Jaguar Recieves 764,000 Acres in U.S. Southwest, Includes Rosemont Mine

A jaguar roaming southeast of Tucson in the northern Santa Rita Mountains.

By Paul Ingram & Diangelea Millar, The Tucson Sentinel, via the Earth First! Newswire

A federal agency labeled more than 764,000 acres in Southeastern Arizona and Southwestern New Mexico on Tuesday as habitat critical to protecting the endangered northern jaguar.

Designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, the area covers mountain ranges throughout Pima, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties as well as ranges in Hidalgo County, N.M.

The area was reduced from an earlier proposal of 838,000 acres because Fort Huachuca and the Tohono O’Odham Nation were excluded from the designation.

The designation is part of a long-standing series of lawsuits between the Center of Biological Diversity, a Tucson-based environmental organization, and the agency.

CBD spokesman Michael Robinson said the group expects Fish and Wildlife to produce a draft recovery plan this spring, but said the agency has been reluctant to create the habitat designation.

Tuesday’s announcement means that federal agencies will have to consider the impact on jaguars before approving uses such as mining. The designation doesn’t apply to private land unless the owners propose a use requiring federal funding or permits.

“It serves as a yellow flag for federal agencies that now have an additional responsibility to protect the habitat,” said Jeff Humphrey, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman.

The habitat could make it more difficult for the proposed Rosemont Mine to win federal approval. While Fish and Wildlife has stated that the mine’s use of 5,000 acres in the Santa Ritas would not be forbidden under habitat protection rules, environmental groups will challenge this funding.

Utah OKs commercial oil shale mine

(Associated Press) SALT LAKE CITY – A Utah company has cleared a final hurdle to develop the first commercial oil shale mine in the nation.

The Utah Division of Water Quality on Friday issued a groundwater permit to Red Leaf Resources, which plans to develop a shale mine on state land in the Uinta Basin in eastern Utah.

Red Leaf hopes to become the first company to extract oil in commercial amounts from shale that exists in abundance under Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Oil-shale deposits in the three states represent a potentially huge, unconventional energy resource, but the trick is turning it into oil. Oil shale is rock that contains kerogen, which must be subjected to high heat before it produces liquid.

Companies have been trying to figure out how to do that commercially in the U.S. with limited environmental effects.

Red Leaf CEO Adolph Lechtenberger said in a statement that its initial, small-scale demonstration project will produce more than 300,000 barrels of oil and “prove our clean oil shale technology works on a large scale.” The company has about 600 million barrels available under its Utah leasehold.

But environmentalists expressed skepticism, saying groundwater disturbance is just one of many environmental drawbacks posed by extraction of the Uinta Basin’s rich oil shale and tar sands resources.

The ore will be strip mined, environmentalists said, and developers will consume more resources to convert hydrocarbon pre-cursors kerogen and bitumen into liquid oil.

“They take the skin off the planet and are not putting it back. It’s going to be a moonscape,” said John Weisheit of Moab-based Living Rivers. “They are destroying the watershed, the near-surface aquifers. It’s a water system that makes the ecosystem what it is.”

State regulators believe the lands do not have much groundwater and note they are requiring Red Leaf to maintain monitoring wells to determine how the project affects the water system.

“We based our permit decision on the absence of water in the extraction process, the lack of an aquifer and low permeability of the rocks underlying the test site,” DWQ director Walt Baker told The Tribune. “We plan to keep a close eye on the project to make sure the process works as promised.”

Red Leaf also plans to develop below-grade ovens to heat the ore mined.

The company’s process “extracts oil with lower energy consumption, lower emissions, lower water use and less environmental impact than any oil shale technology deployed in the world today,” Lechtenberger said.

Environmentalists also criticized Red Leaf’s reclamation plan. “It allows them to keep the earth ovens in place and cover it with top soil,” Weisheit said.

Major Tree Clearing, Timber Sale Planned for Rosemont Mine in Arizona

By Tony Davis / Arizona Daily Star

Close to 300,000 trees, mostly junipers and oaks, would likely be cleared on public land in the Santa Rita Mountains if the proposed Rosemont Mine is built.

Clearing those trees will be controversial, but at this moment, it’s not known what will happen to them afterward. The U.S. Forest Service will charge Rosemont Copper for any cut trees removed from the site, and those proceeds will go to the federal Treasury. The trees, which are common, aren’t legally protected.

The Star learned the amount of trees slated for clearing last week after obtaining Forest Service documents on the subject under the federal Freedom of Information Act. The service estimates 23,261 cords of wood, or roughly 66,000 tons, are on public land slated for clearing. A cord measures 4 feet deep by 4 feet high by 8 feet long.

“Rosemont has agreed to buy them. … Some will be left on site for reclamation. Whatever is left over, then it’s their call what to do with them,” said Mindy Vogel, the Coronado National Forest’s geology and minerals program manager.

Mine opponents say the tree clearing would symbolize Rosemont’s ecological damage. They say the trees offer good habitat for many bird species in the area.

“Trees serve an important function — for carbon sequestration, for erosion control, for wildlife, for visual resources,” said Brian Powell, program manager for Pima County’s Office of Sustainability and Conservation. “There is cultural significance for the oak trees (for) the Tohono O’odham (tribe). They are just a very important, compelling part of the landscape.”

Rosemont officials won’t comment on the trees until the Forest Service releases a draft decision on the mine. Officials of Tucson businesses that sell firewood and wood for furniture making say a market exists for timber sold from the site, although there isn’t a shortage of it.

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.”

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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.”

Paradox Valley uranium mill on hold

The proposed Piñon Ridge uranium mill would sit on the flat land in the foreground in this view of the Paradox Valley, in between Naturita and the hamlet of Paradox, in Montrose County.

Some analysts doubt it will ever be built

By Joe Hanel, The Durango Herald

A proposed uranium mill in Southwest Colorado will not be built unless there is an unexpected turnaround in the price of uranium, the president of the company that is developing the mill said Friday in a conference call with investors.

Energy Fuels Resources Inc. will keep holding its license to build the Piñon Ridge uranium mill in the Paradox Valley of Montrose County, but it has no plans to act on the license, said President and CEO Stephen Antony.

“We intend to keep that license in a current, valid form, but not move on construction of the mill until market conditions support it,” Antony said.

The statement is old news to uranium experts, but it comes as a surprise to some Coloradans.

The company’s Piñon Ridge website says, “Energy Fuels anticipates starting construction in late 2012 or 2013.” And its plan on file with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment calls for the mill west of Naturita to be operational by early 2017, with construction beginning in 2015.

Warren Smith, a community involvement manager for the state health department, said Energy Fuels has not contacted his department with any plans to deviate from the schedule it has submitted. The license is valid for five years.

But uranium market analysts have known since Energy Fuels bought the White Mesa uranium mill in Utah that the company has put Piñon Ridge on the back burner. In fact, the company said so itself in a little-noticed statement in December 2012. It came in an annual report filed with financial regulators in Canada, where Energy Fuels is incorporated.

A radioactive legacy on Native American land

From Al Jazeera, by The Stream Team:

The vast reserves of uranium under Navajo Land have shaped the experiences of generations of Navajo, from the miners who were first employed to extract and refine the yellow ore to the families who still live with radioactive waste sites in their backyards. Approximately four million tons of uranium ore were extracted on Navajo Land between 1944 and 1986, and the Navajo people are still paying a steep price.

The Navajo Nation spans the Four Corners area, where the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado meet. When the US Atomic Energy Commission announced in 1948 that it would buy all uranium mined in the country, private corporations set up thousands of mines on Navajo Land.

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