Week of Action Against the Bayou Bridge Pipeline: February 26th to March 4th

The Bayou Bridge Pipeline is the final stage of a scheme to bring fracked-oil from the Bakken region of North Dakota to export facilities in Louisiana. Construction on the pipeline is under way, but frontline communities are resisting. This resistance is being led by the L’eau Est La Vie Camp. More about the Bayou Bridge Pipeline from NoBBP.org:

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), the very same company behind the notorious Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) , is trying to build a 162 mile crude oil pipeline across Louisiana called the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (BBP). BBP will pollute our water, crossing an astounding 700 bodies of water including Bayou LaFourche, a critical reservoir that supplies the United Houma Nation and 300,000 Louisiana residents with clean, safe drinking water. BBP violates indigenous sovereignty. Along its path of destruction, BBP would impact sacred mounds and threaten drinking water of the United Houma Nation, a tribe that has been seeking federal recognition for decades. Neither the United Houma Nation nor any tribe of the gulf south has been consulted nor given consent for the construction of this pipeline. BBP will destroy our coast. Wetlands are sponges for floodwaters. The BBP will destroy 150 acres of wetlands in its path and will “temporarily” impact 450 more acres. Wetlands are vital to a resilient Southern Louisiana, and already because of climate change and development, Louisiana is losing an average of one acre of coastal wetlands per hour. The State of Louisiana is frantically trying to figure out how to save our coast, but building the BBP will make the situation worse.

BBP will destroy our economy. Existing oil pipelines have already created enormous problems for our crawfishing industry. BBP will only make these problems worse, creating dams in the Atchafalaya Basin dozens of miles long that irreparably damage the ecosystem and make fishing for crawfish impossible. The crawfishing industry supports thousands of good jobs in Louisiana. BBP will only create 12 permanent jobs. BBP will increase flooding. The loss of wetlands also means increased flooding. When flooding is worse, our communities suffer. Our homes our damaged, our crops are destroyed, our infrastructure is eroded, our families get sick, and our economy is harmed. BBP is a climate disaster. It will create the carbon equivalent of 30 new coal plants. The BBP is not compatible with our global mandate to limit climate change to 1.5℃. Our growing network of impacted landowners, tribal members, environmental justice communities, and fisherfolk have submitted comments, spoken out at hearings, and demanded proper environmental reviews and that our concerns will be taken seriously. None of this has happened.

ETP has swindled landowners, bought our politicians, and refused to address any of the community’s needs. Enough is enough. If our leaders won’t stand up to stop this pipeline and protect our water, then we the people of Louisiana will. We are building the L’eau Est La Vie camp to protect our water and our way of life from the Bayou Bridge pipeline.