Dakota Access Oil Pipeline: Invite CEO to Lunch, Go to Jail

FAIRFIELD, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- An Iowa man was arrested on Saturday, October 8, 2016 and charged with trespassing after attempting to deliver a letter and lunch invitation to Kelcy Warren, CEO of the company developing the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline. A short video of the incident can be seen by searching YouTube.com for "Dakota Access pipeline: Invite CEO to lunch, go to jail."

Patrick Bosold, a resident of Jefferson County, IA, said that he called Mr. Warren's office in Dallas, TX on September 28, 2016, and then mailed a letter and lunch invitation to Mr. Warren, which was delivered and signed for at his office on September 30.

Bosold said the letter urged Mr. Warren to order an immediate halt to all construction activity on the Dakota Access Pipeline, including at the site on the Mississippi River where drilling was being done to run the pipeline underneath the river. "My letter pointed out that opposition has been fierce from the beginning and is growing stronger," Bosold said. "There is a serious possibility that pending lawsuits will stop this pipeline from ever being completed or from carrying any crude oil if it is completed. I invited Mr. Warren to stop construction of the pipeline and meet me for lunch to discuss alternatives."

Bosold said that his letter suggested Mr. Warren and Energy Transfer Partners could take a new path forward and build a long-lasting investment in renewable energy. "The $3.9 billion that Mr. Warren has borrowed for the Dakota Access Pipeline can be equally divided and used to install 65,000 residential rooftop PV systems, build 325 two-megawatt utility scale wind towers that would generate over 3.5 billion kWh per year, and provide 160,000 homes with $8000 efficiency retrofit packages." Bosold said this investment would produce far more jobs than the pipeline project, with most of those jobs being local. 

Bosold said that when Mr. Warren failed to meet him for lunch on Saturday, October 1 he went to the Mississippi River drilling site on October 8 to deliver a copy of the letter and lunch invitation to the site foreman and ask for his assistance in contacting Mr. Warren. Bosold said that Lee County Sheriff's deputies and Iowa State Patrol officers put zip-tie handcuffs on his wrists and took him to the Lee County law enforcement center and jail, where he was charged with trespassing and then released.

"No hard feelings about the arrest," Bosold said. "I'd still like to have lunch with the guy. This is something that he should do right now. I'm willing to invest a few bucks in a friendly sit-down lunch to go over the numbers with Mr. Warren and make this happen."

Contact: Patrick Bosold, 641-919-8895, [email protected]  

SOURCE Patrick Bosold