Matt Almonte and Indigo, two blockaders who barricaded a mile-long stretch of pipe during an action on December 3rd, have recently concluded their legal case in Smith County, and won’t be serving any additional time in jail for their action.
Matt and Indigo, along with fellow blockader Glen Collins, were charged with three misdemeanors: criminal trespassing, illegal dumping, and resisting arrest. After having their bail set at $65,000 each, they were forced to serve a nearly 30-day sentence. (It took nearly a month to secure a bail reduction hearing.)
Needless to say, we’re very happy with this news and want to thank everyone who donated and wrote letters during their time of incarceration!
Glen is expected to receive a similar deal in the coming weeks.
In related news, out of this action came a recently-released photo exposing holes (literally) in the welding of that particular section of pipe in Winona, Texas. To be clear, discovering the faulty welding was an incidental find, but a shocking and pivotal one nonetheless. On January 31st, Blockader Ramsey Sprague stood up and disrupted an oil and gas pipeline conference and lambasted TransCanada for its horrific safety record, invoking whistleblower testimony and this very photo as prime evidence. Share this photo and blow the cover off TransCanada’s shoddy construction work, the effects of which will be felt by local east Texas communities whose backyards will become toxic spill zones when this pipe leaks.
Photo of sunlight through faulty welds taken from inside KXL pipe during our December 3rd, 2012 action.
Continue following our campaign to stop this pipeline and take action of your own to demonstrate your resistance to the fossil-fuel industry!
