A chapel still stands on the path of the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline.
I was struck by the Technicolor backdrop of rows of green corn beneath a cloudless blue sky when I attended the Adorers of the Blood of Christ’s dedication ceremony last July. At a service last week marking the anniversary of the dedication, the sky was once again a cloudless blue, but the rows of corn were gone, replaced by a scab of dry, cracked earth where the pipeline has been buried.
The chapel stands on land in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that is at the center of an ongoing eminent domain battle between Williams Partners, the Oklahoma-based pipeline giant, and the Adorers whose Roman Catholic order has long been committed to climate justice and has maintained that the action is a violation of their religious convictions.
Mark Clatterbuck, one of the founders of Lancaster Against Pipelines, a grassroots organization recognized for its use of creative non-violent direct actions to fight the pipeline, told the crowd gathered at the anniversary service, “Of course, in the meantime, Williams responded to the Sisters’ lawsuit by choosing this piece of land—out of the 180 miles of the ASP pipeline project—as the very first place to break ground.”
Last fall, the Sisters asked that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issue an injunction until their appeal was heard. Their request was denied on October 13th. The next business day, October 16th, Williams started unloading earth moving equipment onto the land. The workers were met by about 100 protesters. Twenty-three of them spent the night in county prison for holding hands and singing in front of an excavator.
The following week six protesters were arrested for using Lancaster Against Pipelines’ 50-foot long quilt to block Williams from entering the Adorers’ land. The length of the quilt represents the length of the pipeline right-of-way.
The week after that, 100 protesters marched into the construction site to deliver bread to the workers, “reminding them that the very food we eat depends on good soil, pure air, and clean water,” said Clatterbuck.
He recapped other actions as well, like the raising of a cross on the pipeline right-of-way this year on Palm Sunday and last year’s Sunday night vigils that continued into the late autumn. Like the chapel, the cross still stands.
Actions against pipeline projects like Atlantic Sunrise and Sunoco/Energy Transfer Partners’ hazardous liquid gas pipelines collectively called Mariner East have upset legislators who have consistently put the best interests of the industry over those of their constituents. State Senator Michael Regan, who represents areas of the state affected by the Mariner East pipeline, introduced SB652, a bill taken from an ALEC template that criminalizes pipeline protests under the guise of guarding homeland security. A co-sponsor, Senator Scott Martin, whose district is in Lancaster County, introduced another ALEC-styled bill last year that would make protesters pay the costs of their protests. He cited the Standing Rock protest extensively in his co-sponsorship memo. That bill has not moved yet, but SB652 passed the Senate in May and was sent to the House Environmental Resources and Energy committee in June.
Meanwhile, seven of the 23 arrested last October will be headed to court this fall where they will enter a plea of not guilty. Nevertheless, the Adorers, Lancaster Against Pipelines, and their supporters remain undeterred.
“Today, let’s commit ourselves to writing a different story here in this place than the one Williams wants to write,” said Clatterbuck to the crowd. “Williams may have stuck a pipeline in this ground, but I’ve already heard some of you dreaming big dreams for how we can ensure that this field stands as a site of ongoing resistance—a site of hope, a site of joyful defiance & creative resistance, a site of prayer—maybe a site of renewable energy possibilities—a site of ongoing pilgrimage for the love of this earth, our Mother. And that’s what today is truly about. Not just celebrating the miracle of what has happened on this soil already—but committing ourselves to the miracles we will still make together at this holy place.”