While the activists remained nonviolent at all times, the workers
appeared astonished to be exposed, retreating deeper into the woods and calling
developed Security Limited, the Irving-owned firm that has for weeks now been
providing the bulk of SWN’s private safety needs.
Continuing
along the workers’ path, the activists discovered a drilled shot-hole – a hole
bored into the ground that contains an unstable charge that will later be set
off to collect seismic data – straight in a wetlands area. This falls in line
with an previous detection of SWN Resources Canada circumventing registered
wetlands regulations additional south down Line 5.
Two
Industrial safety Limited employees then arrived, and, citing workplace security
plan which does not permit anyone without defensive apparatus to come closer
than 50 meters to an volatile at a workplace, knowledgeable the gathering party
that they would not be allowed to carry on further into the woods. This was even
with the fact that the activists were less than 3 meters from the explosive-laden
shot gap.
For the after
that a number of hours, something of a standoff ensue, with a growing figure of
security guards, RCMP and activists congregating in the woods. At one point,
three Mi’kmaq women asked if they could lay tobacco at the site of the shot-hole.
An Industrial safety guard offered to lay the tobacco in their stead, and while
the group played the Mi’kmaq Honor Song, the guard prayed to the four
directions. He later left the prospect in tears.
As evening
fell, it became clear that the safety and RCMP were – as has been mainly the
case to this point – concerned approximately completely with the well-being of
SWN-contracted workers and not with the security of those who continue to rally
against shale gas examination in New Brunswick. People questioning why they
were, for example, allowed on one exacting piece of the trail and not an
additional – when the 50 meter border region had previously obviously been
compromised – were given no obvious answer.
RCMP, safety
and activists posed for pictures atop the shot hole, and once it was obvious
that the SWN-contracted workers were finished their move, all safety and police
forces cleared out of the area, and the activists were free to carry on next to
the trail. 5 more shot-holes were discovered drilled straight in wetlands
areas.
The seismic
testing trail continued for around three kilometers, crossed a small river, and
injury its way up to Young Ridge Road.
Additional examination
of the trail, to the south of the unique graveyard access, was met with an
increased security attendance, including RCMP guards and armed safety guards on
All-Terrain Vehicles.
White Doves at the Holiday Inn
Earlier that
morning approximately thirty-five Mi’kmaq, Acadian, and Anglophone women
dressed in white, holding flowers and leaflets, occupied the parking lot way in
ways to the Holiday Inn hotel where SWN workers stay in Moncton.
Each morning
the workers leave the hotel by truck and scatter to their individual testing
sites and security posts – this morning to Line 5.
Nine of the
women drummed and sang as they entered the lot and circled the company
vehicles. Others handed out flyers to workers and usual hotel guests.
Ruth Wolpin,
a tumor survivor, says short-term economic gains from fracking aren’t worth the
long-term health belongings caused by carcinogens contaminating the well water.
In their
leaflets, the group argues the numbers don’t add up: “Jobs obtainable to New
Brunwickers will be few, low paying and short-lived. The characteristic well is
creative for just five years, and its profits will typically travel out of the region.”
Organizer
Greg Cook, who first mobilizes approximately resisting the sale of NB Power in
2009-2010, asserted the existing Award government does not have public approval
around this question – and will often try to sort out it as First Nations or country
concern only. Cook said today’s achievement was meant to communicate a communication
of solidarity between nations and backgrounds.
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