Tag: infrastructure

3 Power Substations Vandalized in Washington State as Thousands Lose Power

At least three power substations were vandalized on Christmas Day in Pierce County, Washington state, according to officials in an update that comes just weeks after another substation was vandalized in North Carolina.

The Pierce County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that one Tacoma Public Utilities substation was vandalized in Spanaway, located between Olympia and Tacoma, at around 5:30 a.m. local time on Dec. 25. Police said the incident led to power outages in the area.

A second Tacoma Public Utilities substation was vandalized a short time later, officials said. “Deputies arrived on scene and saw there was forced entry into the fenced area. Nothing had been taken from the substation, but the suspect vandalized the equipment causing a power outage in the area,” deputies wrote on Facebook.

Later on Dec. 25, at around 7 p.m., a Puget Sound Energy substation was vandalized after a fire was reported on-site, according to the sheriff’s office.

“The fire was extinguished and the substation secured. Power was knocked out for homes in Kapowsin and Graham. The suspect(s) gained access to the fenced area and vandalized the equipment which caused the fire,” Pierce County sheriff’s officials said. “There are no suspects in custody at this time.”

It added that “all law enforcement agencies in the county have been notified of the incidents and will be monitoring power substations in their area,” noting that “power has been restored to most of the affected homes.”

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Biden Wants $8 Billion In Taxpayer Funds To Shut Down Coal Power In South Africa

With the UN and other interests already interfering in Africa’s energy development, Joe Biden announced at the US-Africa Business Forum a plan for American taxpayers to shell out at least $8 billion to shut down effective coal fired energy plants in South Africa so they can be replaced with far less effective and far less efficient green-energy alternatives.

In other words, the goal of climate change cultists is to use $8 billion of America’s money to diminish South African infrastructure. 

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What We Know—and Don’t Know—About Recent Power Grid Attacks

The lights are coming back on in Moore County, North Carolina, where tens of thousands of people were plunged into darkness after two power substations were shot up over the weekend. 

But days later, there are still no answers about who might have been responsible for the attack or what their motivation was. 

The attack on the Duke Energy substations coincided with a planned drag show in Southern Pines that had been the target of an escalating harassment campaign by far-right extremists in the area. The timing fueled speculation that the attack could have been ideologically motivated, part of an increasingly violent assault on LGBTQ rights and events nationwide.

So far, law enforcement have not found evidence that the drag show and substation attack were linked, but anti-LGBTQ terrorism has not been ruled out as a potential motive, sources told CNN. Investigators are also exploring other possibilities—including whether the attack in Moore County is part of a broader campaign from extremists to attack critical infrastructure in the U.S. 

Law enforcement, however, appears certain that whoever was responsible for the attack “knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said Sunday. Investigators found nearly two dozen shell casings at the crime scenes. The office also applied for search warrants earlier this week. 

The attacks took place on Saturday night at around 7 p.m., local time, when one or more people shot up two separate substations using high-powered rifles. Residents in the area lost power and heat for several days, as temperatures fell to 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The state of North Carolina, Moore County, and Duke Energy are offering $25,000 reward for information each, totaling $75,000. The FBI also posted a public notice seeking information about the attack.  

While investigators search for clues, news of other recent attacks on power substations elsewhere in the U.S. have also come to light. At least five such attacks on electricity substations in Oregon and Washington were reported to the FBI since late November, The Seattle Times reported. 

Oregon Public Broadcasting obtained memos by Kenneth Worstell, a security specialist with the Bonneville Power Administration (the federal agency that markets hydropower across the Pacific Northwest). They offered some details on an attack on a power station in Clackamas County on Thanksgiving morning.

Worstell wrote that two individuals cut through the fence surrounding that facility and then “used firearms to shoot up and disable numerous pieces of equipment and cause significant damage.” Worstell also described attacks on several other substations in western Washington, which entailed “setting the control houses on fire, forced entry and sabotage of intricate electrical control systems.” They also caused short circuits by tossing chains into the overhead web of wires and switches. 

He said that they were dealing with “quickly escalating incidents of sabotage” and noted that online extremist groups encourage such attacks. 

On Wednesday evening, 146 miles south of Moore County, CBS reported yet another possible incident involving critical infrastructure, also belonging to Duke Energy. An individual in a truck opened fire near crews outside the Wateree Hydro Station in Ridgeway, South Carolina, before driving off. Local authorities have since determined the shooting in South Carolina to be “a random act” that just happened to take place near a hydro station and had no discernible connection to the attacks in North Carolina.

And in September, half a dozen “intrusions” were reported at Duke Energy facilities in Florida, according to federal documents obtained by NewsNation. In at least two of those incidents, the intruder manually tripped equipment that caused short power outages. 

Critical infrastructure has long been eyed as a desirable target by accelerationist neo-Nazis —who seek the collapse of society through destabilizing, violent acts—and anti-government extremists. Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security circulated an intelligence bulletin warning that, since 2020, domestic violent extremists had “developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure.” The bulletin mentioned that power companies had been on the receiving end of escalating threats between 2020 and 2021 from extremists. 

In February, three men between the ages of 20 and 24 were arrested as part of an alleged plot to attack power substation using powerful rifles “to damage the economy and stoke division” all “in furtherance of white supremacist ideology.” 

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The US Is Now Propping Up Tiny Moldova’s Energy Sector Too

This week US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the US is prepping more aid to the Ukrainian government, particularly focusing on propping up its devastated energy infrastructure, but also for the first time unveiling that the tiny country of Moldova will be receiving significant aid for its failing energy grid.

“We know that standing up for Ukraine means accepting difficult costs, particularly for our European allies, but the cost of inaction would be far higher,” Blinken began in Wednesday comments. “Caving to Russia’s aggression, accepting its brazen attempts to redraw borders by force, to tear up the rulebook that has made all of us more secure – that would have repercussions not only in Europe but quite literally around the world.”

That’s when he announced decisions made at a NATO meeting of ministers in Romania: “When we convened that group yesterday here in Bucharest, I announced that the United States will commit over $53 million to send equipment to help stabilize Ukraine’s energy grid and keep Ukraine’s power and electricity running.”

He specified $1.1 billion going to both Ukraine and Moldova:

We’ve also submitted a request to Congress for $1.1 billion to secure Ukraine and Moldova’s energy sector and restore their energy supply.  And we will take strong, coordinated action to ensure that President Putin cannot hold the rest of the world hostage to weaponized energy.

Starting last month, Moldovan authorities began informing Western allies it is suffering “massive” blackouts in relations to stepped of Russian airstrikes in neighboring Ukraine.

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As Sludge Pours from Mississippi Sinks, Biden Admin Seeks $13 Billion MORE for UKRAINE

According to Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, although the water treatment plant finally failed in August, the system “has been failing for decades” and nothing is being done.

“I have said on multiple occasions that it’s not a matter of if our system would fail, but a matter of when our system would fail,” Lumumba said.

Even before it failed, the city had been on a months-long boil notice because of a warning over disease carrying bacteria in the water supply. Since 2016, officials knew about the corrosion of the system and inadequate treatment — yet nothing was done — and now sludge pours from Jackson residents’ water taps.

Lumumba estimates that it would take roughly $1 billion to get the systems back up and running in a safe capacity but they don’t have it. This is particularly perplexing to many folks who have watched a record amount of US taxpayer dollars in recent months flow outside of the United States and into Ukraine.

Since the war in Ukraine began in February, Biden authorized $1.3 billion followed by an additional $13.6 billion. This original $15 billion of your tax dollars that got dumped into Ukraine to arm literal Nazis in the region was offensive enough but it was just the tip of the iceberg. In May, the House passed yet another massive spending bill, authorizing another $40 billion in your tax dollars to arm Nazis and keep the country at war. And they show no signs of slowing down.

Since then, various packages of cash and weapons of mass destruction, ranging from just a few hundred million to a billion, have flowed into the arms of welcoming Ukrainian politicians and military leaders.

In late August, the Pentagon announced that yet another $775 million would be sent to Ukraine. As Antiwar.com reported, this was the eighteenth weapons package to Ukraine in six months. But that wasn’t enough, apparently.

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There Has Been A Series Of “Mysterious Explosions” At Natural Gas Facilities In The United States

Are we under attack?  Previously, I have written about a series of very strange fires that have occurred at key food production facilities in the United States this year.  Authorities insist that each one of those fires was an “accident”, and maybe they are correct.  But now the same thing is starting to happen to the energy industry.  In particular, we have seen a number of “mysterious explosions” at natural gas facilities in the United States during the past two months.  Of course natural gas prices were already spiking dramatically all over the world, and so this string of disasters comes at a really bad time.

On Saturday, an absolutely massive explosion at a very important natural gas facility in Medford, Oklahoma made headlines all over the nation.  The following comes from CBS News…

A large fire Saturday afternoon engulfed a natural gas plant in the small northern Oklahoma town of Medford. Video posted to social media showed heavy flames and smoke billowing hundreds of feet into the air.

The fire occurred at a “natural gas liquids fractionation facility” operated by ONEOK, a company spokesperson confirmed in a statement to CBS News.

The explosion that caused this fire was so large that it actually caused “a 1.74 magnitude earthquake”.

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A Biden Tax Hike Kicked In That Affects Everything From Soap To Lightbulbs

An excise tax hike on household items that was buried in President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure package last year went into effect on July 1, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

A roughly $13 billion tax increase on 42 chemicals, metallic elements and critical minerals was included in Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Common household items like rubber, soap, concrete, plastics, lightbulbs and electronics will be impacted. 

Superfund chemical excise taxes were previously in place between 1987 and 1995, according to the IRS. The infrastructure package, which the White House called “a once-in-a-generation investment,” triggered the re-implementation of the taxes.

Funds from the reinstated excise tax will be partially directed to the Superfund Trust Fund, which is administered through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and responsible for “cleaning up some of the nation’s most contaminated land and responding to environmental emergencies, oil spills and natural disasters.”

The tax impacts Americans who import, produce or manufacture qualified chemicals, Bloomberg Law reported. Importers, producers and manufacturers will pay between $0.48 and $9.47 per ton in tax on chemicals, the outlet reported.

Republicans have been critical of the Biden administration for imposing the taxes amid soaring inflation and supply chain crises. Inflation reached 8.6% in May from a year prior, which is the fastest increase in 40 years.

G7 leaders unveil $600 billion infrastructure plan to tackle Chinese influence: President Biden commits $200 billion in funding for solar farms, vaccine plants and communications links around the world

The White House announced plans on Sunday to spend $200 billion on solar projects in Angola, an undersea telecommunications cable linking the Far East with France via Egypt, and nuclear power production in Romania as part of a huge G7 infrastructure plan designed to compete with China‘s massive Belt and Road initiative.

The proposals were unveiled on the first day of the G7 summit in Germany, where world leaders met to discuss the global economy and Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

In all, G7 nations will commit $600 billion to the effort over the next five years, President Joe Biden announced, calling the investment a humanitarian, economic and security concern.

Biden spoke with the rest of G7 leadership standing behind him, the Bavarian Alps visible in the distance. 

‘Developing countries often lack the central infrastructure to help navigate global shocks, like a pandemic, so they feel the impacts were acutely, and they have a harder time recovering,’ he said. ‘That’s not just humanitarian concern. It’s an economic and a security concern for all of us.’

The money will be spent in a variety of sectors, including health, climate, energy and gender equity.

‘These strategic investments are areas of critical to sustainable development, and our shared global stability, health and health security, digital connectivity, gender equality and equity, climate and energy security,’ Biden said.

He argued the investment would boost the U.S. economy and economies around the world.

‘I want to be clear this isn’t charity. It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone, including the American people and the people of all our nations. It will boost all of our economies. It’s a chance for us to share our positive vision for the future,’ he said. 

The White House said its $200 billion in grants and federal financing would help low income countries meet their economic and national security needs.

‘And this will only be the beginning: the United States and its G7 partners will also seek to mobilize hundreds of billions in additional capital from other like-minded partners, multilateral development banks, development finance institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and more,’ said the White House.

Biden named the idea ‘Build Back Better World’ – after his troubled domestic agenda – when he introduced it at last year’s G7 summit.

Now it is called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure.

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The US Bombed A Vital Dam In Syria, Lied About It, & Called Anyone Who Reported The Truth “Crazy”

Many years too late, it appears The New York Times has suddenly discovered that the United States has been committing war crimes in Syria, coming long after it was clear Washington was pursuing regime change in Damascus. With Assad still in control of most of the country, US efforts have turned to far-reach sanctions of late, which have greatly increased the sufferings of common Syrians. Like with Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq before, the Times was the foremost cheerleader for that war, laundering Pentagon and admin propaganda, and only many years later admitting the truth that it was all based on lies… so now it seems to be going with Syria.

In its latest reporting, the NY Times has “uncovered” that an elite US military unit intentionally targeted and destroyed a large dam which was vital to the daily life and survival of tens of thousands of people near a vital Euphrates River reservoir. When the 2017 bombing of the Tabqa Dam (or al-Thawra Dam as it’s also called) was first reported, a top American general labeled those accusing the US of being behind it as “crazy”. Like much mainstream media reporting on Syria, those who had it right in real time – many from independent and alternative media – were dismissed as “conspiracy theorists” and loons, but now this…

The fresh NY Times reporting begins, “Near the height of the war against the Islamic State in Syria, a sudden riot of explosions rocked the country’s largest dam, a towering, 18-story structure on the Euphrates River that held back a 25-mile-long reservoir above a valley where hundreds of thousands of people lived.”

The US had quickly dismissed those accusing the US of being behind the attack. And since Russia was among them, it was easy for the Pentagon to bat it down as but the “propaganda” of America’s enemies in the region…

The Islamic State, the Syrian government and Russia blamed the United States, but the dam was on the U.S. military’s “no-strike list” of protected civilian sites and the commander of the U.S. offensive at the time, then-Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, said allegations of U.S. involvement were based on “crazy reporting.”

“The Tabqa Dam is not a coalition target,” he declared emphatically two days after the blasts.

Multiple Syrians had been killed and wounded in the attack, including dam workers and engineers who had rushed to the scene to save it. 

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