Category Archives: Videos of actions and events

Direct action to stop tar sands

Estonian journalist speaks at Enefit / Eesti Energia oil shale test mine in Utah

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In January 2014, Estonian journalist Andres Raid of Talinna TV travelled to Utah to investigate his nation’s energy company’s Utah project. What he found was barely a sham test pit and nothing more going on, a scandal of great proportions for his Estonian people.

Estonian’s utility prices have soared under Eesti Energia’s current leadership, debt has gone from €300m in 2011 to €600m today, a balance that credit agencies have noticed. Criticizing Enefit/Eesti Energia’s foolish investments overseas and the expansive debt growth, credit agencies have lower Enefit’s credit rating.

Moreever, Enefit’s test plant in Estonia of turning oil shale into liquid fuel has been a complete waste of time effort and money. So-called Enefit 280–the technology the company claims it will use in Utah, Jordan and elsewhere–isn’t working. A huge plant in Estonia is built but not operational.

Since Raid’s reporting these last two months, sources inside Enefit have told journalists that the Utah oil shale project is on hold indefinitely. But then a Utahn employed by Enefit as a PR flack says that is untrue.

So what is the truth, Enefit? Why don’t you start giving people some answers about Enefit 280, about your soaring debt, about your complete lack of experience turning oil shale into liquid fuel, about the completely disappointing German test results regarding Utah oil shale. Tell us the truth, Enefit–Utahns and Estonians both deserve to hear it.

(You can watch Andres Raid’s story about Enefit’s Utah oil shale project here).

January 18: “Film-In” at Tesoro Refinery – We Are Not Afraid!

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Join us on January 18th for a “Film-In” at the Tesoro Refinery in Salt Lake City, and show the corporate polluters that WE ARE NOT AFRAID!

On Dec. 18, 2013, movement journalist Jesse Fruhwirth was illegally detained by off-duty Salt Lake City police officer “Kilo 85″ who was being paid by Tesoro oil refinery. Fruhwirth was filming a major pollution event at the refinery–a huge flaring that released large amounts of pollutants and toxins into the Wasatch Front’s already diry airshed (and on one of Salt Lake’s infamous Red Air Quality Days).

(Video of the flare & Fruhwirth’s interaction with Kilo 85):

Intimidation techniques such as these used by the SLCPD are meant to keep the public from observing and questioning the atrocities regularly committed by corporate interests.

WE ARE NOT AFRAID!

Bring your cameras, video recorders and smart phones, and join us as we hold a “Film-In” on public land outside the Tesoro Refinery, and legally document the continuous releasing of toxic fumes during Utah’s winter Inversion season (including the toxic output from tar sands being shipped by rail from Canada).

The State of Utah, and the Department of Air Quality, refuse to hold the refineries accountable, and public resources such as the Salt Lake police force are being used to protect the polluters, and harming the public. It’s time to take a stand and say “No More!”

(Join the Facebook event).

And on Saturday, January 25th at noon, join the Utah Clean Air Coalition for the “Clean Air, No Excuses” Rally on the steps of the Utah Capitol.

Utah children visit PR Springs & speak out against tar sands

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On June 22nd, 2013, as part of the 4th Annual Global Earth Exchange, and #FearlessSummer, a group of Utah children traveled to PR Springs, the site of the first proposed Tar Sands mining project in the United States.

They created a work of art in appreciation for Mother Earth, made entirely of objects found around the mine, and spoke in opposition to the Tar Sands.

UTSR Global Earth Exchange

(Photo by Steve Liptay)

UTSR Danger Mine Site

(photo by Steve Liptay)

EnviroNews (VIDEO): Families Camp Out in Protest to Save the Pristine Tavaputs Plateau From America’s First Approved Tar Sands Operation

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(Reposted with permission from EnviroNews)

(EnviroNews Utah) – Tar sands, oil sands, asphalt, and bituminous sands. These names all represent the same type of fossil fuel, a fossil fuel so difficult and energy intensive to mine and process that past attempts to harness it’s dirty energy in the United States have resulted in bankrupt companies and abandoned test sites that have scarred the land with barren eyesores without a plan for recovery or restoration.

The massive Athabasca strip mine in Alberta, Canada has put tar sands on the map in the last few years via the mounting pressure surrounding President Obama’s upcoming decision on the 4th and final leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline that, if approved, will serve to open the flood gates for poisonous and carbon-loaded bitumen crude on an unprecedented scale. It is also known that much, if not all of the product moved through KXL is set to be sold abroad to countries such as China, leaving the U.S. holding the bag in what is now being called the “All Risk, No Reward campaign”.

Despite all of the recent heat surrounding the simply massive Alberta oil sands conundrum, plans to strip the land of all life in pursuit of even more of these deadly bituminous sands quietly continue, largely under the radar of the mainstream media. But this isn’t the everyday yukky stuff from Canada that you’re used to, rather, these burnable rocks are set to be plundered right from your backyard. At least if you live in the Western United States.

In a stunning move the BLM has opened approximately 850,000 acres for exploration and development of the technique, a technique that is so riddled with carbon emissions that world-leading climate scientist James Hansen, formerly of NASA, has been sounding the alarm, warning that it will be “game over for the climate” if these dirty extraction plans are realized.

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Tar Sands eco-terrorists can’t hide from the resistance–climate justice WILL be served!

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Utah Tar Sands Resistance, Peaceful Uprising and Deep Green Resistance Great Basin May 7 stormed the Unconventional Fuels Conference in Salt Lake City, piercing fossil fuel lies by speaking truth to power. The Conference was put on by the University of Utah’s Institute for Dirty and Dangerous Energy, otherwise known by it’s double-speak Orwellian name, the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy. The conference this year placed special focus on tar sands development.

THE CLIMATE JUSTICE MOVEMENT NEEDS SUPPORT!  To make a donation, CLICK HERE!

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Utah blockades Chevron tar sands refinery, Stop Tar Sands Profiteers Week

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Utah Tar Sands Resistance, Peaceful Uprising, Canyon Country Rising Tide, Mormon Environmental Stewardship Alliance, Salt Lake Dream Team, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, We Can’t Breath, Sierra Club, Utah Labor Action Network blocked trucks at Chrevon’s main entrance in Salt Lake City.

Chevron already refines Alberta tar sands in Salt Lake City and would increase tar sands refining here if the first tar sands mine in the US, planned for the Book Cliffs of Utah, begins production. We want people to know that as we ramp up for a summer of resistance to the United States first tar sands mine in Eastern Utah that the people of Davis, Weber and Salt Lake Counties in the Wasatch Front know that we are fighting for their health and clean air. We want clean air in the Wasatch Front, to obtain that we must defeat tar sands in the Book Cliffs–otherwise it’s just another game-over, this time for clean air in the Wasatch Front.

The action was done in solidarity with Tar Sands Blockade which called for a week of solidarity to Stop Tar Sands Profiteers.

Oh yeah, and you’ve heard the phrase “All pipelines Leak”?  Well, Chevron’s pipeline leaked into a wildlife area for migratory birds and recreation area on Great Salt Lake earlier this week. This is the second major leak in the Wasatch Front for Chevron in 2 years.

Join us for our spring opening camping trip to PR Springs April 12-15 to continue the resistance to tar sands mining. Click here for more details on the camp, or to see video of today’s action and the news clips  Continue reading →

Utah Gov. Dirty Herby receives Polluter of the Year award at his own energy summit

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Utah has enormous potential for growing its renewable energy capabilities, like wind and solar. However, Governor Herbert works hard to create a “business-friendly environment” for the dirtiest industries, including tar sands and oil shale—the most destructive of all. Governor Herbert is trying to seize hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands for tar sands and oil shale mining, so we seized the microphone at his energy summit to give him the Polluter of the Year award.

No water?!?! UTSR Science Fair reveals bizarre double speak of Utah regulators

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Lionel Trepanier of Utah Tar Sands Resistance on Water Discharge at PR Springs with Demonstration
Published on Oct 28, 2012

Lionel Trepanier of Utah Tar Sands Resistance explains and demonstrates the danger discharging waste water at PR Springs, Utah, the proposed site of the first tar sands strip mine in the USA. Moab’s drinking water is threatened by this proposed project which the Utah Water Quality Board, minutes before this video was taken, recklessly voted to allow without a water permit. Lionel Trepanier refers to a 1999 Utah Geologic Survey which indicates both an aquifer beneath PR Springs and that it is an important source of drinking water in Moab, UT.

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