In fact, the Fennica hadn’t seriously tried to leave.
When the Fennica headed down the Willamette at dawn July 30, it was a feint—a brief trip chiefly made to collect ammunition for Shell’s federal court fight with Greenpeace, according to several government officials monitoring the standoff.
Less than an hour after the Fennica turned around, Shell’s lawyers filed motions in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Alaska, declaring Greenpeace had violated an April court order not to interfere with Shell’s drilling fleet.
At 10:48 am, U.S. District Judge Sharon L. Gleason ruled Greenpeace in contempt of court, and ordered the activists to pay Shell $2,500 for every hour they hung from the bridge.
Those fines—which Gleason said would spike to $10,000 an hour by the morning of Aug. 2—were big enough to make Greenpeace shiver. Perhaps more importantly, the judge’s ruling signaled to state and local officials that the Greenpeace activists were on the wrong side of the law.
“The court order did confirm for us there’s a responsibility to free up the bridge,” says Brian Shipley, Gov. Brown’s chief of staff. “It put a finer point on the fact we needed to do something.”
At that moment, Brown and Hales had already supported the removal of the Greenpeace activists from the bridge.
The two leaders talked by phone the night of July 29. People familiar with the call tell WW that Brown and Hales mostly tried to figure out who was in charge. They concluded it was the Coast Guard.
Brown and Hales were both stuck in an awkward position. They both face re-election next year, and crave the support of environmentalists.
Brown’s honeymoon with the environmental lobby hit the skids in June, when she unsuccessfully tried to bargain away a low-carbon fuel standard in exchange for a statewide hike in the gas tax. Both the mayor and the governor also needed to demonstrate that Portland was open for business. Hales especially felt pressure after his May about-face to block the propane pipeline proposed by Canadian company Pembina.
Yet staffers in Brown’s and Hales’ offices say they never seriously considered letting the protesters stay in the air indefinitely.
“Despite our own personal feelings, the ship had legally done nothing wrong, and was someone else’s private property,” says Josh Alpert, Hales’ chief of staff. “Because the protesters had done a tremendous job of getting their message out, the next step was to return the property to its owner. Using the law as our guide was the only option.”
Hales had another worry: The longer the Greenpeace activists stayed in the sky, the greater the chance that protesters gathering in Cathedral Park would put down roots and attract new allies. Sources tell WW the mayor wanted to avoid a repeat of Occupy Portland, which took over two downtown parks for 39 days in 2011.
As Greenpeace’s and Shell’s lawyers argued over the phone with the federal judge in Anchorage on July 30, Hales arrived at the U.S. Coast Guard “Station Portland” on Swan Island—a building that became the war room for law-enforcement efforts to get the activists down.
Hales was met by Brown’s top staffers. (The governor had just boarded a plane to travel to Washington, D.C., for a previously scheduled visit with Oregon’s congressional delegation.)
Inside the station, Coast Guard brass walked state and city officials through a plan to lower the dangling activists to the water.
Local officials were dubious. They worried aloud about worst-case scenarios. What if the activists refused to come down? What if they fought with police in midair? What if that struggle caused a protester to plunge out of the sky? What if the crowd on the shore started to riot?
The mayor’s and the governor’s staffs left the station a few minutes before noon having signed off on a plan: A Portland Police Bureau “rope rescue team” would first ask the Greenpeace activists to voluntarily come down to boats waiting below. If the protesters refused, the cops would transfer them to ropes held by law enforcement, and lower them against their will. They would remove enough activists to let the Fennica through that day.
At 1:32 pm, U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Daniel Travers set the plan into motion with an email to the governor’s office.
“As discussed,” Travers wrote, “I request Oregon Department of Transportation and Oregon State Police cooperation and support to close the St. Johns Bridge and assist with enforcement of federal and state law violations by the rappellers and potential non-compliant kayaktivists/other protesters. Please advise if you need anything else from me. Thanks greatly for your support!”
Thirteen minutes later, Shipley gave the go-ahead.