OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma — Early Friday morning, two activists with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance and Cross Timbers Earth First! locked themselves inside a revolving door at the Devon Tower here in protest of Devon’s involvement in tar sands extraction and fracking, as well as plans to increase fracking in the Eagle Ford Shale.
Simultaneously, a banner displaying a Mockingjay from the popular Hunger Games series was unfurled from the second story of the tower, reading: “The Odds are Never in Our Favor.” Imagery from the Hunger Games was employed to highlight the parallel between industrial sacrifice zones in real life and the resource colonies (Districts) that are subjected to state and economic violence in the book and film series.
The Friday action coincided with two days of trial for members of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society who were arrested while preventing natural gas exploration on their traditional lands. In 2010, Devon Energy's Jackfish 1 facility on Beaver Lake Cree First Nations territory in Alberata, Canada, experienced a failure at one of the wellheads. The failure sent a plume of bitumen-laced, high-temperature steam into the air for nearly 36 hours.
Long seen as a responsible and benevolent corporate community member, Devon Energy is a key player in the deadly tar sands industry. Though the company has been touted as practicing the safest and greenest form of tar sands extraction, known as steam assisted gravity drainage, it still emits two and a half times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions of open mining, according to the Pembina Institute. And since 80% of tar sands reserves lie too deep within the earth to mine, this type of extraction will sacrifice 30 times more land area than open mining.
“I’m opposed to the industry’s blatant disregard for human wellbeing in the pursuit of profit,” said Cory Mathis of Austin, Tex., who was one of the activists locked down inside Devon. “These industries poison countless communities, often deceive and coerce folks into signing contracts, and when that doesn’t work, they use eminent domain to steal the land.
"Texas and Oklahoma have long been considered sacrifice zones for the oil and gas industry, and people have for the most part learned to roll over and accept the sicknesses and health issues that come with the temporary and unsustainable boost in employment,” he said.
The other activist who locked down on Friday, Caroline McNally, said, “I’m here to try to bring to light the damage being done by tar sands extraction and fracking. These companies have been deliberately hiding and suppressing information from the general public, all the while building their public image of being charitable and creating jobs."
"It’s the same story all the way from the Athabasca tar sands to the Gulf," she added, where "we hear the ridiculous proposition that a company that routinely profits off of poisoning folks is somehow capable of being ‘philanthropic.’”
Devon Energy's CEO, Jim Richels, also sits on the board of TransCanada, the company that built the Gulf Coast Segment of the Keystone XL, and whose Northern Segment is awaiting presidential approval.
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