Activists have opened one encampment in West Texas and another is planned as protests that are patterned after the Dakota Access natural gas pipeline protest in North Dakota spread elsewhere, Kallanish Energy reports.
The first camp for protestors was started about three weeks ago south of Midland and near Alpine in the Permian Basin.
The protestors are fighting Energy Transfer Partners’ Trans-Pecos Pipeline that would transport natural gas from Texas to Mexico.
Now a second encampment is being built by protestors at Toyahuate near Balmorhea State Park to protest drilling in the Alpine High area by Apache Corp. It’s expected to open around Jan. 7, according to the Houston Chronicle newspaper.
The camps are designed to bring protestors together, to boost numbers and to attract media attention in the grass-roots fights, organizers said.
The 148-mile Trans-Pecos Pipeline will run from Fort Stockton, Texas, in northern Pecos County, south to the U.S.-Mexico border near Presidio, Texas.
It would move 1.4 billion cubic feet per day. Construction started last May on the $767 million, 42-inch line.
Last September, Apache announced its find in the Davis Mountains in Reeves County in the southern part of the Permian’s Delaware Basin. The company has leased about 300,000 acres and is starting to drill in the Alpine.
From: Kallanish Energy