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Demonstrators gathered at the Statehouse on Monday to oppose the development of fossil fuel infrastructure in Vermont, including the Addison County natural gas pipeline extension.
The demonstrators chanted “system change not climate change” among other slogans to songs performed by the New York City marching band Rude Mechanical Orchestra as they paraded through the Statehouse and into the street.
The group later blocked a section of State Street outside the Public Service Board offices, where the Glover-based Bread and Puppet Theater staged several satires to highlight what they see as the social and economic inequalities of climate change. No arrests were made and police were on site directing traffic.
Jonathan Shapiro is a member of Rising Tide Vermont, a direct action environmental group that helped to organize the rally. He said the one purpose of the event was to call on the Shumlin administration and lawmakers to oppose Vermont Gas Systems’ natural gas pipeline extension. The company has started the construction of the first phase of the project that would bring gas from Chittenden and Franklin counties to Middlebury.
The Shumlin administration supports the company’s natural gas extension as a way to bridge off of fossil fuels onto renewable energy resources – like wind and solar power – that will in the meantime reduce heating cost and burn cleaner than No. 2 heating oil.
But Shapiro said natural gas is not a bridge fuel but instead a “gangplank” for a continued reliance on fossil fuels.
State environmental groups oppose importing more natural gas into Vermont because they say hydraulic fracturing damages ecosystems at drilling sites abroad, emits heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere and displaces indigenous populations. In addition to the environmental impacts of fracking, Shapiro said Vermont landowners along the pipeline route are required to host the pipeline despite their personal opposition.
“We have this excellent parallel of social and environmental justice violations on both ends of the pipeline. That’s the reality of a bridge fuel.”
The Public Service Board approved the first phase of the company’s project last December. Vermont Gas has applied for regulatory approval for the second phase of the project from Middlebury to New York and has begun planning for an extension that would bring natural gas to Rutland.
