March Against Monsanto Spring Hill, Florida and Beyond

MARCH AGAINST MONSANTO TAMPA
OCTOBER 2013
PHOTO BY ANITA STEWART

Monsanto = Dioxin, Glyphosate, Roundup and Agent Orange and are legally poisoning our food and the environment. It must stop.

By Anita Stewart

May 15, 2016

Latest news reports on Monsanto’s Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed-killer, Roundup indicate that it is present in California wines, Quaker Oats and even in the urine of elected officials in Europe.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, Roundup is made by Monsanto. Same Monsanto that produced Agent Orange (an earlier chemical was Dioxin) which is responsible for the ongoing, horrific birth defects in Viet Nam where it was widely used as a defoliant and sprayed from planes into the bush and over remote villages. These chemicals also affect the US children of those active duty military and veterans that were exposed. What is chilling is the fact that these chemicals have also been either stored or used here in the United States.

Agent Orange is connected to the 25% of Veterans testing positive for Diabetes 2 per the VA’s own website–the general population is at 8-10%. (As soon as you are diagnosed through the VA with Diabetes 2, the second question is “to your knowledge, were you ever exposed to Agent Orange?” So the VA is well aware of this connection).

The VA will not pay out any monies/disability to Agent Orange victims unless the veteran was stationed in Viet Nam. Per the veterans themselves and some of their most recent reports, Agent Orange was not used, stored or transported exclusively in Viet Nam.

The Risks are Supposed to be Secret on this Globe Full of Victims

50% of our general population will get cancer during their lifetime or have it already. And this directly affects all of us as many of us have loved ones with cancer or know someone that has died from it. Those of us who got our diagnosis already are working hard at staying alive. We will live the rest of our lives constantly detoxing. Some of us who are veterans have both cancer and diabetes and both conditions are connected to the use of Agent Orange and other Monsanto chemicals per the VA's own website. We have probably been poisoned.

The important thing to note about these reports is that the IARC, a World Health Organization working group of doctors published their findings last year showing that Roundup’s Glyphosate “probably causes cancer.” Their report was posted on the LANCET website last year. Immediately after the report was published, Monsanto demanded a retraction of the IARC’s findings but they never got it.

From March Against Monsanto: "In a recent article by EcoWatch, it was revealed that the EPA had finally released its long-awaited report on the WHO declaration, only to mysteriously pull it from circulation (check out the full article here)."

These are ways that corporate media, news outlets and government agencies censor, omit or create a critical buzz regarding information and attempt to keep it from those who need it most; like journalists, victims and medical workers. And of course to cover up the crimes by the corporations and any possibility of them being held accountable.

The other alarming trends and side effects of the regular use of these toxins includes the killing off of our pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, birds, etc. Some of these populations are now collapsing. We are already losing approximately 200 species a day due to extinction. Without the pollinators, we will not be able to sustain our current food supplies.

Will we be next? Some scientists say we are at extinction levels now. Many questions need to be raised about the continued use of these toxins. Roundup is the one most widely used in the US and at the same time, is being banned in many other countries.

“This planet is Gaia because of her evolutionary adaptive capacity. The only question to ask is will human beings be around in that adaptive context,” Dr. Vandana Shiva, Eckerd College, March 9, 2015.

Our Demands and Why We March

Labeling GMOs or genetically modified organisms in our food products and produce is the other reason why we march. I believe at the very LEAST companies should be accurately labeling them, but I would prefer the permanent banning of all GMO products. March Against Monsanto calls for two events a year: in May and October. The events are to increase awareness about the need for labeling food that contains GMO’s. This would give the consumers all of the information they need to know so they can make educated choices for themselves and their families.

March Against Monsanto will be present at a hearing at the Hague in October 2016 to correspond with World Food Day. You can help crowdfund and organize that event. (CLICK HERE)

All of this is why we march EVERYWHERE ON THE GLOBE May 21st, 2016. Join us! We are really marching for the right to not be poisoned anymore.

WEBSITE:

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/home/ (Look for your local city’s march)

Facebook Event Page for Tampa:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1705447866398854/

Facebook Event Page for Spring Hill/Brooksville:

https://www.facebook.com/events/512430905613773/

I want to take it a step further.

I call for a permanent ban on Roundup and other similar agro-chemicals.

And a boycott of anyone that is using them. We are literally marching for our lives.

Who is with me?

MARCH AGAINST MONSANTO TAMPA
MAY 2014
PHOTO BY ANITA STEWART

Monsanto Continues to Strong Arm Truth:

http://challengingtherhetoric.blogspot.com/2015/04/monsanto-continues-to-strong-arm-truth.html

***This article originally published by the Hernando Phoenix in Brooksville/Spring Hill, Florida.
***http://www.hernandophoenix.com/march-monsanto-spring-hill-beyond/

TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline Resumes Operations Under Supervision After South Dakota Dilbit Spill

By Julie Dermansky • Monday, April 11, 2016 - 03:58

TransCanada received permission from federal regulators to re-start the Keystone Pipeline a week after a 16,800-gallon spill in South Dakota. The pipeline started back up on Sunday morning at a reduced operating pressure.

The incident has given ammunition to a group appealing the decision by the South Dakota Public Utility Commission (PUC) to re-certify TransCanada’s permit to build the Keystone XL Pipeline, despite President Obama’s denial of a permit needed to cross international borders. 

The PUC reasoned that the next president could decide to issue the permit — a reminder that TransCanada has not given up on building the northern route of the Keystone XL. However, this most recent spill renews questions about the company’s ability to build safe pipelines.

When Evan Vokes, a former TransCanada materials engineer-turned-whistleblower, heard about a small spill along the Keystone Pipeline, he guessed that the leak would be found at a transition weld near where the pipeline crossed under a road. Transition welds connect thinner-walled pipe to thicker-walled pipe.

Places where the pipeline goes under road crossings require thicker pipe than the rest of the line, so wherever the Keystone goes under a road you will find transition welds, Vokes explained. 

It turns out that Vokes’s prediction was right. In a corrective action order notice issued to TransCanada on Saturday, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the agency that regulates interstate pipelines, indicated the probable cause of the leak was from a girth weld anomaly at a transition site. 

Vokes warned his former employer and PHMSA about the transition welds, which he described as “inherently risky.” Welding different thicknesses of pipe together is harder to do than welding the same thickness, and it is more difficult to get accurate X-rays of welds.

“Even a seasoned welding inspector could miss imperfect welds when reviewing X-rays used to check the welds during the pipeline’s construction,“ Vokes told DeSmog. “And any less than perfect weld is more prone to crack when the pipeline moves, which happens when weather conditions change.”

Vokes felt so strongly about the risk of leaky transition welds that he sent an email to TransCanada’s CEO Russ Girling, warning that the transition welds used on the Keystone Pipeline were a bad idea.

He pointed out to Girling that TransCanada was ignoring an advisory PHMSA issued in 2003 that warned against the use of such welds because they are prone to crack under stress.

He also emailed Kenneth Lee, a top PHMSA engineer who ran a workshop on “Pipeline Construction Challenges” in 2010, to inform Lee of his concerns. 

Diagram of an improper weld transition part of a PHMSA presentation.

Lee responded by email: “We are in full support of efforts and technologies to improve pipeline safety, including many of those you have mentioned. The increased incidents of girth weld cracks are of great concern to us and we treat this very seriously.” 

But Vokes believes his warning to Lee was ignored because no corrective actions were taken against TransCanada during the pipeline installation to stop the transition welds.

”Bad welds can result in a catastrophe, “Vokes explained to DeSmog. “A tiny crack in a weld can leak for years before it is found, because leak detection systems are only capable of detecting leaks when a pipeline’s volume drops by two percent in the course of a day.”

TransCanada’s detection system didn’t pick up the leak near Freemont, South Dakota, allowing the pipeline to spill at least 168,000 gallons of dilbit (refined Canadian tar sands oil) before a landowner noticed the spill.

It is impossible to say how long the pipeline was leaking, or how long it could have gone on leaking, had the spill taken place in a more remote area. 

“There could be hundreds of cracks in welds along the Keystone Pipeline and TransCanada’s leak detection system wouldn’t locate them,” Vokes said. “The Enbridge Pipeline spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan, leaked twice as much dilbit before anyone noticed.”

The mounting failures of various TransCanada pipelines does not surprise Vokes because “the company often did not follow the code of construction.” 

But he is surprised and dismayed that, when pipeline safety is at stake, regulators in Canada and the United States allow companies to continue to break the rules with few to no consequences. 

Two other TransCanada projects that failed not long after they started operating are the Bison Pipeline in Wyoming, and the North Central Corridor Loop in Alberta, Canada, validating Vokes’s claims.

Vokes was fired by TransCanada before most of the changes he advocated took place. PHMSA did issue a corrective warning to the company related to the construction of the Keystone Pipeline, but it was for issues that did not include the transition welds. 

Vokes believes that pipelines would be safe if the rules of construction were followed. But he is aware that the rules were broken repeatedly here.

While reviewing photos that Cindy Myers, a member of the Dakota Rural Action group, took near the spill site, Vokes noticed a person on the pipeline right-of-way carrying a firearm. “Firearms are not permitted on a pipeline’s right-of-way,“ Vokes said. “This shows that the company and the regulators are not taking pipeline safety seriously. To ignore safety rules even when the public is present shows a total disregard of public safety.” 

Man with reflective safety vest carrying a gun at the site of the Keystone spill in South Dakota 4/4/2016. Photo courtesy of Cindy Myers

Gary Dorr, a member of the Nez Perce Tribe, told DeSmog that TransCanada also ignores laws that say Indigenous peoples must be consulted before pipelines cross a tribe’s land. He is one of the legal challengers that includes members of the Dakota Rural Action, the South Dakota Keystone Consolidated Interveners, and several individual landowners who are challenging the South Dakota PUC’s decision to re-certify TransCanada’s permit. “The Keystone XL, if built, will cross tribal land without permission given to TransCanada by the tribes,” Dorr said.

The challengers filed an appeal against the PUC’s decision that is pending. ABC-TV affiliate KSFY in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, reported that the “circuit court judge in Pierre is expected to issue an order on consolidating the lawsuits against the PUC into one appeal next week.”

Dorr hopes this spill will make a difference in the court’s decision. “We were promised TransCanada’s pipeline won’t spill,” he told DeSmog, “and that is a promise that the company cannot keep.”

The PHMSA corrective order calls for more oversight on the Keystone Pipeline.

But Vokes told DeSmog, “The only way to find out if there are other slow leaks would be to dig up the pipeline everywhere a transition weld was made. There easily could be hundreds of undetected leaks in that pipeline.”

Photo credit: Keystone Pipeline spill site in South Dakota, courtesy of Bold Nebraska.

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Environmentalists Join Forces in New Orleans To Foster A Growing Alliance to Combat Climate Change and Fossil Fuels

By Julie Dermansky • Monday, March 28, 2016 - 07:37

“It is time we wake up the world to stop abusing and destroying a gift of life – before it is too late,” Chief 

Arvol Looking Horse from South Dakota said to a group of environmentalists from across the country who 

joined him at a water ceremony on the shore of the Mississippi River in New Orleans on World Water Day.  

The ceremony took place on the fourth day of programming hosted by the environmental advocacy group 

Indigena, on climate change and communities fighting against it.

“Creative alliances are formed when you are invited to come together,” Janet MacGillivray, Esq., with Indigena, told DeSmog. “That’s what we did with the four days of gatherings at the New Orleans Healing Center.”

Keeper of the Mountains Foundation president Paul Corbit Brown, and Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, were among the invited speakers who stressed the need for groups to come together.

They joined Louisiana environmental groups and activists who participated in panel discussions in the days before a protest by hundreds of Gulf Coast residents and environmentalists from across the country against the federal lease sale of 44.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to the oil and gas industry. 

Video: Paul Corbit Brown speaks in New Orleans

Holding up a bottle of polluted water from Fayetteville, West Virginia, at a panel discussion on climate change injustice, Brown told the audience that water from the river where he took the sample made it to New Orleans before he did.

“Polluted water in West Virginia doesn’t stay in West Virginia,” he said. ”It makes it way to other places, including here.”

The Keeper of the Mountains Foundation’s mission is to move Appalachian communities away from an extraction economy to an economy that values people, land, and mountain heritage. The foundation conducts outreach programs to teach groups from around the world about mountaintop removal and other negative impacts of the coal industry. The foundation is involved with fighting for human rights while working toward helping the region transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The foundation also acts as an environmental watchdog. Brown was the first photographer to document the site where a train carrying North Dakota crude derailed into a West Virginia creek and burst into flames in 2015. After a state trooper blocked his way, threatening him with arrest if he tried to get to the accident site, he chartered a plane and shot aerials of the wreckage that were published by the Huffington Post.

His photos contradicted Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s description of how much oil contaminated the creek, according to Brown.

Brown’s work as a human rights photographer before he became an environmental activist taught him that you can’t separate human rights from environmental injustice.

“There is a growing movement of people trying to connect the dots,” Brown told DeSmog. “It is not that mountaintop removal is worse than uranium mining – or worse than what happened with oil and gas in Louisiana, or worse than frackng or any other environmental catastrophe created by the oil and gas industry. People are waking up to the understanding that this fight is all of these fights.”

On a panel of women in the environmental movement, Jane Kleeb announced that Bold Nebraska is expanding with the formation of the Bold Alliance, which will have branches in Iowa, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. The alliance will continue Bold Nebraska’s work that includes stopping fossil fuel developments by developing clean energy projects.

Bold Nebraska is a progressive political advocacy group that was a leading voice in the fight to stop the northern route of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The organization joined forces with indigenous tribes in the fight to stop the tar sands pipeline.

Video: Jane Kleeb speaks in New Orleans

When word reached Kleeb that President Obama rejected the permit TransCanada needed to build the northern route of the Keystone XL Pipeline, she had a celebratory whiskey and then spent a little time with her family. But hanging up her hat was never an option for her.

“The fight to save the planet is bigger than stopping one pipeline,” Kleeb told DeSmog.

Kleeb announced that Cherri Foytlin will run Bold Louisiana. Foytlin, a Louisiana native, became an activist after the BP oil spill, and has been at the forefront of the fight against pollution and social justice ever since.

“We plan to continue to tackle fossil fuel projects while lifting up clean energy and developing a base of populist independent voters,” Kleeb said.

Hundreds crashed the government’s lease sale on March 23 held at the Superdome in New Orleans. Though the protesters weren’t able to stop the auction, their action sent a message to the federal government that further development of the fossil fuel industry is not a popular move with those concerned about climate change.

Video: Jane Kleeb and Mekasi Camp-Horinek protest against new oil and gas lease sales In the Gulf of Mexico.

“Here in New Orleans, apathy just isn’t an option,” MacGillivray told DeSmog. Despite the trauma from superstorms and the destruction of the environment, she believes the spirit of the people in New Orleans can’t be extinguished.

Paul Corbit Brown outside of the Superdome where protesters gathered after the lease sale for a rally. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

Brown was moved by the protest. It was a reminder that he is not alone in recognizing the need to unite people fighting for social and environmental justice, which happened at the protest.

“What we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. It is that simple,” Brown told DeSmog. “If we continue to contaminate the earth and take from her as if there is no tomorrow, we will not have an Earth we can live on tomorrow – it is that simple.”

Video: Chief Arvol speaks in New Orleans

Lead Photo: Paula Horne-Mullen, Janet MacGillivray, Esq., Chief Arvil Looking Horse, Jane Kleeb and Jason Kowalski and others gathered in New Orleans. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

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Environmentalists Converge on New Orleans To Disrupt Gulf of Mexico Oil and Gas Lease Sale

By Julie Dermansky • Thursday, March 24, 2016 - 01:58

Hundreds of Gulf Coast residents and environmentalists from across the country protested against a federal lease sale of 44.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to the oil and gas industry yesterday in New Orleans.

The group marched from Duncan Plaza to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome — where the sale was held — calling for an end to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and an immediate hiring of a thousand workers to clean up and repair aging oil infrastructure, including rigs, platforms, pipelines and refineries.

They included Gulf Coast residents and local environmental organizations 350 Louisiana, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Bridge the Gulf and Vanishing Earth. Members of national groups Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, Indigena, Bold Nebraska, Keeper of the Mountains Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity, Rethink Energy, Tar Sands Blockade and Rainforest Action Network also took part in the protest.

No effort was made to stop the protesters from entering the Superdome or the room where the auction took place. While the protest had been publicized since February on social media, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) seemed caught off guard.

Protesters march to the Superdome in New Orleans. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

Anne Rolfes, director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, leads protesters to the lease sale inside the Superdome. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

The protesters chanted throughout the lease sale, which lasted about an hour and a half. They drowned out the voice ofBOEM Gulf of Mexico Regional Director Michael Celata who was calling out the bids and announcing the lease winners.

VIDEO

“We have being saying ‘Yes’ and going along with drilling in the Gulf far too long,” Cherri Foytlin, a Gulf Coast activist, told DeSmog, “Today I said, ‘No.’”

Security personnel tried to remove Foytlin from a platform at the lease sale. When police officers grabbed her, Foytlin went limp, ending up lying on her back. Rather than drag her away, she was permitted to remain on the platform.

Police try to remove Cherri Foytlin from the protest. © 2016 Julie Dermansky

Cherri Foytlin, after being released by the police, returns to where she was standing before they tried to remove her. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

“They could have arrested me,” Foytlin told DeSmog. “But there were too many of us that they would also have to arrest.”

A representative from BOEM asked Foytlin what the group thought they were going to accomplish since their actions were not going to stop the sale. Foytlin explained she was protecting the planet for the sake of her children.

She asked him to “go back to the President and tell him that this is just the beginning. Our numbers are swelling.”

“If this president really wants to be the guy he said he was going to be after Paris, he needs to be proactive and stop the sale of federal land for drilling right now,” Foytlin told DeSmog.

VIDEO

“This is horrible,” BOEM representative Caryl Fagot said to DeSmog. “What do they think they are doing?”

BOEM representative Caryl Fagot reacts to protesters during the lease sale in the Superdome. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

At a March 17 public hearing on the next round of Gulf of Mexico lease sales slated for 2017, Fagot said nothing would stop the March 23 auction and that the place to voice one’s opinion was at one of the BOEM public hearings beforehand, not at the event itself.

The activists disagreed. “This is beautiful,” Bucket Brigade director Anne Rolfes told DeSmog.

Oil and gas industry representatives at the federal lease sale in the Superdome. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

John Filostrat, a BOEM public affairs officer, makes an effort to control the crowd. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

Rolfes testified at BOEM’s hearing, but still had hoped to stop the lease sales. The hundreds of people willing to disrupt the meeting gave her hope. Two years before, only a couple dozen protesters attended the lease sale.

After the sale, a few of the protesters taunted workers who were taking down BOEM’s displays in the Superdome’s hallway. “You should be ashamed,” one of the activists said to them.

“The sneakers you are wearing are made with oil. Your cell phone too,” a worker countered. The worker conceded safety on the oil rigs isn’t what it should be, but told DeSmog he thought the protesters were ignorant.

Twenty-six offshore energy companies submitted 148 bids on 128 blocks for Central Sale 241. No bids were submitted for Eastern Sale 226, according to BOEM’s press release.  It was the fewest bids submitted at in auction in the last 20 years.

The protesters held a rally outside the Superdome after the sale. Among them was activist Hilton Kelley, the Goldman Environmental Prize winner who has fought to keep pollution at bay in the African-American West Side neighborhood of Port Arthur.

“The people who live on the Gulf Coast have suffered enough because of BP,” he told DeSmog.

“Though we didn’t stop the sale, our voices were heard,” Kelley said, describing the protest as “righteous.”

Protesters pose for a group photo as a helicopter passes over them. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

Lead photo credit: Children take part in a protest against new federal lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. ©2016 Julie Dermansky

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