How to Shut Off An Oil Pipeline
Radical Role Models: The Valve Turners
Hi everyone,
It turns out that, as Wired magazine reported, “it’s pretty easy to paralyze America’s oil infrastructure.” Today I’m sharing a story of an action that blurs the line between sabotage and non-violent civil disobedience.
Ten years ago, a group of five men and women took coordinated action to (temporarily) shut down all five major pipelines which carry crude oil from the Alberta tar sands into the United States. They are called the valve turners, and several of them are friends. At least one is a Biocentric reader. This is, in part, the story of their action.
“We can’t expect elected leaders or candidates or any governing body to take action in a reasonable time frame. I’m taking action as a citizen. I am duty bound to cut this padlock and turn the valve and stop the flow of 590,000 barrels of Canadian tar sands.”
— Michael Foster
Action
As dawn broke on October 11th 2016, Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, Michael Foster, Leonard Higgins, and Ken Ward used bolt cutters to cut through locks on the fences surrounding emergency shut-off valves for five pipelines in the states of Washington, Montana, Minnesota, and North Dakota.
They each then cut through a second lock on the valves themselves, then called the pipeline companies — Enbridge, TransCanada, Spectra Energy, and Kinder-Morgan — warning them of their intention to shut the valves and requesting the companies take whatever action possible to minimize the risk of spills or leaks.
Then they closed the valves, halting the flow of about 30 barrels of crude oil per second.
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Strategy
The initial goal of the valve turners was to shut down five major pipelines which carry crude oil into the United States from the Alberta tar sands, the largest and most destructive industrial project on the planet and one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.
Their secondary goal was to leverage the media attention and the opportunities of a public trial to shift public opinion and advance certain novel legal approaches to the climate crisis.
And a tertiary goal was to model valve turning as an accessible and effective method to interrupt fossil fuel flows.
Preparation
The plan for this action was developed over about 3 months and with a budget of $12-14,000.
While preparing for the action, the valve turners researched pipeline operations and the functioning of emergency shutoff valves, consulted with engineers, identified target locations, and scouted them to determine what security measures were in place and what methods would be required to gain access. The plan they settled on was incredibly simple: cut the lock on the gate at each unguarded location, walk inside, cut a second lock, and then turn the valves.
As one analysis notes, “The most difficult part of the action was steeling themselves to commit felonies and face the consequences.” While the strategy of valve turning wasn’t entirely new (other people had closed valves on four previous occasions: two acts of aboveground civil disobedience in Canada (in Québec and in Ontario) and two anonymous, belowground actions), they hoped to disseminate and normalize the tactic.
Aftermath
The valve turners did not mean for their action to be anonymous. Instead, they planned to be arrested. In a classic civil disobedience approach, they instead intended to proudly claim their actions as morally justified, using their criminal trials as an opportunity to influence public opinion and advance what is called a “climate necessity defense” — a legal argument that breaking laws to prevent the climate crisis is morally equivalent to breaking down a door to save a child from a burning house you don’t have permission to enter.
So after closing the valves, and despite achieving total surprise that would have allowed them to escape (although due to their relatively lax operational security, they likely would have been identified and arrested after the fact), they waited on-site after their actions for police to arrive and arrest them.
Charges and legal outcomes
Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein, who took action in Minnesota, were acquitted on all charges.
Michael Foster, who took action in North Dakota (the most conservative jurisdiction), was convicted of several felonies and was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which were suspended, and ordered to pay $10,000 restitution. He was released after 6 months.
Leonard Higgins, who took action in Montana, was convicted of felony criminal mischief and misdemeanor trespassing but had his three-year prison sentence deferred. He was also ordered to pay $3,755.47 in restitution.
Ken Ward, who took action in Washington State, was convicted of burglary, acquitted of sabotage, and was sentenced to 30 days of community service plus two days in prison.
Impact and Effectiveness
For this section I am going to quote extensively from Stop Fossil Fuels, a website that is well worth reading, which wrote a piece on the valve turners.
Though the [valve turning] action wasn’t meant to have much material impact, it did halt pipeline transport of about 767,000 barrels, roughly 7.5% of daily US imports and 3.75% of daily consumption. (The backed up oil probably moved to market by rail at a higher premium.) Although the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline was different in many ways, it’s interesting to compare returns on investment:
Return on investment: barrels of oil stopped per person month, and barrels stopped per dollar
These rough numbers suggest the Valve Turners were at least seven times more efficient than #NoDAPL in time invested, and twenty-five times more efficient per dollar. This makes sense, since the Valve Turners employed initiative and surprise.
Though the Valve Turners were less than 1% as efficient as Ruby and Jessica [the two woman who sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline several times between 2016 and 2017], they could easily have come closer had material impact been their goal. They could have leveraged their knowledge of the system to close valves up and down the pipelines for months, perhaps even rupturing downstream sections of pipe after shutting off the flow. By disappearing before the police arrived, they’d have been free to hit and run again and again, greatly increasing their returns on investment.
Symbolic and persuasive effectiveness
However, the Valve Turners weren’t trying to maximize pipeline disruption. They primarily aimed to raise awareness, prompt discourse, and spark further action.
Aftermath and Replicability
Oil pipelines are by nature long, and this makes them difficult to defend. With the increasing use of drones and security cameras, they are increasingly well monitored, but monitoring is more of a deterrent to action than something which will actually prevent it.
Emergency shutoff valves are located every so often along the length of all oil and gas pipelines, and the point of these facilities is that they need to be fast and easy to access: if a major spill, leak, or fire is taking place, remote access can be disrupted and so physical access to a method for shutting off the flow is essential.
In the wake of the 2016 action, these sites are likely to be monitored more closely, and additional security measures may be in place — stronger locks, chains, and fencing, periodic security patrols, security cameras and remote observation methods, and so on.
Other unintended effects of this action and others like it has been increased criminalization of environmental protest such as the adoption of industry-drafted laws with harsh sentences for interfering with “critical infrastructure.” These laws represent the ongoing weaponization of the state to defend the interests of capital, but they could also backfire: by increasing penalties for civil disobedience, these laws might push activists towards underground, clandestine action which might carry similar legal penalties but have a significantly lower risk of capture.
Reflection
Despite being focused more on symbolic and cultural results, this single action was more effective in terms of material reductions to the U.S. burning of oil and gas than just about all the aboveground campaigning of mainstream climate groups.
What is inspiring to me, as well, is that it targeted active and operating oil pipelines. The vast majority of organizing against fossil fuels targets industrial expansions: new pipelines or power plants or export terminals. These are targets of opportunity, weak points that we should continue to fight. But in addition to stopping the growth of the fossil fuel industry, we badly need to shut down what is already operating.
This type of action takes courage, determination, and intelligence to carry out. But it can be done. Imagine if this type of action proliferated, targeting not just major pipelines, but smaller ones too. This action may seem extraordinary, but if we are to meet this crisis, it must become commonplace. That is our task.
“I spent the first half of my life working as professional staff for major environmental and public interest organizations, serving as Executive Director of New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), Deputy Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, President of the National Environmental Law Center, and co-founder of U.S. PIRG, Environment America and the Fund for Public Interest Research. In those positions I played by the rules, using every legal device for influencing energy policy, beginning as a coordinator for the national Campaign for Safe Energy in 1980.
Nothing we did then worked, and there is no plan of action, policy or strategy being advanced now by any political leader, climate action group or environmental organization playing by the rules that does anything but acquiesce to ruin. Our only hope is to step outside polite conversation and put our bodies and ourselves in the way. We must shut it down, starting with the most immediate threats; oil sands fuels and coal.”
— Ken Ward
For years (decades, for some people) we’ve tried the legal, incremental, reasonable methods, and they haven’t been anything like enough; without a radical shift in our relationship to this Earth, all that we love will disappear. My fear of that possibility is far greater than my fear of jail. My love for the beauties of this world is far greater than my love of an easy life. If others feel the same way, there’s hope for us yet.
— Emily Johnston
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After speaking with the director of a film about the Valve Turners, I have been able to secure access for Biocentric readers to watch it for free. But, I can't share it here publicly, so I will share the link to watch in the Biocentric chat. https://substack.com/chat
Your post has considerable relevance to the Venezuela situation too.
Venezuela’s crude reaches the coast by pipeline, not by truck or rail.
The country’s operational oil-pipeline grid is about 2,140 miles (3,440 km) long—roughly the distance from New York to Los Angeles.
Many of these lines are 50-plus years old and in poor shape, and many go through remote regions, even jungles, so actual travel time can stretch from a few days to over a week depending on leaks, pump-station outages, or required diluent injections needed to keep the very heavy crude moving.
Considering the angry mass protests in Venezuela regarding Trump's actions, that is a massive pipeline to try to protect. In fact, it simply cannot be protected, especially if the military don't want to.
Once the oil finally reaches a coastal storage terminal (José, Puerto Miranda, etc.), it is loaded onto tankers; Trump’s plan is to have those ships sail directly to U.S. Gulf-Coast docks rather than the previous China-bound route.
I am willing to bet only one tenth of the oil reaches the port.