Statements from Utah Tar Sands resisters sentenced today

Today 25 people arrested during 2014 protest actions resolved their criminal cases. No contest pleas to misdemeanor charges were received by the court from all defendants after lengthy negotiations between prosecutors and the land defenders’ attorneys. The heavy-handed and ridiculous felony charges mentioned below were all eliminated and reduced during plea negotiations. These 25 land defenders are now on probation but vow to continue the fight to protect the Colorado Plateau from extreme energy projects! Below are two personal statements regarding the persecution, from Victor Puertas and Camila Ibanez, two of the most fearless forces of nature that we’ve ever met. 

Victor Puertas:

Finally after so many months, tomorrow is our court date. 6 months after and the consequences are finally clear: A charge of third-degree felony riot punishable by up to five years in prison. I’m also charged with interference with an arresting officer, which is a class-A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. I’m on the watch-list of this corporation as a ”dangerous, radical environmentalist” (lol), lawyers of this corporation are telling the government that I should be deported out of the country.

I have been through a lot of BS, attacks and criticism from people that don’t have the same level of commitment, people that don’t understand our sacred duty as children of the PachaMama. People that talk a lot but at the end they will never risk their own safety or privileges. Some of them weren’t even there but of course as ”radicals” they feel qualified to criticize me, our actions and our event that day.

I truly believe that our three years campaign in defense of this land and against tar-sands on the Tavaputs Plateau, our events, actions and our strong commitment are crucial to the problems that US Oil Sands is having right now, their stocks are going down, they’re losing a lot of money.

In the end I’m just guilty of protecting this land and stand up for my people, my compas. I don’t regret not even a single second of that day. I took my chances, I face the consequences but I always keep my head up, for me this is a physical battle but also a spiritual one and the only important thing is to honor this land and to honor my ancestors, to be worthy of their warrior spirit.

So whatever happens, this struggle continues and we only just begun, we are here for the long run!!

Wañuylla, wañuy wañucha, amaraq aparuwaychu, karuraqmi puririnay, runaykunatan maskani, karuraqmi puririnay. No Tar-Sands on Indigenous Land!!!

Camila Ibanez: 

6 months later, today is my court day for the alleged actions against the first-ever tar sand mine in the United States. Alongside of 24 other land defenders, I am one of the six people being accused of third-degree riot felony, along with a class A misdemeanor. US Oil sands is quick to label us as criminals, and terrorist. They are saying whatever they can in attempt to get the community to see us as so. The legislators, CEOs, and other fat takers have no intention in seeing themselves as criminals, “domestic terrorists”, destroyers of the lands.

Utah is one of the states that oil corporations have lobbied hard for in order to pass legislation that heightens charges against protestors. Which makes sense when you look at how many tar sands deposits lie in Utah.

As we struggle for black liberation and indigenous resistance, we must also fight to free Pachamama, who is suffering from white supremacy and capitalism. Our communities hold wisdom and answers and we find them when we redefine wealth, value, love.

For all y’all that know. I’ll be headed back to the plateau in so called Utah in a few months to resume the work that needs to be done to stop the tar sands extraction.

So let’s take my sister Sabaah’s solid advice and let’s get free. Cause there is no justice on stolen lands for stolen bodies. We need to work together.

Press release: Utah tar sands opponents to be sentenced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Utah tar sands opponents to be sentenced

VERNAL–Plea agreements reached between the Uintah County Attorney’s office and 25 tar sands opponents arrested in July and September, some charged with felonies, will be revealed in 8th District Court Thursday at 9 AM.

Can’t make it to Vernal?
A representative of the defendants will be available for interviews and on-camera comments at 2:30 pm Thursday, January 8 in front of the Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City immediately following the hearing

Construction of the US Oil Sands tar sands strip mine in the Book Cliffs of Utah was halted for one week in July due to protesters’ efforts to stop the project. They say all levels of government and corporate investors have failed to stop the misguided project and so everyday people have had to step in.

“This tar sands mine isn’t safe for drinking water, it’s a huge contribution to climate catastrophe, it’s destroying vital animal habitat, it’s destroying Mother Earth seized from indigenous people, and will make the region’s air even more toxic for everyone,” said Raphael Cordray of Utah Tar Sands Resistance. “It’s not even safe for investors who are exposed to so much litigation risk attached to all those dangerous factors that violate the public trust.”

State and county government have strongly supported the development of tar sands and oil shale strip mines, in part by funding and building a 70-mile highway–named Seep Ridge Road–without which the tar sands project would be financially unfeasible. Court challenges were unsuccessful.

Protesters say the heavy-handed charges have drawn more attention to the campaign and attracted even more eager supporters. “The urgency to stop this project continues despite the repression from the state and police,” Cordray said. “This project is life-threatening and violent. As more people learn about, more people are inspired to do what they can to stop it. This project is so awful that resistance is inevitable.”

In the largest protest action, on July 21, about 80 protesters in pre-dawn hours swarmed a fenced equipment yard. Several locked their bodies to construction equipment and blocked entrance to the yard and hung a banner reading “U are Tresspassing on Ute Land.” After about 11 people were extracted and arrested there, a second segment of people sat in the roadway temporarily blocking police vehicles from leaving. In all, 21 people were arrested that day, seven of whom were charged with felonies including rioting.

On Septmeber 23, disguised in chipmunk masks, a group of just five people were able to shut down work at the sprawling 200-acre construction site.

In all during 2014, police arrested 26 people for various actions that disrupted the tar sands mine’s activity. Many disruptive actions occurred in which police were able to arrest no one. Thursday’s hearing will conclude the last of the court cases attached to 2014 actions against the tar sands mine construction.

Media Contact
Raphael Cordray
801-503-2149

In Utah, Tar Sands Opponents Who Engaged in Civil Disobedience Charged with ‘Rioting’

A file photo of an anti-tar sands protests that took place in Utah in 2013 . (Photo: Geoff Liesik/KSL TV)

Stemming from a protest last year, six of those arrested for trying to shut down tar sands operation now face the possibility of years in jail

By Jon Queally, Common Dreams

Of the 21 protesters arrested in July of last year in Utah for participating in a direct action aimed at stopping operations at the first tar sands mining operation in the United States, six have now been charged with ‘rioting’ by local prosecutors.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the six—Jesse J. Fruhwirth, Camila A. Ibanez, Damien T. Luzzo, Laura M. Gottesdiener, Daniel J. Gruppo and Victor E. Puertas— could face harsh punishments after being charged with interference with an arresting officer, a class-A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail, and the crime of “rioting,” a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Fourteen others who were arrested at the protest were charged with the lesser count of criminal trespass, while one individual was charged with refusing to obey the command of a police officer.

Responding to the elevated charges of the six named, Utah Tar Sands Resistance, a group which helped organize the nonviolent protest, asked, “When did a peaceful sit-in become a felony riot?”

All of those charged are expected to enter pleas to the local district court later this week.

The July 2014 action, as Common Dreams reported at the time, involved roughly 80 climate justice activists who entered the construction site operated by the Calgary-based US Oils Sands corporation and unfurled a banner which read “You are trespassing on Ute land,” referring the project’s encroachment on native land, and “Respect Existence or Expect Resistance.” Later, some of the group locked themselves to equipment and others blocked a nearby road.

In a statement released on behalf of the protesters in the wake of their initial arrests last year, spokesperson Jessica Lee said the US Oil Sands project in Utah “perfectly demonstrates capitalism’s brazen disregard for the climate crisis, human and tribal rights and rights of the planet itself to be free of dangerous corporate parasites.”

Recounting the incident more recently, the Tribune reports:

Deputies arrested 13 of [the activists] and loaded them into white county vans, according to activists’ social media posts.

But when one of the vans approached protesters who had retreated to the main road, those protesters sat down in the roadway and locked their arms, blocking the vans, according to the charges.

“They started chanting that they wanted us to let their people go,” a Uintah County sheriff’s deputy wrote in a jail document.

The officers warned the protesters several times and asked them to disperse, but the group “advanced on our location,” according to the charges. That’s when deputies arrested Fruhwirth, Ibanez, Luzzo, Gottesdiener, Gruppo and Puertas, during which all of them became violent and resisted the officers, the charges add.

And the local KSL News reports:

Officials with U.S. Oil Sands have said that 200 exploratory wells at the mine site show that 190 million barrels of oil can be successfully recovered. The company holds leases to nearly 6,000 acres of school trust lands in northeastern Utah.

Crews are currently doing site preparation work at the mine. U.S. Oil Sands expects to begin mining operations by the end of 2015.

Those charged in connection with July’s protest listed addresses in Utah, Arizona, California, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Dakota, Oregon and Wisconsin when they were booked into the Uintah County Jail. They are all scheduled to make their first court appearances Thursday.

Utah tar sands protesters charged with rioting

(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) An overlook in the Book Cliffs area in Uintah and Grand County, Thursday, October 28, 2010. The Book Cliffs are a relatively remote part of Utah that face increasing encroachments from oil, gas and tar sands developments.

Courts » The activists are among 21 who are expected to enter plea agreements resulting from protest in Uintah County.

By Michael McFall | The Salt Lake Tribune

Six of 21 protesters have been charged with felony-level rioting after protesting Utah’s first commercial fuel-producing tar sands mine, with more defendants to face trespassing charges.

All 21 protesters are expected to enter plea agreements as early as Thursday, said Uintah County Attorney Mark Thomas. Soon after the arrests, the protesters’ defense attorneys began negotiations about who would be charged with what, and how to resolve those cases.

Neither Thomas nor an attorney representing some of the defendants would say to what charge the defendants might plead guilty or whether any of them would spend time in jail or prison.

Jesse J. Frurwirth, Camila A. Ibanez, Damien T. Luzzo, Laura M. Gottesdiener, Daniel J. Gruppo and Victor E. Puertas were all charged Friday in 8th District Court with rioting, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

They were also charged with interference with an arresting officer, which is a class-A misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.

Fourteen other protesters have also been charged with misdemeanors; their offenses are mostly related to trespassing. One other was charged with failure to stop at the command of law enforcement, which is a third-degree felony.

Eighty protesters associated with Utah Tar Sands Resistance on July 21 physically blocked access to the equipment being stored off Pope Well Ridge Road in Uintah County, near where U.S. Oil Sands was beginning work on the mine at PR Springs. Several protesters entered a fenced enclosure and locked themselves to equipment, protester spokeswoman Jessica Lee said at the time.

Deputies arrested 13 of them and loaded them into white county vans, according to activists’ social media posts.

But when one of the vans approached protesters who had retreated to the main road, those protesters sat down in the roadway and locked their arms, blocking the vans, according to the charges.

“They started chanting that they wanted us to let their people go,” a Uintah County sheriff’s deputy wrote in a jail document.

The officers warned the protesters several times and asked them to disperse, but the group “advanced on our location,” according to the charges. That’s when deputies arrested Frurwirth, Ibanez, Luzzo, Gottesdiener, Gruppo and Puertas, during which all of them became violent and resisted the officers, the charges add.

Among them, Frurwirth has made headlines before. The local blogger and activist has protested police brutality, other environmental issues, and was active with the local Occupy movement. The Huffington Post even profiled him in October 2013.

One deputy sustained a wrist injury during Puertas’ arrest, according to the charges.

A protester also twisted his ankle while fleeing from the officers, Thomas said.

Activists said at the time that police canine units were also on the scene, including one dog that was unleashed, chasing protesters.

According to Lee, the action was staged in response to a June 12 letter sent to Calgary-based U.S. Oil Sands by the Environmental Protection Agency. That letter indicates that U.S. Oil Sands’ project, which targets state-owned minerals, includes land within the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation.

Activists had been camped nearby on public land in the Book Cliffs since May, hoping to bring attention to what they say is destructive strip mining that could spread around the Uinta Basin should U.S. Oil Sands succeed.

The six protesters’ first court appearances are scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday before Judge Edwin Peterson.

At least some of the 21 are expected to enter plea agreements then, said Greg Skordas, an attorney representing some of the defendants.

“Because there were 21 of them, we’ve had to look at each person individually and try to take into account their conduct and their history, and try to fashion a plea [for] each defendant,” Skordas said.

mmcfall@sltrib.com

Twitter: @mikeypanda

Fracking puts pressure on Moab

A lunar eclipse is seen framed within Turret Arch at Arches National Park. The gas and oil industry around Moab is making a visible impression. Some are concerned it is threatening scenic views and recreation areas.

Proliferation of wells threatens scenic values, recreation industry (not to mention the land, its inhabitants, and our water supply!)

By Nancy Lofholm, The Denver Post

MOAB, Utah (AP) – A different kind of spire is jutting into the iconic red rock vistas of Moab.

It is the scaffolding of drilling rigs, and it heralds a new chapter in Moab’s long history of energy extraction. Moab may have been comfortable with the uranium industry that put it on the map in another century. But having an oil patch amid this area’s popular national parks and renowned recreational backcountry is jarring to some residents.

Gas and oil wells have been drilled piecemeal around here for decades. But today’s wells represent a kind of backcountry industrialization that this area hasn’t dealt with before.

The area where the drilling is taking place attracts an estimated 500,000 backcountry recreationists a year. Those visitors are now a bedrock of Moab’s economy. Seventy percent of jobs in Grand County derive from tourism, and recreation accounts for three times more of the public lands revenue that brings in about $200 million to Moab each year. Extractive industries account for the rest.

On the other side of the economic impact pie, the gas and oil wells that currently are producing add about $2.6 million to Grand County coffers annually. And gas and oil money that flows back to the county from the state topped $1 million last year. The gas and oil reserves still in the ground under the red rock country point to even more future economic windfall. Grand County has an estimated 145 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 32.5 million barrels of oil.

Click here to read the full article…

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.

Black Mesa Navajo Face ‘Scorched Earth Campaign’ Spurred by Coal Mining Interests

Black Mesa banner during impoundments,(WNV / NaBahe Kateny Keediniihii)

By Sara Sullivan, Global Justice Ecology Project

In Waging Nonviolence, Liza Minno Bloom reported on recent federal campaigns to forcibly impound sheep herded by Navajo living in the Hopi Partition Lands (HPL) of Black Mesa in NE Arizona. (Yep, impound, like a car, for us city folk.)

The government claims that the livestock were impounded because there are too many and they were overgrazing and harming the land, but the weight of history and the violence of what’s currently happening suggests a different reason.

The sheep being impounded from the communities on Black Mesa indicate the continued use of scorched earth policies by the federal government and the continued use of Black Mesa as a resource colony for ever more unsustainable Southwestern cities.

More specifically, Minno explains the history and current state of Peabody Energy on the land, going back to the 1970s when the Partition Lands were created, forcing relocation off of the HPL and ushering the way for a grab of the coal-rich land. The herders facing the pressure continue to live on these lands despite the forced relocation.

She also clarifies that Peabody Energy now wants to expand mining into the areas used by the Navajo herders that are being targeted.

The three families targeted so far need to pay about $1000-2000 to get their sheep back, but also have to sign a condition of release and sell the majority of the sheep right away.

Minno writes,

Currently, Peabody seeks to combine the Kayenta Mine [their current coal mine] and the NGS [Navajo Generating Station] leases under one renewal permit that would allow the facilities to continue operating past their 2019 deadline for expiration. Since, according to the Department of the Interior, the Kayenta Mine lease area will provide only enough coal to power NGS until 2026, part of the lease renewal includes expanding mining into the lands adjacent to the Kayenta Mine and reopening the defunct Black Mesa Mine — the equipment for which remains intact on Black Mesa. Instead of calling it a re-opening of the Black Mesa Mine, however, they are referring to the expanded permit area as the Kayenta Mine Complex. Were this approved, it would mean further incursion into the HPL, which is occupied by the Dineh relocation resisters and their sheep. This explains the impetus for the impoundments.

The history Minno gives going back to the 1974 Navajo-Hopi Settlement Act is definitely required reading, but most important is what’s going on right now and the work needed to keep the coal in the ground and the herders on the land.

Black Mesa Communities Continue Stand Against Mine Expansion

A banner that was displayed on Black Mesa during the impoundments in October. (WNV / NaBahe Kateny Keediniihii)

By Liza Minno Bloom, Waging Nonviolence

This October, as many Americans returned to work after their Columbus Day holiday, rural Dineh, or Navajo, communities in the Black Mesa region of Northeastern Arizona were rocked by an invasion. SWAT teams descended upon this remote region, navigating unpaved, washed out roads, while drones and armed helicopters flew overhead.

Why? They were there for the sheep.

For nearly two months, Hopi Rangers, with the backing of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, and the Department of the Interior, have been impounding the livestock of the Dineh residents of the area now known as the “Hopi Partition Lands,” or HPL. The official justification given is that residents’ herds exceed the size allowed to them in permits, and that they are, therefore, overgrazing and causing harm to the land in a period of prolonged drought.

Many residents, however, point to the fact that Peabody Energy’s coal mining operations on Black Mesa are the more probable source of land damage and drought than overgrazing. In a letter to the Navajo Nation Tribal Council regarding the impoundments, members of the impacted communities wrote: “We believe this assault on our lives and theft of our only sustenance and livelihood is being funded and instigated by the federal government … through their continued campaign to gain access to the resources on our ancestral homelands by forcing us off the land.”

Currently, Peabody is seeking to expand its surface mining operations on Black Mesa into the areas targeted by impoundments. According to Louise Benally of Big Mountain, Ariz., “Impoundments pave the way for coal development, which is changing the climate forever.”

Scorched earth campaigns — or efforts to weaken a people by separating them from their food source or decimating their infrastructure — have long been employed by the U.S. government against indigenous peoples. These campaigns are always a precursor to a forced removal to open native lands to non-native settlement or corporate use.

The sheep being impounded from the communities on Black Mesa indicate the continued use of scorched earth policies by the federal government and the continued use of Black Mesa as a resource colony for ever more unsustainable Southwestern cities.

The BIA and Hopi Rangers claim that they gave residents ample notice, beginning in mid-August, to reduce their herds. Residents themselves say that the notices were unclear and seemed to indicate that they had a year to reduce them.

The pre-dawn impoundments are often carried out aggressively and, in several cases, there have not been Navajo translators present for the Navajo-speaking residents. According to Milayia Yoe, the Hopi Rangers came to her homestead on the morning of October 28 and impounded 120 of her aunt’s sheep.

“They had barricades set up at the top of the hill with two police units,” she recounted. “When we tried to get around the barricade they chased us for two miles, trying to hit us with their trucks, and then they drew their guns at us.”

Impoundments are causing fear and stress amongst the Dineh on the HPL.

“The way that the rangers are treating the people goes against the Dineh way,” said Big Mountain resident Marie Gladue. “It is very taboo to point a gun at somebody. They are traumatizing an already traumatized community. If overgrazing was actually the issue, they could educate people. But it’s not.”

Beyond being a major food source, traditional Dineh consider sheep sacred.

“Ever since I was a baby I was carried on a horse to herd sheep,” said Jack Woody, an elder from Red Willow Springs, Ariz. “I have herded all my life and I am in my 80s. You have the livestock in your heart, and they want to take that away.”

NaBahe Kateny Keediniihii of Big Mountain described how livestock are a part of ritual life on Black Mesa, saying, “Sitting and sleeping on a sheep skin once represented identity. Rubbing mutton grease on your legs in prayer, and using the wool for fiber are central aspects of Dineh culture.”

Thus far, rangers have impounded three families’ herds, totaling over 300 sheep. In order to get their sheep out of impoundment, families are required to pay, on average, between $1,000-$2,000, and some — as a “condition of release” — are being made to sign a statement identifying themselves as trespassers on their own homelands. To make matters worse, the rangers are telling residents that they cannot return their sheep to the HPL. As a result, many of the impounded sheep have been auctioned or sold.

Residents are organizing against this current threat to their sovereignty with several strategies. Some are securing their homesites and some are researching what legal recourse they have. They are calling for unity during this time and will soon be releasing a national call to protest at BIA and Department of Interior offices.

On October 30, several community members gathered in Window Rock, Ariz., the capital of the Navajo Nation, to meet with Navajo Nation President Ben Shelley and demand an end to impoundments. Others stayed at home and figured out ways to hide their herds, in case they were targeted next.

The wide-scale impoundments and the charge of trespassing point to the threat that the Dineh living on the HPL have faced for the last 40 years, namely forced relocation.

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.

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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.