A coalition of environmental advocacy groups contends that the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline was canceled in large part because of strong citizen protest that caught the president’s ear. In Virginia, opponents of several proposed natural gas transmission lines are looking to the success of those groups to help prevent them from being built here.
Environmental advocates are using a variety of approaches communicate what their problem is with pipelines, and it can be summed in just a few words:
“Ending eminent domain for private gain; no American should have to give up their land for private gain for a corporation and the second one is a climate test."
Jane Kleeb is with the group called Bold Alliance.
"President Obama used a climate test for the first time and only time so far on Keystone XL (proposed oil pipeline) and that was one of the reasons it got rejected.”
Working with a group out of D.C. called Oil Change International and another called the Cowboy and Indian Alliance formed in Nebraska, their strategy of resistance to fossil fuels is to plant sacred seeds in the path of proposed pipelines.
“And I’m going to pray to the 4 winds, the 4 directions, asking the creator to help us with this fight that we’re taking on now; to give us strength to give us guidance.”
Mekasi Horinek, got those seeds certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as officially sacred. The hope and prayer is that reverence for that distinction stops transmission lines like the Mountain Valley Pipeline proposed for this narrow hollow here in Elliston, Virginia.
“I’m going to call the spirits of and ask the ancestors that were here before. I’m going to ask them to be with us today to help us and guide us.”
Some thirty people have driven winding single lane grass path off Route 11 to this narrow mountain hollow surrounded by high cliffs. This land was owned by Jim Law’s father in law and now by him.
“We work ourselves to death trying to have something for ourselves and something to leave to our children, grand children, great grandchildren and down the line. But then, the wealthy, they don’t care. They come and take.”
Law’s grandchildren are in the midst of planning to build their houses here near the neat rows of crops and in the solar powered electric fences for the cattle.
“My grandson and granddaughter, they’ve already had house sites approved. They’re (the pipeline) going to go right through the leach field."
The leach field would be in the path of the 50 foot right of way in this mountain gap.
"My grandkids, great-grandkids can’t build a house. I can’t run my machinery across it. I run cattle back there."
That’s the kind of thing that sets in motion a decline in what anthropologists call ‘cultural attachment.’
“An attachment to your place that involves constructing your identity to a place over generations. you have an economic commitment to it, but it is the sense that who you are is deeply attached to the place itself.”
Anita Puckett is Director of Virginia Tech’s Appalachian Studies Program.
“Cultural attachment also represents a different kind of socio- economy in which barter and reciprocity, using the land for your own benefit, a local kind of making do with what you’ve got is dominant (here) and it is that which gives the people their sense of self esteem, self identity and self determination. So when the land goes and they can’t do this then we’re really messing around with their sense of identity And in so doing, you have all kinds of other issues like are emerging in the coal fields having to do with excessive drug use and other kinds of problems.”
Jane Kleebe gathers everyone for the seed planting ceremony. “So take 5 or 6 kernels with you. Put them in your hand or your pocket…”
When this sacred corn grows in a few weeks, it won’t be mistaken for just any breed. Its stalks will not look like the uniform rows of the modern varieties. Some will be tall, some short and their bright blue ears just as randomly placed. The Ponca Indians believe the creator gave this corn to them not only as food, but also as medicine.
Their last crop was already planted when they were removed from their land and sent west in 1876. But the saved seeds were found, planted tested and certified in 2014 as part of a plan to sow them before the all the proposed fossil fuel pipelines in the country.
Kayla Bancroft helped plant the Ponca’s sacred seeds.
She says, “Of course all nations of our country understand this just that white man is beginning to understand more of what the tribes of this country have been saying for centuries. Now that it’s in our backyard we’re paying attention.”
