“Because we have been the center of the petroleum energy for so long, it makes sense that we would be the first to transition to green energy,” Halstead said. “Everybody knows that fossil fuels are going to run out, even if you don’t believe in climate change. We know everybody’s moving in this direction.”

Wearing an event T-shirt that read, “Love water, not oil. No Pipelines. No fracking. No tar sands,” Halstead called attention to the countless high pressure pipeline markers visible from the roadways, signifying the maze of oil pipelines underground.

Years ago, he said he suddenly realized the pipelines run directly beneath his son’s school and his neighbors’ backyards.

"Literally running under my child's playground," he said.

One of the event’s featured speakers included Chris Wahmhoff, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 2013, Wahmhoff skateboarded into an Enbridge pipeline as a way to protest a 2010 rupture of a pipeline that spilled nearly 1 million gallons of tar sands crude oil into the Kalamazoo River.

Communities with industry for neighbors pay the greatest price and risk to public, he said.