Students Participate in Tour de Fracked Bike Ride

On Saturday, Nov. 16, students took part in “Tour de Fracked,” a bike ride organized to peacefully protest the Vermont fracked gas pipeline that is proposed to run through Middlebury.

The College has expressed its support for the pipeline, maintaining that it will provide an inexpensive, local form of energy for the school and residents of the town. Many students, however, are fighting the College’s stance because they believe the environmental and social side effects of fracking are too high of a price to pay.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process of obtaining natural gas by pressurizing liquids, including harmful chemical substances, to fracture rock below the earth. These chemicals have the potential to leak into groundwater near wells and thus contaminate drinking water.

Rosalie Wright-Lapin ’15, one of the organizers of the bike ride, is fearful of the social issues associated with fracking.

“[The] pipeline poses a major ethical paradox,” Wright-Lapin said. “Many argue that fracked gas will provide affordable “clean” heat for Vermonters. The importance of making heat affordable for Vermonters is undoubtedly a social justice issue — all humans (especially living in a climate like Vermont’s) should have access to affordable heat. However, the mere process of fracking disrupts towns and threatens the health and environment of those communities.”

People in the residential communities near a fracking site are often put in compromising situations in which they do not usually have the power to change. This brings into question the ethics of using fracked gas.

Zane Anthony ’16.5 is another passionate orchestrator of the Tour de Frack who wants to make the possible implementation of the pipeline, and the controversy over fracking in general, more of a focus on campus. At Powershift, an environmental convention for students across the country that occurred over Fall Break, Anthony and others became motivated to do more related to the climate crisis and environmental justice movements.

Anthony has been working with an organization called the Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), which aims to bring the voice of Vermont citizens to public policy debates. Anthony’s work with VPIRG helped him gain momentum for spearheading the Tour de Fracked.

The bike ride was meant to be a symbolic showing of “Middlebury activists riding together in solidarity in opposition to the Vermont pipeline.” The Tour de Fracked group had advertised for their cause. Other advertisements were more creative, such as a caution-tape patch that served as a statement of solidarity, because caution tape symbolizes the precautionary principle; a huge element in the sustainability movement. Advertisements have included flyers, notification of the local media, a planned conference and over 75 photo petitions of students holding up their statements of disapproval of the pipeline.

Despite their efforts, Anthony feels that environmental activist groups are somewhat lacking on campus. He noted the major focus on the issues of divestment and local food, and the absence of strong activism for any other area.

“[It’s] a fallacy [that] Middlebury prides itself on its progressive nature — divestment and [local] food are longer term [issues] but the pipeline could be built in February,” said Anthony. “Now is the time, before it is built, for people to see that they are opposed to it.”

According to Wright-Lapin, there are many reasons to be opposed to the construction of the pipeline.

“Any organic farms through which the pipeline passes can no longer be organic, thus ruining the living that many hardworking Vermonters have built for themselves and their families,” said Wright-Lapin.

“Providing affordable heat for some is only a step towards social justice if it is not ruining the homes of others. Bettering people’s lives is only meaningful when it is not harming people on the other end,” she said.

These students held Tour de Frack to bring the broad spectrum of environmental issues, and the effects that could result from the pipleine for both the College and the Middlebury community to the attention of the college community at large.