VANCOUVER — Police are investigating the disabling of 80 gas and diesel pumps at four Chevron stations in Vancouver and Burnaby last month by a group protesting the company’s operations in Ecuador and planned pipeline in northern B.C.
“It’s under investigation,” said Vancouver police Const. Brian Montague of the incidents, one of which was posted in an anonymous anti-pipeline YouTube video after four stations were shut down Aug. 21.
“They’re taking the handles off the pumps [in the video] and then putting them together and running a bicycle lock through them. There was no damage, but the [handles] were locked together.”
There have been no other reported incidents since then.
The video shows several individuals in dark clothing and orange vests, with masks covering their noses and mouths, removing hoses from fuel dispensers and then tying them together with chains and bike locks after placing them on the ground.
Three people — including one who jumps a fence — then leave the scene, one on a skateboard.
The video contains footage condemning what it calls Chevron’s pollution of parts of Ecuador’s Amazon region, as well as footage of a Unist’ot’en aboriginal rally against the construction of the Pacific Trail Pipeline, Chevron’s project to carry natural gas to its proposed liquefied natural gas plant in Kitimat.
Chevron spokesman Adrien Byrne said Thursday that the four incidents happened early in the morning. “We cut the bike locks off. But we were concerned about it and notified the RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department.”
Byrne said he couldn’t speculate on why the protesters disabled the pumps, but added: “Our primary concern is the safe and ongoing operations of each of those sites.”
Byrne also cited an incident in May in which protesters chained themselves to the fence of Chevron’s Burnaby refinery, but couldn’t say whether the two incidents were linked.
