SHELL NO – PDX vs SHELL

At the end of July I spent several days in Portland to support the courageous resistance against Shell’s Arctic oil drilling venture.  So much fossil fuel has burned that Arctic Ice is shrinking. Shell wants to exploit the now-open water to find more oil, creating more global warming.  It’s surreal. We have truly  gone somewhere  through the looking glass into a warped world run by out-of-control corporations.

(Check out this article from Willamette Week with interviews with Greenpeace and PDX activists “Spirit in the Sky”, and this article in Salem Weekly for which I was interviewed via email “Salem environmentalists support historic ‘Shellno’ blockade”)

President Obama says he wants to curb climate change. He’s been all over the news lately touting the final version of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) to reduce carbon emissions from power plants.  The CPP is a good, long-overdue initiative; but it’s being undermined by drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean, fracking natural gas all over, fracking shale oil in North Dakota, and tar sands oil in Canada and Utah (yes, there is a tar sands mine now in Utah).  A lot of this is happening on public lands or is otherwise subject to government regulation. We have to keep telling the President to to stop Arctic drilling, to stop the Keystone XL pipeline, to stop auctioning off coal mining leases on public land, to keep these unconventional fuels in the ground.

After staging its drill rigs in Seattle and other parts of Washington, and facing opposition from Native American and climate activists in a kayak flotilla and street blockade, Shell’s fleet moved toward the Arctic.  One of the icebreakers, MSV Fennica, tore a hole in its hull in Dutch Harbor, AK.  After getting it patched up, Shell sent the Fennica to Portland,OR for permanent repair.

 350 PDX, Portland Rising Tide and other climate action organizations began to mobilize, holding rallies and symbolic kayak flotillas before and after the ship arrived. The Fennica is mission-critical because it’s carrying the well cap that Shell would have to deploy in case of a blow out (like the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico).  Shell can’t drill to oil-nearing depth without it

 

 

As the week went on, Portland organizers made preparations for a full-fledged mobilization and kayaktivist action from the boat ramp in Cathedral Park at St. John’s Bridge on the Willamette River,  blocking the Fennica’s only route from dry dock to the Columbia river and the Pacific Ocean.  People from 350 Seattle and the Seattle-based Backbone Campaign, who in June faced Shell’s huge drill rig being outfitted there, arrived in PDX with a truck-full of kayaks and banners.

 

I went to Portland Tuesday afternoon July 28. For the next couple of days I did some small tasks – checking kayaktivists in and helping them launch – but mostly I watched in awe and admiration. It was brutally hot, getting up to 100 degrees each afternoon.

The Fennica was scheduled to get underway at 4 am Wednesday July 29.  The plan was to start getting the kayaks in the water around 2 am. I had a sleeping bag and pad and got a couple of hours of sleep in the park. As we were getting the kayak flotilla ready, suddenly lights dropped down from the bridge and people began cheering. I don’t remember when I realized that the lights were attached to people – climbers from Greenpeace who rapelled down from the bridge and suspended themselves in ship space. At dawn I went to a nearby fishing dock to watch as the climbers gradually became visible in the morning light, arrayed over the line of kayaks in the water.

At some point word went around that the Fennica was no longer on the departure schedule for the Port of Portland. I wanted to charge my phone and didn’t want to use the scarce resource of electricity from the portable generators that the organizers were using (and don’t yet have a workable small solar charger, which a couple of people had – I do have one but it’s an old type and not very effective). I went up the long steep hill to a café in the St. John’s neighborhood.  Walking back down I could see that the Greenpeace climbers were flying red and yellow banners over the river in the breeze – a thrilling and majestic sight. Shell’s colors never looked so good.

All day Wednesday, nothing happened.  Shell flinched.  I took a turn at the sign-in table as kayakers came and went to practice, to take trainings, and to spend time on the water. That night I was able to stay in the guest bedroom of a woman from 350 PDX who lived nearby.

We awakened on Thursday morning to text messages from the organizers saying that the Fennica was moving toward the bridge.  We hurried down, found the parking lot at the boat ramp closed and had to walk into the park.  (Lawyers soon got the lot reopened.) I started helping to launch kayaks; then went to help at the sign-in table where the view under the bridge was blocked by trees.  The climbers and the kayaktivists held strong and brave and we soon heard that the Fennica turned around and backed off.

 

 

 

 

Again – all quiet on the Fennica Front – for a while.

Early Thursday afternoon I went up to St. John’s to charge my phone again and splurge on a spicy bean burger and Walla Walla onion rings at Burgerville.  The Burgerville was a block from the bridge and from where I sat I had a clear view of traffic coming and going. Suddenly things began to happen: cops closed the bridge to all traffic and police and police cars and other law enforcement vehicles started gathering.  When I went outside I saw Coast Guard personnel and a TV camera with the police.  Helicopters started flying around. I called down to the boat ramp to tell the organizers that the police were getting ready to make a move.

I hurried back down to the riverbank and found a place by the bridge with some shade and some rocks to sit on. I watched while Coast Guard and Multnomah County Sherriff’s boats and a couple of maniacs on jet skis chased and detained kayaktivists. Some of the kayaktivists maneuvered brilliantly, keeping the cops and coasties busy for hours before they finally cleared the river. I only saw later on video that one kayak was run over by a Sheriff’s Department boat.  Thankfully, no one was hurt.

 

 

 

 

 

Police and fire department high incident teams lowered one of the Greenpeace climbers off the bridge into a waiting boat and two others lowered themselves under threat of being taken down. I was so intent on watching the action on the water that I didn’t see this happening nearer to the opposite shore until someone told me.

I watched to see how it was done, but suddenly realized they weren’t going to bring
any more climbers down; they only wanted to open a gap wide enough to drive the ship through. The rest of the Greenpeace climbers stayed in place until it was over.

 

At 5:55 pm the Fennica passed under the St. John’s Bridge on the way to the Arctic.

A reporter for Salem Weekly asked me if I thought it was worth it.  Yes, it was worth it – for almost 40 hours Shell did not have its way.

It was worth it because it was a powerful moment in the growing convergence of climate activists here in the Pacific Northwest. Fossil fuel companies have their filthy profits. The right-wing has its snarling hate. We have each other. We have courage, know-how, creativity and beauty on our side.

It was worth it to me in a very personal way because Thursday July 30th was my 70th birthday, and I was there.