victory on the island!

I am sitting in a large shed structure on the north end Vashon, which in the last few days has been turned into an HQ of sorts for our direct action campaign against the Maury Island gravel mine.   Radio scanners are still buzzing next to me, which I was using among other technology to track the location of derrick barges belonging to Northwest Aggregates (aka Glacier NW) the company that has been wanting to turn Maury into the largest open pit gravel mine in the northwest, square in the middle of the only aquatic reserve in the area.

Everything has just gone out the window.  A conservative Judge in the US district Court has just ruled so heavily against Glacier and the Army Corps of engineers that it is doubtful they will ever return.  I have spent that last week with a handful of others organizing logistics for  a large group of kayakers, a rapid response team, to intercept them, sometime this week we surmised, when they brought their construction barge back to continue work on the mine.  These forty people have been prepared to be deployed in the water, in the smallest human powered vessels possible in under an hour, should the get the call that glacier is returning, forming a floating human barricade between the barge and their half built pier at the mine site.  An ambitious idea, for sure, but a commitment to our community.

It was the culmination of six months of organizing and training, and we had no idea how it was going to go.

Now, across from me, there is a big white board with some empty chairs in front of it that we were about to use for a strategy meeting of our  small tactical team.  Instead there was a big dinner with food from the garden, champaign, martinelli’s,  and time well spent with the children. And after everyone goes to bed, and as i roll out my sleeping bag on the floor, I notice somene has written “Vashon 1000, Glacier 0.”

As a community, we turned the tide in the arena of public opinion, and i think we learned a lot in the process about shaping our world and what it takes.

What will be next?

- Logan

Logan at Mosquito Fleet Action Team HQ, with Jared who wanted a credit for "Technical Assistant." At this moment he was also deep in a Dungeons and Dragons game. Thanks Jared!