Chesapeake Earth First! locks down at America's Natural Gas Alliance against fracking, gas export
On the morning of August 20th, Chesapeake Earth First! locked down blocking the front doors of the downtown office building housing ANGA or America's Natural Gas Alliance. The activists are demanding that ANGA stop lobbying for gas fracking and stop lobbying for Dominion's gas export plans at Cove Point on the Chesapeake Bay.
A building or security manager objected to the exit being blocked, but he had to exit by the back door and come outside to do so. In Calvert County, by comparison, the only back door out of the county is the bridge over the Patuxent River at Solomons, and it cannot handle the evacuation of all of Calvert County south of Cove Point in an LNG "incident."
The lockdown remained in place from just after 10 AM until almost 12:30PM.A massive police and fire department response arrived but could not seem to decide what to do for a while. When they finally decided to use a grinder to cut the U-locks, they first hung a massive green tarp to block the view. When they finally did cut through the locks, the police decided not to arrest either locked down activist, instead writing citations and letting them go.
ANGA is not the only "problem tenant" in the building in question. Wal-Mart's DC lobbying office is in the same building, so they too got blockaded by the protest.
One other point: The DC Police seemed to be absolutely on their best behavior at the protest, possibly because any police/protesters situation right now reminds people of Fergerson if it gets even the slightest bit tense
