-WHY COMMUNITY MONITORING
The State outsources the responsibility of ensuring corporations abide by all applicable laws and regulations to third party oversight companies. These companies are for profit entities. Corporations choose which third party oversight companies to contract and will select contractors that overlook their violations. Furthermore it would be against the oversight companies’ profit interest to “bite the hand that feeds” them.
The incestuous relationship between corporations and third party oversight companies means it falls on community members to identify and report violations during pre-construction, construction and regular operation of a pipeline.
Reporting violations during the construction or operation of a pipeline is an effective way to get organized and build knowledge together. Community monitoring is one of many tactics in a broader struggle to build a different world — a world based not on possession, domination and ecological violence but in reciprocity, justice and the liberation of land and water. It can also directly support efforts of tribal communities and inter-tribal organizing to protect treaty lands.
EACH ONE TEACH ONE
Monitoring a pipeline can feel daunting. Pre-construction, construction and operation are complex, with different kinds of machinery and processes underway, multiple kinds of contractors, and often multiple layers of security. Additionally, it takes time to learn what might constitute a reportable violation, and how to file reports so as to trigger action by regulatory agencies — delays or a halt to construction.
The basis of any grassroots monitoring project is the people who take time to observe, record and share what we are learning. We are volunteers sharing tools and insights gathered from other community monitoring efforts. We are not experts, employees of state agencies or affiliated with any third-party oversight company. We are learning, let’s do it together.
GET READY, STAY SAFE
You have the right to observe, record and report violations.
If you are in a public space, you legally have a right to be present, which includes taking photo or video documentation of anything that is visible from that public space.
To avoid trespassing on the easement, do not cross blue/white easement marker flags.
Get as close as SAFELY possible without entering the easement (e.g. not from across the road, if the same side of the road is safely available)
Pictures are more useful than videos for submitting complaints, videos can be more useful in case of litigation. Please take both if it safe for you to do so.
Bring a buddy.
Stay calm and assert your rights to any security personnel that might try to remove you from public places or rights of way. The map on this website can help you locate some of the public lands in the pipeline construction area
If you are on a navigable waterway you are not trespassing. If you are in a canoe, boat or tube that puts in on public lands, and exits on public lands, you can legally monitor from the waterway without trespassing.
During construction, pipeline companies and security personnel may try to arbitrarily restrict access, intimidate or subject you to surveillance. Document what you can in a safe way, including these kinds of tactics.