Nova Scotia RCMP are set to enforce a court-ordered injunction on Wednesday, arresting protesters camped on a Nova Scotia company’s property if they don’t comply.

The company, Alton Natural Gas Storage, is behind a plan to store natural gas in huge underground caverns north of Halifax.

“We are hopeful that the terms of the Injunction Order will be met through open dialogue with the demonstrators,” said Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, in a press release on Wednesday.

“Should that not happen and demonstrators continue to occupy the site at the main entrance to the natural gas project, thus disobeying the court ordered-injunction, the RCMP will enforce the order.”

The court order says the RCMP may arrest any person who violates the order.

The injunction, issued on March 27 by Justice Gerald Moir of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, says that protesters Dale Poulette, his partner Rachael Greenland-Smith and others must stop occupying a two-storey mud-and-straw hut on the site.

The structure is among other makeshift structures that block the main access road to the company’s pumphouse and control centre on the work site near the Shubenacadie River.

RCMP vehicles form a blockade near the Alton Gas site on April 10, 2019

Alton Gas had argued the injunction was needed because their workers had been prevented from moving heavy equipment to repair its facilities.

The order has laid out a small patch of fenced land where protesters will be required to remain as they oppose the project. Opponents have dismissed the official “protest site” as a “play pen.”

The court order says the RCMP may arrest any person who violates the order. It also says the protesters must conduct their protest peacefully, only during daylight hours and that they not set up “any inhabitation” at the site.

As The Canadian Press reported earlier this month, the order prohibits  people from interfering by force, threats or coercion with Alton Gas and utility workers seeking entrance to the site at 625 Riverside Road for the “purpose of investigating a recent power outage, and assessing and repairing property damage arising therefrom, and for all other operational and security purposes.”

For the past 12 years, Alton Gas has been planning to pump water from the Shubenacadie River to an underground site 12 kilometres away, where it will be used to flush out salt deposits, and create up to 15 caverns.

The leftover brine solution would then be pumped back into the river over a two- to three-year period.

Protesters have gathered at the site for several years, arguing that the plan poses dangers to the traditional fisheries of the Mi’kmaq and risks harming the river used by Aboriginal populations for thousands of years.

Residents in the area should expect to see an increase in police resources in the Stewiacke area, the RCMP said.

“It’s important that there are officers available to respond as needed,” said Clarke.

“For public and police safety, body worn cameras will be used.”

While they enforce the order police say a temporary exclusion zone and road closure is in place for public and police safety reasons.

“The areas are clearly marked and will only be maintained as long as necessary,” the RCMP said.

With files from The Canadian Press

More to come…

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