As kayaktivists in Seattle were preventing Shell from heading to the Arctic to Drill, here in Philly, a few of us launched a caravan of crude oil tankers on the river at the annual Tidal Schuylkill Boat Parade. We did this to raise awareness about the danger of oil trains weaving through our city, and to promote the upcoming national week of action against oil trains.
The STOP-OIL-TRAINS.org caravan was paddled by Robert, Liz & friends decked out in “hazmat suits”.
EDGE (artists & activists working to End Dirty Gas Exploitation by Encouraging the Development of a Green Economy) and POW (Protecting our Waters) had a table on shore with info on oil trains and the fracked fossil fuel hub Phil Rinaldi (CEO of the PES refinery here in Philly) is promoting as Philly’s energy future.
This year’s Tidal Schuylkill Boat Parade was sponsored in part by the PES refinery. By the end of the day the organization putting on the parade, Bartram’s Garden said they will never take refinery money again, and gave half the earnings from the event to the folks at our table.
We also gave out fliers and announced our planned July 11th action during our trophy acceptance speech. The responses were overwhelmingly positive. People do not like dangerous tanker cars rolling through their communities.
Also in the boat parade was a canoe against fracking and another against the pipeline to bring fracked gas into Philadelphia.
musings of a gujarati-american gal 