People living on North Whidbey worried that a planned protest of Skagit County refineries this past weekend would include people dangling off the Deception Pass Bridge or blocking State Highway 20.
Those fears didn’t materialize.
Approximately 150 climate change protestors blocked BNSF railway lines near Farm to Market Road for two days before authorities cleared the tracks and arrested 52 people for criminal trespassing early Sunday morning, said BNSF Railway spokesman Gus Melonas.
“It could only last so long,” he said.
The railroad adjusted its schedules to stop trains through the area, Melonas said. He also said it wasn’t that big of a disruption because there is “flexibility” on this particular line.
By Sunday night, the trains were running again, delivering various commodities including metals, fertilizer and animal feed.
“There were really minimal impacts from our perspective,” said Bronlea Mishler, Skagit County Communications Coordinator.
It’s hard to get an accurate headcount of those who participated but she estimated in the ballpark of 600 people participated in a march and dozens more were on kayaks in the bay.
Authorities were expecting more disruption and multiple agencies were out in force. Those agencies are still tallying the amount spent on overtime, she said.
Many of the activists stayed at Deception Pass State Park, reserving 150 sites and using the park for training, meetings and programs, said Jack Hartt, park manager.
“It was a busy long day, but it was just another group staying at the park,” Hartt said.
The organization behind the protests, Pacific Northwest Break Free, estimated nearly 2,000 attended the march and nearly 1,000 listened to talks Saturday night, said spokeswoman Emily Johnston.
Johnston called the event “powerful.”
Break Free is a global network of activists. This protest was part of 12 days of world wide action against fossil fuels.
Activists attended nonviolent direct action training, “kayaktivism” training, art builds and other programs.
The weekend also featured an Indigenous Day of Action that included a march and speakers, as well as a climate change conference held at the Anacortes Transit Shed.
“I know the combination of events was inspiring to people — many came up to me to say so,” she said. “Climate change is such a huge and amorphous problem most of the time. A big part of what we have to do is try to help people understand that they can have a real impact.”
Whether the protest in Anacortes was effective is a hard thing to measure, she said.
“We fought Keystone XL with actions like this and it went from being considered a guaranteed done deal to being denied,” she said.
“We also fought Shell’s arctic drilling like this. The rigs made it to Alaska, for sure, but months later, Shell cancelled its arctic drilling project. And we heard from insiders that concern about reputation damage was definitely part of the equation.”
A photo of garbage left next to the railroad protest site circulated on social media. Authorities asked protestors to leave and the majority left without a fuss, taking their “tarps, tents and art supplies,” Melonas said. But some refuse did remain.
Skagit County received so many questions about the debris left they issued this statement: “During the early morning arrests on May 15, protestors were given the opportunity to collect their personal belongings and other items. Any debris remaining on BNSF property was cleaned up by BNSF crews.”
Johnston wanted to clarify that the authorities let a team of their people begin to clean up, but then made them stop.
