Earth First! Round River Rendezvous 2019 – Colorado Plateau

The Earth First! Round River Rendezvous (RRR) is an annual convergence of folks from around the continent involved in direct action campaigns and other projects in defense of land, water, and all living creatures. At this week-long gathering, our loose network comes together to make new friends, up our skills, attend workshops and discussions, have fun, and take action.

The RRR typically takes place somewhere in the wild (on stolen, federally-managed “public land,” such as National Forest). Everyone who believes in fighting for the Earth, for life, and for justice is welcome to attend. We ask for a sliding-scale donation ($25-$100) from everyone to help us cover the cost of hosting the gathering, and to go to support next year’s RRR and Earth First! Organizers’ Conference, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

This year, the Rondy will take place somewhere in or around what is colonially known as the State of Utah—occupied land of the Shoshone, Goshute, Paiute, Ute, and Diné peoples. Over the years, organizers throughout the Colorado Plateau bioregion–from the briny flats of the Great Salt Lake to the southern reaches of Dinétah–have joined together in a slow process of movement building through cross-struggle collaborations that we hope this year’s RRR can serve to strengthen and multiply

Often, the post-Rendezvous action targets destructive extraction practices like mining, drilling, and logging. Last year, Earth First! joined Mijente and the American Indian Movement to shut down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Ohio.

As usual, there will be tons of rad workshops and presentations–direct action, climbing, blockades, ecology walks, campaign strategy, local land and water struggles, and more—as well as plenty of time to chill and also to throw down and take action. We want art, theater, and all kinds of radical creativity to take center stage. There will be a kids space with workshops and activities for kids (like hatchet throwing and bug eating)!

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the founding of Earth First!, it seems appropriate that the 2019 national gathering will take place near the site of the very first EF! Rondy, which was held near Moab, Utah in 1980. This year, we want the Rondy to be a space where we can honor the inspiring and instructive stories from our past, while building on the work done over the decades to challenge oppression within our often transient and ever changing movement community.

We are raising funds to offer travel support for Black, Brown, and Indigenous organizers and folks in frontline struggles for land and water defense, indigenous self-determination, migrant justice, prison/police abolition, and other work that puts the justice back in environmental justice and the war back in eco-war. As an organizing team, we hope the RRR can reflect and amplify the work we’ve done regionally to connect struggles and build power within and across identities, cultures, and communities. If you would like help with travel expenses, please get in touch and talk to us about it beforehand. We hope to be able to cover all requests, but we are a scrappy grassroots organizing crew doing the best we can with limited resources.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or contributions, please get in touch.

No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!

BP Pipeline Ruptures in Colorado, Spills Into Sauls Creek

By Jonathan Romeo / The Durango Herald

A BP pipeline running along Sauls Creek in Bayfield was discovered ruptured last week, spilling coal-bed methane produced water into the creek and forcing the emergency construction of an earthen dam to prevent contamination downstream.

According to state reports, a 6-inch fiberglass gathering line was found leaking around 7 a.m. Dec. 13, about four miles west of Bayfield on National Forest Service land off County Road 527, also known as Forest Service Road 608.

 The produced water – a byproduct of oil and gas extraction – traveled across a sagebrush/grass meadow and into Sauls Creek, an intermittent stream that flows into Beaver Creek, which meets the Los Pinos River a few miles south of Bayfield.

BP reported the creek was dry on Dec. 13, but the next day a state oil and gas inspector found Sauls Creek “contained runoff from snow melt.” An early estimate shows the produced water traveled 2,300 feet along the channel bottom.

However, BP on Monday could not say how long the spill had been occurring, how much was released and what the contents of the product were.

The cause of the spill, too, remains unknown.

A Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission representative wrote in an emailed response that more information will be included in supplemental reports and through ongoing water sampling.

After discovering the spill, BP crews immediately closed the line, shut down 17 wells and constructed a temporary earthen dam to contain the produced water from spilling further downstream.

A Dec. 15 follow up report indicated hydro-evacuation trucks were removing the standing water in the creek bed, recovering a total of 150 barrels – about 6,300 gallons – of produced water mixed with snowmelt.

The pipeline repair required that County Road 527 be restricted to one lane of traffic for four days last week as BP crews partially excavated the road, according to U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Ann Bond.

Brett Clanton, a BP representative, did not address several of The Durango Herald’s questions about the incident. He wrote the spill was isolated within two hours of discovery, the produced water contained no hydrocarbons and that no residents in the surrounding area were affected.

“With safety as our highest priority, we will continue to coordinate with relevant agencies to complete any further remediation efforts as warranted,” Clanton wrote.

Produced water is a briny fluid captured in the rock of oil reservoirs that is extracted along with oil and gas. It is considered the largest toxic byproduct of extraction operations, and can contain salt, chemicals, residual oil and heavy metals, though the contents vary from well to well.

Although the chemical makeup of the substance released into Sauls Creek is unknown, a preliminary sampling showed the water contained 4,000 milligram per liter of total dissolved solids, compared to background values of less than 300 mg/L.

Total dissolved solids are a measure of all dissolved substances in water, and is generally used to gauge salinity. Salinity, in turn, can be an indicator for concentrations of chloride, sodium, magnesium, bicarbonate and sulfates, among others.

BP operates about 30 gas wells in the Sauls Creek area that produce coal-bed methane gas and produced water that is transmitted by pipeline to a processing facility in Bayfield.

BP likely faces “some kind of enforcement action due to impact on waters of the state,” oil and gas commission spokesman Todd Hartman wrote in an email.

The company must continue further remediation efforts and water sampling. The temporary dam remains in place as these actions continue, Hartman said.

As of Dec. 19, there have been 19 reported spills in La Plata County in 2016 accounting for approximately 350 barrels of spilled substances, mostly produced water.

BP has accounted for 12 of those incidents, spilling about 165 barrels, according to COGCC data.

Two spills (including this recent one) did not have estimates for amounts leaked.

Action Tour Planned Against Uranium Mine Near Grand Canyon

from HaulNo.org

Energy Fuels Inc. is planning to poison the Grand Canyon including the precious Colorado River. Are we going to let our future be poisoned for thousands of generations by this greedy corporation? We say, “Haul no!”

#HaulNo! is an awareness & action tour that is being planned for Spring 2017 throughout Northern Arizona and Southern Utah along the proposed uranium haul route from Energy Fuel’s Canyon Mine to its White Mesa Mill. Volunteers from organizations such as Diné No Nukes, Clean Up The Mines, Grand Canyon Trust, and concerned community members have joined forces to spread awareness and empower action to ensure that the Grand Canyon, sacred sites, precious water, and our communities are safeguarded from the deadly and toxic threat of uranium contamination.

Click here to read more…

Big Mountain, Black Mesa Residents Under Siege Once Again, Livestock Confiscated

Walee Crittendon stands with her family’s livestock after the initial theft by armed rangers. (Photo Credit: Censored News)

Click here for coverage from our friends at Censored News…

From Emergency on HPL – BIA war against Navajo Grandmothers:

URGENT-PLEASE HELP-PLEASE SHARE-SIEGE IN BIG MOUNTAIN: When John Benally’s cows were confiscated on April 5, 2016, he filed a case before the Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA) to request a Stay (Moratorium) on all livestock confiscations. While this suit was pending, the Hopi Tribe using BIA money funded by US taxpayers invaded John Benally homesite in Big Mountain on what is known as Hopi Partition Land.

Today, 6/7/2016, Hopi police and Hopi Rangers invaded John’s home. They came in police cars, trucks, panel trucks and trailers. They rounded up John’s cows and horses used 4-tracks to round up his livestock while they placed John Benally, his companion Tracy, his niece and nephew under house arrest to keep them from interfering with the impoundment. They also served John’s companion with a Notice of No Trespassing requesting she vacate Hopi lands immediately in spite of the fact she has lived with John in Big Mountain for the past 25 years.

John is appealing to you to make phone calls to the Secretary of the Interior and the Hopi Tribe to protect his rights to his property. John has a lawsuit pending and is supposed to be protected by the Bureau of Indian Affairs if the Hopi Tribe is violating his rights. The BIA has the power to issue John a grazing permit but has refused to.

The Hopi Tribe must respect the Stay John filed which requires as a matter of law stop all livestock confiscations as automatic. The Hopi Tribe must respect the great efforts John has taken in collaboration with the Navajo Nation – Leonard Chee from the Office of the Navajo Nation President and Vice-President and the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture. These agencies helped John put ear tags on the cows. A Vet has come on several occasions to John’s to give the cows shots. At their advice, John purchased loading chutes for cows so they could more easily load them up.

The Navajo Nation Department of Justice was supposed to be working with John. They helped bring some of his cows to market last week. They were supposed to help John bring some more cows to market tomorrow. Then on Friday, they were supposed to help John transport most of the cows to a Tribal ranch the Navajo Nation and John were talking with.

Instead of helping John, the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture and Leonard Chee did not answer their phones and when contacted the Department of Agriculture said they were just following orders and were told not to interfere with the livestock impoundment.

John calls these people economic terrorists and is concerned that the Navajo Nation is working in collusion to help the Hopi Tribe sell cows at public auction and keep 100% of the proceeds because cows with ear tags and shots are worth a lot of money.

The BIA must step in and stop the Hopi Tribe’s abuse against John Benally, rescind the trespassing notice against John’s companion, return his cows and horses, and Stop the Genocide in Big Mountain!
Please call:
• Sally Jewell, Secretary of the Interior (202) 208-6416
• Priscilla Pavatea, Director, Hopi Tribe Office of Range Management (928) 734-3701
• Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture (928) 871-6605
• Leonard Chee, Office of Navajo President & Vice President (928) 871-6352

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TEXT OF Notice given to John Benally’s companion: No Trespassing

Be advised that the Hopi reservation including the Hopi Partition Land (Hopi reservation) is closed pursuant to Hopi Ordinance # 46 and access is restricted to members of the Hopi tribe and those persons authorized by the Hopi Tribe to be on Hopi reservation lands in accordance with Hopi and federal law and regulations. If you are present on Hopi reservation without a valid permit or permission you are hereby advised and ordered to immediately leave the reservation.

Any individual who is not a member of the Hopi Tribe and who is not authorized under provisions of Hopi law to be present within the Hopi reservation is in violation of tribal law and is subject to a civil and criminal penalty.

Any individual who fails to abide by this notice will be subject to arrest and/or a civil fines under tribe’s civil and criminal law

By Herman G. Honanie, Chairman, Hopi tribe
6/3/16

Notice No Trespassing

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Wild Roots Feral Futures 2016

(Don’t miss the coverage of last year’s event from Unicorn Riot!)

“The whole earth is in jail and we’re plotting this incredible jailbreak.”

Online fundraiser live!

We are very happy to announce that, for the 8th year running, the Wild Roots Feral Futures (WRFF) eco-defense, direct action, and rewilding encampment will take place in the forests of Southwest Colorado this coming June 18-26, 2016 (exact location to be announced). WRFF is an informal, completely free and non-commercial, and loosely organized camp-out operating on (less than a) shoe-string budget, formed entirely off of donated, scavenged, or liberated supplies and sustained through 100% volunteer effort. Though we foster a collective communality and pool resources, we also encourage general self-sufficiency, which lightens the burden on communal supplies, and which we find to be the very source and foundation of true mutual sharing and abundance.

We would like to begin by acknowledging that Wild Roots Feral Futures takes place on occupied/stolen indigenous territory, primarily of the Nuutsiu (occasionally spelled Nuciu or Nuchu, aka “Ute”) people, as well as Diné [“Navajo”], Apache, and others. In recognition of this reality and as a first step in confronting it, we seek to establish proactive working relationships with those whose stolen land we gather upon, and open the space we temporarily gather in to the centering and amplification of indigenous voices and struggles. Our understanding is that any community of resistance that doesn’t center the voices of indigenous people and put their leadership in the forefront is a movement that is part of the problem. [Read more here…]

We would like to invite groups and individuals engaged in struggles against the destruction of the Earth (and indeed all interconnected forms of oppression) to join us and share your stories, lessons, skills, and whatever else you may have to offer. In this spirit we would like to reach out to frontline community members, local environmental groups, coalitions, and alliances everywhere, as well as more readily recognizable groups like Earth First!, Rising Tide North America, and others to come collaborate on the future of radical environmentalism and eco-defense in our bio-regions and beyond.

We would also like to reach out to groups like EF!, RTNA, and the Ruckus Society (as well as other groups and individuals) in search of trainers and workshop facilitators who are willing to dedicate themselves to attending Wild Roots Feral Futures and sharing their skills and knowledge (in a setting that lacks the financial infrastructure to compensate them as they may have come to expect from other, more well-funded groups and events). We are specifically seeking direct action, blockade, tri-pod, and tree climbing/sitting trainers (as well as gear/supplies).

Regarding the rewilding and ancestral earth skills component of WRFF, we would like to extend a similar invitation to folks with skills, knowledge, talent, or specialization in these areas to join us in the facilitation of workshops and skill shares such as fire making, shelter building, edible and medicinal plants, stalking awareness, tool & implement making, etc. We are also seeking folks with less “ancestral” outdoor survival skills such as orienteering and navigation, etc.

Daily camp life, along with workshops, skill shares, great food, friends, and music, will also include the volunteer labor necessary to camp maintenance. Please come prepared to pitch in and contribute to the workload, according to your abilities. We encourage folks who would like to plug in further to show up a few days before the official start of the event to begin set-up and stay a few days after the official end to help clean up.

Site scouting will continue until early June, at which point scouts and other organizers will rendezvous, report-back their scouting recon, and come to a consensus regarding a site location. We are also planning on choosing a secondary, back-up site location as a contingency plan for various potential scenarios. Email us for more info on getting involved with scouting and site selection processes.

WRFF is timed to take place before the Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, allowing eco-defenders to travel from one to the other. Thus we encourage the formation of a caravan from WRFF to the EF! RRR (caravans and ride shares can be coordinated through our message board at feralfutures.proboards.com.

We are currently accepting donations in the form of supplies and/or monetary contributions. Please email us for details.

Please forward this call widely, spread the word, and stay tuned for more updates!

For The Wild,

~The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers’ collective

Email: feralfutures(at)riseup(dot)net

For the sake of comprehensiveness, we are including below our original call-out as used in years past, which is a living document, changing and evolving as we ourselves learn and grow:

We are looking for folks of all sorts to join us and help facilitate workshops, talks, discussions, skill shares, direct action and medic trainings, wild food walks, conflict transformation, and much more! We will be focusing on many things, including but by no means limited to anarchist theory and praxis, unpacking privilege, decolonization, rewilding, ancestral skills, indigenous solidarity, direct action, forest defense, earth liberation, animal liberation, security culture, civil disobedience, hand to hand combat, survival skills, evasion tactics, green anarchism, anti-civ, post-civ, star watching and navigation, maps and orienteering, shelter building, permaculture, and whatever YOU care to bring and provide. But we need everyone’s help to make this as safe, positive, and productive a space as it can be. Our own knowledge, skills, and capacities are limited. We need YOUR help!

Black Mesa February Updates

From Black Mesa Indigenous Support

Greetings,

We hope that this finds you well and enjoying the winter months. We are writing with updates about Black Mesa, a new group Indigenous Youth for Cultural Survival, and BMIS.

From the Land:

On Monday January 4th Hopi Rangers and BIA Impounded 21 cattle on the so-called “Hopi Partition Land”. The cattle were of Betty, Billy, and Emerson Begay and Trudy Johnson’s herd.

From Trudy Johnson Begay:

“While we (my brother and I) were out looking for our cattle we found them on ‘HPL’ I proceeded to push them back over the fence on foot, to NPL. I had to walk about 200 yards when a Hopi Ranger (BIA) drive up and call me over to his vehicle. When I approached him, he asked ‘what are you doing?’ I answered I’m getting my cattle. He told me to leave the area because they were in the middle of impoundment in the area. He stated, ‘If you don’t leave you could be arrested for interfering with impoundment.’ (All this in a harsh and argumentative tone of voice). He insisted that the animals were trespassing and impounded twenty one of them. We are tired of this kind of harassment on our ancestral homeland.”

Please donate here to a fund dedicated to releasing impounded sheep and cattle from holding.

There is a fierce new Diné youth organizing project that is working on Black Mesa! They are called Indigenous Youth for Cultural Survival (IY4CS)–check out their statements:

Action Statement: Indigenous youth for cultural survival is currently a volunteer based collective led by young Diné and supporters. Our purpose is to empower indigenous youth through education, to reconnect to our traditional ways of life, and inspire action that addresses environmental and human rights issues, indigenous sovereignty, and the protection of sacred sites.

Vision statement: From inspiration within our own communities and resisting families of Black Mesa, we seek to protect Nímá Nahasdzáán (mother earth)  and regain Hózhó (harmony) within ké (kinship) relations.  With each passing generation, our traditional knowledge is being lost due to colonialism,genocide, and desecration of sacred sites. We remain resilient in the teachings passed down from our elders to maintain our cultural survival for the generations to come.

IY4CS is planning a cultural survival gathering this spring on Black Mesa. This will be a time focused on Diné youth connecting with Big Mountain elders and sharing cultural practices. Please help make this gathering happen by donating. You can donate to BMIS and designate IY4CS in the memo.

A word about BMIS. The BMIS collective is shifting roles and is once again focused primarily on running the volunteer sheepherder/human rights observer program.  We also will continue to fundraise for projects and gatherings on Black Mesa/Big Mountain, for IY4CS, and for impoundment funds, among other things.

Tree will continue to live in Virginia and come back and forth to Black Mesa with her family. Berkley will be back and forth between Flagstaff and Tucson as of early 2016. Liza and Derek recently had a baby and have just moved back east to Asbury Park, NJ and aim to be back on Black Mesa annually. Since we are no longer a locally-based collective, we are stepping back from organizing or co-organizing gatherings on the land and instead hope to move resources and help make connections between local organizers.  And we are thrilled to be able to work with and support the work of IY4CS as they are central to the future of this resistance!

A note about getting involved:

There are always requests for sheepherder / human rights observers, so fill out the registration form and get in touch.

Additionally, we are looking for collective members interested in helping with the volunteer sheepherder program, media/ social media updates, and fundraising. We are excited to support folks who want to organize their own small gatherings on Black Mesa by putting you in touch with community members and playing an advisory role with logistics, preparation, and political education. We will continue working to connect the larger network to community members for speaking engagements, attending protests, action camps, gatherings, etc.

Thanks!
The BMIS Collective: Berkley, Liza, Tree, & Derek

Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is a currently non-Native all volunteer, grassroots collective committed to working with the resistance communities of Black Mesa/Big Mountain.

Utah Tar Sands Action Camp Feedback Questionnaire

Greetings!

The attached PDF file is an Action Camp Feedback Questionnaire for the last three years of action camps resisting tar sands mine development on the Tavaputs Plateau in southeastern Utah, which were organized, in varying capacities, by Peaceful Uprising and Utah Tar Sands Resistance. Autonomously crafted by camp participants to foster the growth of our movements and communities of resistance, this is a lengthy, information-dense survey created with a unique format that includes an Outline, Security Culture, Healing and Emotional Support, About, and Feedback Form. This format may be confusing with a few imperfections, so please ASK questions to minerals [at] riseup [dot] net and seek out another action camp participant to find clarity with.

Please seek out the full version before answering the feedback form. Within the full version please skip around based on your own unique personal needs.

From the many experiences shared we will create a summary presentation of the responses outlining patterns, major and minor accomplishments/areas of improvement, creating transparency of experiences, and help organizers create future focal points for their on-going efforts. The presentation will be open source and available to all interested in an effort to foster wider community growth.

This is an accountability and transparency process giving you the opportunity to express your honest personal experiences. This process seeks diversity of responses. Please include experiences of feeling safety/endangerment, uplift/hinder, compassion/anger, value/disdain, wisdom, and much more. Please understand that prioritized intentional space is needed to read, comprehend, reflect and then reply to the feedback form.

If you are interested in being emotional support FOR individuals engaging in this process and/or helping create a neutral factual examination of participant experiences, email minerals [at] riseup [dot] net

It is vital that you forward this survey on to anyone you know that has participated in a Utah tar sands action camp..

We are all wounded, we are all healing! To Shadow, the neglected or repressed parts of our being, which are both essential, consistent places of struggle, and our magnificent potential. Acknowledging and honoring Shadow as a guide for how to heal, move towards vulnerability, and compassion with insight as our ally. Giving visibility to Shadow we become mirrors for ourselves and for each other, energizing prayers for releasing those patterns and creating new neural pathways of our beings and our togetherness.

I want to Thank EVERYONE who helped and is helping in this process, We are awesome!

This accelerating journey is in need of more helpers!

Reply to minerals [at] riseup [dot] net for EVERYTHING regarding the Action Camp Feedback Questionnaire.

Action Camp Feedback Questionnaire [PDF]

For more information about this year’s action, click here…

Mines, Water, Roads, Borders

From Chaparral respects no borders:

(A follow-up to last year’s piece Plunder Road: CANAMEX and the Emerging Impact of NAFTA, TPP on Western North America)

The Resolution Copper land grab is also a water grab, with a projected use of millions of gallons per year and contamination of more; and during what could be a mega-drought. Water is often compared to gold as its value increases the more scarce it becomes, which means we may soon be fighting not only the increasing privatization of land, but also of water. Despite the fact that the Resolution Copper deal, having been snuck into a defense bill, involves an exchange of land, it is being done to the advantage of a transnational mining corporation and to the detriment of the Chi’Chil’Ba’Goteel/Oak Flat/Apache Leap area and the people who hold it sacred. This land grab represents a continued prioritization of economic development in so-called Arizona, which means more resource-extraction and increased international trade (specifically with or through Mexico). Mining and other industries shaped by trade-related demand bring not only risk to water, but also more roads like Interstate 11 and rail (which require land acquisition), and increased border militarization. US trade policy is largely culpable for the violence on the border and south of the border.

Economic development is portrayed as bringing more jobs, but these “free-market” policies, as in the case of NAFTA, are meant to redistribute wealth to the hands of the rich. Because of their trade relationship and connecting infrastructure, Arizona and Sonora have a shared fate as land, water, safety, indigenous ways of life and sacred sites are all at risk. The state governments enable resource-extraction and other infrastructural projects, lucrative to those who would build them and those who would finance them, through subsidization and protection with our tax dollars.

Arizona’s connection to a port in Guaymas, Sonora is crucial to the Arizona mining industry. Copper is one of the fastest growing US exports, and much of what is and would be mined in Arizona would be transported down to where mining companies such as BHP Billiton (of Resolution Copper) and Freeport McMoran do business at this Mexican port on the Sea of Cortez. Guaymas is also significant because shipping companies can have lower standards for working conditions in Mexico versus the US. This port is the southernmost point of the CANAMEX Corridor, the NAFTA trade route connecting Canada and Mexico through five US states including Arizona. The Port of Guaymas has been expanding over the years and brings along its own set of problems in the vicinity, requiring its own energy sources and water, damaging the environment, impacting the local communities, etc. Arizona is counting on the continued growth of the Mexican economy, yet the importance of the Port of Guaymas also signifies that a lot of exports from the US are meant to cross the Pacific ocean (especially if the Trans Pacific Partnership goes into effect), not stay within its favored trade partner’s borders.

The CANAMEX Corridor already exists, but will be considered complete once Interstate 11, which is in the study phase (aside from the Boulder City Bypass which is scheduled to break ground this year) has been constructed, connecting Las Vegas and Phoenix with a route fit for freight traffic. Interstate 11 may eventually refer to the entire trade corridor reaching from Mexico to Canada, or at least is intended to span from the Mexican border and beyond Las Vegas. Parts of it maybe multi-modal including rail and other infrastructure possibly including water pipeline. This massive project will cut through communities and damage the environment. Conceptualized as the entire trade corridor, it is currently also referred to as the Intermountain West Corridor–basically CANAMEX but with a more updated, more western route where it would run north of Las Vegas. South of the border, the Mexican government has recently agreed to the request by Arizona officials to improve Route 15, which is part of this Corridor, for freight traffic.

Fracking Boom Expands Near Chaco Canyon, Threatens Navajo Ancestral Lands and People

A group of Diné on the first day of a 200-mile walk through their ancestral homeland. (Photo: ©2015 Julie Dermansky)

By Julie Dermansky, DeSmogBlog

Beneath a giant methane gas cloud recently identified by NASA, the oil and gas fracking industry is rapidly expanding in northwestern New Mexico. Flares that light up the night sky at drilling sites along the stretch of Route 550 that passes through the San Juan Basin, which sits on top of the oil rich Mancos Shale, are tell-tale indicators of the fracking boom.

Much of the land being fracked belongs to the federal government. The rest is a mixture of state, private and Navajo Nation land.

The region is known to the Diné (Navajo) as Dinétah, the land of their ancestors.  It is home of the Bisti Badlands and Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a World Heritage Site.

Click here to read the full article…

25 Sentenced After Protesting America’s First Commercial Tar Sands Strip Mine

(EnviroNews Utah) — Jan. 8, 2015, Salt Lake City, Utah — 25 activists from the group Utah Tar Sands Resistance (UTSR) were finally sentenced today in a Vernal courtroom in Uintah County, Utah. Most of the individuals sentenced were arrested on July 23, 2014 after chaining themselves to mining equipment inside of America’s first approved commercial tar sands mine operated by Canadian company U.S. Oil Sands.

Click here to watch the video interview…

Five more UTSR members were arrested in September of 2014 adding to the total of individuals being prosecuted, and these protestors had been waiting in the limbo of the criminal justice system for the last several months. Six of the 25 were slapped with felony rioting charges and were potentially facing long terms of incarceration.

Click here to read more…