New nationwide coalition unites to stop Energy Transfer Partners
By: Waterkeeper Alliance
Impacted groups including Native Americans, landowners, environmental justice communities, and allies fight to #StopETP
Today, a diverse coalition of communities represented by more than two dozen organizations across the country launched a coordinated effort to challenge Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) operations with an open letter to ETP that outlines their grievances and demands. The coalition has launched the website StopETP.org as an online hub for the campaign.
Energy Transfer Partners, which on Wednesday is expected to vote to merge with Sunoco Logistics, is the national oil and gas infrastructure company behind controversial projects including the Dakota Access Pipeline, Bayou Bridge Pipeline, and numerous others. Just this week, Energy Transfer Partners spilled more than 2 million gallons of mechanical fluids into Ohio wetlands as it constructs the Rover pipeline.
Leaders of participating organizations released the following statements:
“Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics have a damning history of pipeline fires, leaks, and spills, causing millions of dollars in property damage and leaving thousands of gallons of hazardous products in the environment,” said Marc Yaggi, Executive Director of Waterkeeper Alliance. “These incidents demonstrate a blatant disregard for the communities and waterways impacted by these pipelines.”
“From the start, we have said that the fight in North Dakota was about much more than the Dakota Access Pipeline,” said Krystal Two Bulls (Oglala Lakota/ Northern Cheyenne) of NoDAPL Global Solidarity. “It is about a system that allows for the oppression and exploitation of Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth. It is about holding corporations that have more rights than The People accountable. It is about reimagining what we want the world to look like 7 Generations from now and start building it. Stopping Energy Transfer Partners is a step in that direction.”
“Here in Louisiana, we are in a struggle to stop Energy Transfer Partners’ proposed Bayou Bridge Pipeline,” said Cherri Foytlin, State Director of Bold Louisiana. “Bayou Bridge threatens over 700 of our waterways, indigenous sacred sites, craw-fisheries, and is likely to worsen flooding. Like so many other of ETP’s projects, the company has lied to landowners, paid off our politicians, and threatened our communities. We will stand up to protect our beautiful waters and our unique way of life here, and we stand with other communities across this country that are doing the same.”
“As Energy Transfer Partners’ pipelines spread across the country, committing us to dirty fossil fuels for decades to come, more and more communities are uniting to say no,” said Ethan Buckner, Energy Campaigner with Earthworks. “Today, we’re standing together to #StopETP and move forward to a just, clean, safe, and equitable fossil-free future.”
“Energy Transfer Partners’ reckless expansion of oil and gas infrastructure endangers communities and is be a disaster for the climate,” said Collin Rees, Campaigner with Oil Change International. “The carbon math is very simple: We can’t facilitate new fossil fuel development, which is exactly what ETP’s proposed projects, like the Rover Pipeline, will do. Every project must be assessed against a climate test – and if it fails, it must be stopped.”
“Energy Transfer Partners must be held accountable for its complete disregard of Indigenous rights, landowner rights, clean water, and safe communities,” said Dallas Goldtooth, Campaigner with Indigenous Environmental Network. “Communities are standing up, joining hands and rejecting this company’s dirty portfolio of fossil fuel projects, not just for their immediate concern, but for the next seven generations and beyond. We are rising together, we are building together, and we are fighting together.”
“Ohio is being hit hard by fracking and frack waste, which will be even more devastating when huge, high-pressure pipeline projects like Rover are installed to take radon-filled frack gas to mostly export markets,” said Leatra Harper, Managing Director with the FreshWater Accountability Project. “Already, Rover has degraded wetlands by spilling over two million gallons of toxic drilling muds in Ohio, and the air pollution from its numerous compressor stations will spew toxic chemicals and methane. Fracking and its waste and infrastructure are destroying Ohio’s clean air, freshwater and future economic viability, leaving a toxic legacy with taxpayers on the hook for cleanup – if even possible – and many people sick, possibly dying.”
“From Standing Rock, to Texas, to Ohio, to towns across the country, people are mobilizing against Energy Transfer Partners and its reckless agenda that has threatened our communities, our clean air and water, and our climate,” said Lena Moffitt, Director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign. “We the people are organized, we are determined, and together, we will stop Energy Transfer Partners’ dirty and dangerous plans.”
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