Tag: Tar sands

WERU News Report 7/22/14

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Segment 1: The South Portland city council voted last night to pass the an ordinance preventing tar sands exports from the harbor there. For several years environmentalists have expressed concerns that the direction of flow of an existing pipeline to Montreal might be reversed so that tar sands from Canada could be piped to the deep water port in South Portland. The extraction of tar sands has had a devastating environmental impact, and concerns about the potential dangers of piping the corrosive substance and the pollution caused by processing it were also cited as reasons for passing the ordinance. While the ordinance still could be overturned by referedum, the news this morning is being called historic by some, and is drawing attention from across the country. The Natural Resources Council of Maine has been working on bringing attention to the tar sands pipeline since 2009. Dylan Voorhees is NRCM’s Clean Energy and Global Warming Project Director:

Segment 2: The tar sands issue is also part of the wider movement for climate justice, which is taking hold on college campuses across the state, notably – as we’ve reported in the past – in the form of student-led pressure to divest from fossil fuel industries. Iris SanGiovanni is one of the organizers of that movement, and one of the resources she and other youth can tap into here in Maine is Pine Tree Youth Organizing. We spoke with Iris, and with Christine of PTYO, to learn more about that group, what they have to offer the community, and how the community can support their efforts:

RadioActive 5/8/14

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Issue: Environmental and Social Justice

Program Topic: Cowboy and Indian Alliance Demonstration Against Tar Sands and Keystone XL Pipeline

Key Discussion Points:
a) The Cowboy and Indian Alliance, made up of tribal members, ranchers and farmers along the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, demonstrated for a week in Washington DC at the end of April.
b) Tipis were erected for the week on the mall, and a painted tipi was presented to the Smithsonian to represent the Alliance’s opposition to Keystone XL and tar sands mining and their demand that President Obama reject approval of the Keystone XL.
c) On Saturday, May 17th, the Tar Sands Coalition and Hands Across the Sand/ Hands Across the Land has called for a national day of action/ In Miane , a really in oppostion to the Keystone XL and the reversal of the Montreal Portland pipeline will take place at Deering Oaks Park in Portland at 11am.

Guests:
Casey Camp-Hornick, Ponca Tribe, Oklahoma region
Dallas Goldtooth, Lower Sioux Dakota Nation
Jane Kleeb, Bold Nebraska
Megan Hammond, Nebraska
Diana Harrelson, Nebraska
Eriel Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (AFCN), of Northern Alberta
Neli Young
Rubin George, Sundance Chief, member of Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, British Columbia

Bangor Area Commons 5/1/14

Producer/Editor/Host: Amy Browne
Audio recorded by: John Greenman

This year’s HOPE festival keynote speech from indigenous rights lawyer and activist, Sherri Mitchell. Born and raised on Indian Island, Sherri graduated from the University of Maine magna cum laude and went on to the University of Arizona, where she earned her law degree and a certificate in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy. She is the director of the Land Peace Foundation, dedicated to the protection of indigenous land rights and works with the Wabanaki confederacy in Maine and the Maritimes and has been involved with the Idle No More movement, launched in the winter of 2012 in Canada to resist Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s policies dismantling the rights of First Nations peoples. She is director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to the protection of indigenous land rights, and works with the Wabanaki confederacy in Maine and the Maritimes.

FMI: http://landpeacefoundation.net/

The 20th annual free HOPE (Help Organize Peace Earthwide) Festival was held on April 26th at the University of Maine in Orono. The festival is held each year “to celebrate Earth Day and all the good work being done my more than 60 organizations working to take care of the earth and each other. The festival offers information, entertainment and interaction.” It is sponsored by the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine

FMI: www.peacectr.org

(NOTE: There are 2 audio files attached to this post. The shorter one is the Bangor Area Commons show as it aired. The longer file is the minimally edited full speech)

RadioActive 3/6/14

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Program Topic:The Ngobe Peoples’ Resistance to Hydroelectric Dam in Panama; 3 Activists Sentenced for Tar Sands Pipeline Action in Michigan

Key Discussion Points:
a) Today we speak with Lawrence Reichard, from Panama, on the resistance of a Ngobe indigenous people against the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam.
b) We also speak with a member of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS). Yesterday, three activists were sentenced to time served and 13 months probation, for trespassing and obstruction, when they locked themselves to construction equipment at the site of Enbridge’s 6B pipeline expansion.
c) In 2010, Endbridge’s Line 6B ruptured and spilled 840,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamzoo River.

Guests:
A)Lawrence Reichard, freelance journalist, WERU contributor, co-director of Learning Center at H.O.M.E. Incorporated
B) Liz Starks, Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) http://www.michigancats.org/

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/panamas-barro-blanco-dam-threatens-ngobe-people

RadioActive 3/6/14

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Program Topic:The Ngobe Peoples’ Resistance to Hydroelectric Dam in Panama; 3 Activists Sentenced for Tar Sands Pipeline Action in Michigan

Key Discussion Points:
a) Today we speak with Lawrence Reichard, from Panama, on the resistance of a Ngobe indigenous people against the Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam.
b) We also speak with a member of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI CATS). Yesterday, three activists were sentenced to time served and 13 months probation, for trespassing and obstruction, when they locked themselves to construction equipment at the site of Enbridge’s 6B pipeline expansion.
c) In 2010, Endbridge’s Line 6B ruptured and spilled 840,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamzoo River.

Guests:
A)Lawrence Reichard, freelance journalist, WERU contributor, co-director of Learning Center at H.O.M.E. Incorporated
B) Liz Starks, Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) http://www.michigancats.org/

RadioActive 2/13/14

Producer/Host: Meredith DeFrancesco

Issue: Environmental and Social Justice

Program Topic: Coalition of Immokalee Workers’ Radio Consciencia; Rally of Unity speakers on University and State Fossil Fuel Divestment, Climate Change, South Portland Tar Sands Pipeline

Key Discussion Points:
a) The work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a Florida based tomato farm workers association, has revolutionized a system which has held workers in abusive conditions, without a voice,and dismissed growers and retailers from responsibility or repercussions. One of the organizing tools for the CIW is their low power FM Station, Radio Consciencia.
b) We hear from some of the speakers of last month’s Rally of Unity, organized through the Alliance for the Common Good. Topics include the South Portland struggle to keep tar sands from being piped through Maine, and the student and state level efforts to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
c) Unity College was the first in the nation to begin the process of divestment from the fossil fuel industry. College of the Atlantic was the first to complete the process.

Guests:
A) Silvia Perez, farm worker and organizer with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers www.ciw-online.org
http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2006/nov/17/radio_conciencia/?neapolitan

B) Jake Ratner, Just Harvest USA

C) Maria Giraurd, member of Penobscot Nation and Penobscot Tribal Council

D) Iris SanGiovanni, Maine Students for Climate Justice; student at University of Southern Maine
http://gofossilfree.org/maine-students-unite-against-climate-change/ http://www.350maine.org/divestment_campaign
http://www.workingwaterfront.com/articles/College-of-the-Atlantic-divests-of-fossil-fuels/15425/

E) Maine State Representative, Brian Jones, from Freedom

WERU News Report 2/5/14

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Protests were held in communities across the country Monday- including Belfast, Bangor and Portland, in reaction to a report issued by the state department last Friday, that gives a green light to the Keystone XL pipeline. The Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement downplayed concerns about the impact of the pipeline, designed to bring Alberta tar sands oil from Canada across the US.

Speakers on a tour through New England in recent weeks have a different view of the environmental and human impacts. The “Tar Sands Exposed: Exploring the Human and Environmental Costs” tour made a stop at the University of Maine last weekend, sponsored by 350 Maine. WERU’s John Greenman recorded the event, and this week we’re bringing you 2 of the speakers on the WERU News Report. Yesterday we heard from Eriel Deranger- of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. Today’s speaker is Sherri Mitchell – Indigenous Rights attorney and Director of the Land Peace Foundation.

WERU News Report 2/4/14

Producer/Host: Amy Browne

Protests were held in communities across the country yesterday- including Belfast, Bangor and Portland, in reaction to a report issued by the state department last Friday, that gives a green light to the Keystone XL pipeline. The Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement downplayed concerns about the impact of the pipeline, designed to bring Alberta tar sands oil from Canada across the US.

Speakers on a tour through New England in recent weeks have a different view of the environmental and human impacts. The “Tar Sands Exposed: Exploring the Human and Environmental Costs” tour made a stop at the University of Maine last weekend, sponsored by 350 Maine. WERU’s John Greenman recorded the event, and this week we’ll be bringing you 2 of the speakers on the WERU News Report, today and tomorrow at this time. Today we hear from Eriel Deranger- of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation