Vandalism or Terrorism

There is a brief article over at KRQE.com about recent vandalism against a number of gas wells in New Mexico over the last six weeks. It seems that someone has been shooting high-powered rifles at gas well heads and storage tanks. It’s a brief article without much in the way of details other than it appears that local authorities are investigating this as nothing more than vandalism.

It sounds like this may be nothing more than a couple of red-necks looking to see explosions (always fun in the mind of most good-ole boys that I know). The fact that an IED was detonated near (but not at) one of the gas wells does support this idea to some extent. While it remains a possibility that someone is trying to attack these well sites for political ends, the lack of any claim of attack or manifesto for political change makes it unlikely that this is a terrorist attack.

Gas wells have been targets of local eco-terrorists in Canada and TSA has noted threats against pipelines. Anytime that there are attacks against these types of facilities one must consider the possibility that the attacks are terror related. I hope that the local authorities are keeping this in mind as they continue their investigations.

New Threats Against Canadian Gas and Oil Sites

Yesterday the Dawson Creek Daily News (story via Edmonton.ctv.ca) reported that there were new threats being made against oil and gas sites in that area of Canada. This could mean that there will be a resumption in bombing attacks that has seen a total of six blasts being reported at remote pumping and pipeline stations owned by EnCana.

Long time readers of this blog will recognize this on-going story; I wrote about it in October 2008, January 2009, and July 2009. Every indication points to an individual (or very small group) with a very personal objection to the production of ‘sour gas’ (natural gas contaminated with hydrogen sulfide) at wells owned by EnCana.

There are no reports or claims of any sort of association with larger ‘ecoterrorist’ groups, or any other organization for that matter. Once again, I want to make the important point here that any company or facility can become the private target of an individual who has (self-determined) important grievances with the actions of the personnel or management of that facility. Furthermore, the tools to violently express those grievances are readily available.

This means that every facility, particularly high-risk facilities, need to be aware of individuals or groups that have ‘serious’ grievances against the facility, it’s owners, or the industry to which it belongs. Threats received from those grievance holders need to be taken seriously enough for them to be reported promptly to that authorities.

While all threats need to be reported, those from identified groups or individuals with public grievances need to be taken especially seriously. As I noted in my January 2009 blog on this subject; “Most of the threats received will lead to nothing. Failure to share all threats with government investigators may lead to an unexpected attack that could have been prevented.” To date this Canadian bomber has been careful to only attack unattended remote sites. It seems inevitable, however, that the continued lack of an ‘appropriate response’ from EnCana will lead to more spectacular and deadly attacks.