Daryl Hannah arrested outside White House by park police for refusing to move off sidewalk. The sit-in protested a planned pipeline expansion, Keystone XL, an oil pipeline from Canada to Texas.
The Keystone Pipeline System is a pipeline system [KEYSTONE PIPELINE MAP] to transport synthetic crude oil from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, and further to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The pipeline consists of the operational “Keystone Pipeline” and proposed Keystone XL (Keystone Expansion) pipeline. Keystone XL has faced lawsuits from oil refineries, criticism from environmentalists and some members of the United States Congress. The U.S. Department of State in 2010 extended the deadline for federal agencies to decide if the pipeline is in the national interest.
Environmental groups, concerned citizens, and politicians have raised a number of concerns about the potential impacts of the Keystone XL extension. One concern is that the pipeline could pollute air and water supplies and harm migratory birds and other wildlife. It will cross the Sandhills in Nebraska, the large wetland ecosystem, and the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest reserves of fresh water in the world.
Daryl Hannah was previously arrested with 31 people on June 23, 2009, in a protest against mountaintop removal in southern West Virginia, part of a wider campaign to stop the practice in the region. The protesters, who also included NASA climate scientist James E. Hansen, were charged with obstructing officers and impeding traffic after they sat in the middle of West Virginia State Route 3 outside Massey Energy’s Goals Coal preparation plant on Tuesday, the The Charleston Gazette reported.
On June 13, 2006, Hannah was arrested, along with actor, Taran Noah Smith, for her stance with over 350 farmers, their families and supporters, confronting authorities attempting to bulldoze the nation’s largest urban farm in South Central Los Angeles. Hannah chained herself to a walnut tree at the South Central Farm for three weeks to protest the farmers’ eviction by the property’s new owner, Ralph Horowitz. The South Central Farm had been established in the wake of the 1992 LA riots to allow people in the city to grow food for themselves. However, the land’s new owner, who had paid $5 million for it, sought to evict the farmers to build a warehouse. He had asked for $16 million to sell it but turned down the offer when the activists raised that amount. As of September 2008, Horowitz and Forever 21 were working on a proposal for a warehouse and distribution center on the now-bulldozed site. As of June 2011 the land remained an empty lot.
Daryl Hannah has also worked as an activist to end sexual slavery