The Adventures of Four Grandmothers from Montana

Three of my friends from Livingston and I are going to Washington DC this upcoming week to take part in a series of sit-ins to try to stop the Keystone XL Pipline from being approved.  Somehow, we have managed to become known as the Four Grandmothers from Montana.  Mind you, I am not even a mother, let alone a grandmother (not that I'm not plenty old enough to be one).  But they asked us to send a statement about why we are coming to the Tar Sands Action, and I wrote it up for our group.  I was trying to be lyrical and invoke images of respected elders risking themselves for future generations.  My last line was "Montana will be represented at the Tar Sands Action at the White House by four grandmothers who speak for generations of Montanans who say “No” to the Keystone XL Pipeline."  And the rest is history.

The fact that Margie is one of the "Grandmothers" and is a movie star has also gotten us a fair amount of attention.  But that is a good thing, I think.  People who only pay attention to celebrity gossip might learn a little bit about how the Alberta Tar Sands are contributing massively to carbon buildup in the atmosphere.  They might grow concerned that the pipeline is likely to rupture (the pipeline company's own risk assessment predicts leaks on the order of once every seven years!) and dump the most toxic stew of oily sludge and natural gas imaginable into the Missouri or Yellowstone rivers or onto farmland or wildlands in North Dakota, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, or Texas, or into the Ogallala Aquifer, which is the biggest source of fresh groundwater in the country.  They might even care about the devastation of an area in Alberta the size of the state of Florida that is being completely destroyed without care for the native people who are being poisoned by the water coming from the project while the land they have relied on for a living is wiped out. They might be given pause when they hear how the builders of the pipeline are suing farmers under eminent domain when they refuse to sign easements through their land.  This pipeline stinks in so many ways it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone would even think of building it.  If you'd like to read more about why this is called "the most environmentally devastating project on earth," here is a good place to start: http://www.tarsandsaction.org/about/

But most people in this country have not even heard about the Alberta Tar Sands.  The first pipelines from there that crossed into the US were approved without much fanfare.  One of them, built by a different pipeline company, ruptured last year and dumped 1 million gallons of tar sands oil, which is dirtier and more toxic than regular crude oil, into the Kalamazoo river, not far from where I grew up in Michigan.  The other one, the first Keystone pipeline (built by TransCanada Pipeline Co) has leaked 11 times in its first 12 months of operation - at least once causing a "geyser" of oil to erupt in a farmers field.  It is time to stop this madness.

Because it is a Canadian pipeline being built by a Canadian company to carry Canadian oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas, it needs approval from the White House before it can be built.  The State Department has already recommended that it be approved, under pressure from the Canadian government and the oil companies in the name of "energy security."  President Obama would probably just sign off on it quietly if it weren't for a group of well-known writers, actors and environmentalists who have organized two weeks of sit-ins in front of the White House.  More than 2100 people have signed up to come to Washington and take part.  Many more will be there to cheer us on, but will not sit in for fear of arrest.  Yes, it is likely that we will be arrested and have to pay a fine for making our stand (or rather, our sit).  The first protesters will go to the White House tomorrow morning (Saturday, Aug 20).  We hope to learn from their experience and hope all goes smoothly when we show up there.

We Four Grandmothers have started our own blog to record our adventure.  You can see it at http://mwftarsandsaction.blogspot.com/  We leave for DC on Sunday morning and we will go to a non-violence training on Monday evening, then it will be our turn to sit in and be arrested on Tuesday morning.  We'll be staying in Washington DC until Friday.  Tantoo Cardinal, another Canadian movie star and a good friend of Margie's is coming as well.  She is a Cree Indian and you have probably seen her in Dances with Wolves, Legends of the Fall, Black Robe, Smoke Signals, and one of my all-time favorite movies, Where the Rivers Flow North.  She was born in the Tar Sands area and her homeland is being destroyed by this project.

So, once again I'm leaving Montana to go to Washington.  The OTHER Washington, this time.  I hate to leave, but it seems like it is too important to take part in this.  I don't want to look back years from now and know that I knew what a disaster this was going to be and did nothing to try to stop it.  So this great-aunt is going to Washington DC disguised as a Grandmother, to try to do something to make the world that my nieces, nephews and great-nephews inherit a better, safer place.