PREDATORY DELAY? - L'eau Est La Vie camp update - December 7, 2018

"Predatory delay" a term conceived by Alex Steffen, is used to describe “the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.” The pathos of the oil companies, and their enablers,including legislators and politically- fired judges, have accomplished  the most damning deception in the history of mankind - "there's nothing wrong with our product" - a prime example of predatory delay.

The L’eau Est La Vie resistance camp battling the Dallas-based Energy Transfer Bayou Bridge crude oil pipeline, running through the heart of America’s biggest swamp, the Atchafalaya Basin of Louisiana, won a victory in court this week.  Louisiana State Judge Keith Comeaux found the corporation guilty of trespassing. He fined them four-hundred-and fifty dollars. One-hundred-foot cypress and tupelo trees were bulldozed and mulched, while barge mounted excavators tore through private property without permission in order to meet shareholders completion date expectations. Many at the feminist indigenous led camp were arrested themselves for felony trespassing despite having permission from the landowners to protect the private property from ET CEO Kelsey Warren’s pipeliners. During the trial, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate, a philosophical question arose: Does the damage of trenching the wetlands and fail-safing more greenhouse gas releases by permitting additional fossil fuel infrastructure outweigh strengthening Louisiana’s petrochemical economy? At stake in the courtroom was whether Energy Transfer could be found guilty of trespassing and still be allowed to seize the property ad hoc through eminent domain thereby green-lighting the final segment of the 163-mile pipeline. Judge Comeaux, deferred and allowed Energy Transfer to seize the property by stating, “The Court should not supplant the well-thought and well-researched opinions of the various agencies that permitted this project,” Comeaux wrote in his judgment. “Therefore, the Court finds that the proper permitting has been done, and that the public purpose and necessity has been proven by Bayou Bridge Pipeline.” Dockets for the criminal trials of the L’Eau est la Vie water protectors that defended the property have not been set.