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Posts Tagged ‘david daniel’

Above All Else World Premiere at SXSW

Posted in Climate Change, Energy, Global Warming, pipelines, Privacy, Property Rights, Tarsands, Transportation, tagged , , , , , , , on March 11, 2014 |

Photo by Max Anderson

Photo by Max Anderson

Above All Else had their world premiere to a full audience at South by Southwest in Austin on Monday, March 10, 2014. The film takes an intimate look at a group of landowners and activists in East Texas who tried to stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which carries tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The film focuses on David Daniel, a former circus performer who settled down with his family in the woods of East Texas. David and his family wanted to settle down for a quiet life in the country when something unexpected happens: TransCanada tells him they want to put a pipeline through his property. David begins to build a tree-sit on his property with the help of organizers from the Tar Sands Blockade. The film takes a personal look at how David begins to rally his neighbors and allies to try and stop the Keystone XL pipeline.

Photo by Vanessa Ramos

Photo by Vanessa Ramos

After the film John Fiege, director, his crew and several people featured in the film answered questions about the film from a lively audience.  Julia Trigg Crawford, one of the landowners featured in the film, said, “It is an unbelievable travesty what happened with David. They’ve taken away his First Amendment right.”

John Fiege and his crew made an excellent film that tells the personal stories of individuals who risked financial ruin, their personal safety, and the security of their families. Above All Else will give anyone interested in the Keystone XL and tar sands issue a different perspective of the fight on the ground.

Above All Else will have two more showings at SXSW this week. The next showing is today, March 11, at SXSatellite: Alamo Village from 4:30 PM to 6:04 PM. The final showing will be Saturday, March 15, at the Topfer Theatre at ZACH from 2:00 PM to 3:34 PM. Check out the Above All Else website and the film’s SXSW page.

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How Many Tar Sands Pipeline Spills Does Texas Want?

Posted in Tarsands, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 6, 2011 |

U.S. Stops Keystone I Line from Restarting After 12th Spill in 12 Months, Days Before Comment Period Ends on Keystone XL

For over a year, TransCanada has been trying to get its hands on a Presidential Permit from the U.S. Department of State to extend its Keystone I tar sands pipeline with a pipeline called Keystone XL. That extension would start in Alberta, Canada, link on to Keystone I in the Midwest and attach on its Southern end in Oklahoma before it heads through Texas and ends at Gulf Coast refineries. During this same year, though, TransCanada’s Keystone I line has been leaking at an alarming rate.

It’s a fact that tar sands pipelines leak at 16 times more per mile due to internal corrosion, and something that has long been a concern of citizens opposed to the Keystone XL line slated to come through Texas. Today, though, TransCanada’s inability to operate Keystone I without averaging less leaks than one per month has finally gotten to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and United States Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) who today issued an order of corrective action against TransCanada.

TransCanada’s Keystone I line sprung its twelfth leak in nearly twelve months last weekend in Kansas to the tune of 2,100 gallons, only two weeks after a 21,000 gallon leak in North Dakota and ten other smaller leaks.

PHMSA’s statement today notified the public that “Effective immediately, this order prevents TransCanada from restarting operations on their Keystone crude oil pipeline until PHMSA is satisfied with the ongoing repairs and is confident that all immediate safety concerns have been addressed. PHMSA issued the order in connection with two incidents in May involving oil leaks from small diameter pump station pipe fittings,” and DOT’s official letter to TransCanada also reads that “the continued operation of the  pipeline  without  corrective  measures  would  be  hazardous  to  life,  property  and  the environment.”

This corrective order from PHMSA comes just three days before the 45-day comment period on Keystone XL’s Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (SDEIS) ends on Monday, June 6th.

STOP Founder and President David Daniel had the following to say: “The deck of evidence is stacked against TransCanada. It would be absolutely absurd for the State Department to permit Keystone XL now. The EPA spoke out against Keystone XL’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement and now PHMSA is having to step in to protect citizens from TransCanada’s Keystone I line. For the State Department to allow Keystone XL to go through would be a slap in the face to not only these agencies but to the concerns and livelihoods of millions of Americans, as it too would be, in the Department of Transportation’s own words ‘hazardous to life, property, and the environment.’ TransCanada cannot keep getting away with this. We ask the State Department to take the Department of Transportation’s action today as a warning and say no to a Presidential Permit for Keystone XL.”

To make comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, you can visit http://www.keystonepipeline-xl.state.gov/clientsite/keystonexl.nsf?Open or contact STOP at bdmcallister@stoptarsands.org or 409.550.7961 for more information.

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Stop Tarsands Oil Pipeline

Posted in Global Warming, Tarsands, tagged , , , , on October 15, 2010 |

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QotpWw6AmFA]STOP is a coalition of landowners in Oklahoma and Texas who have united to voice their opposition to the proposed Keystone tar sands oil pipeline. These landowners oppose this pipeline for a variety of reasons but they share a concern of how this pipeline will affect their own and their children’s future.

John Tutor fears the impact of soiling a local preserve that boasts black bears and songbirds for scout groups and the Audubon Society; others, the addition of more especially dirty oil to the global energy market rather than clean technologies that don’t destroy tracts of land thousands of square miles in scope. Many of these citizens have received notices threatening the use of eminent domain.

In a previous post you can see the Thorntons’ talk about how Keystone has sent them multiple notices with an initial offer of about $2,200 per acre. This is about 20% of what they value the land they had hoped to develop. Keystone is using eminent domain to force landowners to sell their land at low prices. STOP is an organization for those people who would not like to see this dangerous and dirty pipeline cross through their land. David Daniel and Betty S Vaughn Scott don’t want the generations following them to lose claim to pristine Texas forest in exchange for a dirty pipeline and the inherent risk that comes with piping hundreds of thousands of toxic material at high pressure every day.

This pipeline is different from all the other pipelines. This pipeline will transport hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that has a carbon footprint of over 3 times that of conventional oil. Tar sands oil extraction has already destroyed vast amounts of land in Alberta and it is set to become an area the size of Florida. We can’t let it endanger Texas’ forests either. If this pipeline has affected you or if you are just a concerned citizen in the area of the pipeline STOP can help you raise your voice in opposition to this pipeline.

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