6/7 #FearlessSummer Kick-Off Party – Denver’s Got Utah’s Back!

When: Friday June 7th 8pm

Where: Praxis, 1120 w 12th ave. Denver, CO (12th and Mariposa)

Stop the First Tar Sands Mine in the United States

Join us for a night of music, spirits and friends at Praxis!!
$5-10 Suggested Donation (no one will be turned away)

US Oil Sands, a Canadian based company, is planning to develop a tar sand extraction site in the majestic Book Cliffs of Utah, through which runs the Green River, a tributary of the Colorado. Tar sands extraction will drain our already over-taxed aquifers and poison our rivers. 30 million people depend on the Colorado River and we can’t afford to see more water pulled out of it to produce dirty energy. Extracting and refining tar sands and tar shale uses between 2.5 and 4 barrels of water per 1 barrel of crude oil produced. 90 percent of this water is returned, polluted, to vast, hellish holding ponds. This also produces 3 to 5 times more carbon than conventional petroleum reserves, contributing drastically to climate devastation. Tar sands and oil shale in Alberta, Canada have already wreaked havoc upon the landscape, turning it into an industrial landscape. Join us in our fight to protect these lands just north of Moab.

Performances by Eval Herz, Decollage, Unnamed Praxis Space Band and Seizure Rights!
For more information about Utah and the resistance to tar sands extraction please visit tarsandsresist.org  and wearefearlesssummer.tumblr.com

 

Pongamos un paro a la Primera Mina de Arenas Bituminosas en los Estados Unidos.

Únete a nosotros en una noche de música, humor y amigos en Praxis!
Donación sugerida de $5-$10 (nadie será rechazado por falta de fondos).

U.S. Oil Sands, una empresa con sede en Canadá, tiene la intención de desarrollar un sitio de extracción de arenas bituminosas en los majestuosos Book Cliffs de Utah, por el cual corre el río Verde, afluente del Colorado. La extracción de arenas bituminosas va a drenar nuestros acuíferos ya excesivamente agravados y va a envenenar nuestros ríos. 30 millones de personas dependen del río Colorado y no podemos darnos el lujo de ver más agua siendo utilizada para producir energía sucia. La extracción y refinación de arenas bituminosas y brea utilizan entre 2,5 y 4 barriles de agua por 1 barril de crudo producido. 90% de esta agua se contamina, a vastos estanques. Esto también produce 3 a 5 veces más carbono que las reservas de petróleo convencional, lo que contribuye drásticamente al cambio climático. Las arenas bituminosas y petróleo de esquisto en Alberta, Canadá ya han causado daños en el paisaje, convirtiéndolo en un paisaje industrial. Únate a nosotros en nuestra lucha para proteger estas tierras al norte de Moab.

Actuaciones por Eval Herz, Decollage, Unnamed Praxis Space Band y Seizure Rights!

Para mayor información acerca de Utah y la resistencia a la extracción de arenas bituminosas, por favor visite tarsandsresist.org  y wearefearlesssummer.tumblr.com

Twitter: @ColoradoER

SMS: text “@NoFrackCO” to 23559 or sign up online to receive text notifications on upcoming direct actions to defend Colorado against fracking

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http://coloradoer.tk/

Parachute Creek spill: Day 80

Reblogged from From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts:

Click here for the last known groundwater contamination map:  Benzene Concentrations in Groundwater & Isoconcentration Map 4-19-13

CDPHE Update -- May 24:  Parachute Creek surface water sample sites non-detect for benzene

On Monday, May 20, Parachute Creek surface water sample site 6 (CS6) had a benzene detection of 1.4 ppb. Since Tuesday, May 21, surface water sample location CS6 and all other surface water sample sites have been non-detect for benzene contamination.

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Will the Colorado River Get Fracked?

From EcoWatch:

Two months ago a story started ‘leaking’ out of Western Colorado about a fracked-gas pipeline break—loaded with cancer-causing benzene—with fluids heading toward and eventually into Parachute Creek which is a tributary to the Colorado River. As water wells close to the Creek started testing positive for benzene, and then as the Creek itself tested positive for benzene above drinking water standards, the news media started telling a story of how the Colorado River—a drinking water source for 35 million people across the Southwest U.S.—was threatened. As of this writing the leak is still not cleaned up and the creek is still testing positive for benzene.

This one leak may be the tip of the iceberg for fracking impacts in the Colorado River basin.

Across the Colorado River basin in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah and in Southern California, a huge boom in natural gas and oil exploration and drilling—all using the extremely dangerous and controversial extraction method of fracking—is taking place that is increasingly imperiling water resources. Fracking has these impacts on water resources:

1. Fracking uses enormous amounts of water.
2. Fracking uses cancer-causing chemicals.
3. “Spills and releases” of drilling and fracking fluids on the ground are commonplace during the drilling and fracking stage of each well.
4. Unless wells are drilled and fracked properly, chemicals can leak into surrounding groundwater. Even when wells are drilled and fracked to the highest standards, there’s no guarantee that cement casings around wells can’t break and leak over time.
5. After the drilling and fracking process, there’s no guarantee that fluids injected into the well can’t migrate up into groundwater through geological fissures and cracks.
6. Millions of gallons of waste products from each fracked well are so badly poisoned with cancer-causing chemicals that the water is never purified and returned to rivers and streams, and instead is usually injected into even deeper aquifers and wells where government regulating agencies hope it stays forever.

More than a hundred thousand active oil and gas wells in the Colorado River already exist, and approximately a hundred thousand new wells—all to be fracked—are proposed. Many of these existing wells are near streams that connect to the Colorado River and some are right beside the Colorado River, and all of the proposed wells are in the same locations. Billions of gallons of toxic water and waste products have already been injected into deep disposal wells across the Colorado River basin every year, and billions more are proposed. Cancer-causing fracking chemicals are sometimes stored in tanks and open pits on the surface right beside rivers, including the Colorado River.

Click here to read the full article…

Diné plan to block access for uranium transport

From the Albuquerque Journal:

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A uranium mining company seeking a mineral lease on state land in northwestern Arizona could have a hard time transporting the ore off-site because of the Navajo Nation’s objections to an industry that left a legacy of death and disease among tribal members.

The section of land in Coconino County is surrounded by the Navajo Nation’s Big Boquillas Ranch. The tribe has said it will not grant Wate Mining Company LLC permission to drive commercial trucks filled with chunks of uranium ore across its land to be processed at a milling site in Blanding, Utah.

The Navajo Nation was the site of extensive uranium mining for weapons during the Cold War. Although most of the physical hazards, including open mine shafts, have been fixed at hundreds of sites, concerns of radiation hazards remain.

The tribe banned uranium mining on its lands in 2005, and last year passed a law governing the transport of radioactive substances over its land. The ranch itself is not part of the reservation, although the Navajo Nation owns it.

“Given the (Navajo) Nation’s history with uranium mining, it is the nation’s intent to deny access to the land for the purpose of prospecting for or mining of uranium,” officials from the Navajo Department of Justice wrote in response to the mineral lease application.

The parcel of state land is in a checkerboard area of Arizona, east of the Hualapai reservation and south of the Havasupai reservation and Grand Canyon National Park. Tribal officials and the park superintendent have said any mining would threaten nearby water sources, though Wate Mining disputes that.

VANE Minerals spokesman Kris Hefton said mining would provide dozens of jobs in the remote area. VANE Minerals formed Wate Mining with Uranium One Exploration U.S.A. Inc.

The state parcel is reached by traveling on Interstate 40 to Seligman, then northwest on US 66 before hitting Indian Route 18. The company said it would need to construct a mile of road and improve some existing ranch roads to haul uranium ore.

Documents filed with the Arizona State Land Department indicate Wate Mining had requested approval from the Navajo Nation for the proposed access route, but the tribe said it has nothing on record showing that, nor does the state have access to the property.

“We have no intention of allowing them to cross Navajo lands unless they have appropriate access rights,” Navajo Deputy Attorney General Dana Bobroff said in an email.

Hefton declined to comment on road access and whether the Navajo Nation’s stance would impede the project.

Land Department spokesman Bill Boyd said it’s up to the applicant to secure whatever rights it needs to access neighboring, non-state trust lands. The parcel that Wate Mining is seeking to mine traditionally had been leased for grazing, Boyd said.

Wate Mining’s proposal would have seven trucks per day hauling uranium ore from the mine site over 1.5 years. The mine would operate five days per week, extracting 70,000 tons of ore that would produce 1.1 million pounds of processed uranium, or yellow cake.

Aside from a mineral lease, the company also needs permits from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

“We’d like to get this started as soon as we can,” Hefton said.

Energy-Rich Colorado Becomes Setting for Fracking Fight

Colorado, an oil-patch state long seen as friendly to energy producers, is becoming a battleground over hydraulic fracturing, the drilling process fueling the nation’s energy boom. Photographer: RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post via Getty Images

The mainstream media mother-Earth-fuckers at Bloomberg recently released this report:

Stan Dempsey, an oil and gas lobbyist, raced from one committee hearing to another in Colorado’s statehouse this spring, defending the industry against an onslaught of bills.

While only one of 10 measures passed, the flurry of activity is one of several worrying signs to Dempsey and others in the industry that Colorado, an oil-patch state long seen as friendly to energy producers, is becoming a battleground over hydraulic fracturing, the drilling process fueling the nation’s energy boom.

“The politics have shifted in the state,” Dempsey, president of the Colorado Petroleum Association in Denver, said in an interview. “Energy has become a big issue.”

The debate extends beyond the state capital. Two Colorado towns have banned fracturing, or fracking. Other communities are considering similar restrictions. Environmental groups — encouraged by what they see as rising populist anger over drilling — are now exploring a statewide ban on fracking through a 2014 referendum measure.

At stake for developers is access to resources that have made Colorado the nation’s fifth-largest producer of natural gas and the ninth-biggest oil producer. One group — the Western Energy Alliance, which represents about 400 oil and gas companies — says it plans to increase its lobbying budget four-fold to meet the threat.

Fracking Ban

“Fundamentally, a ban on hydraulic fracturing is a ban on oil and gas development in Colorado,” said Doug Flanders, a spokesman for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, another energy group based in Denver. “And it begs the question: if not here then where?”

Communities from New Jersey to California have also sought to impose restrictions on fracking, according to data kept by Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based environmental group.

In Colorado, communities have made the most direct challenges to fracking, which injects a mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground to break apart shale rock formations so oil and gas can flow to the surface.

Voters in Longmont overwhelmingly approved a ban on fracking in November. Fort Collins had a moratorium on the process. The city council voted May 21 to lift it after Prospect Energy LLC, the only oil and gas company operating within city limits, agreed to standards that are stricter than state rules.

Boulder Ban

Boulder, home to the University of Colorado, is also considering restrictions. Last night, the directors of FrackNation, which portrays the positive attributes of drilling, and GasLand2, which takes an opposing view, screened their films for residents.

“There is a new movement out there by local municipalities and communities to seize control of the permitting process,” said Tim Wigley, president of the Western Energy Alliance, whose members include Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) (APC) of The Woodlands, Texas, and Devon Energy Corp. (DVN) (DVN) based in Oklahoma City.

That’s worrisome, Wigley said, because it could add more delay to a state and federal process already slowing development.

Protect Our Colorado, a coalition of residents, social justice and faith groups, environmental organizations and companies such as outdoor apparel retailer Patagonia Inc., said it is considering pushing for a statewide limit on fracking through referendum on 2014.

“There’s nothing that’s off the table with regard to fracking and what would be on the ballot,” said Sam Schabacker, Mountain West region director for Food & Water Watch.

Predicts Defeat

Dempsey, of the Colorado Petroleum Association, said he was confident that ultimately the state’s voters would reject broader efforts to limit drilling.

“To pass a ballot initiative in Colorado takes a lot of work and a lot of money,” he said. Oil and gas companies historically have “contributed quite a bit of money in efforts to defeat ballot measures that would harm our industry.”

Colorado has a long history of oil and gas drilling. That’s one reason why oil and gas producers are wary of the growing resistance to fracking in the state.

A waterway that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska 100 million years ago left behind organic matter that time and pressure cooked into rich oil and gas deposits in Colorado. These include the Niobrara shale formation, which the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates may contain 2 billion barrels of oil, as well as the Wattenberg Field north of Denver.

High Production

In 2012, oil production in the state reached its highest level in 55 years, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the state agency that regulates the industry. Natural gas production increased by 27 percent from 2007 to 2011, according to agency information.

Wigley said the resistance to drilling in Colorado is being driven by new residents who aren’t used to seeing energy development.

“I’m not calling them dumb, they just don’t know where things come from,” Wigley said in an interview. “It’s a challenge to the industry, no question about it.”

The population of the eight counties along the Front Range, the scenic and resource-rich eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, grew on average 18.8 percent from 2000 to 2010.

The growth has helped turned the state from Republican red to Democratic blue. Colorado voted Republican for president six out of the seven elections between 1980 and 2004, before voting for President Barack Obama in the last two.

Click here to read the full article…

Litigation Threat Causes Boulder, Fort Collins to End Fracking Bans

Reblogged from Earth First! Newswire:

From the Boulder Journal

Environmentalists suffered two setbacks Tuesday when leaders in Fort Collins overturned an indefinite ban on hydraulic fracturing while commissioners in Boulder County decided to let their temporary fracking moratorium expire.

In a sharply divided 4-3 vote that saw comments fired back and forth between Mayor pro tem Gerry Horak and his colleagues last night, the Fort Collins City Council overturned the…

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Arizona Endangered Wolves Still on the Brink

Reblogged from Earth First! Newswire:

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The Arizona wolf-relocation project struggles as endangered lobos fall prey to guns and cars

by Brandon Loomis / the Arizona Republic

ALPINE, Ariz. -- A brown-streaked wolf — named Ernesta by her admiring captors — bounded from a crate and onto Arizona soil. She carries in her womb the newest hopes for a rare native species that is struggling to regain a footing in the Southwest.

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Emergency Community Meeting to Defend Boulder County From Hydraulic Fracturing

From Colorado Extraction Resistance:

From The Colorado Pledge of Resistance Against Continued Hydraulic Fracturing:

On Tuesday, May 21^st, the Boulder County Commissioners voted to allow the current moratorium against hydraulic fracturing in Boulder County to expire in June of this year. In doing so, the Commissioners turned their back on our health, the natural environment, and our democratic will to determine that this type of industrial activity has no place in our community.

On Sunday, June 2^nd, an emergency public meeting will be held to defend Boulder County from an industrial and political process that does not take our lives and well-being into consideration. This effort is bigger than environmentalism. This is an attack on our basic civil rights and we will organize and respond accordingly.

Please attend this very important meeting to inform yourself where Boulder County now stands in relation to future oil and gas drilling, and how to organize and use the analysis and tactics of the successful civil rights movements of the past. We will attempt to answer the enormous amount of questions from the community, and organize a campaign to ensure the future of our health, environment, and self-determination. As we have reached the end of all possible negotiations with the Commissioners and the State, and the community continues to be placed in harm’s way, this effort will necessitate the use of historic nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action.

Please join us at this historic crossroads.

Where: Unity Church, 2855 Folsom, Boulder County
When: Sunday, June 2^nd, 2 – 5 pm

Decolonizing Wild Roots Feral Futures

Reblogged from Unsettling America:

Wild Roots Feral Futures, as an event, takes place on stolen indigenous land. In recognition of this truth, we would like to build relationships with those whose occupied land Wild Roots Feral Futures 2013 occurs on. In this spirit, we would like to reach out to indigenous communities in our area to establish direct lines of communication and extend an invitation to join us at the event in June.

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Nation’s Largest Uranium Mine Planned for N.M.

Reblogged from Earth First! Newswire:

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by Michael Hartranft, Cross Posted from the Albuquerque Journal

It’s been more than a dozen years since the last uranium ore was mined in New Mexico, but a Canada-based company and a Japanese partner propose to break that spell soon.

The U.S. Forest Service expects to close the comment period in mid-June on a draft environmental impact statement prepared for the proposed Roca Honda uranium mine near Mount Taylor, which the developers say would be the largest in the U.S.

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