We Acted From Our Hearts” INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA REZNICEK AND RUBY MONTOYA, Catholic Agitator Feb 2018 p. 3

We Acted From Our Hearts” INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA REZNICEK AND RUBY MONTOYA, Catholic Agitator Feb 2018 p. 3

 “Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken. We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply.”

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      The following interview with Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya is “surreptitiously” reprinted from an interview by Amy Goodman, which aired July 28, 2017, on her program, Democracy Now! We had intended to conduct our own interview with Jess and Ruby, but they were unavailable.

GOODMAN: We turn now to Iowa, where two Catholic Workers have revealed they secretly carried out multiple acts of sabotage and arson in recent months in order to stop construction of the controversial $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Jessi- ca Reznicek and Ruby Montoya said that on Election Day last year they set fire to five pieces of heavy ma- chinery being used to construct the pipeline. The two then taught them- selves how to destroy empty pipeline valves, and moved up and down the pipeline’s length, destroying the valves and delaying construction for weeks. They say their actions were inspired by the anti-nuclear Plow- shares Movement, which used non- violent direct action to target nuclear warheads and military installations. On Monday, they spoke out outside the Iowa Utilities Board office. This begins with Jessica Reznicek.

REZNICEK: We are speaking publicly to empower others to act boldly, with purity of heart, to dismantle the infrastructures which deny us our rights to water, land and liberty. We, as civilians, have seen the repeated failures of the government, and it is our duty to act with responsibility and integrity, risking our own liberty for the sovereignty of us all.

MONTOYA: Some may view these actions as violent, but be not mistaken. We acted from our hearts and never threatened human life nor personal property. What we did do was fight a private corporation that has run rampantly across our country seizing land and polluting our nation’s water supply.

GOODMAN: And that was Ruby Montoya, along with Jessica Reznicek, speaking Monday. After delivering their statement, the two used a hammer and crowbar to try to pull off the letters of the Iowa Utilities Board sign in protest of its recent decision to reject a lawsuit by environmental groups to revoke the pipeline’s state permit and force it to shut down. The women were arrested and jailed overnight for destroying the sign, and are now facing possible arrest at any time for committing multiple acts of sabotage. I spoke to Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya earlier this week. I began by asking Ruby to talk about what they did and why they’re coming forward now.

MONTOYA: So, on election night, we went to a DAPL easement site in Buena Vista County, and we saw over six or seven pieces of heavy machinery there. And we went with our supplies, and we filled these coffee canisters up with gasoline and oil. We placed those coffee canisters on the inside of the cabs of these heavy machinery, on the seats, and we pierced those coffee canisters so that the flammable liquids would spread. We then lit matches and—in efforts to make those machines obsolete. We acted after having exhausted all other avenues of political process and resistance to this petroleum pipe- line that, to my knowledge, is the largest in the United States as far as the capacity that it is able to carry the oil.

GOODMAN: Jessica Reznicek, how did you know where this pipeline was?

REZNICEK: Well, I knew exactly where this pipeline was, because it—it’s not more than 15 miles from this studio. It runs right here through the county I was born in, Polk County, Iowa. I definitely took a lot of inspiration from what I saw up at Standing Rock. But Iowa is impacted greatly by this, and my home city’s drinking water is to be destroyed when this pipeline breaks. And so it’s not a matter of having to find it. It’s right—it found me.

GOODMAN: So, the investigation into the damage to the pipeline has been ongoing. But, apparently, the authorities did not have leads into who committed these acts of sabotage. So, Jessica, why did you decide, you and Ruby decide, to come forward on Monday?

REZNICEK: Well, I guess one of the main reasons is Ruby and I felt very disheartened by the fact that oil is now flowing through the pipeline. Obviously, we cannot pierce through empty valves anymore. They are not empty. We halted construction up and down the line for several weeks, turning into months. And we’re now at the phase where we have to deal with the reality that this pipeline— that we failed, as resistance here in Iowa goes. And now oil is flowing through it, and there’s really nothing more to do now than come forward and let the public know that—and continue this public discourse about what that means, where we’re heading, and the consequences of it.

GOODMAN: Ruby, you talked about beginning this action of sabotage on election night. Why the significance of this day, Election Day? And then talk about what happened in the ensuing weeks, what exactly you did.

MONTOYA: Well, Election Day, it was very serendipitous. It just happened by coincidence. I remember, the next day, we were with the Mississippi can—Mississippi Stand Caravan. And other comrades had crawled into the Dakota Access pipeline and occupied it for over 15 hours, at least. So I remember showing up there at the Des Moines River boring site and still being elated by the action that we took the previous night, because we knew that through the actions of Mississippi Stand, they had halted the boring process temporarily, and through the actions that Jessica and I took the evening prior, we had also halted construction temporarily. So that felt really great, and we saw the effectiveness of these peaceful means to take fire and other materials to these empty structures of metal to disable them so that they could not continue their process of destruction. As time went on, we saw that construction continued and that pipe was being put into the ground. And so our only viable means was to somehow obstruct this pipe. And that material is made of steel, five-eighth inch steel. And we had to figure out something that would melt it or somehow make it obsolete. So we began to look for things that would cut through that amount of steel, and that turned out to be oxygen and acetylene, which burns at like over 2,000 degrees, and that melts steel. So, after acquiring that knowledge, we proceeded and found many empty valves. All of the valves were empty. And we began, first in Mahaska County, Iowa, piercing through a valve there. And later, we continued, until we ran out of sup- plies, hitting multiple valve sites.

GOODMAN: What are the significance of the valves? What do they do?

MONTOYA: They are access points to shut off the flow of oil. I know that it occurred with a group in the tar sands area of Alberta, Canada. You can physically shut these valves off if there is oil in them. But since there was not oil in them, this is the part of the pipeline that is ex- posed. The rest is underground and underneath our waterways. So, with this steel exposed, instead of having to operate a bulldozer and try to dig it up, it was easier to find these ex- posed valves and cut underneath the seams of these valves, because these valves have seams. And if you cut underneath the seams, it is a lot more effective in terms of them having to dig it up further and costing them more money and more time and pushing back that completion date, until—our goal was for them to exhaust their financial means so that they would stop with this pipeline.

GOODMAN: Now, Jessica Reznicek, there are many who would say that destroying private property like this is violence. Your response to this?

REZNICEK: I completely disagree. I think that the oil being taken out of the ground and the machinery that does it and the infrastructure which supports it, that this is violent. This is—these tools and these mechanisms that industry and corporate— corporate power and government power have all colluded together to create, this is destructive, this is violent, and it needs to be stopped. And we never at all threatened human life. We never at all—and, actually, we’re acting in an effort to save human life, to save our planet, to save our resources. And nothing at any point was ever done by Ruby nor I in anything outside of peaceful, deliberate and steady loving hands.

GOODMAN: Can you explain what Plowshares actions are, for those who don’t know? You are both Catholic Workers, Jessica and Ruby, living at the Catholic Worker House in Des Moines, Iowa. Can you explain what the Catholic Worker movement is all about?

REZNICEK: We have a rich tradition, started by Dorothy Day in 1933. And we have a rich tradition both in assisting underprivileged people in our communities, via soup kitchens, food pantries, hospitality, shelters for homeless people who we live with in our communities, and we also have—on the flipside of that, we also recognize the resistance that is needed to help bring underprivileged people back up to the same level as the people who are taking the money from them. And so, in essence, Ruby and I focus on the resistance aspect here in the Des Moines Catholic Worker. And we have followed suit, and I believe that we are inspired by Phil Berrigan—who the house that we live in is named after. And we do understand the need to dismantle infrastructure when it poses a threat to human life and liberty.

GOODMAN: And, Ruby, overall, the Dakota Access pipeline, what it means to you? Did you and Jessica go to the resistance camps at the time of the last year during the height of the resistance?

MONTOYA: I actually met Jessica on the Mississippi River. Prior to that, I was a preschool teacher in Boulder, Colorado. And I found out about the Dakota Access pipeline. I read about what they were intending to do, to put these dirty petroleum pipes underneath our major water- ways here in the United States. And I was aghast by their intentions. So I quit my job, and I went to Standing Rock. And I was greatly comforted by the amount of people that were there, the amount of helping hands ready to do resistance work and community work. And I was following the Dakota Access pipeline so closely that I found out about Jessica Reznicek starting an encampment on the Mississippi River bore site. And I went there because I knew that there were not a lot of people there.

GOODMAN: Jessica, how did you get involved with the Catholic Worker movement?

REZNICEK: I met the Catholic Workers in Des Moines when they were at the forefront of the local Occupy movement at the Iowa State Capitol. Originally, I dropped out of college and went to Zuccotti Park to Occupy in New York. I received a call from a close cousin of mine in Des Moines who said, “Hey, they’re occupying Des Moines right now.” And so I came back to Des Moines. I started volunteering at the Catholic Worker—we have a soup kitchen that’s open five days a week—then moved in, and it’s been quite the journey ever since.