Resist 2010: 8 Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a short, fast-paced documentary focusing on the negative impacts of the 2010 Games to be held in Vancouver, Canada, and the ongoing resistance by Indigenous & other social movements.Resist 2010: 8 Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a short, fast-paced... more
On 11.09.2009, the PR Newswire announced that this "Dan Rather Report" on Freeport McMoran, an American corporation mining copper in D.R. Congo, has been nominated for an American television Emmy Award for investigative business reporting. BlipTV posted the clip below.
In this case corporate media gets some of the story and even gets that much of it right. There's no mention of the U.S. and its allies' complicity in the Rwanda genocide or the Congo War, or, of the U.S. government's commitment to controlling cobalt reserves in the Katanga Copper Belt, where this story is reported, so as to ensure U.S. military industries' ability to manufacture for war. But, Dan Rather did get the story of Freeport McMoran displacing Congolese people for foreign profit in D.R. Congo.On 11.09.2009, the PR Newswire announced that this "Dan Rather Report" on Freeport... more
We have confirmed reports that Massey Energy has begun blasting on Coal River Mountain in southern West Virginia. The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has stated that the mining operation on the mountain is "actively moving coal." Workers were seen throughout this past week moving heavy equipment up to the mining zones, and blasting and plumes of smoke were seen and heard near the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment on Friday.
The Brushy Fork impoundment is an enormous retention pond holding 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry waste. If the impoundment were to fail due to the blasting, hundreds of lives will be lost and thousands more will be in jeopardy from an enormous slurry flood.
A 2006 study confirmed that Coal River Mountain -- which has the highest peaks ever slated for mining in the state -- is an ideal location for developing utility-scale wind power. Local residents have rallied around this proposal as a symbol of hope, a promise of a new and cleaner energy future, but that hope may be destroyed unless quick and decisive action is taken right now.
Please call or e-mail President Obama today at 202-456-1414 or http://www.whitehouse.gov/CONTACT/ and implore him to use his agencies and influence with West Virginia politicians to stop the destruction of Coal River Mountain immediately.
Visit our Coal River Mountain action page for more details and talking points. We will also post status updates as we receive them.
Thanks for all you do for the mountains-and especially Coal River Mountain.
Matt Wasson
iLoveMountains.orgWe have confirmed reports that Massey Energy has begun blasting on Coal River Mountain... more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally put an end to the saga of the infamous Spruce Mine, jamming a stake in the heart of what would have been the largest mountaintop removal project in the history of West Virginia.
EPA rejected the permit for this mine due to massive water quality impacts that would have resulted from a series of mega-valley fills. As the agency said in its just-released statement:
"EPA is taking this action because it is concerned about the magnitude, scale, and severity of the direct, indirect, and cumulative adverse environmental and water quality impacts associated with this project . The Spruce Mine as currently configured would bury more than seven miles of streams."The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally put an end to the saga of the... more
Words alone can’t describe what mountaintop mining is doing to Appalachia, its streams and the lives of its people.
Coal companies have dynamited more than 470 mountaintops and pushed the debris into valleys, burying hundreds of miles of streams and contaminating the water with metals such as nickel, lead, cadmium, iron and selenium.
From those bare expanses, the mining companies strip out the coal and then move on to the next mountain. The treeless landscapes, meanwhile, can create dangerous flash flooding for nearby residents, and the mining debris can render their well water undrinkable.
In a new 20-minute documentary produced by Yale Environment 360 and MediaStorm, Chad Stevens takes his video camera inside the community meetings, homes and offices of the people on both sides of the front lines, capturing their emotions and letting them tell the story. ...Words alone can’t describe what mountaintop mining is doing to Appalachia, its... more
Indian tribe the Dongria Kondh face destruction of their lands and extinction at the hands of British mining giant Vedanta Resources.
The ash spills out across the plain beneath the brooding bulk of Niyamgiri mountain, swamping the trees that once grew here, forming dirty grey-brown drifts around the stems of the now-dead scrub.
Every day there is more ash, pouring out of the alumina refinery that squats among the steep-sided, jungle-clad hills of western Orissa, India. The dust hangs in the air and clings to the landscape, settling on the huts of the aboriginal Kondh tribes who call this place home, choking those who breathe it in.
Niyamgiri is as remote as any place in the country: 600km from the state capital Bhubaneswar, accessible only by narrow, shattered roads pocked with deep holes, a world away from the economic powerhouse that is 21st-century India.
It is a place of quiet beauty, of lush green paddy fields and huge mango trees, where self-sufficient tribes still share the jungle with elephant, tiger and leopard. Yet this most unlikely place is now the frontline in a clash of civilisations that has pitched the indigenous population up against the corporate might of the British mining company Vedanta Resources, intent on dragging Niyamgiri into the modern world.
It is the mineral wealth lying beneath the slopes of the mountain that has drawn Vedanta to Niyamgiri. It wants to turn the hillside into a giant bauxite mine to feed its refinery at the foot of the mountain.
The FTSE 100-listed company, which is run by the abrasive billionaire Anil Agarwal, is pressing ahead despite a desperate local rearguard action and an international outcry. Yesterday the British government turned on the company, issuing an unexpectedly damning assessment of its behaviour.
Vedanta hopes the refinery will produce at least one million tonnes of alumina a year. But the Kondh people – the Dongria, Kutia and Jharania – need the bauxite too. It holds water remarkably well and helps feed the perennial streams on which they and the animals that live on the mountain rely. Once the bauxite is gone, they fear, the streams will run dry. And that will be the end of the Kondh.
Faced with ferocious local opposition and an international campaign to stop the development, the company has returned time and again to the courts to push its plans through. In July, after numerous setbacks and rulings against it, it was finally given permission by India's supreme court to start mining.
It has wasted no time. Already, the skeleton of an enormous conveyor belt snakes out of the refinery and up to the foot of the mountain. Beyond it, an ugly scar of deep red earth runs up the hillside where hundreds of trees have been felled. Convoys of lorries trundle along the narrow roads, churning them to mud.
There are still legal challenges that the protesters can make and there is also the remote possibility that Vedanta shareholders, which include the Church of England, could bring pressure on the board to reverse its plans.
Although the mining is yet to start in earnest, those who live in the hundreds of small villages that dot the slopes are in no doubt that the effects of Vedanta's presence are already being felt. People and animals are dying, they say: the number of cases of tuberculosis have shot up.
Basanti Majhi sits with her hands folded in her lap, in a hut in the centre of the Kutia Kondh village of Rengopali, a couple of hundred metres from where the company has sited the red mud pond that holds the waste slurry from the refining process.
The 12-year-old started coughing hard last year; her family took her to a doctor, who confirmed TB. She complains of constant pains in her hips and joints and of problems from the dust that settles on the village. "The dust gets in my eyes and it makes it hard to breathe," she says.Indian tribe the Dongria Kondh face destruction of their lands and extinction at the... more
A Look at Fracking: Documentary Explores Environmental Consequences of Gas Extraction Method
by Mark Collins
If you own land in Colorado, your rights could end a few feet from the surface.
"Split Estate," a new documentary by filmmaker Debra Anderson, explores the boom in drilling by oil and gas companies on privately owned land in the Rocky Mountain states in recent years. Anderson discovered U.S. law favors those who hold mineral rights over landowners.
"I could not believe that an energy company could come in on land that you own and drill at will without your permission, as close as 150 feet from your front door," said Anderson, a Santa Fe, N.M.-based filmmaker who grew up in Boulder and graduated from Fairview High School in 1982.
In Colorado, state law gives power of use to mineral rights owners, too.
"As long as someone has the mineral interest, then Colorado common law gives them the right to the reasonable use of the surface," said Kim Sanchez, planning division manager for Boulder County. "That's where we get into issues because oftentimes, when the (oil and gas company) owns the mineral interests the surface owner may not even be aware that someone else has those rights on their property."
More specifically, "Split Estate" details the oil and gas industry's controversial method of extracting minerals, called "fracking," and the adverse health effects many people claim they have suffered because of the drilling method.
Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing, a process that includes injecting a mixture of sand, water and chemicals underground in order to release the desired oil or gas. According to the film, fracking was first developed in the 1940s by Haliburton, the energy-services company whose former CEO was Dick Cheney.
"Split Estate" premieres at 6 p.m. Saturday during Discovery's Reel Impact series on Planet Green. It will repeat at 9 p.m. Oct. 22.
The film includes several interviews with people who have suffered significant health problems after oil and gas companies began drilling on or near their land. The affected families speculate that toxic chemicals used in fracking, or natural gas released during the drilling, leaked into their water supply and led to their illnesses. Oil and gas firms say such assertions are unproven.
Amy Mall, senior policy analyst with the Natural Resource Defense Council, said air quality has been negatively affected due to increased drilling in recent years, too.
"In the Denver-metro area it's become an issue with ozone which is harmful to human health," Mall said.
Much of "Split Estate" was shot in Rifle, Colo., and Garfield County commissioners there delayed a decision on proposed fracking legislation last month so they could view the film and take more time to explore the issue.
Closer to home, Weld County, east of Boulder County, is the second-busiest county in Colorado for drilling nowadays, according to statistics from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. More than 3,200 permits for new drilling in Weld County were filed during the past 20 months.
In Boulder County, there are roughly 270 currently producing wells, according to the COGCC. Most are in the northeastern part of the county. That's because the Wattenberg Field, the country's sixth-largest underground deposit of natural gas, stretches into that corner of the county.
Roughly 115 oil and gas wells are currently operating on Boulder County Open Space.
more at link....Colorado: Thought your land was your land?
A Look at Fracking: Documentary... more
A mining company owned by Goldman Sachs and two private equity funds is in line to get a $3 million earmark for work at a rare earth elements mine in Mountain Pass, Calif. — raising questions as to why Congress would take on some of the risk for a bailed-out investment giant that’s already making a profit.
Molycorp Minerals’s open-pit mine is one of the world’s richest sources of elements that are used in the production of powerful magnets for precision-guided missiles and smart bombs, handheld communication devices, wind turbines and hybrid cars.
Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) inserted the earmark for the mine into the House Defense appropriations bill, and backers say it’s a legitimate national security concern. The military needs rare earth elements, and China — which is rich in them — has threatened to cut off exports.
But some government watchdogs question whether taxpayers should be asked to prop up a project that is already funded by wealthy investors who expect to make a profit.
“It’s probably good business, and we probably don’t need to subsidize it,” said Ryan Alexander, president of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.A mining company owned by Goldman Sachs and two private equity funds is in line to get... more
Meet Nina and Mickey McCoy, schoolteachers from Inez, Kentucky, as they take their fight against King Coal to Washington.
This special documents some of the disastrous impacts of coal mining on Central Appalachia, where twenty-five percent of the McCoys' county has now been strip-mined.
In addition to the destruction of these historic landscapes, the process of mountaintop removal wreaks havoc on the ecosystem.
The leftover material is dumped into "valley fills," which have thus far killed over 1,000 miles of streams.
The cleaning of the coal brings still more problems: the sludge left over from the process is stored in enormous ponds, one of which broke in Inez, sending 350 million gallons of toxic waste into the McCoys' community.
Since the sludge spill in 2000, residents of Inez have not been able to drink the town's water, and water remains the best-selling item in the supermarket.
"How can anybody claim that if we don't have coal, we'll be worse off?" asks Nina. "I don't think we could be any worse off."
THE REAL McCOYS also documents the McCoys' journey into activism. Tired of writing letters to their representatives and getting no response, they decide to go to the next level: they will risk arrest, along with hundreds of others, at the Capitol Climate Action in Washington.
"We're going to take our part of the problem to Washington DC, and hope that the whole nation begins to realize that there is such a thing as global warming, and coal is at the heart of it."'Link TV - Television Without Borders' http://www.linktv.org/
Meet Nina and... more
Last week, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the EPA’s internal monitoring organization, the Office of the Inspector General, found that the EPA’s current approach to controlling excess nutrient deposition into the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River was not working.
The OIG report described an EPA process that, after 10 years of recommending a set of procedures to the Mississippi drainage states, had resulted in the following: "the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico had become the second largest on record and the second largest dead zone in the world."
---
According to a new article in the Center for Public Integrity’s “The Climate Change Lobby” series, there are now 1150 companies and organizations registered to lobby Congress on climate disruption legislation.
---
What do you think erodes land faster – glaciers, rivers, or human farming? According to new data from various glaciated regions around the world, this is a trick question. Specifically, a paper recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience shows that all three erode land at approximately the same rate.
---
According to an Associate Press article, wind farms can be mistaken by Doppler radar as tornadoes.
---
The BBC reports that the first tethered deep water wind turbine is now operational in the North Sea off the coast of Norway. The Carboholic first covered the Hywind deep water wind project back in June, when it had been installed but was still undergoing testing. But now the turbine is adding 2.3 MW to the Norwegian electric grid when it’s windy out 10 km in the North Sea.
---
Two new articles in Reuters last week pointed to a known but little publicized problem with hybrid vehicles and wind turbines – the large scale use of rare earth metals in the motors, batteries, and generators used in hybrid vehicles and turbines.
More at the linkLast week, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported that the EPA’s internal... more
"Exploration of remote Peruvian region could spell disaster for hitherto uncontacted tribespeople"
"It sounds like a recipe for environmental catastrophe: 42,000 bags of cement, 10,000 planks and a fleet of tractors being airlifted deep into the Amazon rainforest to establish whether a remote and unspoiled region of northern Peru can be turned into Latin America's next great oilfield.
It could also spell human tragedy. That, at least, is the claim before Lima's constitutional court, where a British energy company will this week stand accused of orchestrating an exploration project that will "ethnically cleanse" two of the world's last remaining uncontacted tribes.
Perenco, a London-based oil and gas firm, is being sued by Peru's 350,000-strong native Indian community over plans to bring its chainsaws, incinerators and heavy-lifting equipment into "Lot 67," a vast, secluded area of the Marañon basin near Peru's border with Ecuador."
More:
"Most of all, of course, it will kill them. These tribes have never been exposed to things like cold and flu, and their immune systems won't be able to cope. History shows that contact as slight as exchanging a shirt, or a few objects, with outsiders can decimate entire communities."
They must be stopped.
Greediness and the dependency on oil will continue to kill us all unless we do something about it.Excerpts:
"Exploration of remote Peruvian region could spell disaster for hitherto... more
Mineral mining engineers locate, extract, and prepare minerals for use by manufacturing industries and utilities.To help you stay informed about this diverse and fast-moving industry we’ve combed through hundreds of blogs to collect what we consider to be the twenty five best blogs devoted to mining, the industry, and the next generation of mining engineers.Mineral mining engineers locate, extract, and prepare minerals for use by... more
Stand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is nothing. As far as the eye can see, nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white.Stand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first... more
Ben Powless: President can hunt indigenous leader all he wants, the movement came from below.
Over one year of declared opposition and advocacy, 65 straight days of civil disobedience, two days of bloody confrontations with the police and military, and the government of Peruvian President Alan García still won't meet with AIDESEP, the coalition of indigenous community organizations at the forefront of the movement to resist the exploitation of Peru's Amazonian resources. In fact, the government has chosen to charge the coalition's leader, Alberto Pizango, with sedition, causing him to seek asylum in the Nicaraguan embassy. Freelance journalist Ben Powless reports from inside Peru's Amazon Basin that this approach neglects the true nature of the movement. Powless reports that Pizango has never played a central role in the movement. The resistance is a spontaneous response to the threats posed to their land, and by extension their lives, by President García's plans. Powless reports that those plans, which were set in motion by the enacting of free trade agreements with the US and Canada, are in violation of numerous international laws, since they allow the government to develop land held by indigenous nations without prior consultation and consent.
Ben Powless is an independent journalist and photographer based out of Ottawa, Canada. He is a regular contributor for the Canadian news website, Rabble.ca. He has been an active member of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition since its inception and is heavily involved with the Indigenous Environmental Network. He also sits on the board of the National Council of the Canadian Environmental Network, as well as the Youth Advisory Group to the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.Ben Powless: President can hunt indigenous leader all he wants, the movement came from... more
Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in Peru.
Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in Peru. The Indians have been protesting against laws which will open up communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, logging and mining. Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from Bagua Grande in Peru.Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between indigenous people and police in... more
What will one tribe have to do to save everything they know?
Mine, narrated by Joanna Lumley, tells the story of the remote Dongria Kondh tribe's struggle to protect the mountain they worship as a God.
London-based mining company Vedanta Resources plans a vast open-cast bauxite mine in India's Niyamgiri hills, and the Dongria Kondh know that means the destruction of their forests, their way of life, and their mountain God.
They need your support. Take action and spread this film:
Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska -- Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of hemlock, Sitka spruce and ice, Berners Bay has long been a jewel of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
In the spring, swarms of tiny eulachon rush in to spawn, and the bay floods with hundreds of killer whales, humpback whales and sea lions in hot pursuit, along with eagles and seabirds by the thousands. Fishermen flock to its herring, salmon and Dungeness crab. Its chilly, tranquil waters are a favorite destination for kayakers.Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska -- Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of... more
The mining industry in China has a horrendous safety record. The government, which has been trying to improve safety standards by closing down illegal mines, reported last month that about 3,200 people died in mining accidents last year, a 15 percent decrease from the previous year.
But the death rate still indicates that China’s mines are the most dangerous in the world.
In January, Zhao Tiechui, a senior official in charge of coal mine supervision, told Xinhua about problems regulating the industry. The government has said that 80 percent of the 16,000 mines operating in China are illegal.
“Coal mines often experience the most serious accidents because so many of them are operating illegally,” he said. “The industry also sees the most frequent covering-up of accidents.”
But mining is lucrative for those at the top — the owners of large mining companies are among the wealthiest people in China.The mining industry in China has a horrendous safety record. The government, which has... more
When choosing gold jewelry for your Valentine this year, consider the dirty secrets of this so-called precious metal.
The world’s gold is in short supply and the amount collected in the last 500 yearsd could fill two Olympic sized swimming pools. Within the last 50 years, the old wild west methods of panning and prospecting have been replaced by mountain leveling, open-pit mining that creates man made earth gashes that can be seen from space.
Having the least vital relevance to human existence, gold generates more waste per ounce than any other metal. One ounce, the amount found in a typical wedding ring, requires the removal of more than 250 tons of rock and ore. Cyanide is used to leach gold from the ore and the lead and mercury heavy waste slurry is commonly dumped into local water resources decimating fish, wildlife, and poisoning the food chain for generations.
If you really want to dazzle your Valentine this year, try buy from retailers like Tiffany & Co that are pushing mining standards higher.
For more facts and alternatives to dirty gold, check out some of these powerful images and links:When choosing gold jewelry for your Valentine this year, consider the dirty secrets of... more
Uranium Mining, Native Resistance, and the Greener Path
The impact of uranium mining on indigenous communities
by Winona LaDuke
Published in the January/February 2009 issue of Orion magazine
"IN A DINE CREATION STORY, the people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder—uranium—in the soil and never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a great evil would come.
The evil came. Over one thousand uranium mines gouged the earth in the Dine Bikeyah, the land of the Navajo, during a thirty-year period beginning in the 1950s. It was the lethal nature of uranium mining that led the industry to the isolated lands of Native America. By the mid-1970s, there were 380 uranium leases on native land and only 4 on public or acquired lands. At that time, the industry and government were fully aware of the health impacts of uranium mining on workers, their families, and the land upon which their descendants would come to live. Unfortunately, few Navajo uranium miners were told of the risks. In the 1960s, the Department of Labor even provided the Kerr-McGee Corporation with support for hiring Navajo uranium miners, who were paid $1.62 an hour to work underground in the mine shafts with little or no ventilation.
All told, more than three thousand Navajos worked in uranium mines, often walking home in ore-covered clothes. The consequences were devastating. Thousands of uranium miners and their relatives lost their lives as a result of radioactive contamination. Many families are still seeking compensation. The Navajo Nation is still struggling to address the impact of abandoned uranium mines on the reservation, as well as the long-term health effects on both the miners and their communities, many of which suffer astronomical rates of cancer and birth defects.
As a college student, I worked for Navajo organizations, trying to inform their people about the uranium-mining industry and the large corporations—EXXON, Mobil, United Nuclear—that proposed to mine their lands. It was a humbling experience, seeing some of the richest corporations in the world faced by courageous peoples who fought for the two things that mattered to them more than money: their land and their identity. The Navajo people joined with many others across the country who felt that there was a much better way to make energy. In the end, the people did prevail—new mining proposals evaporated as tribal resistance and legal and administrative battles merged with economic forces. Eventually, contracts for uranium were canceled by utilities, which no longer sought to build unpopular nuclear power plants.
Now I feel like I am having very bad déjà vu—only this time nuclear power is seen as the answer to global climate destabilization. In 2005, the Navajo Nation passed a moratorium on uranium mining in its territory and traditional lands, which was followed by similar moratoria on Hopi and Havasupai lands, where mines are proposed adjacent to the Grand Canyon. “It is unconscionable to me that the federal government would consider allowing uranium mining to be restarted anywhere near the Navajo Nation when we are still suffering from previous mining activities,” Joe Shirley Jr., Navajo Nation president, explained at a congressional hearing on opening uranium mines in the Grand Canyon area. To the north, the Lakota organization Owe Aku (Bring Back the Way) is an intervener in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing to allow the Canadian corporation Cameco to expand its Crow Butte uranium mine, just over the Nebraska border from the reservation."
continued.... at link or belowFor God's sake leave the yellow powder alone!
Uranium Mining, Native Resistance,... more
