Forty hours after Portland activists took to the Willamette River to block passage of the MSV Fennica, a Shell icebreaking vessel en route to the Arctic, the standoff came to an end.

Thursday afternoon, several hours after protesters successfully forced the Fennica to turn around, a judge — after urging from Shell — ordered activists to abandon their posts blocking the Fennica’s route out of Portland and threatened Greenpeace with fines from $2,500 to $10,000 per hour. The activists — some parked in kayaks on the Willamette, others hanging from slings on the St. Johns Bridge — refused, and local authorities and the Coast Guard eventually forced them from their posts, making way for the vessel.shell-47723

Continue reading “Shell Arctic Destroyer blocked 40 hrs by Activists”