Radical environmentalists

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

New York Times, April 20, 2000

Radical Environmentalist Convicted of Gas Well Blast in Canada

By JAMES BROOKE

EDMONTON, Alberta, April 20 -- Canada's most famous environmental radical,
Wiebo A. Ludwig, went to prison today after a judge here convicted him of
bombing a gas well in 1998 and encasing another wellhead in concrete.

Ruling in the heart of Canada's oil and gas country, the provincial judge,
Sterling Sanderman, also convicted Mr. Ludwig, a former evangelical pastor,
of three additional explosives-related charges.

The judge convicted Mr. Ludwig's close friend Richard Boonstra of plugging
the other gas wellhead in 1997. Mr. Boonstra was released on bail.
Sentencing for both men was set for next week.

The eight-week trial captivated Canada as Mr. Ludwig, with his Old
Testament beard and 21st-century knack for television sound bites, used the
court proceedings to lambaste Alberta's oil and gas industry for
callousness toward the environment.

Last year, Mr. Ludwig's arrest ended a wide investigation by the Mounties
of a rash of 160 acts of vandalism against the oil industry in the forests
and farmlands in northwestern Alberta, one of the most concerted campaigns
of anti-industry sabotage in Canada.

Mr. Ludwig, now 58, moved from Ontario 15 years ago to set up a religious
farm commune in Hythe, about 250 miles northwest of here. His three oldest
sons married Mr. Boonstra's three daughters, and the clan grew to 34 members.

But in the late 1980's, during a boom in natural gas production, a company
won permission from the province, which owns most mineral rights here, to
drill gas wells in and around Mr. Ludwig's 316-acre farm.

The wells produced sour gas, a gas laced with hydrogen sulfide, a
neurotoxin that can be as deadly as cyanide. In the last 30 years, about 30
oil and gas workers in Alberta have been killed by accidental exposure to
the gas. In 1991, at Mr. Ludwig's Trickle Creek farm, gas was leaked into
the air, forcing a temporary evacuation.

During the 1990's women in the clan suffered four miscarriages, part of a
wider cluster of health complaints, including memory loss and eye and
throat infections. With thousands of wells in the area burning flares of
excess gas into the night sky, Mr. Ludwig also blamed pollution for his
loss about 60 sheep and cows.

"We buried four children, we lost lots of animals -- how can you not be
concerned about the environment?" Mr. Ludwig demanded during a trial break
in February.

Before his arrest in January 1999, his oratory had become increasingly
violent. In the fall of 1998, after he had publicly suggested that oil
executives -- "men in pinstripe suits" -- be made targets, a farmer near
Calgary shot to death the vice president of an oil company. Reminded of the
comment at the farmer's trial, Mr. Ludwig said, "Inadvertently, I guess it
was a prophecy."

Mr. Ludwig's stance attracted attention among North American environmental
radicals.

In Alberta, where oil and gas sustain the economy, what is now called the
"Wiebo factor" has helped to spur environmental controls. Alberta's
government has promised to phase out gas flaring in two years. At the same
time, Western Canadian provincial governments are spending $7.5 million to
study health impacts of gas production. In the face of lawsuits and public
opposition, oil and gas companies now work more closely with farmers about
the placement of wells.

But Mr. Ludwig has alienated many Canadians by his aura of violence.


Louis Proyect

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