Scores of climate justice activists are staging a blockade on Monday to thwart construction of the first tar sands mine in the United States—a project they say will cause irreparable damage to water and land.
According to a statement from Utah Tar Sands Resistance, roughly 80 people are involved in the action, some of whom have locked themselves to equipment and are being processed for arrest.
The plans for the extraction in the Book Cliffs of Utah in an area located just outside the Northern Ute Ouray Reservation by Calgary-based US Oil Sands have drawn years of resistance from land defenders.
Monday’s action challenging the company’s PR Spring project comes at the tail end of a week-long Climate Justice Summer Camp, which takes place at a permanent protest vigil organized by Utah Tar Sands Resistance and Peaceful Uprising.
“US Oil Sands perfectly demonstrates capitalism’s brazen disregard for the climate crisis, human and tribal rights and rights of the planet itself to be free of dangerous corporate parasites,” stated Jessica Lee, a spokesperson for the climate justice groups.