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"Global Limits of Biomass Energy" Reports Science Daily
Current environmental energy news from scientist Bill Brown, TouchArt's friend up in Taos at New Mexico Global Warming and The Climate Change Project.
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Greetings, All -- Below are a couple of briefs containing tightly summarized information and data on biomass power potential and a current vision of solar power potential.
Carnegie Institution of Science researchers make the reasonable case that sustainable biomass energy production on suitable land (primarily abandoned cropland and pastureland) could provide about five percent of human demands for primary energy. However, biomass development in excess of this amount -- particularly using land and water needed to grow food or converting existing ecosystems to biomass production -- could threaten food security and exacerbate climate change.
[Carnegie Institution of Science: http://www.ciw.edu/related_links]
In the second article, Ausra CEO Robert Fishman http://ausra.com/] indicates one potential for solar power (solar thermal power as contrasted with solar photovoltaic power) contingent upon policy decisions on clean energy tax credits and carbon taxes. [This corresponds to what I try to tell people about economics: we can make policy decisions that move us toward the kind of energy economy we want.] Fishman's statement re the "crossover point" could be interpreted to say that clean energy will remain competitive with obsolescent fossil fuel energy, whereas it is more likely that new technology clean energy will grow rapidly while old technology energy from inefficient and polluting sources will continue to decline.
-- Bill Brown
www.nmglobalwarming.org
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From TouchArt.net and One Earth Blog at www.OneEarthBlog.Blogspot.com Current environmental energy news from scientist Bill Brown, TouchArt's friend up in Taos at New Mexico Global Warming and The Cl... more -
Californians are climate trendsetters
More current news on sustainable energy science and policy from TouchArt's friend Bill Brown up in Taos at New Mexico Global Warming and The Climate Change Project.
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Greetings, All -- The article below describes poll results recognizing California's policy innovations and citizen's attitudes about fighting atmospheric pollution and climate change.
The poll "...shows broad public understanding that fixing climate change goes hand in hand with energy stability and economic prosperity."
"Californians understand that clean energy combined with energy efficiency measures, which the state has pioneered for decades, mean their total energy bill will go down..."
Note the reference to California Assembly Bill (AB) 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act.
According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab-32], "The Bill (AB 32), authored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) and Assembly Member Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), was agreed between Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislators on August 30, 2006. It requires that by 2020 the state's greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels, a roughly 25% reduction under business as usual estimates. The California Air Resources Board, under the California Environmental Protection Agency, is to prepare plans to achieve the objectives stated in the Act."
-- Bill Brown
www.nmglobalwarming.org
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From TouchArt.net and One Earth Blog at www.OneEarthBlog.Blogspot.com More current news on sustainable energy science and policy from TouchArt's friend Bill Brown up in Taos at New Mexico Global Warm... more -
Lakota Organization OWE AKU & An Environmental Victory
April 30, 2008
Greetings from Owe Aku, the traditional Lakota (Sioux) organization advocating for Lakota peoples’ human, ecological and treaty rights from a proactive grassroots perspective. Owe Aku, on behalf of our communities and allies, is very pleased and humbled to express our gratitude for recent developments regarding the protection of our sacred Mother Earth. The United States Federal Atomic Licensing Board (ALB) has granted Owe Aku the opportunity to put forth its arguments why Crow Butte Resources, Inc. should not be allowed to expand their current mining interests in northwestern Nebraska.
“Petitioners Debra White Plume, the organizations Owe Aku/Bring Back the Way and the Western Nebraska Resources Council are admitted as parties in this proceeding and their Requests for Hearing and Petitions to intervene are granted…”
The land and water that Canadian-based Cameco/Crow Butte Resources, Inc. is trying to access is traditional Lakota treaty territory under the 1868 and 1851 Fort Laramie treaties. The 1868 Ft. Laramie treaty has been acknowledged as legal and binding by the United States Supreme Court (1980) and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Indigenous Treaties (2000). In filing its petition with the NRC, Owe Aku submitted the treaty issue as a relevant part of the discussion along with the recently passed Declaration on the Rights of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, relying on provisions regarding Indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional land and resources, and free, prior, & informed consent. Prior to its decision yesterday, on January 16, 2008 the NRC sent a three judge panel to Nebraska to hear oral arguments and specifically requested additional information on the treaties and the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights. Although the ALB, in its written decision, mentioned the issue of international human rights and treaty law by stating they need not rely on these assertions for this particular decision, an entire section of their Memorandum and Order was dedicated to just that.
Debra White Plume, an organizer and strong force behind this action, stated:
“We are very, very happy about this decision. Now that Owe Aku and the Western Nebraska Resources Council has been granted “standing,” the Oglala Sioux Tribe, our traditional elders and chiefs from the treaty council and others will now be able to join the case. It was their blessing and encouragement that helped us in this EARLY victory, WHICH IS BASICALLY FIGHTING FOR OUR RIGHT TO FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHTS. In this work we do what we have to protect our sacred water and our future generations.”
CONTACT: Kent Lebsock, Owe Aku Intl Human Rights and Justice Program iamkent@verizon.net
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from TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com via our friend Agnes Fay who reminds us that "Knowing standing by is innocent." April 30, 2008 ... more -
"Reasons To Act (besides snowboarding) Irrespective Of Concern For (Our) Atmo...
More environmental wisdom from our friend Bill Brown in Taos, New Mexico at www.nmglobalwarming.org
"Greetings, All -- Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair offers a commentary on impending legislation on climate change to be debaed beginning next week in the U.S. Congress.
Blair makes two hugely important points:
Vast and growing global economic, social and political problems with continued use of obsolescent, inefficient, globally polluting fossil fuels provides our global community abundant "...reasons to act irrespective of concern for the atmosphere."
"There will be no consequential action on climate change unless there is a global deal..." and such a deal is dependent upon (and entirely possible) with USA leadership in technological and policy innovation.
-- Bill Brown
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...
Washington Post
Leading On Climate Change
How Action in Congress Can Move the World
By Tony Blair
Thursday, May 29, 2008; A19
The climate change bill that senators are to begin debating next week is a hugely important signal of intent on behalf of U.S. legislators. Yes, negotiations could still alter the legislation. But the bill's core proposition is correct: Unless the United States radically reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, along with other major emitters, the damage to the climate will be irreversible.
Radical reduction is unlikely to happen through voluntary action alone. Measures in the bill, through a mandatory cap-and-trade scheme, would reduce emissions 70 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. These cuts would be based on a carbon market incentive system that moves with the grain of action around the globe.
Over the past few years, the debate on climate change has shifted profoundly. The scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming has become overwhelming. The effect of unabated climate change is shocking and, as was shown by the report of Sir Nicholas Stern -- the first authoritative study of the economics of climate change, commissioned by the British government in 2006 -- it is far riskier economically to ignore climate change than to act to abate it.
New environmental technologies, in fact, already drive a multibillion-dollar industry. Last year, an estimated $148 billion was invested in clean-energy technologies, companies and projects, a 60 percent increase from 2006.
Round the planet, people are developing exciting technologies, changing their behavior and agitating for action so that responsibility on the environment will come in a way that is consistent with necessary economic growth.
Meanwhile, fears over energy security create a synergy with the climate debate. With oil above $130 a barrel, there are reasons to act irrespective of concern for the atmosphere. Reducing carbon dependency also goes to the heart of our basic security needs for the future. I have long thought that energy policy is only a small way behind defense in terms of strategic importance to our way of life...."
Read entire article at link.
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from TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com for Earth Day 2008 More environmental wisdom from our friend Bill Brown in Taos, New Mexico at www.nmglobalwarming.org ... more -
Scientific Assessment Of Climate Change Impacts On The USA
Some more good news for Earth Day 2008 from our friend Bill Brown in Taos, New Mexico at www.nmglobalwarming.org
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"Greetings, All -- The USA federal government's Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) released a new report yesterday on the impacts of climate change on the United States. While providing information on trends and projections for the future, the report also states how climate has already changed throughout the USA because of the impacts of human activity on our planet.
The CCSP reiterates what has long been known to science: The primary reason for climate change is human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.
The CCSP was authorized by federal legislation known as the Global Change Research Act of 1990. This Act spawned collaborative federal research and later the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), through which the USA has made a total investment of almost $20 billion during the past thirteen years -- the world's largest investment in scientific research in the areas of climate change and global change. "The USGCRP, in collaboration with several other national and international science programs, has documented and characterized several important aspects of the sources, abundances and lifetimes of greenhouse gases; has mounted extensive space-based monitoring systems for global-wide monitoring of climate and ecosystem parameters; has begun to address the complex issues of various aerosol species that may significantly influence climate parameters; has advanced our understanding of the global water and carbon cycles (but with major remaining uncertainties); and has developed several approaches to computer modeling of the global climate."
The Summary of the 271-page document begins:
"Over the past several years, our understanding of global environmental change and our ability to estimate its future effects has improved significantly. In order to summarize the key conclusions of this research, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has undertaken a national scale “Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States.” The conclusions in this assessment build on the vast body of observations, modeling, decision-support, and other types of activities conducted under the auspices of CCSP. It draws on findings from previous assessments of the science, including reports and products by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), CCSP, and others. Together with CCSP’s 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products, this is arguably the most comprehensive assessment to date of the effects of global change, and especially climate, on the United States. This fact sheet summarizes the key findings of the Assessment."
To download the Summary and/or the Full Report, or simply to learn about the history, quality and scope of the USA's Climate Change Research Program, see: http://www.climatescience.gov/
The CCSP considers this a landmark document, representing summary work of its almost two decades of research. Please take the time to read the Summary even if you do not wade through the full report.
-- William M. Brown
Sage West Consultants & The Climate Project
Energy Science, Law, Architecture
Taos & Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico
Email: nmglobalwarming@yahoo.com
Web: http://www.sagewestconsultants.com
Web: http://www.theclimateproject.org
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from your friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com Some more good news for Earth Day 2008 from our friend Bill Brown in Taos, New Mexico at www.nmglobalwarming.org ... more -
US BLM Announces Environmental Analysis Of Solar Energy Development
More news about how you can influence government policy on sustainable solar energy development from our friend Bill Brown up in Taos, New Mexico at www.nmglobalwarming.org
"Hello, All -- In addition to the recent agreement between the Western Governor's Association and the U.S. Department of Energy regarding clean energy development and transmission, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management enters the picture as managing agency of vast tracts of our American Western landscape.
Today's press release below says, "During work on the PEIS [programmatic Environmental Impact Statement], the BLM will focus attention on the 125 applications already received for rights-of-way for solar energy development, while deferring new applications until after completion of the PEIS. The 125 existing applications are for land covering almost one million acres and with the potential to generate 70 billion watts of electricity, or enough to power 20 million average American homes."
BLM public scoping meetings will be held around the Western USA -- in 8 western cities listed near the end of the press release -- from June 16 through June 26, 2008, and written comments are due by July 7, 2008.
See http://solareis.anl.gov/ for more information.
Note that concentrated solar power (solar thermal) installations -- wherein reflectors heat liquid to run turbines -- can require significant amounts of cooling water (as much water as coal-fired or nuclear power plants require per megawatt of energy produced) whereas solar photovoltaic power installations require virtually no water."
-- Bill Brown
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From TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
" More news about how you can influence government policy on sustainable solar energy development from our friend Bill Brown up in Taos,... more -
RENEWABLE ENERGY: DOE, governors agree to cooperate on Western projects
From our friend Bill Brown up in Taos, New Mexico at New Mexico Global Warming, more good news for sustainable energy.
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Hello, All -- The following bulletin documents an agreement between the Western Governor's Association and the U.S. Department of Energy in a project that "...will identify potential renewable energy zones, develop regional transmission planning to connect those zones, connect buyers and sellers of the electricity generated from renewable sources and provide a platform to address project siting and costs."
Note that the articles via the links in the bulletin below are accessible by subscription only, but you can find headlines and descriptive paragraphs at these sites.
Related non-subscription reference sites:
Western Governor's Association http://www.westgov.org/
U.S. Department of Energy http://www.doe.gov/
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission http://www.ferc.gov/
Bill Brown
Taos, NM
www.nmglobalwarming.org
This is the link - http://www.eenews.net/pm/
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Via TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
Photo "One the Road to Santa Fe" by Jacques Paisner 2006 From our friend Bill Brown up in Taos, New Mexico at New Mexico Global Warming, more good news for sustainable energy. ... more -
U.S. House Passes Renewable Energy Tax Credit Extension
Message on May 21, 2008 from our friend Bill Brown up in Taos, New Mexico with www.nmglobalwarming.org
Greetings, All -- Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that attempts to continue production and investment tax credits for clean energy.
The concept faces opposition in the Senate and veto threat from the Bush Administration.
-- Bill Brown
www.nmglobalwarming.org
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from TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
for Earth Day is everyday.
Write, call, email and lobby your congress people to support this bill to continue production and investment tax credits for clean energy.
And please remember to turn off the lights and switch off your power strips when not using electronic devices. We are all part of the problem and can each be part of the solution.
Go to the link below to find contact information for your senators and congress people.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.t...
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Photo "Clouds over Santa Fe" by Jacques Paisner Message on May 21, 2008 from our friend Bill Brown up in Taos, New Mexico with www.nmglobalwarming.org ... more -
US Census Press Releases
Census Bureau Projects Population of 303.1 Million
As our nation prepares to ring in the new year, the U.S. Census Bureau today projected the Jan. 1, 2008, population will be 303,146,284 -- up 2,842,103 or 0.9 percent from New Year’s Day 2007.
In January, the United States is expected to register one birth every eight seconds and one death every 11 seconds.
Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 30 seconds. The result is an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 13 seconds.
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from your friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com Census Bureau Projects Population of 303.1 Million ... more -
Winona LaDuke on Power Plants on Indian Reservations "Just because you can, d...
"A power company now has the opportunity to pit Native against Native, thanks to a handful of former tribal chairmen. Firetail Energy Systems (represented by former Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribal Chairman William Schumacher) and the Inter-Tribal Economic Alliance (represented by J.R. Crawford, former tribal chair at Sisseton-Wahpeton) along with Multi-Tribal Energy Co. and CEFCO LLC of Texas just became players in a very controversial proposal for a coal-fired power plant near the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota reservation in South Dakota. As a result, Otter Tail Power Co., the electric utility building the plant, is having a heyday.
The proposed plant, called Big Stone II, would put a 500-megawatt power plant upwind from the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate community and use billions of gallons of SWO water annually to feed the Minnesota power grid. The SWO tribe and other indigenous interests, as well as numerous environmental groups, have contested the proposal, which has also met with hefty opposition in Minnesota - a state that has a renewable energy mandate, not a coal mandate. Schumacher, Crawford and their associates have entered this decisive fray on the future of energy production by advocating a continued reliance on coal...."
Go to link for full text of Winona's blog. You can read more by indigenous environmental rights activist Winona LaDuke at http://www.myspace.com/honorearth
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From Winona's friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com for whom every day has always been, and always will be, earth day. "A power company now has the opportunity to pit Native against Native, thanks to a handful of former tribal chairmen. Firetail En... more -
Investment in Renewable Energy Reaches $100 Billion
Greetings, All -- A new report by the United Nations claims that high oil prices and an array of government incentives are leading to soaring rates of investment in renewable energy -- investment that reached $100 billion in 2007.
More importantly:
"The finance community has been investing at levels that imply disruptive change is now inevitable in the energy sector," says Eric Usher, Head of the Energy Finance Unit at the UN. Usher said the UN's "report puts full stop to the idea of renewable energy being a fringe interest of environmentalists. It is now a mainstream commercial interest to investors and bankers alike."
Download & read the 54-page document at:
http://www.unep.org/pdf/SEFI_report-GlobalTrendsInSusta...
-- Bill Brown
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=5...
Renewable Energy World/United Nations
May 6, 2008
Investment in Renewable Energy Reaches $100 Billion
Washington, D.C., United States [RenewableEnergyWorld.com]
High oil prices and an array of government incentives are leading to soaring rates of investment in renewable energy, according to the United Nations' annual "Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment" report.
The UN report calculates global investment capital flows into renewable energy companies reached $100 billion for the first time in history last year. More than $30 billion of the total was the result of mergers and acquisitions led by investment banks such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
"The finance community has been investing at levels that imply disruptive change is now inevitable in the energy sector," says Eric Usher, Head of the Energy Finance Unit at the UN. Usher said the UN's "report puts full stop to the idea of renewable energy being a fringe interest of environmentalists. It is now a mainstream commercial interest to investors and bankers alike."
The huge investment flows mean that IPO's, largely dormant since the heady days of the technology boom nearly a decade ago, are now re-emerging. A trio of solar companies went public with large returns in 2007, including JA Solar, Trina Solar and Solarfun Power Holdings.
William M. Brown
Sage West Consultants & The Climate Project
Energy Science, Law, Architecture
Arroyo Hondo & Taos, New Mexico
Email: nmglobalwarming@yahoo.com
Web: http://nmglobalwarming.org
Web: http://www.theclimateproject.org
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from your friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
If you can invest, invest green. Greetings, All -- A new report by the United Nations claims that high oil prices and an array of government incentives are leading to ... more -
Hawaii man invents solar cooker
A Hawaii inventor has developed something he believes could change the world.
Inventor John Grandinetti cooked lunch for friends Sunday out on the lawn in Kahala. His heat source, a solar oven, looks more like a children's slide, but it will fry foods, bake bread and boil water.
The oven is really a long, double-walled vacuum tube filled with vegetable oil that sits in a reflective-compound parabolic curve -- a fancy name for a solar funnel that focuses sunlight on the tube. The outside of the tube is cool to the touch. But the inside reaches temperatures as high as 400 degrees -- 300 degrees on a cloudy day. A Hawaii inventor has developed something he believes could change the world. ... more -
Indigenous Peoples under police assault throughout Americas | | the narcosphere
By Brenda Norrell
Indigenous Peoples are under assault throughout the Americas, with represssive police actions of Mohawks in Canada, Lakota in South Dakota and Zapatistas in Chiapas.
Mohawks in Tyendinaga are asking for support, following the arrest of five persons defending their land on Friday. Yankton Sioux are also defending their sovereign land from an assault and occupation by South Dakota State Police. Police arrested more than a dozen people protesting a hog farm on Indian land.
Meanwhile, walkers begin the Citizens Walk for Human Dignity, from Tucson to Phoenix, on May 2, to bring attention to the racism, vigilante patrols and raids in Arizona and along the US/Mexico border.
The Longest Walk, northern and southern routes, continues as a prayer walk across America to bring attention to the defense and protection of sacred places and Mother Earth. American Indian Movement cofounder Dennis Banks and Jimbo Simmons, member of the International Indian Treaty Council, are leading the southern and northern routes. Both will be at the Kansas Capitol in Topeka on Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at 10 am.
This Earth Day news comes via your friends at TouchArt.net and One Earth Blog.
Support Indigenous Rights. By Brenda Norrell ... more -
One Earth Blog: Big Mountain Sign c. 1985
Over 14,000 Navajo people were and continue to be forcibly relocated from their ancestral homes in an area disputed between the Navajo and Hopi.
Read about genocide right here in America.
Then learn more about the sustainable green lifeways of the Dine centered on achieving and maintaining balance and beauty - Nizhoni - at http://www.navajolifeway.org/
Plan for this year's Sheep is Life Festival in June.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2007/05/sheep-is-life-con...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2329/2448580036_95ddcc31... Over 14,000 Navajo people were and continue to be forcibly relocated from their ancestral homes in an area disputed between the Navajo... more -
Wisconsin tribal students thwart gangs in Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge; cl...
(Keshena, WI) - Faculty brought their old computers, cell phones and medicines an Earth Day collection at a Keshena, Wisconsin tribal college to help a federal Great Lakes Basin challenge, while younger students cleaned the reservation and whitewashed gang graffiti.
An Earth Day 2008 electronic waste and medicine collection went smoothly at the College of Menominee Nation. Over 23 pounds of medicines were turned in including 100 bottles of pills, more than 25 computers and dozens of related components like hard drives, printers, keyboards and speakers; televisions, radios, DVD players, 12 cell phones and over 100 small batteries.
The collection is among numerous Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin (MITW) projects that are part of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge.
Gang graffiti was whitewashed from a skateboard park wall near the tribal school by K-8 students. The MITW youth honored Earth Day and replaced grafitti with positive Native American symbols.
"The younger students put their hands in paint and made flower hand prints on the wall," said teacher Beth Waukechon. "All week students have been cleaning up the reservation, and one student was so inspired she wants to start an Earth Club."
On Friday, April 25, over 180 students cleaned up litter around the community of Neopit.
"The students are giving thanks to Mother Earth for all that she had done," Waukechon said. "They are taking a moment each day to do that."
"We know that Mother Earth can shake us off at any moment," she said. "We are the ones that need her, she doesn't need us."
"Clean up the Rez Day" was held on Thursday, April 24 at the tribe's Youth Development and Outreach program. The Menominee Teen Court Panel and volunteers cleaned up garbage, said Claudette Hewson, MITW Restorative Justice Coordinator.
The teen panel, ages 14 to 17, is a peer review for youthful offenders sentenced in tribal court who "need to learn healthy behaviors," Hewson said. On May 2, at-risk teens will paint over more reservation gang graffiti.
Sponsors include the tribe's Community Resource Center, Menominee County Police, Menominee Tribal Police, Tribal Clinic Wellness Program, Maehnowesekiyah, Probation and Parole, Community Recycling Project, Recreation Department, EarthHealing.org and the U.S. Post Office in Keshena.
Earth Week tribal school classes appled all subjects to different aspects of the lifecycle, biology and value of the sturgeon, an important fish to the Menominee tribe.
Overseeing the pharmaceutical collection was Heidi Cartwright, a part-time Manawa police officer and college police science instructor.
While hosting the collection, the college's Implementing Sustainable Development class found out they won the National Recycling Coalition Bin Grant through Coca-Cola, said professor William Van Lopik, Ph.D.
"One of premises of the class is to do things, not just talk about what we are going to do and how the world is going to be changed, but having students do things," Dr. Van Lopik said.
The grant pays for 50 recycling bins.
The MITW held curbside pickup of electronics during Earth Week. A couple thousand pounds of electronics were turned in at the MITW transfer station since April 1. The total is expected to reach several tons.
Native American students recently created "Garbage Monsters" out of bottles, paper and other items found in their trash in a project at the Keshena Public Schools, said Diana Wolf, MITW Solid Waste/Recycling Coordinator. After naming their monsters, the students explained other uses for the garbage.
The EHI involves American Indian tribes and "a coalition of churches, synagogues and other faith traditions joining together to heal, protect and defend the environment," said EHI founder Rev. Jon Magnuson of Marquette, Michigan. (Keshena, WI) - Faculty brought their old computers, cell phones and medicines an Earth Day collection at a Keshena, Wisconsin tribal ... more -
Uranium Impact Assessment Program
In the late 1970s, Navajo uranium miners and their families asked for help to show that their lung diseases had been caused by their work in underground uranium mines in the 1940s-1960s. SRIC staff responded with medical and scientific data, in-community education strategies, and legislative support. As a result, Congress adopted legislation in 1990 to compensate former miners and their survivors. Ten years later, with SRIC's on going technical support to advocacy groups, the law was amended to cover virtually all uranium miners who worked before 1971.
Despite making great stridesin protecting miners' and community health, compensating former miners and their families, and cleaning up uranium mill sites, significant problems stemming from the legacy of uranium development still exist today in the Four Corners Area. Hundreds of abandoned mines have not been cleaned up and present environmental and health risks in many Navajo communities. Health conditions in those communities have never been studied despite being impacted by uranium development that dates back to the late-40s and early-50s.
Some of these same communities are now confronted with proposed new uranium solution mining that threatens the only source of drinking water for 10,000 to 15,000 people living in the Eastern Navajo Agency in northwestern New Mexico. Since 1994, SRIC has worked with those communities and the community-based group, Eastern Navajo Diné Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM-CCT), to stop the proposed mines through community education, interaction with Navajo Nation leaders, and a seven-year-long legal challenge of the mines' federal license. The work of SRIC, ENDAUM-CCT and their law firms - the New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) and the Harmon-Curran firm in Washington, D.C. - has erected major roadblocks to the proposed mining, but has not yet terminated the license. Citizen opposition to mining is widespread, and the Navajo Nation leadership recently determined that uranium solution mining is unsafe and that the proposed mines are too risky to the health and environment of the Navajo people.
Against this background, working with Navajo groups and communities to stop new mining and continuing to assess and document the health and environmental effects of past uranium development are the principal focuses of UIAP work.
Next post from your friends at TouchArt from our One Earth blog -
NAVAJO NATION PRESIDENT SIGNS BILL BANNING
URANIUM MINING AND MILLING In the late 1970s, Navajo uranium miners and their families asked for help to show that their lung diseases had been caused by their w... more -
Satya June 00: Navajo Citizens Oppose Uranium Mining by Lila Bird
Navajo Citizens Oppose Uranium Mining on Environmental Justice Grounds
By Lila Bird
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center (NMELC) is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to protecting New Mexico’s natural environment and communities. It has been involved in many different projects including: representing the Southwest Organizing Project (a social justice organization) in its fight against Intel, a major micro chip manufacturer in Albuquerque that is seeking to avoid requirements of the Clean Air Act; working in partnership with the Western Environmental Law Center in seeking a complete cleanup of the Molycorp Mine in order to protect the Red River, large stretches of which have been severely damaged; and representing the United Steelworkers of America Local 890 whose testimony exposed the Phelps Dodge Company’s operation of defective pipelines which leaked an estimated 3.5 million gallons of mining pollutants into the Whitewater Creek, resulting in permit conditions requiring Phelps Dodge to significantly reduce the leakage within two years.
From TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog where the earth has always been sacred. Navajo Citizens Oppose Uranium Mining on Environmental Justice Grounds By Lila Bird ... more -
Leetso, the Powerful Yellow Monster - by Esther Yazzie-Lewis and Jim Zion
For the story of uranium mining and its effect on the Dine and others in the Four Corners, check out The Navajo People and Uranium Mining, edited by Doug Brugge, Timothy Benally, and Esther Yazzie-Lewis, published by University of New Mexico Press. Doug Brugge is associate professor of community health at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston. Timothy Benally, a bilingual Navajo, is retired director of both the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers and the Uranium Education Center, Diné College, Shiprock, New Mexico. Esther Yazzie-Lewis is a bilingual Navajo and recently completed her master's degree in American studies at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Via your friends at TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog where it's always been Earth Day. For the story of uranium mining and its effect on the Dine and others in the Four Corners, check out The Navajo People and Uranium Min... more
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