Monitoring a pipeline project during pre-construction, construction and regular operation can feel daunting. Each phase can be quite complex, with different kinds of machinery and processes underway, multiple kinds of contractors, and on most cases multiple layers of security. Additionally, it takes time to learn what might constitute a reportable violation. But remember, you’re doing something useful and necessary. You have the right to be on any public lands, and to observe the activities visible to you.
The basis of any grassroots monitoring project is encouraging and empowering all of us to observe, to communicate and exchange what we are learning.
Why a people’s oversight?
The State outsources the responsibility of ensuring corporations abide by all applicable laws and regulations to third party oversight companies. These third party oversight companies are for profit entities. Corporations choose which third party oversight companies to contract and will select third party contractors that overlook their missteps. Furthermore it would be against the third party oversight companies’ profit interest to “bite the hand that feeds” them.
The corrupt relationship between corporations and third party oversight agencies means it falls on everyday people and grassroots watchdog efforts to identify and report violations.
Reporting violations during the construction or operation of a pipeline is an effective way to build knowledge, to gather evidence and exchange information. People’s watchdogging is one of many tactics in a broader toolkit for building a world based not in extractive economies and ecological violence but in reciprocity, justice and the liberation of land and water. It can also directly support efforts of tribal communities and intertribal organizing to protect treaty lands.
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.
The map on this website indicates some of the public lands in the right of way 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 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.