Puppet show on pipeline safety

Belleville, along with other cities along the proposed Line 9 pipeline route, will host a puppet show that re-thinks how new, volatile fossil fuels are transported through their communities.

The show, presented by Birdbone Theatre, will be at Gallery One’s meeting room, Belleville Public Library at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15. Birdbone, whose motto is Scrappy Puppet Storytelling, has toured North Carolina in a horse-drawn wagon, and toured last year from Toronto to Nova Scotia. Admission is pay-what-you-can.

The 38-year-old Line 9 pipeline runs east-west about seven km from the north shore of Lake Ontario, crossing the Trent one km north of Glen Miller, the Moira near Cannifton, and every other river and creek flowing into the north shore of the lake. Enbridge Inc. wants approval to reverse the flow of the line and carry dilbit (diluted bitumen) from Sarnia to Montreal.

The deadly oil explosion at Lac Megantic, and the more recent fireballs in North Dakota and New Brunswick, have alerted Canadians who live near railways to the dangers of train transport for crude oil. The train carrying Bakken crude that blew up in Lac Magantic first went through Belleville. Although oil producers say the risk is minimal, the public has no way of verifying that shipping in pipelines like Line 9 is safer than rail transport.

Birdbone’s puppet show, titled the Tar Sands Dragon Opera (and Clown Show) will also play Sarnia, Hamilton, Toronto, Peterborough, Kingston, Montreal and Sherbrooke, Que., during its February tour.

Birdbone was founded in the fall of 2012 by Alison and Aleksandra “out of an urgent need to breathe life into puppets and weave stories into being.”

Contact: john.travers.lewis@gmail.com