Bill McKibben Among 50+ Arrested in Upstate New York over Fracking Project

Environmentalist Bill McKibben was among more than 50 activists arrested Monday morning for blockading the gates of the Crestwood Midstream gas storage facility on the shores of Seneca Lake in upstate New York.

"Some mornings fighting for the future means heading off to jail," McKibben, a co-founder of 350.org, wrote on Twitter. "That's okay."

Our friend @billmckibben receives his cuffs at Crestwood's gates on #SenecaLake #SaveSenecaLake @nytimes pic.twitter.com/4mFXMNZGOG

— We Are Seneca Lake (@WeAreSenecaLake) March 7, 2016

"Today and every day there are places like this where people are standing up." - @billmckibben pic.twitter.com/DOs1kr69qP

— We Are Seneca Lake (@WeAreSenecaLake) March 7, 2016

The blockade was part of an ongoing civil disobedience campaign organized by We Are Seneca Lake, the grassroots campaign fighting against a proposal to store methane, propane, and butane in underground lakeside salt caverns. The group says the plan is "one of many projects, including pipelines, which aim to develop 'new markets' for the current glut of natural gas from the fracking boom, committing people to using natural gas far into the future."

BREAKING: Climate leader @BillMcKibben arrested defending Seneca Lake from underground methane gas storage! pic.twitter.com/Cy8ClG4vJy

— We Are Seneca Lake (@WeAreSenecaLake) March 7, 2016

Indeed, said ecologist and author Sandra Steingraber, who was also part of the morning's protest: "This driveway is the battleground of two different visions of the future"—one reliant on fossil fuels, and the other committed to keeping oil, gas, and coal in the ground. 

Whether due to low natural gas prices or the ongoing direct action campaign—more than 450 people have been arrested in the past year—construction of Crestwood's controversial natural gas storage expansion has not yet begun.

As McKibben said Monday, "If we can hold off the fossil fuel industry for just a few years, it won't be built."