Spirit in Action
Protecting Oklahoma from the Keystone XL Pipeline
The KXL Pipeline Truthforce and their 3/24/13 Educational Forum & Concert in Norman Oklahoma will bring together great speakers plus music by Buffy Sainte-Marie and Indigenous.
- Broadcast on:
- 17 Mar 2013
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service, hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today's Spirit in Action program, while about a longstanding environmental issue, is also about a time crucial event to take place in Norman, Oklahoma on March 24th, 2013. They'll be hosting an educational forum and music event that day about the Keystone XL pipeline, which is scheduled to carry tar sands from Canada through many US states, including Oklahoma. We'll talk later to Earl Hadley, Cherokee Elder, and Grand River Keeper. But first, we'll speak with one of the dedicated organizers pulling together the March 24th forum and music, and that music will include, among others, Buffy St. Murray and Indigenous. Right now, we'll go to the phone to talk to David Druding of the KXL pipeline truth force. David, thanks for joining me for Spirit in Action. - Well, thank you for having me. - And thanks for doing this work to organize the event for March 24th. It's gonna be there in Norman, Oklahoma, not too far from where you live. Tell us about the event. Tell us about what you're witnessing about and how you're gonna be doing that. - Well, what we are having is an educational forum on March 24th. It will be taking place in Norman, Oklahoma, just south of Oklahoma City. And the actual Keystone XL pipeline is running across north to south the state of Oklahoma. And Norman is probably within about 40 miles of where the pipeline will be running. What the primary focus of this educational forum is, is to give the people of Oklahoma who are being impacted by this pipeline accurate, factually correct information about the pipeline itself and what it's doing and what the impacts are gonna be. We're gonna be speaking about the economic impacts of the pipeline. We're gonna be talking about the health and safety issues that are related to having a pipeline with this tar sands bitumen running through it at 300 PSI through this thin walled pipe and some of the experiences that have happened in other communities where this has already gone on 'cause this isn't something that's just starting. We also are gonna be talking about the extraction process that right now is going on in Canada, but there are several spots here in the United States where the same process is likely to continue on if this program in it from Alberta, Canada is actually successful. The other really important aspect of the event is it's gonna be fun. We're gonna have some very well-known musicians who are also activists who are gonna be performing or those of your listening audience who are older, more of my age range, they probably will recognize the name Buffy St. Marie. She is a Cree Native American from Canada who has been an activist, a pacifist, an artist, musician, songwriter for five decades, really. She is coming with her entire band and she'll be coming from Ottawa and Toronto where they live in Canada and she'll be performing. We also have a wonderful group named Indigenous who are kind of a blues rock fusion band who just, they're very well-known. I'm sure a lot of your listeners will have heard of them. They are also Native American, they're from South Dakota and then we're also gonna be having some local Native Americans. They'll be doing a drumming circle and they're also gonna be performing an invocational prayer at the beginning of this educational forum. - So on March 24th from noon to six, that's when you'll be having this event in Norman, Oklahoma. If people wanna find out about it, where should they be looking? - We have a community Facebook page and also some of our members, the coalition members, also have Facebook pages. The coalition's own Facebook page is KXL, Pipeline Truth Force. That will bring you to the page for our coalition. And then there's also an event Facebook page, KXL, Pipeline Truth Force, Fact Form. Also, there is a website for several of our member organizations. The one that comes to mind first is the activist group that are national in scope that have a website specifically for their activities in Norman, Oklahoma, and throughout Oklahoma, and also if this pipeline gets okay and goes further north, up into Kansas and into South Dakota and into Montana. And the name of that group is Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance. And they're one of the members of the coalition and they have a website that goes into a lot of depth. And I'll have all those links on my site, nordonspiritradio.org. So people can just come to my site, follow the links, but you're looking for KXL, Pipeline Truth Force on Facebook to start off with about this event. Again, March 24th, Norman, Oklahoma, noon to six, you said, David, that it's to inform people, to give people the facts. How open are people to the facts? I'm afraid that a lot of people right now are so worried about whether they have jobs or not that they're grasping at straws. What are the facts that you know of so far about this? Or should we just come on the 24th and then we'll find out what the facts are. - Well, I mean, for your listening audience, I am sure that not everybody is gonna be able to jump in their cars or hop on a plane and come. So I'll give you a little bit of a background. The first thing that we're having to do is I talk to people in Oklahoma about this pipeline that's going through, they go, "Oh, well, yeah, they're gonna be taking sweet crude oil from pushing Oklahoma and taking it down to the Gulf." And I said, "That's not really what this is for. This is for transporting parsand bitumen. It's a sticky substance that won't even flow that has to be mined out of the ground in Alberta. And the primary purpose for this pipeline, from what I understand, is not for pumping crude from United States to the Gulf Coast." I said, "It's for pumping parsand." And they just kind of give me this funny look because my opinion, what's happened, Mark, is the last two years, the foreign corporation, TransCanada Corporation, has had a team, literally a team of public relations and admin and another team of attorneys traveling up and down where this pipeline is gonna be put. And they have been spreading half-proof distortions and outright lies, in my opinion. And the opinion of a lot of the people who have been approached, their legal team very quickly resorts to threats of, you know, if you don't sign with us, we're gonna take your property through eminent domain. What we have here is a foreign corporation who in league with various state agencies and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, when it came to Oklahoma, are basically taking property from people if they are not willing to sell the rights to putting this pipeline on homeowners or property owners' property. Along with that goes a publicity campaign that, in my opinion, is not accurate. They have been saying, as I just pointed out, that the pipeline is not gonna be used for tar sands, it's primarily for oil, that's not true. They're having to put very special accommodations in to run this very thick, viscous tar through the pipelines and they're having heaters that will be fired with natural gas all the way along the length of it. It's also gonna be pressurized to very high pressure, 300 TSI approximately. And in order to get this stuff to run even when it's heated, they have to add a proprietary mix of solvents and petroleum solvents. We know some of the ingredients, but they don't have to necessarily divulge what they are in it. There is toluene, there is benzoene. Those are both carcinogenic elements. They will be mixed with it to basically thin it out so it can be pumped under high heat, under high pressure through this pipeline, 1700 miles from Alberta, Canada, to a Gulf of Mexico on near Houston. - One of the misunderstandings that I've heard about is, this is not American-based fuels that are being produced. We're simply shipping from Canada down to the refineries down on the coast. How many jobs are we talking about? Is this information out there? - What there has been just recently, and I'm in the process of reading it through right now, there are two really excellent sources online that you can read about that very topic. One of them is a report that was put out by Cornell University, and it's called Pipe Dreams. Jobs gained, jobs lost by construction of Keystone XL Pipeline. I have read it, I don't have it all highlighted yet, but what they are stating is that if this money that was being spent on this pipeline was instead spent on renewable energy manufacturing, there would be far more jobs made, in that when you consider that the construction crews are coming in from out of state, these are not people that are in Oklahoma, and that there's gonna be very little monitoring of this pipeline, in my opinion, for most of the people of the United States, this is not a job gain whatsoever, and as in what you mentioned, Mark, is exactly the case. This is a foreign corporation bringing a foreign, very low-quality bottom of the petroleum bucket product from Canada across the United States to duty-free sites along the Gulf Coast to be maybe partially refined in U.S. What, no, no, I want to correct that. These refineries are not owned by the United States, they're owned by foreign corporations. The main one that is bought up most of them is China. Okay, so these are duty-free refineries on the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coast, but they are not U.S. owned refineries. Then we pumped into large tankerships, and it will go to foreign markets mostly in Asia. So the only thing that most of the, in fact, all of the states along the pipeline, all they're getting, in my opinion, is the increased dangers of this toxic slurry leaking, and it's not a matter, Mark, of if it leaks. It's a matter of when it leaks, just from the history of these pipelines, both owned by TransCanada, and more importantly, the right here in the United States, the history of a terrible, terrible pipeline rupture that happened in Michigan in July of 2010 along the Kalamazoo River. And it's again something that can be looked at online, and you can see these horrific pictures of what developed from that. The section of the Kalamazoo River in my native state is dead. It's still dead, and the EPA and the company that was responsible for that ruptured pipe and bridge have both acknowledged in court that they do not have the technology to clean up tar sands rupture, then a release of that magnitude. There was over 850,000 gallons lost in that rupture. Again, we're talking today about what's going to be happening on March 24th in Norman, Oklahoma, from noon to six. There's going to be an educational event, the KXL Educational Forum and musical event. We're going to Buffy St. Marie there. Indigenous is going to be playing, they'll be drum circles, and there's going to be speakers about all of the various aspects of tar sands pipeline. You're vitally interested in this, I think, David, because it's going very near where you live. It's also going to be affecting a lot of Americans, and I think you're concerned about the environment in general. What would you say is your top priority? Why is this extremely important? I know that you and Carmen and the other folks from the coalition that I've talked to, you're working yourselves, ragged, getting this information out. Why is it so important to you? What is the aspect that particularly motivates you? Several months ago, when I was driving down to Dallas, I was driving along through Oklahoma, and I came to a spot where I saw a huge strip of land that had just been totally denuded. There was nothing on it except these huge pipes. It looked like a moonscape. Everything had been destroyed, and they were doing these sleeves underneath the road, and just marked the size of this thing. It was so big that I just went, what am I looking at? I mean, that's how ignorant I was. It was already going on, and I didn't even know about it, and then it occurred to me that what this was, was the pipeline that I was hearing a little bit about, and I'd heard some people were doing protests and doing civil disobedience there, and I became interested in it from that standpoint. And then as I learned more about it and I watched some other really good educational videos online, the primary one I think being that I would ask your listening audience to go to is Garth Lenz. He's a Canadian photographer, and he has a TED series lecture that is called "The High Cost of Oil." In that, he has all sorts of pictures about what is happening in Canada, where in the boreal forests that are primarily on Native American reservations, just the damage that's being done there. And also, of course, Garth also points out the fact that these forests are so important as carbon sinks in keeping the whole global environment cooler, then I listened to Dr. James Hansen talk about the fact that just the carbon being released from this tar sands as it's processed and in burned, it will put us over the tipping point and it will be what he calls game over. So it's all of the above. It's the effect it's gonna have on the climate of the whole globe. I mean, Dr. Hansen is a noted NASA scientist. That's probably foremost as I've learned more about it. But then when I realized the dirty deal that the people in Oklahoma and all the states is this thing is going to, there's no benefit for them. There's no jobs produced by that, in my opinion. That's smoke screen and mirrors that TransCanada Corporation is putting out to try to win support for it. - It's already in progress, isn't it? Has part of it been built? - Oh, yeah. - We're waiting. I mean, I think upcoming is whether the president is gonna sign off on this. Is gonna permit it to be finished or something. But I suppose they've already sunk many billions of dollars into getting as far as they have. It's been pointed out that if the president were to do that, the North American Free Trade Agreement will probably allow Canada to sue United States because they've already spent money on it. But regardless of that, this thing shouldn't be built. But you're right, what the history of it has been is that before the election, 350.org really had a strong presence. And I think what you may know the number, I think it was 1,200 people got arrested during a civil disobedience action there. The president said, based on that kinda outpouring that there was from people at that rally, that he was gonna hold off and was not gonna allow TransCanada to build the pipeline. Then as the election approached, I believe it was before the election, there was so much pressure put on him by lobbyists and people within the Congress who are working hand-in-hand with the lobbyists that he felt forced to allow what he called the southern leg of the pipeline to be constructed. The southern leg runs from the Gulf Coast where these free trade refineries are located up to Cushing, Oklahoma, which is where our actions are focused. And Cushing, Oklahoma has huge tank farms where crude oil is stored until it goes out for refining and all over the country. So they're kind of a hub. They're right now working on that section of the pipeline and the section through Texas is almost pretty much done. There are still some lawsuits. There's several of the landowners who have a suit that hasn't been settled yet that have been stating that TransCanada Corporation entered into fraudulent contracts with them by lying to them on the contracts about what this pipeline was for. Those are still in litigation. It's possible that if the courts find in favor of these property owners, that there will be a real problem with this pipeline, but what you ask is true. Yes, it is under construction. In fact, this southern leg is likely gonna be completed all the way up to Cushing, Oklahoma, within two months. - I wanted to also ask David, something about your personal motivations in this. Obviously, you've put in a lot of skin in the game to be part of the KXL Pipeline Truth Force Coalition. You're working night and day about this. I know because I'm trying to get ahold of you, right? And so why for you personally so much skin, what's your spiritual overview of this world that means you're gonna work this hard about something? - Gosh, that's a difficult question 'cause you could go in so many different directions. I was talking to some of the activists, not very long ago, and I mentioned to them that, I mean, these guys are men girls, these young men and women are probably in their 20s, but I've been telling them that if I were them, I'd be pissed off at me because we've just left them with the situation that I'm a grandpa. They have every right to be pissed off at my generation because of the situation that they're being handed as they become adults. We older people need to be taking responsibility from what's going on right now. I don't wanna leave this for my grandkids. The idea that all you do is feed your family and somebody else has to take care of these kind of problems has gotten us into the situation we're in right now, Mark. And I've got a couple grandkids and I want them to be able to understand that some of us have actually been working on trying to resolve the problems that have come up in the last 30 or 40 years. It's outright that we're not taking any consideration for what kind of shit to plan us in and we pass it on to the future generations. Now, again, we're talking about an event that'll be happening in Norman, Oklahoma. The KXL Pipeline Two Fourth Coalition is organizing this educational forum and music event about the KXL Pipeline. It's gonna be happening from noon to six on March 24th. Back on February 14th, about 40,000 people showed up at the Washington Monument concerned about the same issues. Of course, you're doing education that's local. It's about Tarsands in general, but it's also applicable to what's happening right there in Oklahoma and Arkansas, right where you live. So are you hoping that about 40,000 show up on March 24th and do you have enough certified? - I would say I was one of those 40,000 or fact I've been hearing that more accurately now CNN is saying 45 to 50,000, but there were 17 of us from Arkansas who made it there to Washington. It's a comfortable about an 18-hour ride if you just full-tilt boogie there. I was there among the people on the 17th that was the big rally and you're right. On the 14th, there were people who were doing civil disobedience action, some of them who had never done it before. But it's hard to say how many people will come to Oklahoma. I mean, Oklahoma isn't as populated as the East Coast is, but we're hoping that several thousand people show up and I kind of think they will. I mean, we've gone to quite a bit of links to have some really good speakers that are gonna be able to really explain some of these complex economic and financial issues and health and safety as well as environmental issues. And also the music is just gonna be dynamite. - Yeah, having Buffy St. Marie there, indigenous. You all have drum circles, all kinds of things going on as part of this thing on March 24th, 2013, right there in Norman, Oklahoma. Is there a place for people to register? They just show up. - There isn't, what we're asking people to do is just basically network about this and there isn't gonna be any ticket price. We're asking for donations of $5 from people and that's basically to just, we're an all volunteer staff but we do have certainly expenses. We're also paying for transportation and accommodation for people who are coming in and give their time to do this and certainly there's other costs involved with holding an event like this but there isn't any way that you need to register. All I would suggest is that this is gonna be in an amphitheater that's very well covered in case it's inclement weather, bring a raincoat or an umbrella 'cause this is gonna happen rain or shine. - The place where people can find something about this, follow the links from nurginspiritradio.org. If you wanna search directly, go to KXL Pipeline Truth Force. That's on Facebook. You'll find some information about it. I understand you're very happy to have green sponsors for this event. Also, you're welcoming donations. I understand that if people do wanna make donations, $75 or more, they can be taxed, deductible. Follow the link from nordinspiritradio.org. We'll get you to the right place to make those donations to help out this event on March 24th in Norman, Oklahoma. And, you know, aren't we all tired of going to Washington, D.C.? Wouldn't it be better to go to Norman, Oklahoma and connect with some really engaged people out there in the center of the United States? We've got some really great work that you're doing, David. And I appreciate so much you're joining me for Spirit in Action. - Thank you, Mark. - David Druding of the KXL Pipeline Task Force was my first guest today for Spirit in Action. I'm your host, Mark Helpsmeet, for this Northern Spirit Radio production on the web at nordinspiritradio.org. With approaching eight years of archives to listen to and download, there's a place to leave comments, very helpful, you know, and an opportunity to donate to keep Northern Spirit Radio running. Also, consider donation to your local community radio station. Such an important alternative voice available due to your help and donations. My second guest today is Earl Hadley, a Cherokee elder and grand river keeper. You'll learn what that is later. A dedicated advocate for the earth and water, Earl Hadley joins us by phone. - Earl, I'm very pleased you could join me today for Spirit in Action. - Well, thank you. It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. - How could I not? There are a number of people who've been active around issues of the Keystone XL pipeline. You've got such a long history that make you, for me, to be a primary source for how we can care for this earth. Although I want to talk about the pipeline, I also want to fill this in first by your background so people understand what a grand river keeper is. So could you fill us in a bit about your background and what it means to be a river keeper? - First and primarily, a river keeper is an advocate for his or her watershed that we take on when we become a river keeper and we join the water keeper alliance. Riverkeepers or waterkeepers are organizations that are grassroots in their watersheds, but you become a river keeper. Our organization becomes a part of the water keeper alliance. And to do that, we go through rigorous back and forth with the alliance, whose president of the board is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And if we meet their standards of respectability for one thing and then the ability to achieve consensus within the watershed of groups and support and coalition building in order to bring local and regional and state government and corporations together in order to prevent or handle or repair harm occurring or potentially occurring to the watershed, then the water keeper alliance will allow your organization to carry the title of river keeper, water keeper, bait keeper. So we have to need a high standard of ability to identify problems with our watershed, which would not only be water quality, but abundance of aquatic life or problems with the idea of aquatic life within the watershed as well as the riparian area, which is the banks and ecosystem along the banks and in the flood plains. So, we have to look at the entire ecosystem and ensure that everything is right. If there are problems and we have to identify that, work with appropriate agencies and with groups, civic groups work together to find out what may be going on. If there are municipalities or can find them on feeding operations, for example, or whatever the problem may be, then we can work with them or we can bring in agency support to bring back the ecosystem to health. - You're the grand river keeper though. You told me the standards are high for a river keeper. How do you get to be grand? - Oh, don't pay attention to that word. My watershed is the grand river. That's just the name of my watershed. - You picked it for that reason, I suppose. - Oh, no, I just, I'm here. The first time I went to a water keeper conference, I was in front of all these new people that I didn't know and we were at lunch and I was standing in the lunch line and people were shaking my hand and we were talking and we said, "Oh, the grand river keeper." And I said, "Yeah, how about that?" And I think it was about a community or somebody else said, "Well, wait till we have a superior river keeper." I mean, like, superior, you know. - Kind of up where I go. - Yeah, you got me there. So it's, yeah, people tease me about that, but it's just a legacy anyway. There are two grand river keepers in the Alliance. There's Grand River in Labrador, Canada. And so now I'm the grand river keeper of Oklahoma and she's the grand river keeper of Labrador. - You know, one of the things that's true, Earl, is you're Native American. You're, I think, of the Cherokee people and some other clans. I mean, I'm not sure of all of your ancestry, though, I know that there's Cherokee in there. - Yeah, Cherokee and Delaware. - Is River Keeper completely a secular organization? Is it spiritual, religious, or how do those overlap? - Oh, no, no, that's not a part of it, Earl. It has to do with having a strong 501C3 nonprofit organization with the capacity to have a full-time river keeper on the water with the knowledge and background to do the work and the board of directors and staff to back them up and to be the kind of person and organization that people on the river can look up to and be proud of. And as far as spirituality, there's no question about that. You know, in the process, people from all faiths or, you know, non- faiths are involved. We have people from every country and every walk of life that are river keepers and water keepers. We have people from Russia, from China, from India, from Australia, from Colombia, from Venezuela, from Argentina, from all over the world. So we have Buddhists and we have atheists and we have Hindus and we have American Indians. So we have everybody in the Alaska. When I first started, it was English speaking. So the first two three annual conferences I went to that was that more and more people were coming up. We had some people coming up from Mexico, so they had translators with them. But now, at our annual conferences, we have headsets just like the UN. They all fit with headsets and they are translators in the back because they're tall, different languages. Now, I went to a UN meeting on North Korea. I was a delegate, indigenous delegate from the US and, you know, I felt they were meeting with a headset, getting every nation translated in my ear. And now, the waterkeeper along that conference is exactly like that. Could you talk a bit about how, for you, this work as a waterkeeper intersects, both with your spirituality and things like the Keystone XL pipeline? As a waterkeeper or a riverkeeper, fundamentally, I'm going to protect water. And this pipeline crosses so many rivers and streams and aquifers in my state and in other states as well. So that's one thing. It's not crossing my watershed, but it's crossing watersheds that I've lived around, that I fished in as a child, and growing up as a young man, I have one near one of them that I cherish. The Simone River, I've written songs about that river, and they were spiritual songs. I'm very spiritual about our Earth. I became a warrior for another Earth through a vision class that I had when I was 22 years old. I'm 66 now. I was shown my path and told that I'm a warrior for another Earth, and that's my life's work. That's what I'm supposed to be. And that's what I've done all along. I've always been an activist and an organizer for the public interest, consulting with no organizations and tribal governments and tribal organizations. And I was aware of the prior of the first nations in Canada long before there was this pipeline. I knew what was going on up there through one of my favorite groups, the Indigenous Environmental Network, which I've been associated with from the early 1990s. I was shocked to find that this thing was coming through the middle of my state. And so I got involved with it four nearly five years ago. It's been difficult to get equal woke up in Oklahoma about this thing, because this is fundamentally an oil state, and people don't understand the people all about it, yet another oil pipeline. They don't understand what's on the other end of it. They don't understand the importance of this whole thing regarding climate change. They don't see it. I see it even way back then at the age of 22 in my vision. I saw it. I saw one view of our Earth if we went one direction and another view if we went another direction. And I was to take us in that other direction. And I've worked as far as I could, but were on precipice of going that long direction. And it is really scary to me that we're ever so close in making the bad decision. I can't seem to get across people what is happening, but I am here that I will live long enough to witness us taking steps down the wrong fucking road. I really feel for my grandchildren about that. All I can do is my best to hope that we can take the other fork in the road and walk the path to our freedom and the path to feeling of our planet, our mother, and our future generation. I've read about you, Earl, that among other things, your director from 1993 to '97 of Oklahoma Toxic's campaign. I've heard you were involved with AIM, American Indian Movement. Can you fill in a little bit of the background of how you've actually lived out your activism? Well, I was on the periphery of that. I was primarily involved with anti-war efforts during that time because I was a veteran. I could have been more involved with AIM. I was invited to do more things, but I felt obligated toward more anti-war efforts. Got myself for us to do a lot doing that. So I'm talking to a criminal right now? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, you could say that. In a good way, I'm thinking. Oh, I think so. I'd like to get a few more ideas from you about the spirituality. I'd like to understand a little bit more about the spirituality. For all I know, you're Christian as well as whatever native background you have. Could you fill in for me why caring for the earth is fundamental spiritually to you? I mean, I know it's the place we live on. And that's true for everyone, regardless of their religion. Some people seem to pay more attention to that than others. I don't know. That's kind of a difficult answer. I don't understand how it can be separated, but I see it all around me, you know, people that way. I think it's changing, though. I think more and more Christian people are changing that perspective. It seemed to be that there was this ideation that we're going to have in them. So what difference does it make if we use up these resources? I don't know that people saw it that way entirely, but that was how they acted. And I think that's changing. More and more denominations are going the other direction with how I'm inspired to see that. I'm kind of an odd bird, spiritually. I never really got on with the church as a young man. I just really wasn't made that way from the very beginning. You know, left as fast as I could. But there was something there that I did like. I just didn't like the people around me. That again goes to what I'm saying. So what I saw fundamentally around me was hypocrisy. And even as a very young boy, I saw that. I should go back and say that as a Cherokee, I saw things. But people around me did not see. I saw things from my heritage. And other people did not understand. But what it was showing me was the hypocrisy around me as well as the destruction of life. Because for me, nature was alive. The clouds were showing me symbols of life. The trees actually had a voice. So during the grasses, they would say well with the wind. And everything was alive. And human beings were destroying it as fast as they could around me. And every time a huge parking lot was built, it would literally make me cry. And I was only 10, 11 years old. And it was having my effect on me. And the church was supporting all of that. And the words of Jesus were different than that. And I could relate to anything that he said. But the things that he said were not the same thing. That's how the people were acting. That has always been with me, always. After I got out of the service, and I started working on war, and there was a point early in it where I sat down, and I reread the New Testament, and I went back, and I just read the quotes. And I thought whether or not this man lived or not, these quotes are precious. And if everybody lived by that, this would not be the same world at all. And I was like, Francis of Assisi would rule the world. So I left where I was, and I stuck out my phone on Highway 66, and decided I was going to live by this man's rule. And I was going to go out, and I wasn't going to take an extra coat, an extra pair of shoes, and I was just going to live by that fate. That's what I did for years and years. And I went to Arkansas to a remote area where there was a cave and a spring, and I did my vision course, and I saw that I was being involved in the lactose. But I was to walk this road to protect the earth from this devastation. I've been the same way ever since. And so I could say I was born with this, and I was born here to do this. I taught as young as I can remember that there are too many human beings on this planet, and they're headlong into wrecking the place instead of loving it as God's creation. I always like to say, man cannot build a temple greater than the one God created for him. And so why is he headlong devoted to destroying it? I absolutely agree with you exactly it. So what I understand that religious spiritually, there's a lot you could connect with, that the words of Jesus were precious to you. You didn't see it lived out in the faith, Baptist, or other that you happened to run into. I happened to be Quaker. I was raised Catholic though. And I've had to go searching to find a place where something would fit for me. Do you find your spiritual community, the religious spiritual community among American Indians, or are you just find by yourself? Is the Earth brother and sister enough for you in this? - Well, I find it a not non-union community, but I, as far as my spiritual practice, that was a long journey. After my vision, I became interested in meditation. I practiced yoga for many years. Bigger than Baoism. So I went through these certain religions as well. There's a thing that happened where I went back to an original meditation practice that really fit with me. And I used that for a long time. That's Delaware man older than me much older that took me on, and we have become great friends. He's unfortunately close to passing on, and that has really helped a lot. I still, you know, retain everything that I've said before. I meditate, cry to the Creator. I still believe everything that Jesus said is truth. I just saw where the Pope named himself Francis after Francis of the Sushi. I think that's really great. I hope that he fulfills what that means, we'll see. But in the meantime, this pipeline and the destruction of the boreal forest is by itself the fulfillment of that vision of what can happen if we go the wrong direction, because of where we are already, because of where China is already, because of the amount of carbon that we already have in the air, because of the amount of gas that coming out out of the melted tender in the Arctic and from the ocean in the Arctic area, that has already melted enough to skew into the atmosphere more carbon than we're putting into the air every year around the planet, because enough warning has already happened to continue to knock down the forest, which is the largest carbon sink that we have on the planet and produces the oxygen that is our largest form of oxygenator for the Northern Hemisphere. It started knocking that down and then burning it, burning that carbon on top of it is the end. I mean, it's gonna start the initial tipping point that according to Dr. James Hanson at NOAA, the leading climatologist there could begin a cascade event that we cannot stop, and he calls the Keystone Pipeline the fees to that carbon bomb. Why is our government not paying attention to our leading scientists and the leading scientists at the U-land and all around the globe? Why is John Kerry State Department allowing contractors for TransCanada to write the environmental impact study for the State Department and the State Department using that as a government document to say that this thing doesn't matter in environmental because the toxins are gonna be dug up anyway, so the pipeline doesn't roll them. What is going on here? - It's not science, obviously. - Obviously, this is really sad, you know, that this is going on and that the people don't understand the walking what the line is on. - You talked about climate change, you talked about arboreal forests being destroyed. Is there a particular threat to the groundwater and you as a river keeper or a water keeper? Is there a particular threat to that because of these tar sands oil pipeline? I mean, you've already got a lot of oil, as you said, you've got an oil state there, and I think you've got pipelines going through our tar sands oil pipelines worse than regular oil pipelines in terms of a threat to the water? - Yes, they are, because what we found out long ago and workers are still telling us today is that this steel was found to be manufactured in China, which is real legal. That was exposed, and I thought it was being taken care of, but we've had some fiscal blowers recently come out and talk about inferior pipe. We've had some of our blockade people that were arrested because they went inside the pipe, and while they were in there, they saw holes in the wells, white was shining through, and when they were pulled out, they were yelling that you could see holes in the wells there, and instead of anybody looking in, they buried it. And so we think, and we are being told by foreign workers and whistleblowers that that is true up and down the pipeline. That's one thing, the other thing is these particular pipelines, the tar sands pipelines, have a horrible tracker of leaks. The first piecestone pipeline from Steel City, Nebraska, through Cushing, Oklahoma, according to its environmental impact statement, its probability of leaks is one leak per seven years. It's 10 and a half years old, and it's already leaked 30 times, and one of them was a gusher going up 30 feet in the air and it leaked 1,200 gallons of tar sands, and it took forever to clean up. The first clean up, they covered it up, they didn't clean it up, they just saw it over the top of it. And when a farmer went out to inspect the cleanup, he went knee deep into it. What we found out then was the reason that so much of it spilled, because when the pressure went down, Trans Canada in their controlling in Alberta, which is where they control the pipeline from, when the pressure went down, instead of thinking maybe they had a leak, they pressured up. And the same thing happened with Enbridge, another tar sands pipeline company, when they had a blowout of a pipe on a tributary of the Kalamazoo River, and it just exploded, instead of shutting it down, they just kept pressuring up as the pressure went down. And so they ended up spilling over a million gallons of tar sands into that tributary that collated miles and miles of the Kalamazoo River and forced the evacuation of all the 20% of the people that fled there and all of the businesses, and that was 10 and a half years ago, and it's still not cleaned up, because the EPA finally had to admit they don't know how a clean up tar sands, because it sinks to the bottom. Now, in order to push tar sands through a pipeline, because it's tar, and they have to go through this process of getting sand out of the power which they can't get all of, and then they have to mix it with solvents, including benzene, which is carcinogenic. And then they have to put it in the pipeline that extremely high pressure and high temperature, to get all that to sheet down the pipeline. It's highly corrosive because of the tar and the sand that's mixed with it. So as it goes down north and third year steel, it's corrosive nature wears through the pipeline. So this is why they're doing all these spills and leaks. So that's what's going to leak in the groundwater. And so they're going to go underneath streams with this, or the water table is going to be high. And so that's going to go right into aquifers, where drinking water is derived from cities and farms. You know, what their history of leaks and blowouts, which is a matter of time on an immediate given state, that something bad could happen. - So there are a lot more dangers. There's reasons to be specifically concerned about this, even in an oil state like Oklahoma. Are you going to be there on the 24th of March in Norman, Oklahoma, to be part of the educational event there that's being organized, getting people thinking about this? - Oh yeah, I'll be here, I'll be around. - Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to date to talk to me. More than that, really, I'm so thankful for your life of witness, for how you followed up your vision quest, how you've lived it out, how you continue to live it out. Thank you so much for that work, and thank you for joining me for spirit in action. - I am really thankful that you allowed me to bend your ear this way. I can't thank you enough. I hope the Creator blesses all listening and yourself, and I hope that we can all walk down that good road that I was shown were supposed to walk down to make our planet the best it can be for all the rest of the generations coming after us. - Thanks again, Earl. We've been speaking with Earl Hadley. He's a Cherokee elder. He's the Grand River Keeper in Northeastern Oklahoma, advocate for the watershed there, a longtime activist, part of the Water Keeper Alliance, and he'll be in Norman, Oklahoma for the March 24th educational event about the Keystone XL pipeline. - The theme music for this program is Turning of the World, performed by Sarah Thompson. - This spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio. You can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website, northernspiritradio.org. Thank you for listening. I am your host, Mark Helpsmeet, and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit. May you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light. This is Spirit in Action. ♪ With every voice ♪ ♪ With every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ With every voice ♪ ♪ With every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ [MUSIC PLAYING]