Looking to lessons learned for the upcoming Keystone XL battle Peter Rugh February 6, 2014 A Tar Sands Blockade activist shows off her banner in Nacogdoches, Texas. (Flickr / Tar Sands Blockade) When Steven DaSilva, a retired high school science teacher and member of the Sierra Club, first learned that the southern portion of a transnational tar sands oil pipeline would be built near his East Texas backyard in Nacogdoches County, he launched a petition drive and letter writing campaign to local politicians asking them to put a stop to it. Now, four years since picking a fight with pipeline builder TransCanada over the construction of the Keystone XL, DaSilva has emerged a changed man. Even though grassroots efforts to halt the project in his region have not succeeded, DaSilva believes the lessons he and other activists learned through their struggle with TransCanada will be useful in the upcoming battle over the pipeline’s northern section. Knocking on doors to gather signatures back in 2010, DaSilva found that many of his neighbors had never heard of the Keystone XL. Four years later, it has emerged as one of the most contentious political issues in the United States — one that, with [...]