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Fight over Grand Canyon pits Native Americans against John McCain

Fight over Grand Canyon pits Native Americans against John McCain

By on Jun 17, 2016 3:45 pmShare

President Obama has already protected over 265 million acres of land and water in the U.S. — more than any other president in history. He’s headed out west this weekend to Carlsbad Caverns and Yosemite to celebrate that record, at the same time that there is a battle underway in Arizona to see one more region protected before he exits office.

Sierra Club and Native American tribal leaders have been organizing local support for designating 1.7 million acres around the Grand Canyon as the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument. Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, has taken up the cause, proposing a long-shot bill to create the monument. Activists argue it would mean better protection for areas that have been harmed by uranium mining (there is a 20-year moratorium on new uranium mining in the greater Grand Canyon region). The Orphan Mine, a former copper and uranium mine in the area, closed in 1969 and is now a highly radioactive waste site.

While conservation efforts are popular among residents — 85 percent support national monuments and a plurality want more to be done for the Grand Canyon area — some lawmakers and business interests are pushing back. Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake have advised Obama against conservation that would “lock away” land from development, even though the designation would only block uranium mining. The opposition is flanked by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which called the proposal a “monumental mistake.”

But activists would say that leaving tribal sites and the Southwest’s largest old-growth Ponderosa pine forest unprotected would be its own monumental problem.

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Fight over Grand Canyon pits Native Americans against John McCain

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Drive-by Truckers’ Long Road Stretches On

Mother Jones

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Drive-By Truckers
English Oceans
ATO

Twelve studio albums is a long time to maintain your edge, but Drive-By Truckers show no signs of fatigue on the compelling English Oceans. While the band has maintained a consistent identity over the years, telling hard-luck stories of everyday people with nonjudgmental eloquence, subtle changes have helped them stay fresh, namely new faces in the supporting cast and a gradual shift to a greater sharing of creative power. Where Patterson Hood seemed to be the main driving force in the early days, fellow writer and singer Mike Cooley has emerged as a more substantial and confident contributor, and provides 6 of the 13 songs here. His folkier voice may sound too understated at first, but serves as an effective counterpoint to Hood’s bluesier and brasher displays. Highlights include “Made Up English Oceans,” inspired by real-life political smear master Lee Atwater, and the epic, eight-minute lament “Grand Canyon.”

Equally adept at dirty, two-fisted rock and tender ballads, Drive-By Truckers still have their mojo. Long may they roll.

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Drive-by Truckers’ Long Road Stretches On

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Enviros step up fight over oil shale mine in Utah

Enviros step up fight over oil shale mine in Utah

zeesstof

The mining is planned for Utah’s Book Cliffs.

Environmentalists are, unsurprisingly, not happy about a scheme to strip-mine parts of the Utah desert and toast them at 725 degrees for months on end to get at oil shale deposits.

Oil shale doesn’t actually contain oil, but it can be processed into synthetic oil via an elaborate and expensive process. This Utah project would be the first oil shale mine in the U.S.

Environmental groups are ratcheting up their fight against the plans. Here are the details from a press release put out Wednesday by the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust, and three other groups:

Oil shale strip mining atop Utah’s Book Cliffs is being challenged by conservation groups. The challenge is a “request for agency action” filed Tuesday, over the ground water discharge permit approved by the Utah Department of Water Quality. The permit, which authorizes Red Leaf Resources to test an oil shale mining facility, lacks measures to prevent or detect surface or groundwater pollution, in violation of state law. …

“The scheme used by Red Leaf Resources is basically the same as it was for failed ventures a century ago: mine it, crush it, sort it, put it in an oven, heat it, gather the liquid into a sump, hope that it doesn’t burn the facility down, and get it to a refinery before it congeals,” said John Weisheit, conservation director with Living Rivers.

Red Leaf Resources is dismissing the environmentalists as carbon haters. Deseret News reports:

Jeff Hartley, Red Leaf’s spokesman, said the objection by the environmental groups is less about water and more about energy philosophy.

“My response to criticism of oil shale is that either you hate carbon-based energies or you don’t. And if you hate carbon-based energy sources, you will never like oil shale,” he said. “And if you realize that oil, gas and coal are part of our energy portfolio, you have to embrace oil shale, that it will be successful, and that is what Red Leaf will prove out.” …

Hartley said the goal is for Red Leaf to be producing 300,000 barrels of oil by the end of 2015 — representing the world’s first commercial production of oil shale in decades.

No, Mr. Hartley, to “realize” that gas and oil are currently a part of our energy portfolio most certainly does not mean that one has to “embrace oil shale.” That’s some bullshit logic.


Source
Controversial Utah Oil Shale Project Challenged, Grand Canyon Trust
Fight erupts over uintah basin oil shale mining project, protection of water, Deseret News

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Enviros step up fight over oil shale mine in Utah

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Uranium mining is coming soon to the Grand Canyon area

Uranium mining is coming soon to the Grand Canyon area

Paul Fundenburg

So much for that ban on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon that Obama imposed early last year. The U.S. Forest Service just went ahead and gave a Canadian company approval to begin mining for uranium a mere six miles from the Grand Canyon National Park’s South Rim entrance, which nearly 5 million people visit every year.

Canadian company Energy Fuels Resources says its rights to mine the area, granted in 1986, should be grandfathered in, and the Forest Service concurred. In response, three environmental groups and the local Havusupai Tribe filed suit in March against the feds. They say the 1986 environmental impact review that originally gave the mine clearance needs to be updated. From The Arizona Republic:

Opponents say newer studies indicate pathways for trouble. One study, conducted in preparation for an old development plan at Tusayan, found that groundwater pumping at that Grand Canyon gateway sucked water from the vicinity of the mine. Another, by the U.S. Geological Survey, included models based on known subsurface geology funneling water toward Havasu Springs.

The Forest Service had no way of knowing these things before the 1986 approval, Northern Arizona University hydrogeologist Abe Springer said.

“Nobody ever asked the question” back then, he said.

A spokesperson for the mining company argues, naturally, that the review is still adequate, and calls the old Canyon Mine, now set to reopen in 2015, “tiny.” But Roger Clark, director of Grand Canyon Trust, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, compares the area — which will be stripped of vegetation — to the size of a Walmart parking lot, and tells The Guardian about other contamination concerns:

Clark argues that uranium’s radioactive properties only become dangerous once it is brought up out of the ground and exposed to air and water. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, such properties include radon gas, a substance that was not regulated when the government conducted its initial study of the mine in 1986. The lawsuit contends that radon and other chemicals could pollute the area.

The mine is located on a site sacred to the Havusupai and other tribes, including the Hopi, Zuni, and Navajo. The Navajo are still fighting for a comprehensive cleanup of the hundreds of abandoned uranium mines scattered across their reservation, mines blamed for decades of health problems and deaths among residents unknowingly exposed to radioactivity.

Those mines, crucial in the Cold War years to the government’s nuclear weapons program, closed as the demand for, and price of, uranium dropped steeply in the 1990s. The Canyon Mine never became fully operational before its owners decided to cut their losses. But with the value of uranium soaring, the Guardian reports that …

… companies are moving to reopen old claims. Observers say the outcome of the lawsuit is important, because it could serve as a bellwether for how future attempts to re-open old uranium mining claims in the area will go. There are over 3,000 mines in the Grand Canyon area that hold such claims.

As much as we despise bottled water, you might think about bringing some on your next trip to the Grand Canyon.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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Uranium mining is coming soon to the Grand Canyon area

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