Activist Summer Project: I-69

author : Billie Burlock topic : Project: I-69 | Environmental destruction | displaced people

by Billie Burlock

From anticipating port shipments to preventing the naked gentrification of our downtown, activists in Olympia have a lot on their plates right now. An important project, however, is drawing a number of Olympia activists away from home during the summer months.

I-69 is an existing route that, if fully expanded, will stretch 2000 miles from Canada to the Atlantic Corridor Highway of the Plan Pueblo Panama in Mexico, completing the ominous pan-American NAFTA superhighway: a vital piece of the free trade infrastructure that would further exploit workers and land for the primary benefit of those who control it.

Despite 18 years of fierce public opposition, Gohmann Asphalt and Construction has begun removing trees on the lots of the six evicted houses within the first 1.77 miles of the proposed route. Activists are flocking to southern Indiana, where construction is slated to start sometime this summer. There is extensive organizing across political lines, particularly in Evansville, as part of the resistance to the $4 billion expansion of I-69 in Indiana. Strong resistance projects have so far included marches, banner drops, tree-sits, squats, and guerilla gardens.

There has been significant police repression lately. Phones are being cut off and tapped, police are following and taping activists at every turn, and nine people are being charged in relation to a tree-sit and action that were broken up in the past two weeks, but determination is only strengthening as the summer progresses.

The I-69 project managers are still intent on proceeding with construction, despite a serious lack of public support. Who would want it, knowing that in Indiana alone, the project is slated to displace 450 families, destroy 5,000 acres of farmland, 1,600 acres of forest, and 300 acres of wetlands?

Those in Evansville emphasize that there is plenty of housing for activists who want to come to Indiana to plug in. For more information, check out StopI69.wordpress.com or email RoadblockEF@yahoo.com.