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LAS VEGAS— The Center for Biological Diversity today notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management of its intent to sue the agencies for allowing groundwater pumping that will feed Las Vegas sprawl but would dry up the springs and aquifers that sustain the Moapa dace. The dace is an endangered fish found only in the headwater springs of the Muddy River, about 60 miles north of Las Vegas in the Moapa Valley Wildlife Refuge.

Moapa dace, US Fish and Wildlife Service

The notice challenges the failure of the federal agencies to consider vital new information about how the Kane Springs Valley Groundwater Development project and the Coyote Springs Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan — both previously approved by the agencies — will impact Moapa dace habitat and the Warm Springs area of the Muddy River. The amount of groundwater proposed to be pumped in Kane Springs and Coyote valleys, for current and proposed sprawl development, is unsustainable and could drive the dace to extinction.

“Siphoning this water away will spell disaster for one of the rarest native fishes in Nevada,” said Rob Mrowka, a senior scientist with the Center. “These agencies have a moral and legal responsibility to protect this endangered species. This new science shows these groundwater pumping projects will severely affect the water flows that the Moapa dace needs to survive. Letting these projects proceed will, in all likelihood, push this fish into extinction.”

Recent groundwater-pumping tests show that groundwater developments will destroy Moapa dace habitat at a time when the endangered fish, found only in the upper Muddy River and its warm tributary springs, is showing modest increases in its numbers. The ongoing and proposed groundwater pumping and withdrawals alter the flows from the springs and negatively impact the precise flow, temperature and water chemistry that the dace require for long-term survival.

“The good efforts by the Fish and Wildlife Service to restore habitat on the Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge will go for naught if sprawl developments and golf courses siphon off the precious groundwater before it reaches the springs the dace live in,” said Mrowka.

The 60-day notice is a requirement for a citizen suit under the Endangered Species Act. Click here to find out more about the Moapa dace.

Water: Southwest Coalition Statement of Commitment and Call for Allies

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by Deep Green Resistance Southwest Coalition

Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting over. —Mark Twain

More than any other area of North America, the Southwest faces water shortages just as demands for water increase. These colliding forces are inevitable products of industrial civilization. Deep Green Resistance chapters across the Southwest recognize the imminent catastrophe. We view the protection of ground and surface water, and the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights to their water and landbase, as critically important. We declare water preservation and justice as our primary focus.

Deep Green Resistance Southwest Coalition is a confederation of DGR action groups located in the southwest region of North America. While each group focuses on ecological and social justice issues specific to their region, as a Coalition we work together to reinforce each group’s efforts. Our members include:

Deep Green Resistance Colorado Plateau

Deep Green Resistance Sonoran

Deep Green Resistance Colorado

Deep Green Resistance Great Basin

Deep Green Resistance Chaparral

Great Basin Spring, Goshute Reservation

The Increasingly Arid Southwest

The region is among the driest areas in the world. The southwest receives only 5-15 inches of rainfall a year[1] and nearly all climate models predict an increase in both aridity and flooding with global warming.[2] As increasing temperatures force the jet stream further north and more surface water is evaporated (notably in desert reservoirs like Lake Powell where an average 860,000 acre-feet of water—about 8 percent of the Colorado River’s annual flow—is lost every year),[3] overall precipitation is decreasing even as summer storms paradoxically become more intense. And there is no margin of safety from which civilization can draw—the Colorado River, for example, is already fully allocated; all the water is claimed.[4]

Agriculture is far and away the largest water consumer: California’s Imperial Irrigation District consumes 3.1 million acre-feet of Colorado River water every year, compared to the rest of Southern California, which gets only 1.3 million.[5] Large amounts of water are also used for oil and gas drilling—an estimated 100,000 gallons per fracked well[6]—and coal mining and burning.

Lake Mead water levels. By Ken Dewey, Climate.gov

The water shortage is already wreaking havoc among wildlife. In California, the drought is partially implicated in the deaths of tens of thousands of native waterfowl. As water sources dry, birds congregate around remaining oases like fountains and irrigation ditches. In such close quarters, disease spreads quickly. Other victims of water scarcity in California include scores of thousands of bark beetle-killed trees—so much so that these results “herald a region in ecological transition.”[10] Unsurprisingly, 2015 is among the worst California fire seasons ever.This year, twelve western states declared drought emergencies.[7] On April 25, 2015, the largest US reservoir, Lake Mead, dropped to an historic low of 1,080 feet. That record surpassed the previous low set last August; Mead has never been lower since it was filled in the 1930s.[8] These conditions are unlikely to improve. In spring of 2015, snowpack in the Sierra Mountains measured at just 5 percent of normal.[9]

Desperate Measures

These unprecedented changes are driving ever more desperate and costly projects, such as the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s planned multi-billion-dollar pipeline project in eastern Nevada’s and western Utah’s arid basin and range country. If completed, the project would pump billions of gallons of groundwater to Las Vegas, threatening the Goshute Indian reservation, the livelihoods of ranchers, many rare endemic species, and the land itself.[11]

A proposed California water pipeline may move as much as 7.5 million acre feet of northern California water south a year. It was just revised to include only a third of the originally planned habitat protection, re-allocating water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Situated between California’s wetter north and its dry and populous south, the delta contains one of California’s largest remaining wetlands, home of green sturgeon, steelhead, and endangered Delta smelt.[12] More extreme are plans to siphon off some of Canada’s abundant water to California.[13] As drought and demand continue their increasing arcs, however, these desperate plans for massive water transfers become more acceptable to many.

The Only Sane Response

The government-industry axis takes water from the less powerful, regardless of any natural rights such groups may have.[14] This cannot continue, not even beyond the very short term. When the unstoppable force of increasing demand for water—continuing without limit—meets the immovable object of shrinking water supplies, environmental devastation and injustice swiftly follows.

DGR Southwest Coalition supports any protective or restorative action for ground and surface water, including the removal of dams and reservoirs by any means necessary. At the same time, we advocate for and support the dismantling of the systems (capitalism specifically and industrial civilization generally) as the only strategic way to safeguard the planet, and to keep it from degrading into a barren, lifeless husk. These are daunting tasks, no doubt, even if we limit our focus to the southwest; and yet, it’s a critical calling for all of us who care for life and justice.

We are reaching out to others who also view water protection and justice as values worth fighting for. For example, preserving instream flows (what’s left in a stream channel after other allocations) and groundwater protection—from fracking, from water mining, from surface contamination. We offer whatever expertise and resources we can muster, and all the passion we have, for our landbase. We’re ready to work with those who struggle with these problems; we’re also ready to take on whatever role is necessary in support of their fights.

This fight should be shared. Please contact us so we can network with you in pursuit of water, justice, and life.

swcoalition@deepgreenresistance.org

[1] C. Daly, R.P. Neilson, and D.L. Phillips, 1994. “A statistical-topographic model for mapping climatological precipitation over mountainous terrain,” J. Appl. Meteor., 33(2), 140-158, as displayed in http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/pcpn/westus_precip.gif

[2] Melanie Lenart, “Precipitation Changes,” Southwest Climate Change Network, September 18, 2008, http://www.southwestclimatechange.org/node/790#references

[3] “Glen Canyon Dam,” Wikipedia, accessed December 10, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Canyon_Dam. An acre-foot is about 325,853 US gallons.

[4] Brett Walton, “In Drying Colorado River Basin, Indian Tribes Are Water Dealmakers,” Circle of Blue, July 1, 2015, http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2015/world/in-drying-colorado-river-basin-indian-tribes-are-water-dealmakers/

[5] Tony Perry, “Despite drought, water flowing freely in Imperial Valley,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2015, http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-imperial-valley-20150412-story.html

[6] Rory Carroll, “Fracking In California Used 70 Million Gallons Of Water In 2014,” Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/02/fracking-california-water_n_6997324.html

[7] Elizabeth Shogren, “Senate considers legislation to help the West store and conserve water,” High Country News, June 3, 2015, http://www.hcn.org/articles/california-farmers-fear-irrigation-water-will-go-to-salmon-instead

[8] Sarah Tory, “Canadian water for California’s drought?” High Country News, April 28, 2015, http://www.hcn.org/articles/could-canadas-water-solve-californias-drought-1

[9] Ben Goldfarb, “Fowl play: California’s drought fingered in bird deaths,” High Country News, April 2, 2015, http://www.hcn.org/articles/fowl-play-californias-drought-fingered-in-bird-deaths

[10] Keith Schneider, “California Fire Danger Mounts in Sierra Nevada Forests,” Circle of Blue, July 10, 2015, http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2015/world/as-california-drought-rebalances-sierra-forests-fire-danger-mounts/

[11] Stephen Dark, “Last Stand: Goshutes battle to save their sacred water,” Salt Lake City Weekly, May 9, 2012, http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/article-35-15894-last-stand.html?current_page=all

[12] Kate Schimel, “Gov. Brown slashes Sacramento Delta environmental protection,” High Country News, May 7, 2015, http://www.hcn.org/articles/gov-jerry-brown-slashes-delta-environmental-protection

[13] Sarah Tory, “Canadian water for California’s drought?” High Country News, April 28, 2015, http://www.hcn.org/articles/could-canadas-water-solve-californias-drought-1

[14] Ed Becenti, “Senate Bill 2109 Seeks to Extinguish Navajo and Hopi Water Rights,” Native News Network, April 4, 2012, http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/senate-bill-2109-seeks-to-extinguish-navajo-and-hopi-water-rights.html

Stop the Frack Attack Prioritizes Male Entitlement over Saving the Planet

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By Deep Green Resistance Colorado

Dear Reader, do you believe women, including those who have been raped by men, have the right to not be forced to share their most intimate spaces with males?

If you believe women have the right to say no, you will not be allowed to table at the Stop the Frack Attack National Convention.

Why? Because evidently the right of males to colonize women’s most intimate and vulnerable spaces is more important to these organizers than the rights of women to say no.

What does this have to do with a conference on fracking? We believe that just as communities have the right to say no to fracking, so, too, women have that right.

As radical environmentalists (and radical feminists), we in Deep Green Resistance oppose any and all threats to the future of the planet. This includes the recent spread of hydraulic fracturing as a method of oil extraction, a particularly vicious expression of this culture’s contempt for the living world. Because of this, we were understandably excited when we saw that Denver would be host to the Stop the Frack Attack (STFA) National Convention this week, and immediately reached out to see about tabling and distributing materials for our organization. Unfortunately, the leaders of STFA made it very clear to us that feminist perspectives are not welcome at their event.

Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is being barred from STFA because, according to the organizers of this conference, we support a “gender binary.” This notion is absurd. No one in DGR supports the gender binary – in fact, we oppose it so strongly that we don’t think those who struggle to fit inside one suffocating category should mutilate their bodies to fit inside the other. Sadly, transgenderists seem to disagree.

The real reason for our being censored is simple: We don’t think one abolishes an oppressive system by creating more categories in between the powerful and the powerless. On every issue except gender, most activists agree with us. After all, Capitalist societies don’t have a “class binary,” but no one thinks that makes the proletariat any closer to liberation. The bloodthirsty Spanish colonizers had at least six racial categories in their so-called New World; did that stop the indigenous from being slaughtered? And if not, then why on Earth would a non-binary gender system do anything to stop men from raping and killing women?

DGR believes the ideal number of genders isn’t three, or four, or dozen, or a million. It’s zero. We aim for a world where no one, male or female, is defined by a set of violent stereotypes called masculinity and femininity. And we can’t get there so long as these patriarchal, culturally constructed notions of Man and Woman are turned into essential aspects of human beings. Abolishing patriarchy means acknowledging that the social roles of this culture are not natural, not innate, and not acceptable – yet transgenderists are determined to naturalize the structure of women’s oppression by turning gender into an identity.

Critics of DGR like to portray us as somehow protecting or defending traditional definitions of gender, but nothing could be further from the truth. Deep Green Resistance encourages and supports anyone who resists the abusive and violent gender system – and the greatest example of such resistance is women saying no to men. Inside a political structure wherein people with penises are taught to disregard, belittle, and abuse people with vulvas – we call this structure “gender” – the truly non-conforming position for males is to defend and support those boundaries, not find new reasons for breaking them. Men force women to sacrifice their spaces every single day in this culture; doing the exact same thing while wearing lipstick and a dress doesn’t make it radical.

In a world teetering on the brink of destruction, we in Deep Green Resistance are absolutely amazed that an activist would turn his back on a committed environmentalist group solely because that group thinks rape victims shouldn’t have to shower and sleep with men. Sadly, many women in DGR are not surprised; they are very used to male activists putting the feelings of men above the physical safety and security of women. If the organizers of Stop the Frack Attack truly want to strike a blow against our restrictive and oppressive gender system, they could start by challenging their own entitlement and misogyny, clearly displayed here for all to see.

In the meantime, thank you to the STFA organizers for at least being clear about their solidarity with males.

Kim Hill: Sick

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Editor’s Note: This essay, by Deep Green Resistance Australia member Kim Hill, first appeared in Stories of Creative Ecology. Worldwide 40 percent of all human deaths are attributable to industrial pollution, according to Cornell University. In the US Southwest, coal mines and power plants, oil and gas fracking, agricultural chemicals, mining and smelting wastes, military wastes, and many other hazards all pose a risk to the health of humans and other living things.

I think I’m dying. My heart is beating too fast, I’m too weak to get out of bed most days, and some days I don’t even have the energy to eat. It’s been like this for years. It’s been getting gradually worse.

I haven’t read a book, taken a walk, watched a movie, visited a friend, or done anything useful in months. I can’t focus, can’t even think most of the time.

I’m not the only one. Many of my friends are also ill. I see the sickness all around me. Every year there are less fish in the sea, less birds in the trees, less insects. The air smells more toxic, the industrial noise is getting louder. Every day, 200 species become extinct. Most rivers no longer support any life. Around half of all human deaths are caused by pollution. We’re all dying of the sickness.

My own illness can be attributed to heavy metal and chemical toxicity, from mining, vaccines, vehicle exhaust, and all the chemicals I’m exposed to every day, indoors and out. They’re in my food, in the air, in the water I drink. I can’t get away from them. There’s no safe place left to go. I can’t get any better while these are still being made, being used, being disposed of into my body.

It’s not just chemicals, but electromagnetic fields, from powerlines, phones, wifi and cell phone towers. The food of industrial agriculture, grown in soils depleted of nutrients and becoming ever more poisoned, is all I can get. It barely provides me with the nutrients I need to survive, let alone recover. Let food be thy medicine, but when the food itself spreads the sickness, there’s not much hope for anyone.

When the soil life dies, the entire landscape becomes sick. The trees can’t provide for their inhabitants. They can’t hold the community of life together. The intricate food web, the web of relationships that holds us all, collapses.

Will I recover? With the constant assault of chemicals, electromagnetic fields, and noise, it seems unlikely. Will the living world recover, or will it die along with me, unable to withstand the violent industries that extract the lifeblood of rivers, forests, fish and earth, to convert them into a quick profit?

Western medicine can’t help me. All it can offer is more chemicals, more poisons. And new technology can’t help the land, the water, the soil. It only worsens the sickness.

If I am to heal, the living world must first be healed. The water, the food, the air and the land need to recover from the sickness, as they are the only medicine that can bring me back to health.

The machines need to be stopped. The mining, ploughing, fishing, felling, and manufacturing machines. The advertising, brainwashing and surveillance machines. The coal, oil, gas, nuclear and solar-powered machines. They are all spreading the sickness. It’s a cultural sickness, as well as a physical one. Our culture is so sick that it barely acknowledges the living world, and has us believe that images, ideas, identities and abstractions are all we need. It all needs to stop. The culture needs to recover, to repair.

I need your help. I can’t do this myself. I’m close to death. To those who are not yet sick, those who have the strength to stand with the living, and stop the sickness: I need you now. Not just for me, but for everyone. For those close to extinction, those who still have some chance of recovery. We all need you.

Today is the last day on Earth for many species of plants and animals. Every day, the sickness consumes a few more of us. If I didn’t have friends and family looking after me, I wouldn’t be alive today. When the whole community becomes sick, there is no-one left to take care. This is how extinction happens.

It doesn’t have to happen. It can be stopped. Some people, mostly those in the worst affected areas, are taking on the sickness, fighting because they know their lives depend on it. They see the root cause of the affliction, not just the symptoms. They are taking down oil rigs, derailing coal trains, and sabotaging pipelines and mining equipment. They’re blockading ports, forests, mine sites and power stations, and doing everything they can to stop the sickness spreading further. They are few, and they get little thanks. They need all the help they can get. With a collective effort, the sickness can be eradicated, and we can all recover our health.

If you are not outraged, why not?

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From WildLands Defense Colorado

Blaze, the mother bear just killed in Yellowstone, with a family of cubs.

If you are not outraged at the way this culture destroys life, why not?

If you are not outraged at the murder of Blaze just two days ago, why not?

If you are not outraged at John Waggoner for annihilating 2000 acres of prairie dogs for a tract home development, why not?

Bison that are continually under threat of being killed for roaming or because they are blamed, much like prairie dogs, for the spread of brucellosis. If you are not outraged at the continuous slaughter of the last remaining bison in Yellowstone that happens yearly, why not?

If you are not outraged at Wildlife Services for killing over 2 million animals—at taxpayers expense, on a yearly basis—why not?

This culture continually destroys the planet and time is running out. 200 species go extinct each and every day. 99% of grassland prairies are destroyed, 98% of old growth forests gone, every single stream is full of dioxins, along with every mother’s breast milk.

Echo, the beautiful wolf killed by a hunter who was never penalized. If you are not outraged about Echo, the beautiful wolf that traveled 750 miles to the Grand Canyon only to be shot by a hunter who got away with this atrocity without any repercussions, why not?

All of the integral keystone species of life are on the chopping block, heading fast towards extinction. Our strategies and tactics MUST change. We can not stand by any longer and watch our world continuously unravel as the sociopaths lead all of us closer and closer to extinction.

Two beautiful prairie dogs recently poisoned by John Waggoner at the Crowfoot in the Castle Rock Colorado area

It is time to fight, fight for the living, to do what it takes to save what remains. Don’t continue to turn away. Insist on protecting life and defending your beloved by any means necessary. It is time we roll up our sleeves and get to work. Let us all join together, realize what is at stake, and begin the hard work of forcing change that will protect the future.

Visit WildLands Defense or Deep Green Resistance to find out how to help.

4 Arrested Blockading Utah Tarsands Mine

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Editor’s Note: this first appeared on EcoWatch.

By Andy Rowell, Oil Change International

Dozens of environmental activists have signaled that the expansion of the tar sands in Utah will not happen without a fight.

Yesterday, about 40 protestors disrupted the work on the Utah tar sands strip mine, the first to be built in the U.S., located in the Book Cliffs wilderness area.

A person is pulled by police from atop a tripod during a site-wide work blockade at the U.S. Oil sands tar sands strip mine Monday. Photo credit: Peaceful Uprising — A person is pulled by police from atop a tripod during a site-wide work blockade at the U.S. Oil Sands tar sands strip mine Monday. Photo credit: Peaceful Uprising

The activists blocked a road using two tripods trying to stop traffic on the road which the tar sands firm, U.S. Oil Sands, is constructing south east of Salt Lake City.

The company is starting an $80 million construction phase to start to strip mine tar sands rock and turn it into fuel.

The company operates on land traditionally inhabited by the Ute people, which is now managed and leased to private corporations by the state of Utah.

By the end of yesterday, four people had been arrested by police using cherry pickers to evict them. At one stage yesterday, though, the cherry picker itself had to stop work as one activist locked on to the vehicle itself.

All the activists arrested were bailed out by late yesterday.

Melanie Martin from the group behind the protest, Peaceful Uprising, told the local media that they wanted to avoid the wanton destruction of Utah as had happened with the tar sands in Alberta.

“Looking at what’s happening downstream to the Indigenous people in the Athabasca region of Canada has had a major impact on propelling this campaign forward,” she said. “Many people in Utah are very afraid of that happening here and of the impacts it would have on the Colorado river.”

Martin added: “Nothing has reassured us whatsoever that their project would be anything but a toxic mess for the Colorado Plateau region, or the southwest U.S.

The protest comes as the dangers of mining were reflected recently in the area when one million gallons of wastewater containing lead, arsenic and cadmium leaked into the Animas River in nearby Colorado from a long-abandoned gold mine, turning the river bright mustard yellow for several days.

The response from the tar sands company to yesterday’s protest was farcical, with the CEO of the tar sands mine—Cameron Todd—saying “We’re the environmentalists. We’re the people that are here looking for a sustainable future.”

Todd though was disappointed that no one believes him and the protests are set to continue.

Peaceful Uprising is planning more vigils as well as an action camp.

80,000 Acres of Land in Southern Nevada up for Fracking

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By Deep Green Resistance Great Basin

$Antifracking02$

Editors note: this post comes from the folks at Save Nevada’s Water: Ban Fracking In Nevada. While the comment period for the BLM ends soon, public pressure and action against these projects can continue to be effective even afterwards. After all, these are supposed to be federal lands and federal agencies – we’re supposed to be in charge, not the corporations.

For those of you that haven’t heard already, the Nevada BLM has put out an environmental assessment on 80,00 acres of land they are opening up for oil and gas lease sale only a few moments away from Mesquite, and the Virgin River that drains into Lake Mead.

There is a comment period out until the 24th of July. We urge you to comment now and have your friends comment too. We have a goal of 10,000 comments in opposition to this gas oil lease sale. Please help us by copying and pasting the letter below onto this link https://eplanning.blm.gov/epl-front-office/eplanning/comments/commentSubmission.do?commentPeriodId=26082

And if you are willing please email the above letter to eyfoweb@blm.gov, or call the Ely district office at 775-289-1800 and provide your comments over the phone.

Letter to BLM Ely District Office Regarding the 24th of July Comment Period for the Environmental Assessment

Dear Ely District Office of the Nevada BLM,

I write to you today as a member and supporter of Save Nevada’s Water: Ban Fracking in Nevada, Nevadan’s Against Fracking, and as a concerned citizen to comment on what a horrible idea it is to frack in the area currently slated for gas and oil lease sales along the Southern/ Northern Border of the Ely and Southern Nevada BLM districts in Nevada that is also nestled in the Virgin River Valley.

The area as your assessment puts it “is a rock formation found within the analysis area are indicative of a continental plate margin converging with an oceanic plate.” The quoted line indicates that you are allowing the fracking of areas that are riddled with fault lines. These fault lines will only increase the certainty of contamination of our precious ground water and surface water resources. The area slated for fracking is also directly connected to the Virgin River itself which ultimately drains into Lake Mead. This further compounds complications that will arise from contamination as Lake Mead serves as the only drinking water supply of Las Vegas. The fact also remains that the state of Nevada does not require the full disclosure of the chemicals used in Fracking, which will also mean that neither you the BLM, nor the public will know what is being put into our water, and how to monitor it if at all. Furthermo re your assessment does not explicitly include details of how deep the water table goes in the area, where the fault lines of the area are, what level of interconnectivity there is between the Virgin and Muddy Rivers and the aquifers in the area. We have to assume that you the BLM will be relying on the oil and gas developers to do the aforementioned leg work, which is simply dangerously irresponsible and reckless.

Your assessment with regards to what fracking will do to the local flora and fauna is also lacking. Your assessment does not include any information as to the effects this lease will have on native migratory birds of the area. You rely only on the hope that oil and gas developers will adhere to existing regulations and assume that will be enough to protect sensitive species. The aquifers in the area feed water into the Virgin and Muddy Rivers which house endangered species, not just threatened or protected species, and you make no mention on the safeguards against contamination, and or an action plan for when contamination occurs. The area is also part of desert tortoise habitat. Besides the harm this lease sale will result in for the local ecology, there will be profound effects to humans in the rest of Southern Nevada.

If the fact that we are in a historic drought, and that the water that will be used for these drilling projects is coming from our own ground water is not enough reason to not permit the lease of these lands, then what about the protection of historic and cultural resources? The areas slated for drilling are also in the Moapa Valley, home to the Moapa Band of Paiutes. The area deserves to be free of this sort of irreparable damaging process. Your assessment states that “Less than 10% of the Ely District has been adequately inventoried for cultural resources.” And your report goes on to say “The lease of oil and gas parcels does not entail ground disturbing activities as part of the undertaking. Therefore, this undertaking would not result in impacts to Cultural Resources.” The above quoted statement is completely false and should be retracted. I would even goes as far enough to say that the person that wrote that line in the assessment should be fired, and put under investigation for corruption as I am certain they are on the take of some oil or gas company. In order to even get to the area to set up rigs, there has to be surface disturbance. What the frack is wrong with the person that wrote this section of the assessment?

I urge the Ely District of the Nevada BLM to reconsider the need to even offer these lands for oil and gas lease sales, and instead stop any and all gas lease sales until the process of fracking has been banned by the Nevada Legislature or Congress, therefore saving much of Nevada’s precious groundwater resources, and making the BLM good stewards of the land they can and should be. The BLM has many other issues to address like drought, cataloging cultural resources, ecological studies, and brushfires. Gas and oil lease sales should not be one of the priorities of the Nevada BLM. The fact is that the administration of the BLM can simply ignore the push from certain legislators and industry to lease land for oil and gas development. If the BLM of Nevada stops issuing these gas and oil lease sales, you will have the support of the people of Nevada in your decision to do so.

I appreciate your consideration of my comments, and respectfully ask that you stop giving a frack about the people and entities that are pushing you to hold these gas oil lease sales and act on the behalf of the public to be the best stewards of the land we the public, your real bosses want you to be.

Kindest regards,

YOUR NAME

Sealed Fate of the Crowfoot Valley Prairie Dog Colony

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by Deanna Meyer, Deep Green Resistance Colorado

The crowfoot valley prairie dog colony site, with thousands of burrows covered over and poisoned. The once vibrant landscape was full of jump yips and prairie dog calls just a week ago. Now the entire landscape is eerily silent, with turkey vultures, eagles and ravens circling the area to feed on poisoned prairie dogs.

When we visited the Crowfoot site to confirm the mass annihilation of the last large colony of prairie dogs in the Castle Rock area, we found that all the burrows were packed hard as concrete. I tried to shovel out the burrows but could not because they were packed so tight. Fumitoxin was most likely the poison used to kill this amazing colony. I think it is very difficult, but extremely important, for all of us to understand what fumitoxin does to these prairie dogs. I kept imagining the thousands upon thousands of prairie dogs trapped in their burrows suffering excruciatingly from the horror that John Waggoner and his hired hands brought to these sentient beings.

Derrick Jensen researched the effects of fumitoxin and wrote the following description of what happens to these prairie dog families. The only thing that is not spot on about this description is the length of time it takes for a prairie dog to die. Fumitoxin causes a slow death, between 2-7 days as the animals inner organs slowly melt and bleed out inside of them.

One of the burrows at the Crowfoot Valley site where Lowe Enterprises hired exterminators to bury the prairie dogs alive by shoving poison in their holes and packing them tight as concrete to seal in their fate.

This is what happens.

You don’t panic when the first entrance is sealed. There’s no reason to: that’s why there are multiple exits. You move to the next exit. It also is sealed. You’re still not concerned. Of all places, this is where you’re supposed to be safe. Nonetheless it is troubling that two entrances are sealed. You check out a third, and a fourth. All sealed.

You’re not the only one to notice. Many of the younger members of your community are confused, discomfited. You and some of the others of older generations reassure them, the same way members of older generations among your kind have always reassured those younger when they’re scared. You say again and again, “It’s going to be okay.”

Others do start to calm. Then one of your daughters—she’s nothing more than a pup, really—begins to complain of nausea. Her grandmother —your mother—rushes to her side, begins to stroke her head and back, talking to her constantly. Then one of your nephews doubles over, begins moaning from abdominal cramping. Someone, too, rushes to his side. The nephew lets go with explosive diarrhea. This does not deter the elder from comforting him.

You find the father of your children. You sense something wrong. You cannot tell what it is. He opens his mouth as if to speak, and blood gushes out. Without a thought you begin touching and stroking his hair, whispering to him. Blood starts coming from his nose, from his other orifices. He cramps, then begins to convulse. He tries to speak. You say to him softly, “Don’t talk. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

Another burrow packed in by prairie dog exterminators.

You’re having a hard time holding down your own panic. Around you, your friends and family are losing control of their bodies. They are vomiting, defecating, bleeding all over themselves. Some are moaning or keening. A few are screaming. You want to attend to them, but you need to help your love.

And then his body stiffens, seizes, seizes, then seizes. Something shifts inside of him, and something leaves, and he is finished.

You turn away, turn toward the chaos that until very recently was your community. You begin to bark out commands, telling this one to take care of the young, that one to start trying to find a way out. You don’t know what is killing you all. You just know there must be a relationship between the forced sealing of the entrances and the deaths that have now followed. But no one seems to be listening to you. They are vomiting, convulsing, seizing. Those who can still control their limbs are clawing at the walls. You move from individual to individual, trying to calm those you can, comfort those you can’t. You keep saying to anyone who will listen, “We will get out of here.”

And then you feel it. Your mouth begins to water, and the first wave of nausea rolls through you. You force it down, but it returns. Your chest tightens, and in that moment you know—as you’ve known all along, but would not allow yourself to say, even to yourself—how this will end. You begin to vomit blood, and you desperately wish that there was someone here to touch and kiss and stroke you, someone to whisper to you over and over, “It’s going to be okay.”

But no one appears.

Prairie dog pup who made it to the surface by digging out of his burrow before being killed by Fumitoxin poison.

Contact John Waggoner, the individual in charge of directing this mass killing, if you haven’t done so already.

John Waggoner
Lowe Enterprises
303-850-2401
email: johnwaggoner@loweenterprises.com

Also contact the founder and executive director of Lowe Enterprises to let them know that we will not accept this slaughter and do not want this development in our community and world.

Robert Lowe: robertlowe@loweenterprises.com

More on the “Magicke” of Green Technology

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By DGR Colorado

Deep Green Resistance understands that Green Technology, Renewable Energy and other similar terms/approaches are a false promise. They will not, and can not, deliver us from the devastation that industrial civilization is wreaking on the planet. We’ve posted that before on this forum (see The Deep Green Resistance Perspective).

Stories of Creative Ecology has posted its own list of “Ten things environmentalists need to know about renewable energy” which we re-post below. As you read the list, you may be convinced that such magical thinking as relying on technology to save us from ecological collapse is whistling past the graveyard. We hope you do! Of course, such a conclusion begs the question, “So then what the hell do we do?”

Simple: Dismantle industrial civilization.

What’s wrong with renewable energy?

Posted June 25, 2014 by Kim

Ten things environmentalists need to know about renewable energy:

1. Solar panels and wind turbines aren’t made out of nothing. They are made out of metals, plastics, chemicals. These products have been mined out of the ground, transported, processed, manufactured. Each stage leaves behind a trail of devastation: habitat destruction, water contamination, colonization, toxic waste, slave labour, greenhouse gas emissions, wars, and corporate profits. Renewables can never replace fossil fuel infrastructure, as they are entirely dependent on it for their existence.

2. The majority of electricity that is generated by renewables is used in manufacturing, mining, and other industries that are destroying the planet. Even if the generation of electricity were harmless, the consumption certainly isn’t. Every electrical device, in the process of production, leaves behind the same trail of devastation. Living communities—forests, rivers, oceans—become dead commodities.

3. The aim of converting from conventional power generation to renewables is to maintain the very system that is killing the living world, killing us all, at a rate of 200 species per day. Taking carbon emissions out of the equation doesn’t make it sustainable. This system needs not to be sustained, but stopped.

4. Humans, and all living beings, get our energy from plants and animals. Only the industrial system needs electricity to survive, and food and habitat for everyone are being sacrificed to feed it. Farmland and forests are being taken over, not just by the infrastructure itself, but by the mines, processing and waste dumping that it entails. Ensuring energy security for industry requires undermining energy security for living beings (that’s us).

5. Wind turbines and solar panels generate little, if any, net energy (energy returned on energy invested). The amount of energy used in the mining, manufacturing, research and development, transport, installation, maintenance and disposal of these technologies is almost as much—or in some cases more than—they ever produce. Renewables have been described as a laundering scheme: dirty energy goes in, clean energy comes out. (Although this is really beside the point, as no matter how much energy they generate, it doesn’t justify the destruction of the living world.)

6. Renewable energy subsidies take taxpayer money and give it directly to corporations. Investing in renewables is highly profitable. General Electric, BP, Samsung, and Mitsubishi all profit from renewables, and invest these profits in their other business activities. When environmentalists accept the word of corporations on what is good for the environment, something has gone seriously wrong.

7. More renewables doesn’t mean less conventional power, or less carbon emissions. It just means more power is being generated overall. Very few coal and gas plants have been taken off line as a result of renewables.

8. Only 20% of energy used globally is in the form of electricity. The rest is oil and gas. Even if all the world’s electricity could be produced without carbon emissions (which it can’t), it would only reduce total emissions by 20%. And even that would have little impact, as the amount of energy being used globally is increasing exponentially.

9. Solar panels and wind turbines last around 20-30 years, then need to be disposed of and replaced. The production process, of extracting, polluting, and exploiting, is not something that happens once, but is continuous and expanding.

10. The emissions reductions that renewables intend to achieve could be easily accomplished by improving the efficiency of existing coal plants, at a much lower cost. This shows that the whole renewables industry is nothing but an exercise in profiteering with no benefits for anyone other than the investors.

Lake Mead watch: six inches from the level that triggers cutbacks

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Editor’s Note: This originally appeared on High Country News.

Deep Green Resistance chapters across the Southwest have declared water protection and justice our primary focus. Join us in dismantling the systems that would leave our planet dry and lifeless.

If water curtailments go into effect, which states are most vulnerable, and why?

Sarah Tory, June 17, 2015

Record rain across much of the West in May has provided Lake Mead with a much-needed boost – alleviating concerns about possible cutbacks in water deliveries from the nation’s largest reservoir. But a month of rain does not solve Mead’s falling water levels. For nearly two decades, the reservoir, which straddles the Arizona-Nevada border, has been shrinking due to prolonged drought and over-allocation. Mead hasn’t been full since 1998 at 1,221 feet above sea level and in the past 15 years alone, it has dropped 135 feet. Now it’s 37 percent full and just six inches away from reaching the 1,075-foot threshold that triggers cutbacks in deliveries for the three lower basin states – Arizona, Nevada and California – all of which depend heavily on Colorado River water stored in Lake Mead. (The trigger point doesn’t apply to the Upper Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.)

But as long as the surface level is at least 1,075 feet above sea level when crucial measurements are taken in January 2016, those cutbacks will be avoided. If not, the Secretary of the Interior will declare a shortage in Lake Mead and the curtailed deliveries, along with other water rationing measures, will go into effect early next year.

On June 15, the Bureau of Reclamation predicted that Lake Mead will be at 1,081.58 feet by the end of 2015, above the benchmark level that would trigger water curtailments. That’s an improvement from last month when the Bureau was predicting Mead would be at 1,075.96 feet, said Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the bureau’s Lower Colorado Region.

So, what happens to the Lower Basin states if the Interior Department declares an official shortage in Lake Mead? According to the Colorado River Interim Guidelines, a 2007 agreement to address water shortages:

Arizona will face the biggest curtailment of annual water deliveries from Lake Mead. Its 2.8 million acre-feet will be cut by 370,000 acre-feet (one acre-foot is enough to supply two average homes for a year), a 13 percent reduction. Farmers who rely on water piped east by the Central Arizona Project, whose water rights are the most junior, will be the hardest hit. Farmers along the western edge of the state who use water from the main stem of the Colorado River won’t be affected by the first round of curtailments. Neither will tribes, industrial users or major cities. Overall the short-term economic impact will be slight, said Michael Cohen, an expert on water use in the Colorado River basin at the Pacific Institute, a water-policy think tank. That’s because Arizona has stored more than 3 million acre-feet of water underground, providing farmers with a back-up supply that will soften the impacts of a shortage.

Next in line is Nevada, which faces a 13,000-acre-feet reduction to its usual 300,000 acre-feet delivery from Lake Mead, a 4 percent cut.

California, meanwhile, can keep withdrawing its full allotment from Lake Mead. This dates back to the negotiations during the ’60s between Arizona and California over the Central Arizona Project, a massive aqueduct that pumps water 336 miles from the Colorado River into central and southern Arizona. To get the project approved by Congress, Arizona needed California’s help. But California saw that at some point there might not be enough water to go around, so it decided to support Arizona’s bid only if Arizona agreed to take more junior water rights.

But California’s deal isn’t as sweet as it sounds. A recent report called ‘The Bathtub Ring’ from graduate students at the University of California, Santa Barbara in conjunction with the Western Water Policy Program, shows that, although California is exempt from the first round of curtailments, 13 million people in Los Angeles are still among the most vulnerable. That’s because the state currently consumes its full Lake Mead allotment and also relies on bonus water it gets through efficiency measures. The program that allows them extra water in exchange for conserving will be put on hold when curtailments go into effect. That means L.A.’s Metropolitan Water District will lose its ability to draw on 662,000 acre-feet annually of surplus water.

Nevada will be largely immune to the first round of delivery cuts from Lake Mead. Though the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which provides for nearly 2 million people in Las Vegas, gets 90 percent of its water from the reservoir, the state gets credit for water it reuses. So if a provider pumps 5,000 acre-feet from the reservoir, but then treats 3,000 acre-feet and returns the treated water to Lake Mead, it’s only on the books for 2,000 acre-feet. Even with the curtailment, the state’s return flow credit program allows Nevada to keep its consumptive water use below its allotted amount.

Should the water levels continue to drop below the 1,075 foot mark, as they are expected to in years to come, more cuts will be required. Below 1,025 feet, the Lower Basin states will have to negotiate new water shortage guidelines.

Sarah Tory is an editorial fellow at High Country News.