(The Center Square) – In an ongoing trial over protests during the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Greenpeace brought in a critical witness Wednesday for questioning: Annie Leonard, Greenpeace USA’s executive director at the time of the protests.
Years after protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline led to violent conflicts with law enforcement and eight years after the lawsuit was filed, Energy Transfer and Greenpeace have gone to trial. Energy Transfer finished installation of the roughly 1,200-mile pipeline in 2017 in the face of some intense protests by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Greenpeace supported the protests, and the energy company has tried to prove that the protests never would have grown to the size and scale they did without Greenpeace’s involvement and that the environmental group was at the heart of trespassing, vandalism and destruction to property that occurred. The company cites the protests as the reason for a five-month delay in the pipeline’s completion, forcing it to miss a Jan. 1, 2017, online production date that they say cost them lost profits and shareholder value.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer is suing Greenpeace for $300 million in lost profits and damages.
Greenpeace has maintained it supported the protests mainly in the form of nonviolent direct action, deescalation training and camp supplies, while Energy Transfer has tried to prove has maintained it supported the protests mainly in the form of nonviolent direct action, deescalation training and camp supplies, while Energy Transfer has stirred up anti-pipeline sentiment and encouraged radicalism. Energy Transfer wrapped up its case last week.
The environmental organization’s involvement in the protests began, according to Leonard, when she received a call from an old friend and colleague, Tom Goldtooth, who asked if Greenpeace could provide deescalation training. Goldtooth told Leonard he was at Standing Rock and witnessed a lack of organization and a degree of chaos at the camp, she said.
“Tom had said he was concerned about growing tension with law enforcement,” Leonard told one of Greenpeace’s attorneys.
So, Greenpeace paid for travel and expenses for several trainers from an organization called the Indigenous Peoples Power Project, Leonard testified. The project, or IP3, as it’s often referred to, said it fights for “environmental justice, cultural livelihood, and self-determination” for indigenous peoples. The organization says it did not directly provide training on the ground but provided support to the IP3 trainers.
“It’s important Annie be told Greenpeace wasn’t running [nonviolent direct action] or deescalation trainings,” wrote Harmony Lambert, a woman who worked for Greenpeace and conducted trainings at Standing Rock as a member of IP3.
In cross examination, lead counsel for Energy Transfer Trey Cox disputed Greenpeace’s commitment to nonviolence, asking Leonard about the organization’s involvement with lockboxes — a contentious issue throughout the trial — and some of its internal communications surrounding the protests.
“[And] you had an opinion about whether lockboxes should be used?” Cox probed.
“I wouldn’t approve the use of lockboxes [without knowing] a lot about it,” Leonard said.
Cox pulled up emails of Leonard referring to 30 lockboxes being sent to the protest, including one to the organization’s board members saying Greenpeace had played a “massive role” in the pipeline protests “since day one.”
Leonard said that she had envisioned the lockboxes being used like chain links to help the protesters form a barricade and not to lock themselves onto construction equipment, as some did.
As for the scope of Greenpeace’s impact on the events, Leonard said she used the word “massive” in the email because she was excited about the help the organization had provided and was trying to fill her bosses in on the role it had played, but that the term is relative. Leonard testified that pipelines in America weren’t part of Greenpeace’s broader campaigns at the time, campaigns that are decided on often years in advance. Their campaigns at the time included work on oceans, forestry, defending democracy and climate and energy. The efforts at Standing Rock did receive – according to documents shared during the trial– donations from Greenpeace’s climate and energy fund.
“Compared to a campaign that Greenpeace was actually running,” Leonard said, Greenpeace’s involvement at Standing Rock “wasn’t massive,” in contradiction to her email.
Emails also referenced Greenpeace contributions to Standing Rock of $15,000 and, elsewhere, $21,000. At one point in the cross examination of another witness, Cox said he had reviewed Greenpeace’s financial documents, and they added up to more than $55,000 in aid to the protests, though an attorney for Greenpeace later showed that one of those documents was for a boyscout camp in Florida that had nothing to do with the protests.
But Leonard also spoke in emails of $90,000 she had personally raised from donors to be donated directly to IP3 and the Indigenous Environmental Network, another group on the ground at Standing Rock. Emails also showed that Greenpeace worked to apply political pressure to then President Barack Obama and the pipeline’s lenders (six of which ended or reduced their support in February 2017, according to BankTrack) that included some “f*** DAPL”s in internal exchanges.
Leonard said that attempting to persuade banks to divest from various projects or institutions is a right people and organizations have in a democracy and expressed regret over others’ use of the foul language.
“Greenpeace has never directed a campaign encouraging violence,” Leonard said. “It’s unthinkable.”
Earlier at trial, Greenpeace employee Cy Wagoner testified, according to Legal Newsline. Wagoner was shown a photo individuals with lock boxes attached to the top of construction equipment to prevent pipeline workers from working. Wagoner confirmed the details in the photo, Legal Newsline reported.
