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Micklem released, weighs in from home on protest actions

WATKINS GLEN, Nov. 21 -- The 86-year-old protester jailed Wednesday night for refusing to pay a fine in Reading Town Court for trespassing on Crestwood energy company property -- and injured when he fell on the way to the jail-transport van -- was released from the Schuyler County lockup Thursday and returned home.

Sheriff Bill Yessman said he visited Micklem in his cell and made sure he was checked over by a nurse, determined that Micklem was on "a bunch of medications," and in conversation learned that the elderly detainee had in fact injured his back earlier in the week -- before his court appearance -- and was in discomfort on the steel bed in his cell.

"I asked the District Attorney to petition the court," Yessman said, for permission to release Micklem "for medical reasons, and (County Judge Dennis Morris) permitted it."

The Sheriff said he asked Micklem "to go home, enjoy Thanksgiving and heal before going back to protesting. He's a very passionate man. He says he's not giving up" on the protest movement.

Micklem, back home in Geneva, prepared a letter distributed in an e-mail by Gas Free Seneca. It reads:

“I believe Sheriff Yessman is a good man, and I was treated well in jail. He’s just doing his duty and I’m doing mine also. We are just on opposite sides of this thing. It’s not our fault that the sheriff’s department is underfunded. Crestwood is probably contaminating the lake water with salt. Brine caverns are proven to leak and collapse.

"Methane leaks from almost all of these facilities and is a potent green-house gas. It affects the whole planet. Every leak in every facility creates a multiplier effect exacerbating the climate effect. This is probably the only planet in the galaxy that supports life, and we are headed to an extinction level of damage to the atmosphere. It has cosmic significance.

"We like admirers. I think I’ve gone up a hat size since this started. We’d prefer joiners, though, and I don’t mean you have to stand up at the gates and freeze in this weather. Write, write, write, develop formidable literary skills. I was thinking about a letter to the editor when I found out I was being released.”

Photo in text: Roland Micklem

 

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