Lawsuit challenges 800,000 acre tar sands plans in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming

Earth First! Newswire

by Global Justice Ecology Project

A coalition of seven conservation groups sued the Bureau of Land Management on Thursday afternoon in federal district court in Colorado for allocating more than 800,000 acres of federal public land to climate-warming oil shale and tar sands development without undertaking formal consultation to protect endangered species.

The lands due to be mined are in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming within the Green River Formation, which the U.S. Geological Survey states contains between 353 billion and 1.146 trillion barrels of oil with “high potential for development,” — in fact, so high it holds 2 to 7 times as much as Alberta’s 170 billion barrels targeted by the Keystone XL pipeline.

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Arson at a New Mexico Horse Slaughterhouse

Earth First! Newswire

by Earth First! News

Earlier today, the owner of Valley Meat, Co., near Roswell, NM, announced that his horse slaughterhouse was hit by arson. The blaze did not burn the whole factory down, but appears to have been targeted for the refrigeration unit.

According to De Los Santos, “The fire inspector was out there. He took samples of the dirt and stuff just to make sure. But he said this was something that was not done by electricity or lightning. He said something was poured on it to light it.”

The damage will postpone the factory’s startup, since it cannot work without a refrigeration unit. Chaves County police are calling the blaze, “very suspicious.”

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Climate Justice Activists Occupy Two Tar Sands Mining Sites in Utah

Earth First! Newswire

by Earth First! News

In a direct action following the Canyon Country Action Camp, hundreds of activists have swarmed two mining sites in Utah tar sands. Activists are currently locked down to machines, stopping work.

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Proposed Utah Tar Sands Refinery Faces Massive Backlash

Earth First! Newswire

by Andrew Morris / Center for Heath, Environment, and Justice

A court battle may be in the future for Calgary-based Oil Company, U.S. Tar Sands. A coalition of conservation groups have filed a “request for agency action,” demanding that the Utah Department of Air Quality (UDAQ) revoke its June 21 approval of an oil refinery in Green River, UT.

The coalition, consisting of theCenter for Biological Diversity, theSouthern Utah Wilderness Allianceand others, issued a press release last Monday condemning the UDAQ and arguing that the introduction of oil shale mining would adversely affect the region’s air quality and fragile ecosystem.

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7/29 Adams County Public Hearing – Resist the Front Range Natural Gas Pipeline!

MONDAY JULY 29TH 6:30PM

Adams County Board of County Commissioners Public Hearing

4430 South Adams County Parkway, Brighton 80601

Enterprise Products Partners, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and DCP Midstream are teaming up under the name “Front Range Pipeline” to try to craft a 16-inch diameter pipeline to carry natural gas liquids from north-east Colorado to Skellytown, TX where it will cross the Mid-American Pipeline (operated by Enterprise). At this point it will turn into the “Texas Express Pipeline” and end at Enterprise’s fractionation and storage complex.
On July 11th the Adams County Planning Commission voted unanimously to DENY recommendation that the County Commissioners approve this project. Front Range Pipeline (FRP) had not supplied the requested safety records to the planning board, and there were multiple community members who testified to the misconduct and safety violations of FRP. The planning commissioners were neither fooled nor impressed by the oil and gas executives’ expensive suits and smug grins. The planning commissioners should be applauded for their sharp assessment of the bs that was being presented. They cut to the chase about FRP’s lack of respect for the approval process and their lack of integrity regarding their dealings with the people of Adams County. The chairwoman even went on to state that she was in favor of pipelines, but that she did not approve of the way this hearing was going. Audio of the hearing in its entirety can be found here (scroll down to the Planning Commission 7/11 Audio).

It was obvious to all that these companies have nothing but contempt for the communities they pollute, and think nothing of using their eminent domain rights to take people’s homes just to save on their own costs.

Please join us in urging the Adams County Commissioners to heed their planning commissioners’ recommendation that it would be in the best interest of Adams County not to allow this environmentally devastating project! You can also email comments (in addition to attending if possible!) to mweaver@adcogov.org

Colorado Extraction Resistance is committed to fighting poisonous energy industry processes such as hydraulic fracturing & tar sands extraction.

Website: http://ColoradoER.tk
Twitter: @ColoradoER
Like us on Facebook
SMS: text “@DenverDOS” to 23559 to receive notifications on upcoming direct actions. Text “@NoFrackCO” to receive fracking specific updates. Or sign up online http://Cel.ly

No Loop 202 Meetup July 23

NO SOUTH MOUNTAIN FREEWAY

Hello freeway resistors! We have good news to share about an upcoming event. Members of No South Mountain Freeway will be presenting information on the current proposed route for the Loop 202 extension. We will have maps to help orient you with the proposed route. As well as information on landowners rights, the sacredness of the mountain, and environmental & health concerns.

No Loop 202 Meetup Info Session
July 23rd
5pm-8pm
@ Cesar Chavez Public Library
3635 W Baseline Rd, Laveen

All Environmental Impact Statement comments are due by July 24. We will have documents to assist you in making a last minute statement on one of the computers in the library. In addition to a slideshow of photographs of areas at risk of being destroyed by the mountain we will have maps of the route on hand to look at.

One of our other main goals is to listen…

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One Hundred Out Against Fracking in Colorado

Earth First! Newswire

By Isabelle Chapman / Aspen Times

“What about our future?” an 8-year-old member of Earth Guardians, an environmental youth group, asked into a megaphone Saturday afternoon as more than a hundred protesters waved signs and chanted outside the Democratic Governors Association meeting at the St. Regis Aspen.

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Arizona Jaguar Versus Copper Mine

Earth First! Newswire

Douglas Cobb / Guardianlv

A jaguar has been seen in five different locations in Arizona a total of seven times, and it has been photographed three of the times. This is spectacular news, right? Potentially, it means that a species that was past the brink of extinction in the state is making a comeback. Instead, it’s turned into the case of the Arizona jaguar versus the copper mine.

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Quaking Aspen Population in Trouble

Earth First! Newswire

Cross Posted from Herald Extra

If Utah’s quaking aspen appear to be quaking more than usual this summer, the trees have reason to tremble, says a Brigham Young University biologist. In dappled forests across the West, aspen trees are battling deadly killers from heat stroke to bud-nipping predators to tree “heart attacks.”

In a July special aspen tree issue of Forest Ecology and Management, BYU biology professor Sam St. Clair and colleagues from across the west report that they are seeing troubling declines in aspen populations in Utah, Arizona, and Colorado. The die-offs are seen most dramatically at lower elevations where drought and hotter temperatures are killing older trees.

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Jaguar Threatens Open-pit Mine Plan in Southern Arizona

Earth First! Newswire

by Tony Davis / AZ Star

A male jaguar has roamed the Santa Rita Mountains’ eastern flank for at least nine months, photos obtained from the federal government show.

The remote cameras have photographed the big cat in five locations on seven occasions since October.

Three times, the federally financed remote cameras photographed the jaguar immediately west of the proposed Rosemont Mine site in the mountains southeast of Tucson.

The photos were taken for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by University of Arizona cameras as follow-up after a hunter gave state authorities a photo of a jaguar’s tail that he took last September in the Santa Ritas.

The sightings next to the mine site were at roughly the same location where the earlier jaguar tail photo was taken, wildlife service officials said. Other photos ranged from two to 15 miles from the mine site.  

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