Sheriffs Request “Command Center” to Monitor Protest Camp

Uintah County Sheriff’s deputies stand watch as other law enforcement officials in the background remove and arrest activists who had chained themselves to heavy equipment at a U.S. Oil Sands construction site on Pope Well Ridge Road in Uintah County on July 21. The Grand County Sheriff’s Department is seeking a permit to establish a command center near the site of the protests. [Photo courtesy of Utah Tar Sands Resistance]

By Eric Trenbeath / Moab Sun News

The Grand County Sheriff’s Department is asking a state agency for a “Right of Entry” permit to establish a command center in the Book Cliffs area near the PR Spring tar sands strip mine about 60 miles north of Moab, Utah.

According to the project report posted on the Utah State Public Lands Policy Coordination Office website, the proposed command center “will allow law enforcement officials to have a presence on the Bookcliffs when needed.”

The report anticipates the need to level the ground at the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) site. It also calls for the development of a septic leach field and the construction of a security fence. Development of the project is scheduled to begin on June 15, 2015.

SITLA resource specialist Bryan Torgerson said that the main purpose of the command center is to respond to environmental activists who have been protesting the development of the first tar sands strip mine in the United States.

“The protesters are doing illegal activity up there and they have caused damage to private property,” he said.

In June of this year, environmental activists from the group Utah Tar Sands Resistance (UTSR) announced plans to establish a permanent “vigil” at the PR Spring tar strip mine site. They were joined by members of the Moab-based Canyon Country Rising Tide, and Peaceful Uprising.

In July, about 80 protesters clashed with the Uintah County Sheriff’s Department and 21 were arrested. The protesters blocked a road and locked themselves to earth-moving equipment in order to halt construction on the Canadian owned U.S. Oil Sands strip mine project.

Uintah County Undersheriff John Laursen said that approximately 10 deputies from his office and three agents from the Utah Attorney General’s Office made the arrests. Members of the Grand County Sheriff’s Office also arrived at the scene just after the confrontation between the protesters blocking the road and law enforcement.

Laursen described the scene as one that escalated quickly from a peaceful protest to one that suddenly became physical.

“The folks who had chained themselves to the equipment were very polite and cooperative,” he said.

“But as we were removing them, the six other protesters who tried to block the road created quite a melee. There were some fisticuffs.”

Denise Davis, a spokesperson for UTSR, said that climate change protesters were peaceful and that they had suffered under “selective enforcement of laws designed to make peaceful protest a felony.”

Davis also denied allegations of property destruction.

“The protests have been brave and sustained but peaceful and nondestructive,” she said.

Grand County Sheriff Steve White acknowledged that protesters are part of the reason for the command center, but he said that law enforcement just wants to establish a presence in the area.

“There have been some oil field thefts and other activities going on up there,” he said. “As a matter of fact, this is something we’ve been thinking about for years.”

White said that the project is a joint effort with Uintah County and SITLA. He said they want to establish a camp trailer and a place to park some ATVs so they can have a base of operations should law enforcement personnel be needed in the remote area.

Davis said that she is “perplexed” by the sheriff’s request to establish a remote police post in the Book Cliffs when none of the protests have occurred in the Grand County portion of the mine site.

“It is very unfortunate that Grand County Sheriff Steven White is proposing to further step up surveillance and intimidation of peaceful protesters while continuing to ignore the air and water pollution that is resulting from leaking wells, tanks and toxic ponds of oil and gas waste that continue to threaten Grand County residents and visitors,” she said.

U.S. Oil Sands holds a lease to strip mine up to 32,000 acres of land – an area equivalent to approximately half the size of Arches National Park. A portion of the lease is in Grand County.

Environmentalists claim that the operation will severely impact the environment by polluting groundwater, displacing wildlife and destroying large swaths of wilderness.

“The Book Cliffs have been called the Serengeti of Utah and they are of significance to all Americans,” Davis said.

Living Rivers executive director John Weisheit said that the Utah Division of Air Quality never should have issued permits for the tar sands mine. His organization waged a legal battle on the grounds that sufficient water wasn’t available for the tar sands mine, and that what groundwater did exist was at risk of contamination.

Weisheit wants to know why the citizens of Grand County are paying for security up on the Book Cliffs, particularly as it relates to U.S. Oil Sands and the PR Spring Mine.

“The job of the Grand County Sheriff is to protect its citizens,” Weisheit said. “This is a foreign corporation. Power companies and other industries hire security guards, why aren’t they (U.S. Oil Sands)?”

Canyon Country Rising Tide spokesperson Sarah Stock agreed.

“This is yet another example of public money being used to facilitate tar sands development,” she said.

“The real danger to our community is tar sands, oil shale, and unregulated oil and gas development, not peaceful protesters. If the Grand County Sheriff’s Department has extra time and money to burn, they should help the understaffed BLM inspect and enforce regulations on the thousands of potentially leaking oil and gas wells in the state.”

Torgerson said that he respects the rights of people and their views, and he fully expects protesters to return to the site when the weather improves.

“We welcome the right of free speech,” he said. “We just hope they will respect private property.”

Utah Land Defenders Stand Up To Dirty Politics

Parts of U.S. Oil Sands mine site extend onto Ute tribal lands. The Environmental Protection Agency warned the company in June that it didn’t have permission to operate on Ute land. On July 21, 2014, fifteen people chained themselves to a fence and to machinery on the tar sands mine site operated by U.S. Oil Sands.

By Anna Simonton, Oil Change International

Lauren Wood grew up in a family of river guides in the Uinta Basin region of Utah. She navigates tributaries of the Colorado River like her urban counterparts navigate subway systems. She learned to ride a horse, and then drive a car, on the Tavaputs Plateau. And she can name most any gorge or gully in the place she calls home.

After clear-cutting trees and sagebrush, U.S. Oil Sands digs open-pit mines to test their tar sands extraction process. If the company starts producing tar sands on a commercial scale, 32,000 acres in Utah’s Uintah Basin could be covered with these pits, along with tailings ponds that would store huge amounts of waste water and chemicals used in the extraction process. (Courtesy of Utah Tar Sands Resistance).

But this landscape so familiar to her has transformed over the past decade to one in which drill rigs are more common than cattle herds, and methane emissions have degraded the air quality in this wilderness region to rival that of Los Angeles.

New technologies like fracking––along with government subsidies––have ushered in an energy boom reliant on extreme extraction methods to produce oil and natural gas. Now the Uinta Basin is ground zero for what threatens to become the next phase in extreme energy extraction: strip mining for tar sands and oil shale.

Tar sands are a sticky mixture of sand, clay, water and bitumen that can be processed into fuel, but require more refining than conventional crude oil, releasing more greenhouse gases and toxins in the process. Despite the fact that Canadian tar sands mining is pushing the Earth toward disastrous climate change, some companies are moving forward with tar sands mining projects in the United States.

Oil shale, not to be confused with shale oil (which is oil released by fracking), is a solid mixture of chemical compounds––called kerogen––inside sedimentary rock. When heated at high enough temperatures, it’s possible to break the kerogen down into liquid hydrocarbons and release them from the rock. This requires a whole lot of fuel just to make more fuel, and also promises to drastically worsen the effects of climate change.

Part one of this article delved into the history of how, in the past, taxpayers have footed costly bills for government-sponsored tar sands and oil shale development that never turned out to be commercially viable. The last of these projects fizzled out in the 1980s. Now, thanks in large part to a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005––written by Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch––oil shale and tar sands are back on the table.

Red Leaf Resources and U.S. Oil Sands are two companies that have led the renewed crusade to develop oil shale and tar sands in the United States. Red Leaf leases Utah state land for its oil shale mine site near the Tavaputs Plateau in Uintah County. A few miles away, straddling the boundaries of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation, sits the tar sands mine site of Canadian-based U.S. Oil Sands.

In 2008, one of Red Leaf’s Vice Presidents, Laura Nelson, teamed up with a U.S. Oil Sands Executive to co-write a white paper for the Utah Mining Association (UMA), a lobbying group. In it, they spelled out the ways that state and federal governments should subsidize tar sands and oil shale development. Since then, several of their recommendations––including millions of dollars in tax breaks, leasing public land at rock-bottom prices, and government-funded infrastructure projects––have become reality.

Wolf Gunned Down in Southern Utah

An animal seen north of Grand Canyon on Oct 27, 2014.(Photo: Arizona Game and Fish Department)

From the Earth First! Newswire:

It happened again. After thrilling the hearts of everyone in the country by showing up around the Grand Canyon, an endangered gray wolf was shot by a hunter.

In Kentuky, the first gray wolf seen in 150 years was shot dead last August. Last March, a wolf was shot in Missouri. Earlier this year, a farmer shot and killed a wolf in Washington State, and in North Carolina, 10 endangered red wolves have been shot in the last year.

Though the killing in Utah is not unique, what is shocking is the lack of care that the officials at the Arizona Game and Fish Department showed. Going so far as to suggest that the wolf was planted in the state by “radicalized environmental monkey wrenchers,” federal officials saw the wolf as a threat to be put down—as an instrument of wilderness advocates who wanted to protect the area under endangered species habitat, not as a precious animal and important facet to the bioregion.

It is possible that this wolf, a female, is likely the same one shot seen in November after traveling 500 miles from the Northen Rockies. She will be remembered.

Read more…

Long-wandering Endangered Female Wolf Shot in Utah

Location Suggests May Be Same Wolf Spotted on North Rim of Grand Canyon

From the Center for Biological Diversity:

BEAVER, Utah — A federally protected radio-collared female gray wolf, possibly the same wolf photographed this fall on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, was shot and killed Sunday in Utah after reportedly being mistaken for a coyote. The identity of the wolf is likely to be determined in the coming days or weeks.

The Grand Canyon wolf, named “Echo” in a children’s naming contest this month that drew hundreds of contestants from around the globe, was confirmed through genetic analysis to be a female originating from the northern Rocky Mountains, at least 450 miles away.

“It’s heartbreaking that another far-wandering wolf has been cut down with a fatal gunshot,” said Michael Robinson with the Center for Biological Diversity. “This female wolf could have helped wolves naturally recover in remote regions of Utah and neighboring states. Federal authorities need to conduct a full investigation into this latest killing, which is part of a disturbing pattern.”

Dozens of wolves that dispersed far from their home territories seeking mates have been killed in recent years, often by people claiming to have mistaken the animal for a coyote. Coyotes, which are common and aren’t federally protected, are smaller than wolves, and display a more pointed snout and ears, whereas wolves appear bulkier and with markedly longer legs and a bushier tail.

Wolves are an endangered species in Utah, but the Justice Department has systematically failed to enforce the Endangered Species Act in respect to illegal shootings of animals supposedly mistaken for unprotected wildlife species; notwithstanding that a fundamental rule of firearm and hunter safety is never to pull the trigger without being 100 percent sure of the target.

“Wolves in Utah deserve real, on-the-ground protection,” said Robinson. “That means, first, keeping them on the endangered species list; second, spreading the word about their presence as an endangered species; third, prosecuting those who kill them; and finally, developing a science-based recovery plan so that instead of one or two lone and vulnerable wolves, Utah and the West will eventually boast hundreds more wolves to stave off extinction and help keep ecosystems in healthy balance.”

Last month the Center released a first-of-its-kind analysis that identified 359,000 square miles of additional habitat for gray wolves in 19 of the lower 48 states that could significantly boost the nation’s 40-year wolf recovery efforts. The study indicated the gray wolf population could be doubled to around 10,000 by expanding recovery into areas researchers have identified as excellent habitat in the Northeast, West Coast and southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the Grand Canyon, the area where a radio-collared wolf was photographed in October.

The report documented 56 instances over 30 years where wolves have dispersed from existing core recovery areas to states where they have yet to reestablish, including Colorado, Utah, California, New York, Massachusetts and Maine. These events, which frequently ended in the dispersing wolves being shot, highlight the need for continued federal protections and recovery planning to increase the odds for dispersing wolves to survive and recolonize former terrain. The most famous dispersing wolf, OR-7, traveled hundreds of miles from northeast Oregon to California and has started a family along the border of the two states.

Direct Action Against Utah Tar Sands

The Vigil Continues! The plateau needs us, and we will do our best to fulfill the commitment we have made to this land, which has already given us so much.

Video: Work stopped ALL WEEK at tar sands strip mine!

National Environmental Groups Stand With Utah Land Defenders

PRESS RELEASE: Opponents to enforce shutdown of tar sands mine today (July 21st)

UPDATE: ALL 21 LAND DEFENDERS HAVE BEEN RELEASED.

After a massive direct action protest today at the site of U.S. Oil Sands’ tar sands strip-mining site, a total of 21 were arrested and are currently awaiting charges at Uintah County Jail in Vernal, Utah. In addition to protestors, those acting as legal observers, independent media, and jail support were arrested, as well as several indigenous and trans individuals whose safety we are deeply concerned about.

Early this morning land defenders locked themselves to equipment being used to clear-cut and grade an area designated for the tar sands’ companies processing plant, as well as a fenced “cage” used to store the equipment. Others formed a physical blockade with their bodies to keep work from happening, and to protect those locked-down to the equipment. Banners were also hung off the cage that read: “You are trespassing on Ute land” and “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance.”

13 people were arrested for locking to equipment. An additional six people were arrested after sitting in the road to prevent the removal of those being taken away in two police vans. Two of the protesters arrested were injured. One was taken a nearby hospital to be treated, while the other is being treated at the Uintah County Jail. The nature of their injuries is not being disclosed by the county sheriffs.

Two additional people were arrested when they arrived at Uintah Country Jail to provide support to the land defenders inside. An estimated 10 armed deputies with police dogs were standing outside the jail wearing bullet proof vests. Those at the jail to provide support were told that the deputies were there to “deter” any supporters from actually coming to the jail.

Currently all 21 individuals are still being processed and held.

Support these brave land defenders who put their hearts and bodies on the line by donating to their legal fund.

Rising Tide North America is handling donations through The Action Network. Donate to the land defenders’ legal support fund using this secure link

Street Medic/ine Training at Wild Roots Feral Futures 2013

From Wild Roots Feral Futures:

Wild Roots Feral Futures is very excited to announce a 2.5-day Street Medic training at this year’s WRFF, taught by members of Chicago Action Medical (CAM), Mutual Aid Street Medics (MASM), and Finger Lakes Action Medics (FLAME).

Register for the Street Medic/ine Training now!

National first aid systems in most of the world came out of the medical corps of popular and liberation movements in the 1950s and 1960s. This was also true in the United States, where street medics were operating and training in Mississippi and New York City at least four years before Maryland established the first statewide EMS program.

Street medics are an international informal community who have provided medical support during the last half-century of protests, direct actions, uprisings, and militarized natural disaster aftermaths. Becoming a member of the street medic community involves completing a 20-28 hour training, working at an action as the buddy of an experienced street medic, and maintaining relationships with the street medic community.

Students who attend this training are expected to attend all of it. The training covers (1) street medic field operations and prevention, (2) emergency response, (3) patient assessment and first aid, (4) community health work, and (5) operating in unsafe scenes. Scenarios, skills stations, and critical thinking exercises are based on recent experiences of street medics in backcountry and urban situations.

All students will get non-latex gloves and a 70pp street medic handbook, and may purchase a basic first aid kit.

Itinerary:

• June 19-21: 20-hour street medic training.

• June 23: 3-hour Intro to herbal remedies for base camp and blockade.

• June 23: 2-hour Wildcrafting high-desert medicine for common camp maladies.

Trainer bios:

GRACE KELLER is an internationally-recognized street medic trainer and a member of Chicago Action Medical. She trained as a street medic in 2001 and apprenticed as a street clinician in 2002-2003. She has spent the years since volunteering as a front-line health worker, clinician, educator, and health systems designer in urban, rural, and backwoods environments.

Ms. Keller grew up among pokeweeds, corn fields, and ramps in a parsonage beside a country church in the south. She began formal study of clinical herbalism in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As a survivor of psychiatric abuse and former assistant director of a peer-run, recovery-based state mental health agency, she takes a strong interest in how complex social situations and trauma can be addressed by lay health workers.

BECCA PISER works as a registered nurse. She was trained as a street medic in 2002 and is active in Mutual Aid Street Medics and Philly Street Medic Collective as a medic and trainer. Becca is a founding member of Peoples Medical Relief, providing medical relief and recovery work with survivors of hurricane Sandy in New York.

Becca has challenged medic trainers across the Eastern and Central US to update their trainings to meet current realities, and helped develop new curricula for training street medics, affinity group medics, and community first-aiders. Becca started two prison arts programs and is working on starting a third.

GREG is a street medic, herbalist, Wilderness EMT, bicycle mechanic, farmworker, Reiki practitioner, and community builder. When he is not summit hopping he spends his time in Ithaca, NY, where he organizes with FLAME (Finger Lakes Action Medics and Educators) and the Ithaca freeskool.

Greg offered ongoing herbal support at Occupy Wall Street and other protests, has helped maintain campaign health at longer forest actions and encampments. Most recently, he organized medical care for the 50,000 person Forward on Climate rally in Washington, DC and the Earth First! Climbers Guild’s week-long climb training which took place in the snow-covered Finger Lakes National Forest.

Tempe Police and Arizona Anti-Terror Unit are targeting anarchists and indigenous projects in Arizona

From Fires Never Extinguished:

A campaign of political repression is under way against anarchist and indigenous projects in Arizona, spearheaded by the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center and the Tempe Police Department Homeland Defense Unit. The Tempe police department’s anti-terror division preemptively shut down the Protect the Peaks solidarity benefit show that was planned for Friday night, using the threat of a fire code violation to ensure that the venue would have to cancel the event.  The Homeland Defense Unit acted on an alert they received from Arizona’s main counter terrorism information gathering hub, also known as a fusion center, that a benefit show to raise money for the struggle to save the San Francisco Peaks was scheduled to take place in Tempe on Friday night.

The benefit show organizers had contacted a DIY venue/space run out of a warehouse in west Tempe, a well regarded space that has hosted a number of shows over the last year, often receiving coverage in the Phoenix New Times and other media.  It is a labor of love for the person who runs it, who has a full time job in addition to hosting the occasional show at the venue.  The Protect the Peaks benefit show would have been the first political show to have been hosted at the space, it also put the venue on the radar of Arizona’s counter terrorism fusion center.

On Thursday, September 6^th the venue operator received an unannounced visit at his workplace from an officer assigned to the city’s Homeland Defense Unit.  The officer, Detective Derek Pittam, threatened to have the venue shut down for fire code violations if the Protect the Peaks show wasn’t canceled immediately.  Detective Pittam informed the person that he was aware that the venue regularly held shows and made it clear that under no circumstances would this benefit show be held at the venue.  The venue’s future is now up in the air due to the threats of the Homeland Defense Unit, even though Detective Pittam admitted to the venue operator that he was aware that there had never been one call to police or reports of any illegal activity at that location.

Detective Derek Pittam of the Tempe Police Homeland Defense Unit

At least one officer working in the Homeland Defense Unit spent last week locating the DIY venue, identifying the operator of the venue, finding his cell phone number, and where he works his full time job so that he could be harassed by Detective Pittam. They had also decided that their anti-terror unit was going to manufacture a fire code violation as pretext to shut down the show, unless the Homeland Defense unit is regularly enforcing code violations in Tempe.

I’ve learned that during the workplace visit, Pittam specifically identified support for the “Save the Peaks” as a concern for the authorities.  Throughout his visit Detective Pittam made it clear, the issue is with the benefit show not the venue, however the venue would face the consequences for allowing a radical, anarchist, and indigenous themed event.

I’ve also learned that the venue operator was again contacted on his cell phone Friday night by a Tempe police commander who wanted the venue’s permission as the primary property manager to arrest individuals (who may not even know the show was canceled) for trespass on site.  The venue operator declined, and was then asked by the commander for the landlord’s phone number, which he also declined to provide to the Tempe Police.   A friend who drove by the venue Friday evening observed one marked police vehicle on the property where the venue was located, and another vehicle parked near by.

In the short time since word got around about the show being canceled, many people involved with various projects are shocked and outraged over this show of state repression.  I was able to chat with Alex Soto, a Tohono O’odham MC from the hip hop group Shining Soul, one of the acts that was scheduled to perform on Friday.  In addition to his music, Alex has organized against border militarization on his traditional land,  the Tohono O’odham nation, a land divided by the US/Mexico border wall and militarized by the border patrol.

He had this to say about the cancelling of the show:

“The show itself is an example of the solidarity between indigenous people, the Diné and O’odham, and anarchist people who are supportive, it also means that the authorities are afraid of us acting in collaboration, collectively.  They’re afraid of all of us coming together, it’s not new, it’s happened before at past demonstrations where we’re targeted, we’re marked for oppression, mainly just by being ourselves and being there.

It doesn’t matter to them whether it’s an action or protest, or in this case with our talents and our musical gifts to bring people together, the state doesn’t respect that.  This act of repression by the police further motivates myself and everyone else involved to push forward and to have another benefit or show, because we know this will be effective, and all we’re doing now is picking up mics and guitars.

In addition, I’d like to express that as a Tohono O’odham person, I have solidarity with other indigenous people in this area, in this case it’s Diné people and the other 12 tribes that hold the San Francisco Peaks as a sacred site.   This act by Tempe police, and all the entities involved is an attack on who I am and who we are as indigenous people, it verifies to me that we’re doing our role, in this case by standing in solidarity with the peaks, or when we oppose the loop 202 freeway or oppose the border and militarization because this is what solidarity and healthy communities look like.   When we stand together, fight alongside each other, or in this case sing together to defend who we are and what we hold sacred, then fuck the Tempe PD, fuck Phoenix PD, fuck DPS, and any entity that tries to stop this energy that’s building here in Arizona.”

When the authorities act to intimidate or threaten dissident voices and movements, it causes a chilling effect, in this case the Tempe police were willing to let a fire inspector poke around in the venue until any little violation could be found that would shut the show down.  We also know that they wanted to arrest anyone who came to the property expecting to see a show. This is a direct attack on the ability of people to freely gather, communicate, and organize without the potential of arrest or physical injury by police, in addition to the potential for serious financial problems for the venue operator.

More information will be coming this week.

Tree-sit Halts Snowbowl Pipeline Construction

Snowbowl Employees Threaten Tree-sitter’s Life, Two Supporters Arrested as Tree-Sit Continues

Contact: Ariana Sauer (602) 388-3726
Xander Vautrin@ (847) 334-7212
protectpeaks@gmail.com
www.protectthepeaks.org

FLAGSTAFF, AZ — Tree-sitter James Kennedy watched from 80 feet above as 2 supporters, who had locked themselves to Snowbowl pipeline equipment to protect James’ “lifeline”, were arrested. At 7:00AM, Snowbowl workers began recklessly moving the line that tethers Snowbowl equipment to the tree-sit platform.

“Two supporters, Eric and Alex, have locked down on heavy construction equipment, where my lifeline is anchored,” stated James Kennedy,a student at NAU. “They did this after police and Snowbowl employees alongside Police Chief Treadway said they would attempt a dangerous relocation of my lifeline. I am NOT harnessed into the platform or tree. any movement will send me falling nearly 80ft.”

At 1:00PM both supporters were arrested by Flagstaff Police. The two community members who were arrested face trespassing charges. Donations can be made for jail support at: www.protectthepeaks.org.

At 4:00PM James started rain-proofing the tree-sit platform in preparation for his second night in the path of Snowbowl’s wastewater pipeline. “Thank you to Eric & Alex who placed readily available bicycle u-locks around their necks and connected them to Snowbowl’s pipeline trench machine. They acted quickly to prevent reckless Snowbowl workers and law enforcement officials from further threatening James’ life.” stated, Liza  Minno Bloom, a supporter on the ground at the tree-sit, “So many people have come out today offering support and have called the Flagstaff City Council urging them to ensure noone’s safety is compromised, they cannot ignore our concerns.”

A rally & march was held tonight starting at Flagstaff City Hall at 5:00 PM. Community members walked through Thorpe Park to the nearby tree-sit site to rally, drum, sing, and express support for the tree-sitter defending public health and the Peaks.

The tree-sit was initiated yesterday to block construction of pipeline that would transport 180 million gallons of sewage effluent from the City of Flagstaff to Arizona Snowbowl for snowmaking on the San Francisco Peaks. Arizona Snowbowl would be the only ski area in the world to use 100% wastewater for snowmaking. The treated sewage effleunt has been proven to contain pharmaceuticals and hormones and more recently to contain Antibacterial Resistant Genes.

The San Francisco Peaks are considered an ecological island and held holy by more than 13 Indigenous Nations.

We invite those of you who believe in the safety and health of our children, the sanctity of our environment, and the protection of public water to demand that:

– The City of Flagstaff rescind the wastewater contract with Snowbowl!
– An immediate moratorium on the City of Flagstaff’s use of treated sewage effluent in public spaces where any person may come in contact with reclaimed wastewater, until new research and technology is available to mitigate long-term environmental & community health risks.
-The use of public water in this desert climate of Flagstaff with only a projected 25-38 years of water left for people’s consumption, should be cleaned and used for people to drink, not for a private corporation to make a profit.
-President Obama fulfill campaign promises to protect human rights and sacred sites.

City of Flagstaff Mayor & Council:
PHONE: (928) 779-7600
EMAIL: council@flagstaffaz.gov

Directions & more info…

4th Annual LIBERATE EARTH DAY! – Call for Workshops

Taala Hooghan Infoshop is hosting it’s 4th Annual Liberate Earth Day!

We are inviting folks to propose workshops, discussions, films, etc. for this years event.

This year LED will be held on Sunday April 22 from 1-7pm at Taala Hooghan Infoshop. As always, this event is free to attend.

Please send workshop proposals by March 31st to infofosho@gmail.com. Space is very limited!

We’ll work to notify folks of participation as soon as we get proposals in.

ABOUT LED:

Earth Day has become an act of ritualized consumption by corporations and state agencies that greenwash their eco-cidal actions. LED is an educational and active anti-capitalist/anti-colonial event that addresses direct and meaningful ways towards healthy and sustainable communities.

In the past we’ve had skill-shares on sacred lands protection, direct action, permaculture,  discussions on eco-feminism, green scare and much more.

Join us for this educational and active event for an end to corporate greenwashing & “green” capitalism!

Some workshops and discussion at previous Liberate Earth Day events:

3rd Annual Workshops:

Anarchist Understandings of Nature and Social Change
Moon Time Liberation
An Affordable Way to Catch and Dispense Your Water
Green Consumerism: The Misguided Discourse on Sustainability
The Green Washing of the Prison Industrial Complex
Film Presentation: “Animal Exploitation, Heteropatriarchy and the Three
Pillars of White Supremacy.”
Underlying Contradictions in Liberation Struggles: A Discussion on Strategies Towards Meaningful Support and Solidarity

2nd Annual Workshops:

Abolish Profit Farming & the Importance of Autonomous Agriculture
Green Consumerism: The Misguided Discourse on Sustainability
Eco-Feminism
Derrick Jensen: The Problem of Civilization and Resistance (online video discussion)
Defending Sacred Lands – Intersections of environmental and social struggles for justice
Direct Action: Tactical training and discussion

1st Annual:

Abolishing the Non-profit Industrial Complex
Indigenous Traditionalism, Sustainability, & Civilization
Guerilla Gardening
Green Consumerism
Addressing the “Green Scare”

—

Taala Hooghan – Infoshop & Youth Media Arts Center
www.taalahooghan.org

Taking livestock is ploy to force relocation, Black Mesa residents say

By Leslie Wilber, The Precarious

02/01/2012 – Rangers employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs rode in on horse back and four wheelers, armed with portable corals and livestock trailers, to take horses and calves from Dineh tribal elders living on Black Mesa, last week. Residents of the traditionally tribal land say the livestock seizure is the latest push in a relocation effort elders have fought for more than three decades.

They’re violating universal human rights,” said Bahe Katenay, one of the Dineh people who lives in the Big Mountain Community of Black Mesa. Katenay grew up on Black Mesa and helps tribal elders maintain their traditions. “These people still have a right to food, to their culture, to safety, to health.”

Rangers with the Hopi Tribal Government told Black Mesa residents that the roughly eight cattle and 25 horses were taken because they were not properly registered, said Derek Minno Bloom, who volunteers with the Black Mesa Indigenous Support collective. The collective is made up of people who do not live in the Black Mesa area and are largely non-native, but have responded to elders’ requests for outside help in order to stay on their land.

Some of the animals have been returned, Katenay said, although he did not have an official tally. Black Mesa Indigenous Support is raising money to help elders get their animals back, Minno Bloom said.

Louella Nahsonhoya, who works for the Hopi Tribal Government, said she would send members of the press a written statement about the livestock by the end of the week. Before then, she will be unable to answer any questions about why the horses and cattle were taken.

“This is part of forced relocation,” Katenay said, noting that the official U.S. policy is to relocate only those Dineh people who willingly leave their land. Approximately 40 tribal elders remain on Black Mesa, many of whom are at least 80 years old, Katenay said. None of them is willing to relocate.

They are trying to maintain their culture, their heritage,” Katenay said.

The back story is convoluted, but the conflict stems from the U.S. government’s collusion with Peabody Coal Company Since the 1970s, the company has steered efforts to remove Dineh and Hopi people from their ancestral homes on Black Mesa, in order to mine coal there. The Bureau of Indian Affairs-approved Hopi tribal government is not so much a traditional authority. Rather they are deputies of the U.S. Federal Government, Katenay said.

Efforts to remove remaining elders from the land have made life there more difficult. Although people depend on animals for their livelihood, livestock roundups happen as often as twice a year. Officials have capped off water wells and destroyed pumps, although water is hard to collect on the arid mesa, Katenay said.

Still, relocating is not a viable or easy solution for the elders. Many do not speak or read English. They have a deep wealth of knowledge, but it largely pertains to traditional life: herding, weaving, histories and rituals.

Those who are relocated are put in modern homes, with less land and fewer animals. The amenities are unfamiliar: Someone who grew up without electricity and running water might not know which foods go in the refrigerator and which go in the cupboard, Katenay said. Younger people often are surrounded by modern distractions, leaving their elders in solitude.

They’re not going to force these people out,” Katenay said of the remaining elders. “These people have been resisting for more than 30 years.”

Elders have seen, first hand, that coal mining leads to pollution, the depletion of clean water and other problems, Katenay said. In a sense, they resist relocation to help everyone. He tells the story of one woman who speaks no English, but has come to understand there is war and upheaval in the world outside Black Mesa.

She is doing it for all the people in the world,” Katenay said. “They’re not only doing it for themselves. They’re doing it for all of humanity. If we allow this coal company to do what they want to do, we’re all in danger.”

Leslie Wilber is a journalist who has covered police misconduct, courts, high school sports and other disasterous things. She lives in Denver and is an editor at The Precarious, a media project with a mission to use in-depth journalism, storytelling and cultural analysis to re-frame the revolutionary as regular. They investigate oppression and celebrate liberation with relentless curiosity, critical minds, style and humor. They’re not here to merely convey information, and they hope their readers aren’t content to idly consume media.

Direct Action halts ski resort construction on sacred site

By Kyle Boggs, Earth First! Journal

It was an especially beautiful morning on June 16, when at least 15 people participated in a direct action on the San Francisco Peaks that temporarily halted construction of a pipeline on the mountain. Six mainly indigenous youth were arrested during the coordinated action and another was cited for trespassing.

On December 1, 2010, Federal Judge Mary Murguia ruled in favor of Arizona Snowbowl Limited Partnership, approving the construction of a 14.8-mile reclaimed wastewater pipeline from Flagstaff to the ski resort, among other developments. The water is to be used at Snowbowl to make artificial snow. While many ski resorts around the world use a percentage of reclaimed wastewater to make snow, the resort would be the only one in the world that would use a 100% mixture of wastewater in this way. Prompted by concerns from the scientific community and others who assert the likelihood of health risks associated with the use of reclaimed wastewater, the Environmental Protection Agency is currently conducting a national multi-year study of the water to be completed in 2013.

The case itself, brought on by the Save the Peaks Coalition and nine concerned citizens, is currently under appeal in the Ninth Circuit. The Hopi Tribe has filed their own separate lawsuit citing a first amendment violation of their religious freedoms in association with further development.

The San Francisco Peaks are held sacred to at least 13 regional Native American tribes and the impact of construction has been emotional. A prayer gathering was held at the base of the San Francisco Peaks a few days after construction began, where Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly addressed the crowd declaring, “We have got to stop the construction.” Kelvin Long, director of ECHOES (Educating Communities while Healing and Offering Environmental Support) stated, “We’re going to protect our mountain, we’re not going to allow snowmaking to happen.” Steve Darden of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission and former Flagstaff City Council member added a specific message to youth. “In our Hogans and sweat lodges we are offering our prayers, we’re relying on you young ones to step up.”

And so they did.

On the morning of the action, as the full moon faded and the sun rose, two demonstrators chained themselves to the wheel well of a large excavator while two pairs of women sat back-to-back deep inside the six-foot-trench, bound to each other by the neck with U-locks. The action occurred a few miles up Snowbowl Road where construction had been in progress since May 25, 2011.

The first to respond on the scene was Snowbowl. The security vehicle, a blue Mercedes, screamed up and down Snowbowl Road apparently trying to locate those involved in the action. By 6 AM more than 15 armed agents arrived on the scene, as well as the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department, City of Flagstaff Police, and the FBI.

At the same time a group of at least eight demonstrators gathered at the bottom of Snowbowl road, blocking access. Five demonstrators wore white hazmat suites in a symbolic “quarantine” of the resort, stretching banners across the road that read, “Protect Sacred Sites” and “Danger! Health Hazard—Snowbowl.” Caution tape was stretched across the width of the road along with other objects, forming a makeshift blockade.

The demonstrators engaged in a multi-varied approach to what is very much considered a multi-layered issue. The complexity of the controversy was illustrated in the diversity of demonstrator’s chants, echoing from the base of the mountain, from those locked to construction equipment, and from voices deep from within the trenches. “Protect Sacred Sites, Defend Human Rights!” “No desecration for recreation!” “Stop the cultural genocide! Protect the Peaks!” “Human health over corporate wealth!” “Dook’o’osliid [the traditional Diné name of the San Francisco Peaks], we’ve got your back!”

Fire Department began aggressively cutting demonstrators from their various lockdown devices. Evan Hawbaker and Kristopher Barney were chained to the same excavator. “The police’s use of excessive force was in complete disregard for my safety. They pulled at my arms and forced my body and head further into the machine, all the while using heavy duty power saws within inches of my hand,” said Hawbaker.

Rather than negotiate, as the demonstrators were cut, it was clear that the police and firemen preferred to use scare tactics. “We don’t want to cut your arm off,” repeated one of the firemen several times to which Hawbaker finally responded, “I don’t want you to cut my arm off either.” Hawbaker said the fireman looked dead serious, “well, we will if we have to.”

The firefighters used a Sawzall to cut the PVC pipe lengthwise. When the blade hit the metal rod, it rattled the chain violently. Hawbaker depicts, “Those who cut us out endangered our well being ignoring the screams to stop. They treated our bodies the way they’re treating this holy mountain.”

One of the women in the trench described an action taken in which one police officer would attempt to stand them up while another officer moved the other demonstrator another way. Because U-locks bound the women by the neck, they were choked. “Nobody even bothered to ask what it would take to get us out voluntarily. Finally they just started hurting us,” said Ms. Del Callejo. “I’m here to protect the mountain, I said, and you’re hurting me. You’re choking me.” The police responded in a way that did not sugar coat their lack of experience in dealing with nonviolent demonstrators. “That’s your own fault.”

“Our safety was prioritized second to Snowbowl’s demands. I was not aggressive. My lock was sawed through, inches away from both of our heads, secured solely and recklessly by the hands of a deputy. The police’s response was hasty, taking about ten minutes in total—it was dehumanizing,” said Hailey Sherwood, one of the last demonstrators cut out.

One at a time, as demonstrators were removed from their locking devices, they were treated by paramedics, and arrested for trespassing. Those two demonstrators that were bound to minors were also charged with “contributing to the delinquency of a minor,” and another charged for “endangerment.”

On the Monday after the lockdown, the Arizona Daily Sun published an editorial reaction entitled, “Monkey-wrenchers Marginalize Cause of Native America.” Besides the fact that the term, “monkeywrenching,” is entirely misrepresented in the editorial, as it is well documented that demonstrators took great care not to damage any machinery, the editorial itself reads more like an attempt by the paper to, in fact, marginalize the history of social and environmental movements.

The editorial explained that demonstrators’ comparison of their actions to Rosa Parks is a false analogy on the grounds that when Ms. Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, segregation was illegal. Said the editorial, “civil rights activists were seeking to uphold the law.” Here it sounds like the writers of the editorial would not have found the actions of Ms. Parks to be meaningful, courageous, or ethically sound if she had acted before segregation laws were abolished. It would be a curious task for the writers to name one social movement in the history of the world that did not result in illegal actions and arrests.

“Throughout history, acts of resistance and civil disobedience have been taken by young and old against injustices such as this. This action is not isolated but part of a continued resistance to human rights violations, to colonialism, to corporate greed, and destruction of Mother Earth,” added Del Callejo.

The editorial goes on, “The Snowbowl protesters are focusing on a religious dispute and don’t have the law on their side.” If the last 40 years of lawsuits have revealed anything, it should be clear that confronting a Eurocentric court system that is structurally incapable of making connections between environmental and human rights concerns has been a challenge for native people from the get-go. If the Daily Sun thinks the only issue here is “a religious dispute” that has nothing to do with the environmental integrity of the mountain and is not connected to the cultural survival of our native neighbors, they have truly exposed how out of touch they are on this issue. “The Holy San Francisco Peaks is home, tradition, culture, and a sanctuary… and all this is being desecrated by the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort,” said one of the demonstrators.

In the city council meetings related to choosing a water source for Snowbowl last summer, at least three-fouths of those hundreds of people in attendance submitted pubic comments in opposition to development, most of which urged the council to cancel the water contract with Snowbowl all together.

Furthermore, early in the morning of the demonstrations, word got out on [public radio] KNAU about what was happening, folks from all over Flagstaff came by and offered their support. A demonstrator remarked, “One woman came by with her daughter. She gave us all a bunch of Gatorade and offered to cook us all meals if it went on throughout the day. Many other folks grabbed signs and joined in the rally at the bottom of the mountain.” Furthermore, activists began to call from all over the country, as far away as Hawaii. A group from New Mexico said they were on their way to Flagstaff.

“How can we be trespassers on our Holy Site?” questioned Barney. “I do not agree with these and the other charges; we will continue our resistance.”

[There have now been over 23 arrested for resisting construction of the pipeline which began along Snowbowl Road in late May of 2011]