Green and mean

Industrial terrorists are committing acts of sabotage against Canadian companies involved in petroleum and natural gas drilling, mining, logging, industrial-style farming and animal testing. The petroleum industry in Alberta has recently been the target of such industrial sabotage. The acts of vandalism have included shot-up signs, smashed car windows, ripped truck tires on isolated well roads, broken machinery, holes drilled in pipes and even entire wells cemented over and embedded with shotgun shells. Recently, the scale of the vandalism surpassed anything previously experienced in North America when bullets were fired at a gas plant in Grande Prairie County, narrowly missing the operators, and a home-made bomb blew a hole in a gas pipeline. Such assaults against the resource industry (oil, gas, forestry and fisheries) are increasing nationwide. Much of the vandalism goes unreported because companies do not like to admit that they have been targeted. Other incidents of eco-terrorism have included the sabotage and bombing of forestry equipment across the country. These acts of sabotage have shown just how vulnerable the resource industry is. Most attacks share a common profile. They are aimed at machinery, not at people and they are usually the work of urban protesters rather than angry locals. The Grande Prairie incidents do not fit the pattern because the saboteurs endangered lives by using explosives. One of the problems that may be contributing to the terror campaign in the Grande Prairie region is the flaring of unwanted gas from wells, which exposes hundreds of families in the area to as many as 250 chemicals, some of them toxic. For the moment, oil and gas companies are putting their faith in increased vigilance and security, but industry insiders hope that the province will step in before someone dies from a terrorist act