Yesterday at about 2.30pm Shell began to lower "Jack - 1" - one of two survey barges currently in Sruth Fhada Chonn estuary SAC (Special Area of Protection) - in order to tug it to another part of the estuary.
The Rossport Solidarity Camp was ready and willing to claim free passage of the public estuary and in the process upset the operation. Over a dozen Shell security boats and two Garda RIBS couldn't keep the 6 kaykers out, with two of them reaching the moving barge after an hour and a half of chase.
The Rossport Solidarity Camp was ready and willing to claim free passage of the public estuary and in the process upset the operation. Over a dozen Shell security boats and two Garda RIBS couldn't keep the 6 kaykers out, with two of them reaching the moving barge after an hour and a half of chase.
Shell's jack-up barges are damaging Sruth Fhada Chonn estuary SAC (Special Area of Conservation) by drilling survey boreholes for the proposed Onshore Corrib Gas Pipeline tunnel - the latest route offered by Shell as a means to hook up the refinery to the well. At each new location the barges massive legs are lowered into the estuary crushing life beneath the sand. Estuary water is being used to lubricate the work, and and outfall pipe is discharging it back in to the supposedly protected waters.
The Gardaí seemed happy to let IRMS do as they pleased on the water, with kayakers being unlawfully rammed, grabbed, towed against their will - all on a public waterway. At one stage an IRMS boat stole one kayak from under its owner, capsizing him into the water. The Gardaí issued many Section 8 warning under the public order act (to the kaykers) but no arrests were made, despite one kayaker making it onto the moving rig.
Beat the boreholes continues, now both rigs are in the upper estuary - on the sand at low tide and accessible by walking.
The Gardaí seemed happy to let IRMS do as they pleased on the water, with kayakers being unlawfully rammed, grabbed, towed against their will - all on a public waterway. At one stage an IRMS boat stole one kayak from under its owner, capsizing him into the water. The Gardaí issued many Section 8 warning under the public order act (to the kaykers) but no arrests were made, despite one kayaker making it onto the moving rig.
Beat the boreholes continues, now both rigs are in the upper estuary - on the sand at low tide and accessible by walking.
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