tagged w/ national landmarks
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A group of conservationists says pollution from a coal-fired power plant is clouding views of the Grand Canyon, and they want the federal government to do something about it.
A petition filed by the conservationists Tuesday asks the National Park Service to declare that particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions from the Navajo Generating Station near Page are harming air quality.
The group said the declaration could trigger a reduction in emissions at the plant, improve visibility and safeguard the public's health.
The plant is operated by the Salt River Project, which supplies water and power to the Phoenix area. Kevin Wanttaja, manager of environmental services for SRP, said the agency has submitted a plan to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to cut nitrogen oxide emissions by 40 percent. No cuts in particulate matter are planned.A group of conservationists says pollution from a coal-fired power plant is clouding... more
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The Bureau of Land Management has authorized several new uranium exploration permits near the Grand Canyon despite a congressional resolution last year barring new claims near the national park.
According to documents released yesterday [pdf] by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Grand Canyon Trust, BLM on April 27 authorized Quaterra Alaska Inc. to conduct eight uranium mine exploration operations at five separate projects north of Grand Canyon National Park and west of the Kaibab Plateau.
"Our understanding is that exploration can begin immediately," said Taylor McKinnon, director of CBD's public lands program.
Quaterra Alaska is a subsidiary of Vancouver-based Quaterra Resources Inc.
All of the projects are within the 1 million acres of BLM and Forest Service land that the House Natural Resources Committee ordered to be withdrawn from new uranium mining claims in June 2008, according to the groups.
The committee employed its rarely used emergency declaration authority to withdraw the lands, but then-Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne rejected the panel's request, saying the committee did not have a quorum on the vote, which was taken after Republicans walked out in protest, arguing that there was no emergency to prompt the move.
The department also disputed the committee's authority under the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act to issue emergency withdrawals and later issued a new rule that limited its ability to carry out such orders.
Michael Taylor, deputy director of resources at BLM's Arizona state office, disputed the groups' claims that this action authorized new drilling operations.
He explained that the documents reflect the company's shift in reclamation bond funds from one set of exploration sites that the company was no longer interested in exploring to the new set of sites that were not previously bonded. "It was a transfer of bonding money between the notices," Taylor said. "There is no on-the-ground exploration authorized."
Describing the action as a "paper shuffle," Taylor said the company has not given any indication that it plans to explore the newly bonded sites and that the agency has not authorized any new exploration permits. "We haven't done anything out there, anything that would be contrary to what the committee had requested," he said.
But Richard Mayol, director of communications and government affairs for the Grand Canyon Trust, said the transfer still constitutes a new authorization. "The fact they shifted the bonding to these sites means they can begin this exploration drilling," he said.
The trust and CBD, along with the Sierra Club, filed a lawsuit against Interior last fall to force it to comply with the committee's order.
While the case has yet to go to court, McKinnon said the groups were not informed of BLM's authorizations, and that he was unsure how they would affect the lawsuit.The Bureau of Land Management has authorized several new uranium exploration permits... more
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The Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter on Monday filed suit against Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne for authorizing uranium exploration near Grand Canyon National Park in defiance of a congressional resolution prohibiting such activities across 1 million acres of public lands in watersheds surrounding the Park.
On June 25th the U.S. House of Representative's Committee on Natural Resources voted 20-2 in favor of a resolution that requires the Secretary to withdraw public lands surrounding Grand Canyon from new uranium claims and exploration. The Secretary, acting through the Department of Interior's Bureau of Land Management, has defied the resolution and continued to initiate and authorize new uranium exploration within the withdrawal area north of Grand Canyon. The suit claims that in so doing, the Secretary violated the Federal Land Management and Policy Act, National Environmental Policy Act and other laws.
The Secretary has defied laws and Congress to continue uranium development that threatens the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, said Taylor McKinnon, public lands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity. Short of putting the Secretary before a judge, nothing not laws, not Congress, and not the Grand Canyon itself will impede the Bush administration's accommodation of industry on our public lands.
Recent spikes in the price of uranium have caused thousands new uranium claims, dozens of exploratory drilling projects, and movement to open several uranium mines on public lands immediately north and south of Grand Canyon. Concerns about surface- and ground-water contamination of Grand Canyon National Park and the Colorado River have been expressed by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano; the Los Angeles Water District; the Southern Nevada Water Authority; the Arizona Game and Fish Department; the Navajo, Hopi, Havasupai, Hualapai and Kaibab Paiute nations; and Coconino County.
Congressmen Nick Rahall, Ral Grijalva, and other members of the Committee on Natural Resources recognized the immediate threat that uranium mining posed to Colorado River watersheds and took the lead in demanding bold, emergency action, said Roger Clark with the Grand Canyon Trust. "It's unacceptable to allow this Administration to abuse their power by ignoring the resolution and putting the Grand Canyon, our nation's most beloved national park, at risk."
Emergency withdrawals have been enacted four times prior to this, most recently in 1981 and 1983 by the late Arizona Congressman Mo Udall and the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee to halt public lands mineral- and energy-leasing programs pursued by Interior Secretary James Watt.
Grand Canyon is a national treasure and something we should protect not just for today, but for future generations, said Sandy Bahr, chapter director for the Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter. It is irresponsible for this administration to sacrifice this area, threaten the Park, and risk the water supply for millions of people, all for a few narrow special interests.
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Why can't we stop these people from violating the law!?The Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and Sierra Club Grand Canyon... more
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Uranium mining near the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona was halted for three years by a 20-2 vote Wednesday in a US House of Representatives committee.
A recent surge in mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park sparked the action. The number of claims close to the park increased to more than 1,100 by January 2008 from only 10 in January 2003, according to government figures.
Almost all those claims are to mine uranium. Uranium prices have increased in recent years as demand has spiked to feed an increasing number of nuclear power plants across the globe, as well as potential new US plants.
"This emergency action will help prevent uranium mining from harming the Grand Canyon and polluting drinking water for millions," said Dusty Horwitt, public lands analyst at Environmental Working Group, which spearheaded the effort to block mining.
Horwitt said mining could pollute the Colorado River, source of drinking water for millions throughout the Southwest, including the Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas areas.
The world consumes about 180 million pounds (50 million to 55 million pounds in the United States) of raw uranium a year. (Reporting by Bernard Woodall; Editing by Braden Reddall)
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Good news... for now. Let's just hope the EPA doesn't allow a coal plant to be built there now.
Uranium mining near the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona was halted for three years... more
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A lodge location opening mid June in a historical part in Sausalito (Marin County) Calif.
What gorgeous views.
I tested the website just curious and for 2 adults 2 nights, ranges from 275-550 p/night.
Good for a San Francisco or Bay area alternative tourism, visiting or getting away from the city.
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© 2007 Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy
Cavallo Point - the Lodge at the Golden Gate opens this June in the Golden Gate National Parks at Fort Baker. The 21st century's first new national park lodge, Cavallo Point establishes an enchanting and environmentally sustainable "base camp" where the city's urban edge meets untamed coastal wildlands.
The lodge offers 68 historic rooms and suites in carefully restored, National Historic Landmark buildings that originally served as officers' quarters. There are 74 additional rooms and suites in new, contemporary buildings of sustainable design, set on higher ground and most with spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge and beyond.
* (U.S. Green Building Council LEED certification is pending)A lodge location opening mid June in a historical part in Sausalito (Marin County)... more
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A Mayfair mining company has caused uproar with plans to extract uranium from the Grand Canyon – prompting one official to ask how Britons would react “if an American company went to drill at Stonehenge”.
The Grand Canyon is not only one of the world’s most famous natural landmarks, attracting five million visitors a year and offering a home to bald eagles, condors, bighorn sheep and exotic fish. It also happens to contain vast reserves of uranium ore – suddenly in huge demand, thanks to renewed interest in nuclear power as part of the search for “green” fuel.
But while demand for uranium has risen, supply has fallen as mines have closed in Canada and West Africa. As a result, the price has soared – and that has sparked a rush to find new deposits.
The Mayfair company VANE Minerals is at the forefront of this scramble, planning to drill at up to 39 spots on seven sites within the Kaibab National Forest, which borders both the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon, in north-central Arizona. A further thousand claims are thought to be pending from other companies – up from just ten in 2003.
National Park officials, Indian tribal leaders and even some scientists are doing everything they can to stop the exploration, going so far as to call a congressional “field hearing” in Flagstaff, Arizona. “The Grand Canyon is something we depend on for visitors, for tourism, it’s one of the wonders of the world, and here we are as the federal Government allowing the distinct possibility of uranium mining,” Raul Grijalva, a congressman for the state, said.
Environmentalists point out that uranium is both a toxic heavy metal and a source of radiation. As a result it could kill local wildlife and poison the water in the Colorado River Aqueduct, which provides drinking water to Los Angeles and much of southern California, Tribal leaders also complain that they have previously been forced to clean up after bankrupt mining concerns, while radiological assessments at one past exporation site – the Orphan Mine – have shown gamma-radiation at more than 450 times the background level after uranium was brought closer to the surface.
Yet with fears rising over global warming, many argue that the dangers of continuing to burn coal for electricity far outweigh the potential dangers of uranium mining. And while solar, tidal and wind technologies show promise, they are nowhere near as reliable.
more at the link
A Mayfair mining company has caused uproar with plans to extract uranium from the... more
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Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the approval of up to 39 new uranium drilling sites within a few miles of Grand Canyon National Park. In December, the Kaibab National Forest granted British firm Vane Minerals approval to conduct exploratory uranium drilling on national forest lands along the park's southern boundary with no public hearing and no environmental review. It is the first of five such projects slated for the area. 'Grand Canyon simply isn't the place for uranium development,' said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiff groups. 'Our national treasures deserve better than the calamity of an adjacent industrial zone.' Filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Grand Canyon Trust, the lawsuit claims that the U.S. Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and two other laws when it approved the uranium exploration using a 'categorical exclusion,' the least rigorous analysis available to the agency."
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Tell me again how any presidential candidate is going to stand up to the nuclear lobby or this blatant disregard for the public trust and our national landmarks.Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the approval of up to... more
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