Post and Beam Protest (2017) Sandisfield — Nearly 175 years after Henry Thoreau wrote his celebrated treatise “Civil Disobedience,” arguing that acquiescence to the unjust will of government makes citizens agents of injustice, 17 Massachusetts residents assembled recently at the edge of Kinder Morgan’s pipeline easement in Otis State Forest to construct a “Thoreau Cabin” as part of their ongoing resistance to a $93 million pipeline expansion project, the nonprofit group Sugar Shack Alliance said in a news release. Will Elwell, owner of Elwell Construction located in Ashfield, stands beside a trailer filled with timber to be used in the construction “There will never be a free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”
Sounds like nothing but NIMBY's to me. Pipelines are vastly superior to rail or hiway transportation of gas and petroleum. Environmentalists should be happy. Pipelines create miles of fringe environment,which is the preference of most wildlife. Narrow clearings provide a food source with the cover of the forest just one or two leaps away. Yes it will be ugly for several years, but once the reclamation planting take hold that is also negligible. A properly monitored and regulated pipeline is the safest most efficient method of moving liquid or gas. And what is this sacred Native American bullshit. Why is it that with every contested project does this fiction get thrown up. Just because some aborigine caught a fish or took a dump does not make the area sacred by any means.
As a former well-compensated employee of a large petrochemical company and general enemy of the Green New Deal, I approve this post.
“What is the use of a house,” wrote Thoreau, “if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on.” (Photo: Will Elwell)