Following the annual winter Earth First! rendezvous blockading has begun at a Fracking Waste Storage Facility in New Matamoras, OH.
Ohio residents and allies from numerous environmental groups including Earth First! have disrupted operations at Greenhunter Water’s hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” waste storage site along the Ohio River in Washington County. Nate Ebert, a 33-year-old Athens County resident and member of Appalachia Resist!, ascended a 30 foot monopod (pole), anchored to a truck that was dropping off toxic frack waste at the facility, preventing all trucks carrying frack waste from entering the site! Two banners have also been hung from two different tanks holding fracking waste. The front gate to the facility has been locked by activists. All gates are being blocked by activists and all work at the facility has been halted. Full press release here!
“Our governor, legislature, and regulatory agencies have all failed in their obligation to protect Ohioans from the predatory gas industry,” said Ebert. “Greenhunter wants to use our water sources as dumping grounds for their toxic, radioactive waste. We are here to send a message that the people of Ohio and Appalachia will not sit idly by and watch our homes be turned into a sacrifice zone!”
In an unprecedented show of unity against the extraction industry members of Appalachia Resist!, Tar Sands Blockade, Radical Action for Mountain Peoples’ Survival (RAMPS), a coalition of indigenous leaders including representatives from No Line 9 and the Unis’tot’en Camp, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, and Earth First! chapters from across the country have gathered in Southern Ohio to participate in and support this action. This is the latest in an ongoing and escalating campaign of resistance to the dangerous and exploitative resource extraction industry that is threatening the existence and survival of the earth and all of it’s inhabitants world-wide.
NO TOXIC WASTE DUMPING! NO FRACKING! NO PIPELINES! NO COMPROMISE!
