Water

Protect Pinyon-Juniper Forests Campaign Will Falk in a Pinyon-Juniper clearcut (Photo by Max Wilbert) Deep Green Resistance and WildLands Defense are advocating for a moratorium on all pinyon-juniper deforestation in the Great Basin and we need your help. Pinyon-juniper forests are being wantonly killed as weeds while their inherent ecological value is summarily ignored. These forests store carbon dioxide, dampen climate change, provide crucial wildlife habitat, protect watersheds, and have helped humans survive in the Great Basin for millennia. A moratorium gives us time to marshall our resources to put this destruction to a permanent end. ...

We hope you enjoy the first edition of our DGR Southwest news roundup. Protect Pinyon-Juniper Forests Campaign Image: Will Falk surveying the devastation of Pinyon-Juniper deforestation (Photo: Max Wilbert) WildLands Defense are advocating for a moratorium on all pinyon-juniper deforestation in the Great Basin and we need your help. Pinyon-juniper forests are being wantonly killed as weeds while their inherent ecological value is summarily ignored. These forests store carbon dioxide, dampen climate change, provide crucial wildlife habitat, protect watersheds, and have helped humans survive in the Great Basin for millennia. A moratorium gives us time to marshall our resources to put this destruction to a permanent end. ...

By Center for Biological Diversity 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. ...

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. ...

By Deep Green Resistance Great Basin 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. ...

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.) ...

By Cole Mellino, for Ecowatch California gets most of the attention in drought news coverage because so much of the state is in exceptional drought—the highest level—but 72 percent of the Western U.S. is experiencing drought conditions, according to the latest U.S. Drought Monitor data. 72 percent of the West is experiencing drought conditions and 25 percent is in extreme or exceptional drought. Photo credit: U.S. Drought MonitorWhen California’s snowpack assessment showed that the state’s snowpack levels were 6 percent of normal—the lowest ever recorded—it spurred Gov. Brown’s administration to order the first-ever mandatory water restrictions. California’s snowpack levels might be the lowest, but the Golden State is not the only one setting records. A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) finds that nine states reported record low snowpack. The report states: ...

Editor’s Note: This article was first published December 17, 2014, by Deep Green Resistance Colorado. We welcome your comments.by bellmeadowDGR Colorado Contributor I am reading “Against The Grain: How Agriculture Has Hijacked Civilization ” by Richard Manning and it is an amazing book. To begin: I have been thinking a lot lately about the issue of water and the disappearance of water, particularly out here in the Western Occupied territories. When I flew to California recently, I couldn’t help but notice the whole landscape beneath us looked like the surface of Mars, without the mystique. As with the Martian landscape, you could see where all the water used to run. I grimaced at the remnants of lakes that were, only a few years ago, full of water but were now dead or dying, at about 10% capacity. The scene was horrifying, and was compounded by the fact that the whole time we were in the air you could see smog, above the mountaintops, lining the ENTIRE trip. I’m sure the dying lakebeds and smog were unrelated. Even more terrifying than the reverse terraforming was the fact that the hundreds of people on the plane either didn’t pay attention, or care. ...

Max Wilbert, Susan Hyatt, Katie Wilson, and Michael Carter, Deep Green Resistance Southwest Coalition In late May 2014, members of Deep Green Resistance (DGR), Great Basin Water Network, the Ely-Shoshone Indian tribe, and others toured the valleys of eastern Nevada and western Utah targeted by the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) for groundwater extraction. [1] The region is part of the Great Basin, a cold desert named for its lack of any drainage to an ocean. What rain falls in the Great Basin remains there in a few streams, ponds, lakes, springs, and aquifers. It is these aquifers that SNWA wants to pump into a central pipeline and bring to the cities of Las Vegas and Henderson. The Goshute and Shoshone tribes and many groups, local individuals, businesses, and governments oppose the project, now stalled by lawsuits. DGR initiated the Sacred Water Tour to help familiarize potential opponents with the land and the water conflict. ...

This is a pond on the Goshute Reservation, below the Deep Creek Mountains. This place will be turned to barren desert if the SNWA pipeline project goes through. Photo via Stop the SNWA Water Grab. ...