Climate activists shut down 5 tar sands oil pipelines

Wielding little more than wire cutters, wrenches and a willingness to be arrested, a group of climate activists shut down five oil pipelines across the United States on Tuesday.

As of 10:30 a.m. ET, the activists said they had cut down wire fences and manually turned emergency shutdown valves on pipelines in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Washington. Activists also alerted pipeline operators before shutting down the lines.

The targeted pipelines carry a particular type of heavy, high-carbon crude oil from Canada's tar sands region in Alberta. 

Nine people, including filmmakers, were arrested and removed from the sites, said Afrin Sopariwala of the Climate Disobedience Center, which helped organize the protests.

SEE ALSO: Shailene Woodley was just arrested while protesting Dakota Access Pipeline

She said activists had turned the pipelines' emergency valves to warn of the climate change "emergency" that threatens to bring rising sea levels, more extreme and frequent storms, and other effects.

"We have to take escalated action to match this escalated [climate] catastrophe," she told Mashable.

A recent study by Oil Change International found that the potential carbon emissions from the world's working coal mines and oil and gas fields would warm the planet more than 2 degrees Celsius — the threshold that countries promised not to pass under the Paris climate agreement.

Tar sands oil is considered particularly dangerous to the climate because it requires an extensive amount of energy to extract and refine. Gasoline and diesel fuels made from Canadian tar sands crude on average had 18 to 21 percent higher emissions than those derived from U.S. conventional crudes, according to a 2015 study by the American Chemical Society.

The pipeline shutdowns were also a show of solidarity for the roughly 5,000 protesters in North Dakota who are fighting to block the construction of the 1,170-mile Dakota Access Pipeline.

Native American tribes and environmentalists claim the Army Corps of Engineers violated multiple statutes for protecting clean water and culturally significant sites by issuing permits to Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline's builder. 

Image: APTom Stromme/The Bismarck Tribune via AP

Dozens of people were arrested Monday near the town of Cannon Ball on charges of criminal trespass and engaging in a riot, including the Divergent actress Shailene Woodley. 

Tuesday's protests targeted the following five pipelines: Enbridge's Line 4 and Line 67 in Leonard, Minnesota; TransCanada's Keystone pipeline in Walhalla, North Dakota; Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline in Anacortes, Washington; and Spectra Energy's Express pipeline in Coal Banks Landing, Montana.

Enbridge, Kinder Morgan and Spectra Enbridge confirmed that activists had tampered with their pipelines.

Michael Barnes, a spokesman for Enbridge, said the company temporarily shut down lines 4 and 67 on Tuesday afternoon out of "an abundance of caution."

"The actions taken to unlawfully trespass on our facility, use bolt cutters to cut chains off our valves and then attempt to turn the valves to stop the flow of oil were dangerous and reckless," he told Mashable by email.

"These are criminal acts that endanger the public and the environment," he said. "We take this very seriously and will support prosecution of all those involved."

Spectra Energy confirmed that activists broke into a locked facility and tampered with a valve on the Express pipeline in Montana. The 786-mile conduit can carry up to 280,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Canada's Alberta province to Casper, Wyoming.

Devin Hotzel, a spokesman for Spectra Energy, said the company shut down that section of the pipeline as a cautionary measure and was coordinating with law enforcement.

"Our first concern is for the safety of the community and the environment, and tampering with this important U.S. energy infrastructure will not be tolerated," he told Mashable in an email. "This pipeline provides a vital source of affordable, reliable energy to fuel the everyday lives of Americans."

Hotzel said he did not know how long Spectra intended to suspend operations along that section of the pipeline in Montana. (Update: Spectra safely restarted its pipeline on Tuesday at 1 p.m. MDT.)

Ali Hounsell, a spokesperson for Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline, confirmed that "reckless trespassers" broke into a location on the pipeline's Puget Sound system. The 69-mile pipeline runs from Abbotsford, British Columbia, to three refineries in Washington.

"At the time of the incident, we were not operating through that portion of the line and their actions did not cause the release of any product," Hounsell said in an email, noting that three people were arrested this morning at the pipeline site.

"We are conducting a thorough inspection to ensure the integrity of the pipeline system," she said.

Representatives from TransCanada did not immediately return Mashable's requests for comment.