ASHFIELD — Selectboard member Ron Coler was among seven people arrested in an anti-pipeline protest Thursday afternoon in Washington, D.C.
A week after helping to raise a Henry David Thoreau/Walden Pond-inspired cabin on the route of Kinder Morgan/Tennesse Gas Pipeline’s proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline, Coler was arrested with “Gasland” documentary filmmaker Josh Fox and five other pipeline opponents who staged a “Pancakes Not Pipelines” action on the sidewalk in front of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission headquarters in Washington, D.C.
BXE (Beyond Extreme Energy), a political action group devoted to ending reliance on fossil fuels, reported that the group was arrested in the driveway of the FERC building, where they and about two dozen others were protesting FERC’s approval for a pipeline permit that gave the Constitution Pipeline Co. the right to clear-cut a wide swath of maple trees at the Holleran farm in New Milford, Pa., during the middle of maple sugaring season, despite the pipeline not having all the necessary permits from state agencies.
Coler was charged with “blocking passage,” according to the Metropolitan Police Department.
Back home in Ashfield Friday morning, Ron and Nina Coler confirmed the incident.
Nina Coler said her husband paid a $50 fine and got a ride to Northampton, where she picked him up at around 2 a.m. Friday.
Ron Coler said he believes the arrest took place between 1 and 2 p.m. by the Homeland Security Special Operations Division of the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. He said the group was released around 5 p.m. Thursday.
When asked for more details of the arrest, he said, “I don’t want to turn this into a thing about me. I did what was in my heart, in taking part in the action. Megan Holleran (the farmer) is like so many sugarers around here.
“Right now, I just need some space and time,” said Coler, ending the telephone conversation.
An 8-minute video recording of the event and the arrests is available online at www.recorder.com.
Those arrested, as seen in the video and according to BXE, included: Coler; Josh Fox, who showed his film “How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change” in Ashfield last Wednesday; farmer Holleran; folk singer Bethany Yarrow, the daughter of “Peter, Paul and Mary” folk singer Peter Yarrow; Gabe Shapiro of New Hampshire; Jane Kendall of New York City; and Don Weightman of Philadelphia.
At the protest pancake action, pancakes were made on a solar-powered stove and served up with the last of the maple syrup made by the Hollerans from the trees that were cut down.