Earth First! Disrupts Florida Power and Light in Protest Over Proposed Fracked Gas Power Plant Near Seminole Reservation

Juno, FL – Over 80 activists with Earth First! groups from across the country converged at the Florida Power and Light (FPL) Headquarters this morning. Five protestors locked their necks together, disrupting business operations at the second largest energy company in the nation. Their primary concern is a proposal to construct a fossil fuel power plant in Hendry County, on the border of the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation.

“Stop FPL and others who destroy the environment and resources, for the sake of our future generations,” says Sam Tommie, a Seminole tribal member who opposes the project.

“This proposal is an act of environmental racism against indigenous people and an attack on the Everglades. If we stand by and do nothing, we are also complicit in this injustice,” says Christian Minaya of Everglades Earth First!, a group based in Palm Beach County.

The signs and banners of Earth First! demonstrators include messages regarding threats to panther habitat, water quality and the practice of gas fracking—a controversial extraction technique that will likely be a source of fuel for the facility. Last year FPL also announced that it would be partnering with Spectra, a major transporter of fracked gas, to build a new pipeline across Northern Florida.

“This FPL proposal would be one of the biggest plants in the country. There’s a good chance that the gas could come from poisoning the water around where I live,” said a protestor named Ryan, from New York, where there is a push for more gas wells in the Marcellus Shale region.  More…