Trans-Pecos Pipeline protesters arrested in early morning incident

John Daniel Garcia
Big Bend Now
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 17:36 UTC

© John Daniel Garcia

Brewster County Deputies cut a chain around Defend Big Bend Organizer Lori Glover’s neck before her arrest Tuesday morning.

Two Big Bend Defense Coalition protesters were arrested by Brewster County Sheriff's Office deputies in the early hours Tuesday morning on misdemeanor trespass charges for chaining themselves to the gates at the Trans-Pecos Pipeline Pumpco yard in Alpine, barring Pumpco workers from entering the premises.

Big Bend Defense Coalition organizer Lori Glover and 80-year-old retiree and veteran Roger Siglin were taken into custody between 6:30-7am. Brewster County deputies attempted to negotiate with the protestors, both of whom decided to keep their chains on and face arrest.

A third protester, former oil field worker Arah Joe Battista, took his own chains off after hearing of Siglin's arrest and that the gate had been opened to Pumpco trucks.

Arago Battista sits chained against a Pumpco gate. Battista was the only one of three protesters who had chained themselves to the gates to not be arrested at Tuesday's protest.

The protests marks the third major acts of civil disobedience by the group, which splintered from Defend Big Bend, against the pipeline. The first two were protest marches in Alpine and east of Marfa where the pipeline crosses US 67/90.

The group has been escalating their tactics with each passing protest, with the first Alpine protest ending with no incident and the second march outside of Marfa ending with the breach of a fence and a run-in with Presidio County Sheriff's Office deputies, though no arrests were made.

"The best hope for us is to let the public know just how the deck is stacked against us and that the gas industry is allowed to do whatever they want," Siglin told the Marfa Big Bend Sentinel and Presidio International as the chains were still wrapped around his torso. "The public has no say in where the pipelines go as they do public entities like power lines."

The pipeline, Siglin also said, is the beginning of the end of the pristine Big Bend as we know it, as more industry now will be attracted to the region.

"I moved to the Big Bend about 50 years ago, and one of the main reasons a lot of people move to the Big Bend is that it has relatively little industrialization. The pipeline is just one step to more and more industrialization," he said.

© John Daniel Garcia

Arago Battista sits chained against a Pumpco gate. Battista was the only one of three protesters who had chained themselves to the gates to not be arrested at Tuesday’s protest.

Glover and Siglin were both released on personal recognizance bonds after being booked into the county jail.

The protests will continue as the pipeline moves on, Glover said, stating that the arrests will not deter Defend Big Bend from continuing its fight.

"It was a beautiful day of solidarity in the Big Bend graced by shooting stars and the love of good people who love the Big Bend enough to defend it. Kelcy Warren says he's moving forward with the pipelines. Well, we are too," she wrote in a statement to the Sentinel/International.

The protests, Glover also wrote in a separate news release, are also meant to bring attention to the lack of an environmental impact study on the Trans-Pecos Pipeline project.

"Just as there was no Environmental Impact Study done at Lake Oahe in North Dakota for DAPL, we too in the Big Bend are demanding an EIS be performed at the Rio Grande, Cibolo Creek and the Alamito Creek TPPL crossings [...] We must protect our water, challenge corporate greed, and come to our senses on the truth of fossil fuels and climate change," the release, attributed to Glover, said.

The arrests come just days after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dealt a major blow to Trans-Pecos Pipeline's parent company Energy Transfer Partners, which is owned by Dallas-based billionaire and owner of the Lajitas Resort and the Stripes convenience store chains, by denying the Dakota Access Pipeline a permit needed to drill under the Missouri River following a lengthy protest led by Native American leaders which has at times turned bloody.

The company, however, has vowed to complete construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Comment:

Comment: "With the magic of Facebook and other forms of social media I thought you should hear something from me. I have been fighting the pipeline located on the edge of Alpine for the last two years. Our protests to date have had no influence on the pipeline construction in large part because in Texas, Iowa, and many other states the oil and gas industry owns most politicians. Although most of my local friends concentrate their anger on the pipeline in their backyard I use every opportunity I can to mention that our crazy national policy is to exhaust our oil and gas resources as quickly as possible.

The reasons our country is doing this is because of the immediate profits to be made and the widespread belief that renewable, non-polluting energy will solve all of our problems. My point is that we need to use our energy resources as slowly and efficiently as possible for the benefit of future generations.

I ended up being one of three people volunteering to be arrested and did so because I am old, retired, and in general have less to lose than most of my friends. In doing so I got the chance to talk to many reporters which was the primary reason to conduct the protest. Whether the publicity we and others like those in other states generate will change anything remains to be seen but without it nothing will change.

I have been surprised and pleased by the reaction of many of my friends most of whom wholeheartedly support my actions. I anticipate a court date early next year and hopefully a small fine. My time in jail was very short and our actions were even supported by the police and we were well treated."

Roger Siglin