SecondOn Saturday, during a demonstration in Brunsbüttel against a planned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, militants occupied the tracks of an industrial area and blocked the Kiel Canal with a canoe. According to information provided by the organizers of the “Endeände” alliance, the railway to two industrial companies on both sides of the Kiel Canal was blocked. Several activists use canoes on the canal near Hochdonn (Dithmarschen district). The shipping industry has ceased.
On Saturday night, a police spokesperson said that the lock had been lifted and the channel was free again. When the elevator started in the morning, the demonstrators had already settled at an intersection and blocked it for a while. The police are on duty with hundreds of police officers from different federal states.
A spokesperson for “Endegebiet” accused a company security of throwing stones at the demonstrators. A police spokesperson said there was a video and asked witnesses to the incident to stand up.
Before the weekend, about 2,000 protest participants had set up a tent camp in a park in the city. On Saturday morning, they took a ferry across the Kiel Canal to the mouth of the Elbe in Brunsbüttel. The motto of the event is “Clean gas is a dirty lie”. The “End of the Terrain” was resisted by German environmental protection assistance and the local “Climate Coalition Against Liquefied Natural Gas”.
It is planned to build a terminal for processing liquefied natural gas in Brunsbüttel. The city is located on the Schleswig-Holstein side of the mouth of the Elbe. The South Bank belongs to Lower Saxony. The Kiel Canal reaches the Elbe in Brunsbüttel. There are many chemical companies in the city.
In view of climate change, these organizations refuse to import liquefied natural gas. Konstantin Zelger of the German Environmental Aid Group said on Friday that he was in conflict with climate goals and the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision on climate protection. He announced that Deutsche Umwelthilfe will use all legal means to stop the project. Given the declining demand for natural gas, operations will be uneconomical. The demonstrators also opposed the exploitation of natural gas through hydraulic fracturing. They believe this is the destruction of the livelihoods of the people in the affected areas and the continuation of colonialism.
Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas production is used in the United States and other places. In this process, water—sometimes mixed with chemicals—is pressed into the gas-bearing rock under high pressure, creating cracks and releasing gas. Hydraulic fracturing technology has been criticized for its impact on the environment.
The Kiel Alliance, the Green Party, and the FDP’s Kiel Alliance had anchored the LNG terminal project in the alliance agreement, but the Green Party Congress later abandoned the project. Environment Minister Jan Philipp Albrecht (Green Party) stated that, if possible, he hopes that the terminal will be oriented towards green gases, such as hydrogen, from the beginning.
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