No Pipelines, No Tankers, No Tar Sands!

Saturday, August 27th, 2pm @ Inlet Dr. & Hastings St. in Burnaby map: http://bit.ly/oz9o4Z

From Vancouver take the 135 Bus from Hastings Street

A mass civil disobedience action has been called for the end of August in Washington DC to pressure the US government to stop approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline proposed to carry tar sands crude oil from northern Alberta to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and the U.S. Gulf Coast. At the same time, here in the Lower Mainland, we will spotlight and protest the tar sands pipeline in our own backyard -- in North Burnaby.

Organized by the Council of Canadians, Tanker Free BC, Streams of Justice, StopThePave.org and the Wilderness Committee.

Turn off the taps on the tar sands - No pipelines, no tankers

In solidarity with both the action in Washington and impacted communities around the continent, we are calling for an action at the Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline terminal in North Burnaby. The Trans Mountain Pipeline is being expanded to carry more tar sands crude to the Pacific on tankers leaving through Vancouver's Burrard Inlet. Already there are two tankers a week passing through the narrows of the Port of Vancouver carrying more than three times more crude oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez.

And while there is a great deal of awareness and opposition to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline in northern BC, fewer people understand that the Trans Mountain expansion would add as much additional capacity to the tar sands network as Northern Gateway. Communities in North Burnaby are already aware of the threats of more expanding the pipeline, as they are dealing with extremely poor air quality due to the Chevron Refinery and have seen neighborhoods covered in spilled crude oil (see video: http://bit.ly/qX9WrC).

The tar sands are the largest industrial project in history, with pipelines for shipping the crude oil expanding across the continent with little to no regard for the ecosystems and communities that lie in the path of the infrastructure. Meanwhile, at the site of extraction in northern Alberta, the tar sands have been devastating the environment and indigenous communities that are facing alarming rates of cancer due to the poisoning of the Athabasca River watershed.

Join us on August 27th for a rally of solidarity & visit the site of our own tar sands pipeline. The tar sands can be stopped if they have no where to go.

Together, we can help turn off the taps on this environmental crime, by preventing this reckless pipeline expansion and banning oil tankers from the BC coast. Together, we can stop Enbridge, stop Kinder Morgan, stop Keystone and stop tanker traffic towards the goal of stopping the tar sands altogether!

The action in Washington, D.C. has been endorsed by social and environmental activists including Maude Barlow, Wendell Berry, Tom Goldtooth, Danny Glover, James Hansen, Wes Jackson, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, George Poitras and David Suzuki. For more information visit: www.tarsandsaction.org