On Thursday, November 29th, lifelong friends, Diane Wilson and Bob Lindsey, participated in an action with members of Tar Sands Blockade and Code Pink. Diane, a founding member of Code Pink and other advocacy groups such as the Texas Jail Project, locked her neck to an industrial truck hooked on to a pumping station in front of the Valero refinery in the Manchester neighborhood of Houston. Simultaneously, Bob Lindsey, the San Antonio Bay Waterkeeper, locked his neck to an industry truck directly in front of the Valero smokestack that dominates the Manchester skyline. Here’s a video shot that day.
Bob was held in the Harris County Jail for 2 nights and Diane also spent 5 days enduring torturous and inhumane conditions there. She was denied water for the first 2 days. Diane and Bob are both out of jail and are on the 6th day of their sustained hunger strike. They demand that Valero divest from the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, of which Valero has committed to buying 75% of the tar sands that are pumped through it. They also demand that Valero permanently vacate the neighborhood of Manchester that they have been poisoning for over 60 years.
