Beehive Design Collective Presents: Mesoamerica Resiste!

The Beehive Design Collective is coming to Fort Lewis College (Chem 130 auditorium) in Durango to present their latest giant narrative graphic poster “Mesoamérica Resiste” on April 8th at 7 PM.

SLC appearance! 7pm, May 12th @ The Mestizo Coffee House

The Beehive Design Collective is a wildly motivated, all volunteer, activist artist collective that has gained international attention for their collaboratively produced graphics campaigns focusing on globalization, resource extraction, and stories of resistance. “Mesoamérica Resiste” is their most recent project, a culmination of 9 years of story gathering in Mesoamérica, research, and illustration. The intricate, double-sided image documents resistance to the top-down development plans and mega-infrastructure projects that literally pave the way for resource extraction and free trade. It highlights stories of cross-border grassroots social movements and collective action, especially organizing led by Indigenous peoples.

For more detailed information and images on this project we recommend checking out their website and youtube video.

San Juan oil drilling heats up in N.M.

An Encana Corp. rig explores for oil south of Farmington. The company has drilled about 30 wells in the area.

(SW.EF! editor’s note: read this mainstream media article with a critical lens, it contains some pro-fracking propaganda.)

Swift and Huntington explore in Colorado

By Chuck Slothower, The Durango Herald

Encana Corp. plans to pour $250 million to $450 million into drilling oil wells on New Mexico’s side of the San Juan Basin next year, the company says.

The Canadian company has aggressively pursued San Juan Basin oil, drilling about 30 wells to date. The drilling is concentrated near Huerfano, N.M., southeast of Farmington.

“Our strategy really is to shift our portfolio more towards oil, so we’re really focusing on areas where we can do that, and the San Juan’s one of those,” said Doug Hock, a Denver-based spokesman for the company.

Encana plans to operate two to four drilling rigs in the area in 2014, according to a company presentation. The wells cost $4 million to $5 million each and have shown initial production rates of 400 to 500 barrels per day.

The San Juan historically has been one of the nation’s most productive natural-gas basins, but with prices low for that commodity and high for oil, drillers are finding oil in some previously overlooked areas.

Improved techniques for horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” have made such drilling possible.

Black Mesa – Film Trailer

 

Read more about this film work in progress, and the work of Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain and the filmmakers at blackmesafilm.com

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News

This is what education should become in the future, sharing the voices of Dine’ grassroots people who know the real story of Black Mesa, and the real history of Peabody Coal, corrupt politicians, the dirty coal industry, and how it resulted in Navajo relocation.

This is also what the media should become, uncensored and reporting the voices of truth.

Bahe Katenay was one of those censored by Indian Country Today, before I was terminated as a staff reporter. In that interview, Bahe spoke about the oil and gas drilling in Dinetah, the sacred place of origin, and the role of the “puppet” Navajo Nation Council, which signs energy leases, is coopted by the US government and threatens future generations of Navajos with water rights loss, pollution from dirty coal power plants, and destruction of the earth.

In the interview censored by Indian Country Today concerning those oil and gas leases, Bahe Katenay said, “I am also saddened when I think that, because these lands were given away for profit, the rest of our sacred lands everywhere are being desecrated, today: Mount Taylor, San Francisco Mountains, and Big Mountain.”

Click here to read more…

Occupied Chuk’shon: Benefit for Black Mesa relocation resisters

Support the 2013 Fall Caravan in Solidarity with Indigenous Resistance Communities of Black Mesa

Click here to donate!

All funds will go directly to purchasing supplies, tools, food, and building materials for Dineh (Navajo) elders and families at Big Mountain who are in their fourth decade of resisting forced relocation and coal strip mining on their ancestral lands.

To be clear, these donated funds will *not* be used to cover transportation/food/etc costs for the supporters/organizers (us) who will be heading out to the land to volunteer our labor. We will each be paying our own costs out of pocket in order to be self-sufficient on the land.

This fundraiser is hosted by Santa Cruz Indigenous Solidarity, in partnership with Black Mesa Indigenous Support. If you have any questions, please email sheepandsagebrush [at] gmail.com – Your donations are so greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Click here to donate!

Copper mine bill sparks debate over Native American sacred lands

The House of Representatives is set to vote on a bill that some say will destroy sacred ground.

A bipartisan bill introduced by Arizona Rep. Republican Paul Gosar and Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick would swap more than 2,000 acres of federal forestland in exchange for more than 5,000 acres owned by Resolution Copper Mining — a joint venture by mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

Congress may vote as early as Thursday to approve the controversial land swap, a move that is hotly contested by some Native Americans and local environmentalists.

“If you can imagine five Super Bowls in Superior every year for 60 years, that’s the level of economic boost and economic activity this mine is going to generate,” said Andrew Taplin, Resolution Copper Mining’s project director.

However, critics argue that the mine will not only alter the landscape permanently, but also be built on a Native American holy site.

“The sticking point boils down to whether international mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton should dig for copper destroying areas sacred to the Apache Tribe and enjoyed by campers, climbers, and other recreationalists,” writes Aaron Mintzes with the environmental group Earthworks, which opposes the mine.

A Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm called Mapetsi has also joined in on the fight. The group has been retained by the San Carlos Apache Tribe who live near the proposed mining site.

The San Carlos Apaches have been highly critical of the mining site, issuing a study that found that Resolution Copper Mining greatly exaggerated the economic benefits to mining near the Tonto National Forest.

Mapesti has played up the issue of sacred lands being violated by the mining operation, which would violate an alleged holy place called Oak Flat.

“This public land at Oak Flat is a place of worship for the Apache, Yavapai, and other tribes in the region,” Mapetsi’s Jesse Renteria wrote in a September 19 email to a congressional staffer. “Native Americans have prayed, gathered medical herbs and plants, healed in holy perennial springs, and performed religious ceremonies at Oak Flat for hundreds of years. The United States should ensure that they can continue to do so in perpetuity.”

Click here to read more…

Massive mine proposed at Oak Flat, sacred tribal land

Natural pools form in a side canyon off of Gaan Canyon, where the San Carlos Apache Tribe says its spiritual beings reside. If a proposed copper mine is established at Oak Flat, the area pictured would be vulnerable to collapse, said Roger Featherstone of the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition in Tucson.

By Emily Bregel, Arizona Daily Star

The planned Rosemont Copper Mine just south of Tucson isn’t the only mining controversy in Arizona.

It isn’t even the biggest.

About 100 miles north of Tucson, Resolution Copper Mining wants to build a mine in Superior, a town of 2,800 people, that could yield 1 billion pounds of copper a year. That’s more than four times the projected output for Rosemont Copper’s planned mine in the Santa Rita Mountains, which would produce an estimated 243 million pounds of copper annually.

Resolution — owned by mining giants U.K.-based Rio Tinto and Australia-based BHP Billiton — says the mine would create 1,400 jobs and generate $61 billion over its 40-year lifespan, plus construction and clean-up time. It would extract enough copper to meet 25 percent of U.S. demand.

“If you can imagine five Super Bowls in Superior every year for 60 years, that’s the level of economic boost and economic activity this mine is going to generate,” said Andrew Taplin, Resolution Copper Mining’s project director since October 2012.

But the project would also permanently alter an outdoor destination popular with Southern Arizonans. At the Oak Flat campground, five miles east of Superior, stone picnic tables are shaded by centuries-old oak trees. Manzanita shrubs and Mojave yucca dot the volcanic-rock boulder fields. Mountains on the horizon give way to forested canyons, where streams flow and natural pools form in the summer.

Tony Huerta, 83, who has lived in Superior since 1966, recalls days with his family grilling hot dogs or steaks at the picnic area.

“It’s beautiful,” he says. “That place is packed on holidays.”

Resolution and its parent companies have been trying for eight years to trade 5,400 acres they already own for 2,400 acres of the Tonto National Forest, which sit above the massive ore body. They’ll have another chance this fall if their land-exchange bill makes it to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

But leaders in Superior and nearby Queen Valley question where Resolution will dump a projected 1.7 billion tons of mine waste tailings. Mine opponents argue that Resolution is pushing the land exchange to avoid key environmental studies that are mandated for mining on public land. They question why those studies haven’t begun after more than a decade of mine planning.

“The tide is turning,” said Roger Featherstone of Tucson-based Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, which has been fighting the proposal for nearly a decade. “As more and more people are aware of just exactly how destructive this proposal is, people are waking up.”

BLM narrows proposed Chaco drilling sites to four

This photo shows Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon, in northwestern New Mexico, about a 2½-hour drive south of Durango. Just four of 38 parcels requested for leasing by gas and oil companies in the area have been approved. The nearest lease site is about 10 miles from Chaco Canyon, the center of the ancestral Pueblo culture that flourished from the 800s to the 1100s.

Energy companies had nominated 38 parcels for leases

By Chuck Slothower, The Durango Herald

Opponents of drilling near Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico have received a reprieve from proposals to drill on U.S. Bureau of Land Management parcels bordering the park, which is home to ancestral Puebloan ruins.

The BLM this week released an environmental assessment that proposes to lease four of 38 parcels that were nominated by gas and oil companies.

None of the parcels recommended by the BLM’s preferred alternative to go forward is among the nominated parcels closest to the park. One nominated parcel was less than a quarter-mile from the park boundary.

The closest of the four parcels in the preferred alternative is about 10 miles from the park, and all four parcels are in an area that already is home to gas and oil activity.

Chaco Canyon is about a 2½-hour drive south of Durango.

A coalition of environmental groups wants the parcels nearest to Chaco Canyon permanently protected. Some of the parcels have been nominated repeatedly for leasing to gas and oil companies and deferred by the BLM.

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.

Havasupai Tribe, Conservation Groups Challenge Uranium Mine Threatening Grand Canyon

The “Canyon” uranium mine, seen here in the foreground, with Grand Canyon National Park six miles to its north. Photo by Bruce Gordon, Ecoflight.

Forest Service OKs Uranium Mining Without Tribal Consultation or Update to 27-year-old Environmental Review

From The Center for Biological Diversity:

(March 7, 2013) GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK— The Havasupai tribe and three conservation groups today sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow Energy Fuels Resources, Inc. to begin operating a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park without initiating or completing formal tribal consultations and without updating an outdated 1986 federal environmental review. The Canyon Mine threatens cultural values, wildlife and endangered species and increases the risk of soil pollution and pollution and depletion of groundwater feeding springs and wells in and near Grand Canyon. The lawsuit alleges violations of environmental, mining, public land and historic preservation laws.

“We regret that the Forest Service is not protecting our sacred site in the Red Butte Traditional Cultural Property from destruction by uranium mining,” said Don Watahomigie, chairman of the Havasupai tribe. “The Havasupai are returning to the federal courts to protect our people, our religion and our water.”

The mine is located within the boundaries of the Red Butte Traditional Cultural Property, which the Forest Service designated in 2010 for its critical religious and cultural importance to several tribes, especially Havasupai. As a “traditional cultural property,” Red Butte is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The lawsuit alleges that the Forest Service violated the National Historic Preservation Act by failing to undertake any process, as required by the Act, to consult with interested tribes to determine how the adverse impacts of the mine on Red Butte could be avoided or mitigated prior to approving mining.

“The Forest Service should be protecting the Grand Canyon instead of shielding the uranium industry’s dangerous plans from public, tribal, environmental and scientific scrutiny,” said Taylor McKinnon with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Sacrificing water, culture and wildlife for the uranium industry was a bad idea in 1986, doing so now while ignoring 27 years of new information is absurd.”

The mine falls within the 1-million-acre “mineral withdrawal” approved by the Obama administration in January 2012 to protect Grand Canyon’s watershed from new uranium mining impacts. The withdrawal prohibits new mining claims and mine development on old claims lacking “valid existing rights” to mine. In April 2012, the Forest Service made a determination that there were “valid existing rights” for the Canyon mine, and in June it issued a report trying to explain its decision to allow the mine to open without updating the 27-year-old environmental review.

“After 27 years, the Forest Service is still ignoring the significant and harmful impacts of this proposed uranium mine, so near Grand Canyon and Red Butte, and in the heart of an area that provides important wildlife habitat,” said Sandy Bahr, chapter director for Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “The agency should be a steward of these lands and their resources, not a broker for the uranium mining industry.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act for failing to conduct a “supplemental environmental impact statement” to analyze changes in the planned mining and new science and circumstances that have arisen since the mine’s 1986 environmental impact statement. Those include the 2010 designation of the Red Butte Traditional Cultural Property, reintroduction of the endangered California condor, and formal and informal authorizations. Scientific studies published since 1986 demonstrate the potential for rapid aquifer recharge and connectivity between perched and deep aquifers and regional springs and creeks.

“Failure to consider new, comprehensive groundwater studies done during the 1990s for the region south of Grand Canyon is unconscionable,” said Roger Clark of the Grand Canyon Trust. “Why would the Forest Service intentionally ignore information that could prevent permanent harm to springs, which are the sole source of water for Havasupai people and lifeblood for Grand Canyon plants, animals and hikers?”

Plaintiffs in today’s suit include the Havasupai Tribe, Grand Canyon Trust, Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club. The suit seeks injunctive relief ceasing all mine operations and enjoining the Forest Service from authorizing or allowing any further mining related activities at the Canyon Mine site pending compliance with the law.

To view a copy of today’s complaint, click here.

Background

The Canyon Mine is located on the Kaibab National Forest six miles south of Grand Canyon National Park. The mine’s original approval in 1986 was the subject of protests and lawsuits by the Havasupai tribe and others objecting to potential uranium mining impacts on regional groundwater, springs, creeks, ecosystems and cultural values associated with Red Butte. Above-ground infrastructure was built in the early 1990s but a crash in uranium prices caused the mine’s closure in 1992 before the shaft or ore bodies could be excavated. Pre-mining exploratory drilling drained groundwater beneath the mine site, eliminating an estimated 1.3 million gallons per year from the region’s springs that are fed by groundwater. A 2010 U.S. Geological Survey report noted that past samples of groundwater beneath the mine exhibited dissolved uranium concentrations in excess of EPA drinking water standards. Groundwater threatened by the mine feeds municipal wells and seeps and springs in Grand Canyon, including Havasu Springs and Havasu Creek. Aquifer Protection Permits issued for the mine by Arizona Department of Environmental Quality do not require monitoring of deep aquifers and do not include remediation plans or bonding to correct deep aquifer contamination. Originally owned by Energy Fuels Nuclear, the mine was purchased by Denison Mines in 1997 and by Energy Fuels Resources Inc., which currently operates the mine, in 2012.