Petcoke/resource extraction

This is the story of how Mashed Economies got involved in trying to do a petcoke project. The petcoke project started when John G. read an article in the New York times reporting that a new Tar Sands petroleum product called “pet coke” was being stored in two massive outdoor heaps on the Detroit side of the Detroit River and was visible from Windsor. The storing of this petcoke was perceived by locals to be a health hazard and resistance was forming. John G. contacted Rebecca G. about wanting to do a project. Rebecca, meanwhile had been reading about petcoke on fb.

For Rebecca G. the pet coke mountains brought back memories of the uranium tailings she had seen while working on a video project on the Serpent River reserve near Elliot Lake uranium mines back in the 2000’s. When the petcoke mountains first came out in the media there was feeling that Detroit was being treated like America’s backyard where waste can be put – also as an act of environmental racism. But this site is also for Windsor, Canada, its front yard with an unsightly pile of waste which ironically has arrived there from Canada’s resource “rich” back-yard, the First Nations territories in Northern Alberta.

John G. approached Niko B. about doing research on the pet coke and Koch brothers and the 3 had a meeting to decide what direction to take. Rebecca G’s first impulse was to surveille the mountain of pet coke and to try to buy some and bring it back to Canada. John G. was interested in pockets of USA-owned land on Canadian soil.  Niko started researching the history of pet coke. Niko B.’s research into petcoke revealed that the Koch bro’s are buying Tar Sands dilbit  from Canada and are processing it into high grade petroleum products and then storing the byproduct which is the petcoke, at the Detroit site.

Rebecca G. proposed involving the Mashed Economies collective as they had been in a conversation about working on border issues between Detroit and Windsor. Rebecca G.  proposed that we could to try to purchase 200 lbs. of pet coke from the Koch Carbon corporation, and bring it back across the border into Canada in August. Niko B. started researching the possibility of buying petcoke but did not have great results, the group planned to go to Detroit anyways and see what would happen. However, in the meanwhile the plan to move the petcoke piles was realized. Niko B. found out that the petcoke had been moved to Nova Scotia.

With this information M-ecos decided to retool the project into one about resource extraction, including petcoke, but also looking at the web of resource extraction in which we are situated in any given location.

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