy rich people could get richer. I’m a mother, grandmother, and person of faith. I will not stand idly by while Energy Transfer Partners bullies and decimates Native American communities and Appalachian Communities. We’ve all got to stick together to protect our families, protect our farms, and protect the water. If our government and representatives won’t do it, we’ll do it ourselves, by whatever means we have to.”
Michael Rinaldi, 34, another Appalachia Resist! member, remarked that the Rover Pipeline has already been cited 18 times for serious violations. In April, they spilled more than 2 million gallons of bentonite drilling slurry into a pristine wetland in Stark County, Ohio, and last week, were ordered to stop construction entirely because of their disastrous record. He said, “Energy Transfer Partners has demonstrated their complete incompetence time and time again based on the sheer volume of violations within the short time they’ve been constructing the Rover. Wherever these pipelines are planned, people are carrying the lessons of Standing Rock to show this predatory industry that we will resist them every step of the way. The health of our communities is not for sale. Water is Life.”
Noting that since November, the Bureau of Land Management has leased nearly 2000 acres of the Wayne National forest for fracking, mostly to the out of state company Eclipse Resources, Jolana Watson, 25, a member of Appalachia Resist! said, “We are here to tell the Bureau of Land Management that our public lands are not for sale and also to remind them that public lands are stolen lands. The same companies that want to frack the Wayne and build pipelines through it are running roughshod over treaty rights and ignoring native sovereignty around the continent.”
Calvin Fulton, 21, said, “These companies always promise money, but we’ve heard it all before. We were going to get rich from coal, but we’re still poor. We were going to get rich from fracking, we’re still poor, now these pipelines are going to make us rich? Yeah right. I’ve got a message for Energy Transfer Partners and Eclipse Resources: We reject your carrot. all the supposed income and opportunity these projects claim will not go to our communities, but to those who have always exploited us and shoved us aside when we were no longer needed for their plans.”
May 19-22, 2017
Appalachia Resist! Action Camp
Wayne National Forest, Monroe County Ohio
Tentative Schedule:
Friday: 4 PM arrival and set up camp
6 PM dinner (Thank you Seeds of Peace!)
7 PM Welcome and Panel: Lesson Learned from Long Term Encampments and Blockades
| Saturday
Breakfast: 8 AM Morning Orientation: 9 AM (discuss day’s schedule, important announcements)
Workshop Bloc One: 10 AM – 11:30 AM – Microaggressions 101: Queerly Challenging Discrimination and Privilege in Everyday Life Join us to learn how our everyday individual interactions can communicate discrimination or bias unconsciously. We will discuss microaggressions related to race, gender, sexuality, and other systems of privilege as well as explore resilience and ways to counter microaggressions. – Environmental Racism – Public Lands? Stolen Lands! Approaching Land Defense with an Anti Colonial Stance.
Lunch: 11:30 – 12:30
Workshop Bloc Two: 12:30 – 2 PM – Intro to Strategic Direct Action, Part 1 – Intro to Blockades, Part 1 – Intro to Climbing – Plant Walk
Workshop Bloc Three: 2:15 – 3:45
– Intro to Strategic DA, Part 2 – Intro to to Blockades, Part 2 – Intro to Climbing – Plant Walk
Caucus Time: 4 PM – 5 PM Art Making: 5 PM – 6 PM Dinner: 6 PM
Saturday Evening Panel: 7 PM – 8:30 PM. Toward Collective Liberation: Cross Movement Solidarity
Campfire, music, hanging out, making friends, making art, talking about our feelings, sleeping, The World is Your Oyster!
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Sunday
Breakfast: 8 AM Morning Orientation: 9 AM (discuss day’s schedule, important announcements) Note: A 6 hour medic affinity group training will be offered on Sunday. Please check in with medics when you get to camp to sign up for this training. Workshop Bloc One: 10 AM – 11:30 AM – Legal Observer Training Receive training from the National Lawyer’s Guild on how to be a professional witness to protests and uprisings. As a legal observer you will be able to help hold law enforcement, politicians, and civilians accountable in how they interact with grassroots activists and instances of civil disobedience. – How to Have a Good Meeting aka Facilitation Training The secret to having productive meetings can be found in the magic of facilitation. This workshop will go over the secrets of good facilitation and touch on how to structure meetings to maximize equal participation. We will also briefly go over the consensus decision making process. – Security Culture Basics
Lunch: 11:30 – 12:30
Workshop Bloc Two: 12:30 – 2 PM
– Environmental Justice Panel – Anti-fascist land defense discussion: confronting white power groups in appalachia – intro to climb
Workshop Bloc Three: 2:15 – 3:45 – Revolutionary Solidarity: Accomplices not Allies – Anti- Pipeline Strategy Discussion
Caucus Time: 4 PM – 5 PM Art Making: 5 PM – 6 PM Dinner: 6 PM
Saturday Evening: making art, campfire, music, hanging out, fruitful arguments, going to bed early because tomorrow is a big day, Date with Destiny! |
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Monday: Fun Activity! |
Appalachia Resist! is organizing our second annual Action Camp near recent leases that were auctioned by the BLM to companies that expect to set up fracking operations in the Wayne National Forest. RSVP for details about exact location and content: Google RSVP.
Contact an organizer or email us at appalachiaresist@gmail.com if you can’t use a google form to RSVP.
This year’s camp will again focus on working with activists in our region around the intersection of social and environmental justice. Emphasis will be on the proposed fracking of the Wayne and the history of resource extraction and social justice movements in our region.
About Appalachia Resist!
We are a group of rural activists that formed Appalachia Resist! in 2012 in a mostly white working class region with a long history of fossil fuel extraction. We use direct action as a tactic to respond to the fracking industry in our region. We coordinate and cooperate with those working against this extraction industry and in solidarity with those working on social justice campaigns.
Appalachia Resist! 