We are participating in the Mazaska Talks Global Day of Action on Oct 23 with actions opposing banks funding pipelines with branches in Port Townsend, Port Angeles, and Sequim. Join our planning group!
Category Archives: Actions
Cut off the money pipeline
Photo: John Duffy
Money talks. One powerful method for protecting our water (health, climate) is for individuals and organizations to move their money out of banks that fund pipelines.
Join the Divestment Movement. Its power comes from the collective will of the many.
If you are looking for information on how to do this,
Connect to the Defund DAPL or Mazaska Talks websites.
There you will find lists of offending banks and suggestions about alternative places to manage your money and accomplish good at the same time.
Stay tuned and mark your calendars: Oct 23 Global Day of Action vs offending banks …actions expected in Port Angeles, Sequim, and Port Townsend. Join our planning group!
Pull Together: Keep Tar Sands Oil out of Our Water, Aug. 22-23
Local Groups Fight Pipeline with “Pull Together” Events August 22 in Chimacum ♦ August 23 in Port Angeles ♦ August 24 in Port Townsend
DONATE TO PULL TOGETHER HERE
DONATE TO STAND WITH KWANTLEN HERE
Olympic Climate Action (OCA) joins with the Sierra Club, the Native Connections group of the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Port Townsend, Pull Together, and Stand with Kwantlen to present three nights of entertainment, food and speakers to educate the community about the hazards of the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion in British Columbia.
The pipeline, which would deliver tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to port in British Columbia, could increase oil tanker traffic in the region by 700% and would triple the amount of oil currently transorted. At 890,000 barrels a day, it would be bigger than both Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Tar sands oil sinks rather than floats when spilled and would be virtually impossible to clean up. The spill threat and noise alone could devastate marine life, and the carbon released from burning this oil would compound the already dire consequences of climate change, which have brought this peninsula drought, burning rain forests and receding glaciers.
To fight this pipeline, a cross-border coalition of environmental, indigenous, and social-justice groups has formed under the name Pull Together. This name evokes the traditional canoes that generations of first peoples have used to transit the Salish Sea — the region that encompasses the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and the Strait of Georgia in Canada. Recognizing that the Salish Sea is a single ecosystem, groups on both sides of the border are recognizing their common interests in protecting this special place. Pull Together is raising funds for a lawsuit against Kinder Morgan based on indigenous rights to clean water, air, and land.
To help this effort, a coalition of local groups are hosting free entertainment / education / fundraising / activism events:
- August 22, 6-9 pm, Finnriver Farm & Cidery, 124 Center Rd., Chimacum. A veggie/fruit tray will be provided: food and drinks will be available for purchase.
- August 23, 6-9 pm, Elwha Klallam Heritage Center, 401 E First St in Port Angeles. The event will feature Indian tacos, entertainment, and door prizes including:
- A wine basket from Harbinger Winery.
- A Storm-Tech winter jacket with the Pull Together logo.
- A framed 16 x 20 photo of the Salish Sea, printed on canvas, by art photographer Lindsey Aspelund.
- August 24, 6-9 pm, Quimper Grange in Port Townsend. Donations will go to Stand with Kwantlen, a native rights group working to build a healing lodge in the path of the pipeline.
Keynote speaker at the August 22-23 events will be Eric de Place, Policy Director with the Sightline Institute, the leading expert on fossil-fuel export proposals and the threats they pose to our region and the planet.
The program for the August 23 Port Angeles event also features:
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- A special performance by the North Olympic Orca Pod.
- Vanessa Castle, Water Protector, activist and member of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, will address threats to indigenous rights and sovereignty.
- Michael Foster, member of the “Valve Turners” who shut down all major tar sands pipelines on October 11, 2016, will discuss the movements individuals can join to protect the local community and counter the interventions of Big Oil, Gas, and Coal.
- Victoria Leistman, Sierra Club regional organizer who is working to stop proposed oil terminals across the region, will show the Pull Together video:
Pull Together Campaign from Made You Look Media on Vimeo.
Poster for the Chimacum event
Poster for the Port Angeles event
OCA Statement to Planning Commission
On 7/5/17 OCA sent the following statement to the Clallam County Planning Commission concerning the Shoreline Master Program:
My name is Robert Vreeland. I am a member of the executive committee with the Olympic Climate Action group which has more than 600 members in Clallam County. We believe that one of the goals of the Shoreline Master Program (SMP) should be to inform Clallam County residents of potential climate change impacts. This goal, pg. 1-18, was in an earlier draft but has been removed from the current draft. The earlier draft Goal #13 stated “To protect people and property from adverse impacts related to climate change and to promote resiliency in responding to climate change impacts.”
At its recent meeting Olympic Climate Action agreed that in order to manage risk and liability, the County’s SMP should fully acknowledge the imminent potential for sea level rise. Acknowledgement of climate change impact projections is particularly important to residents owning properties along low lying shorelines, Shoreline Residential – Intensive and Marine Waterfront Designations. Some of these properties (e.g. 3 Crabs and Diamond Point) may be exposed to sea level rise and storm surge inundation by as early as 2030, based on projections in the Climate Change Preparedness Plan for the North Olympic Peninsula, Sept. 2015 (see http://www.noprcd.org/about2). Given the existing technical studies and maps showing severe threats to dozens if not hundreds of low-elevation shoreline properties, often within 10-15 years, OCA believes County citizens could be financially liable for property losses to homeowners as well as home buyers if these risks aren’t clearly indicated in the most relevant County-wide planning document used to guide development and land use decisions.
The 2017 Draft SMP presently contains policies and a regulation regarding climate change and/or sea level rise and storm surge for: Restoration (pg. 3-32), Transportation (pg. 3-36), Buffers (pg. 6-1) and Regulations – General, 14 Shoreline stabilization (pg. 4-23). We believe it is imperative that similar policies or regulations be incorporated for residential shoreline properties < 200 feet deep measured from the Ordinary High Water Mark (OHWM) landward, given these properties have the smallest buffers for Minor New Development, 50 feet. It may be appropriate to have similar policies/regulations for Shoreline Residential – Intensive and Marine Waterfront, Minor New Development on lots > 200 feet deep (75-foot buffers), as well as Major New Development and Shoreline Residential – Conservancy Minor New Development < 200 feet deep (100-foot buffer), if these properties are low-lying and could be potentially subject to sea level rise and storm surge in the near future.
Furthermore, “hard” shoreline armoring such as rip rap and sea walls, even if mitigated, will impact the neighboring properties, coastal sedimentation system, and nearshore ecology, and these risks need to be acknowledged in the SMP. At the Clallam County Planning Commission meeting of 6/21/17, the consultant for Clallam County on the SMP mentioned that there are approximately 83 parcels in the 3 Crabs and Diamond Point areas that could be permitted to install hard armoring to protect their properties.
Walk to Protect & Restore Our Salish Sea
https://www.facebook.com/events/170422866830544/
“I believe in the sun and the stars, the water, the tides, the floods, the owls, the hawks flying, the river running, the wind talking. They’re measurements. They tell us how healthy things are. How healthy we are. Because we and they are the same”
-Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually Tribal Leader
The people of our Salish Sea are rising like the tide to protect what we love and cherish as sacred, to stand together like the trees and lift each other up and the “each other” includes our grandchildren’s grandchildren, the orca and salmon people, the tree and bird people and all the other animal people of our Salish Sea. To stand in solidarity with Salish Sea tribes to ensure their treaty rights are honored and respected and for other nations to have their unceded territories and natural laws honored and respected.
While Feds fail, locals step up
President Trump’s withdrawal from our country’s commitment to the Paris climate accord has engendered both dismay and determination around the globe, and here on the Olympic Peninsula, Olympic Climate Action has joined that chorus. Around the country, groups are now calling for their state and local governments to fill in the void of federal leadership by committing to meet the goals of the Paris accord. Members of Olympic Climate Action have worked for more than four years to educate North Olympic Peninsula communities regarding climate change, and we have seen our Peninsula governments respond with serious efforts undertaken at the tribal, county, and city levels to incorporate sustainability into their operations and come to grips with the challenge of climate change. While there is more work to be done, we want to take the opportunity at this critical point in history to applaud these local efforts and commit ourselves to facilitate them in any way we can, to, in the words of the Preamble to the United States Constitution, “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
We invite concerned individuals to join OCA’s Local Climate Action Planning Committee to help move these efforts forward. Contact us at https://olyclimate.org/contact-us/.
Here are some links highlighting Peninsula governments’ actions to protect us from climate change:
Climate adaptation grant for North Olympic Peninsula
Sequim adopts sustainability resolution
Port Angeles adopts climate planning policy
Clallam commissioners adopt climate change work plan
Ozias commits to climate action
Climate activists & Peninsula officials react to Trump’s pullout from Paris
Jefferson County/Port Townsend Climate Action Committee
Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe study of climate impacts and adaptation
Vigil for Paris Accord
Olympic Climate Action will hold a vigil for the Paris Accord on Friday, June 2, from 5 – 6:30 pm in front of the Federal Bldg. at First and Oak Streets in downtown Port Angeles.
We will be there to witness this tragic development and express our profound sadness and disappointment in the President’s decision.
Wear black and bring a drum and candle if you have one–we’ll have some there.
Without the federal government to protect us, it’s up to us make progress.
How Trump’s Paris Decision Hurts America, in 5 Graphics
We’re Already Moving Past Trump–NYT
