Pipeline Protesters Leave Freezing N. Dakota, Head To Texas To Camp

PIPELINE PROTESTERS LEAVE FREEZING N. DAKOTA, HEAD TO TEXAS TO CAMP Meanwhile, in Alpine: Several groups of environmental activist-types are currently setting up a series of long-term protest camps along the planned route of the Trans-Pecos Pipeline, which would send natural gas to Mexico from near Ft. Stockton by crossing beneath the Rio Grande. Like the Dakota Access pipeline (which the Army Corps said earlier this month it’s gonna try to reroute),  the Trans-Pecos is another Energy Transfer Partners project — though the company was already running into opposition in the region long before the Dakota protests made the national news, from what Rachel Monroe describes as an unlikely coalition of “archaeologists, McDonald Observatory astronomers, hippies, and ranchers.” The 1st camp was to have opened yesterday near Alpine; David Hunn writes this week that a handful of the same folks from the Dakota protests have already arrived in the region, and that 2 more camps are planned to open early next year, in the ghost town of Casa Piedra (near the edge of Big Bend Ranch State Park) and Toyahvale (home to Balmorhea State Park and San Solomon Springs  and near which Houston-based Apache Corp. is currently planning major drilling operations). [Houston Chronicle, Texas Monthly]

8 Comment

  • Protesting will do absolutely nothing in environmentally unfriendly Texas. Texans eat and drink oil morning, noon and night.

  • I am not sure that out of town protesters will receive the same welcome in the Big Bend which they received in North Dakota. The local eco system is more fragile, the facilities more limited and the local ranchers not so sanguine about squatters. People who live out there depend on water from very deep wells, not surface water, so the the water protector aspect will not carry as much truck.

  • They’re camping at Balmorhea so they can take their weekly baths.

  • I was going to go protest in the desert.. but then I remembered.. I HAVE A JOB!

  • Great idea. Let’s prevent nat. gas transmission to Mexico so they can keep burning dirty coal and make the smog in Big Bend even worse!

  • Suspicious that this is the second ETP pipeline being stopped now. I wonder who is funding the protestors

  • Mr Clean, railway industry.