by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 25, 2013 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Climate Change, Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance Great Basin
On April 19th, myself and other organizers from the Salt Lake City community attended the Morning Energy Update, a meeting hosted by the Utah State Office of Energy Development. The meeting was held in a small conference room at the World Trade Center Utah building.
The room was full – us five or six activists mixed in with energy industry businesspeople, State and County officials, and one or two journalists. I sat next to Cody Stewart, the energy advisor to Gary Herbert, the Governor of the State of Utah.
The main topic of the meeting was the development of Oil Shale in eastern Utah, in Uintah and Grand Counties – areas already hard hit by oil and gas extraction and threatened with Tar Sands extraction.
Rikki Hrenko, the CEO of Enefit American Oil (an Estonian shale oil corporation) was the keynote. She presented about the “economic sustainability” and moderate environmental impact of the project.
I responded with the following statement:
http://picosong.com/FkPw/
Any claims about oil shale having a low impact are simply ridiculous – we are talking about strip mining a vast area of wild lands in the watershed of the Colorado, whose water is already so taxed by cities and agriculture that the river never reaches the ocean. Instead, it simply turns into a stream, then a trickle, then cracked mud for the last 50 miles.
The WorldWatch Institute states that oil shale is simply an awful idea:
“Studies conducted so far suggest that oil shale extraction would adversely affect the air, water, and land around proposed projects. The distillation process would release toxic pollutants into the air—including sulfur dioxide, lead, and nitrogen oxides. Existing BLM analysis indicates that current oil shale research projects would reduce visibility by more than 10 percent for several weeks a year. And NRDC states that in a well-to-wheel comparison, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from oil shale are close to double those from conventional crude, with most of them occurring during production. According to the Rand Corporation, producing 100,000 barrels of oil shale per day would emit some 10 million tons of GHGs.
The BLM reports that mining and distilling oil shale would require an estimated 2.1 to 5.2 barrels of water for each barrel of oil produced—inputs that could reduce the annual flow of Colorado’s White River by as much as 8.2 percent. Residues that remain from an in-situ extraction process could also threaten water tables in the Green River Basin, the agency says.
NRDC notes that the infrastructure needed to develop oil shale would impose equally serious demands on local landscapes. The group warns that impressive arrays of wildlife would be displaced as land is set aside for oil shale development. And it says that while open pit mining would scar the land, in-situ extraction would require leveling the land and removing all vegetation.
In addition to the environmental impacts of oil shale, vast amounts of energy are required to support production. In Driving it Home, NRDC cites Rand Corporation estimates that generating 100,000 barrels of shale oil would require 1,200 megawatts of power—or the equivalent of a new power plant capable of serving a city of 500,000 people. Proponents of oil shale have a stated goal of producing one million barrels of the resource per day.”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 24, 2013 | Indigenous Autonomy, Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Thistle Pettersen and Beth Ulion / Deep Green Resistance
A proposed iron mining effort would create the largest open pit mine in the world in northern Wisconsin.The 22,000 acres of mountain-top removal-style strip mining would potentially dump millions of tons of waste rock into the headwaters of the Bad River, polluting everything downstream including beautiful Copper Falls State Park, the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation, crucial wetland Kakagon Sloughs, and Lake Superior.
Many local residents fear that the huge mine will eat into nearby sulfide-mineral deposits, causing sulfuric acid mine drainage to leach into the surrounding watershed for decades.
The Wisconsin State legislature recently slashed environmental regulations in an attempt to make an easier entry for Gogebic Taconite (G-Tac), a Florida-based company owned by the Cline Group, is also well known for its coal mining operations in Illinois and West Virginia.
This is just one struggle in a worldwide battle against extreme resource extraction – but this time, it’s one we can win. Activists have a good head start, and there is a lot of dedicated support for those who are planning to occupy the Penokee Hills to deliver a message to G-Tac: we are drawing a line in the sand, and they will not be allowed one inch of this sacred land.
Bad River Tribal members are asking for solidarity from allies all over the Great Lakes Region.
Activists will gather at the Central Wisconsin Action Camp May 17-19th in Stevens Point, WI.
This is a great opportunity to meet others from around Central and South Wisconsin and throughout the midwest, and build direct-action skills for this historic struggle.
The crew organizing this event could really use a little help, too! Especially for those of you who are in or near Stevens Point or Madison, assistance in organizing logistics like camp setup, food, etc, as well as additional skill trainings, are greatly appreciated!
As capacity may be somewhat limited, and with the intention of building a solid group of anti-mining activists who can move into the future together, organizers are asking that you please register on the website:
centralwiactioncamp.wordpress.com
centralwiactioncamp@gmail.com
If you are unable to make it to the action camp, you can still plug in by traveling even farther north the following weekend, May 24th-26th for a benefit variety show and camp out at Copper Falls State Park. The variety show fund raiser will be at the Bad River Lodge and Casino on Friday night, the 24th. Money raised at this community-building event will go towards the Penokee Hills Education Project to defend the land from harmful mining. The Red Cliff hoop dancers, Thistle and Thorns, and Barbara With are all acts on this bill that will make it a very special night of performances and comradeship with locals.
The campout is being organized by members of the Bad River Tribe and will include tours of the land where the mine is slated to be put in. Mike Wiggins, chair of the Bad River, will greet and spend time with campers. It will be a beautiful and educational weekend in the great north woods!
If you are interested in attending either of these two weekends or both of them, please contact DGR member Thistle Pettersen to plug into ride shares happening from Madison. thistle@riseup.net.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 2, 2013 | Toxification
By Edward Wong / The New York Times
Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide.
Figured another way, the researchers said, China’s toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population.
The data on which the analysis is based was first presented in the ambitious 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study, which was published in December in The Lancet, a British medical journal. The authors decided to break out numbers for specific countries and present the findings at international conferences. The China statistics were offered at a forum in Beijing on Sunday.
“We have been rolling out the India- and China-specific numbers, as they speak more directly to national leaders than regional numbers,” said Robert O’Keefe, the vice president of the Health Effects Institute, a research organization that is helping to present the study. The organization is partly financed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the global motor vehicle industry.
What the researchers called “ambient particulate matter pollution” was the fourth-leading risk factor for deaths in China in 2010, behind dietary risks, high blood pressure and smoking. Air pollution ranked seventh on the worldwide list of risk factors, contributing to 3.2 million deaths in 2010.
By comparison with China, India, which also has densely populated cities grappling with similar levels of pollution, had 620,000 premature deaths in 2010 because of outdoor air pollution, the study found. That was deemed to be the sixth most common killer in South Asia.
The study was led by an institute at the University of Washington and several partner universities and institutions, including the World Health Organization.
Read more from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/world/asia/air-pollution-linked-to-1-2-million-deaths-in-china.html?_r=1&
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 28, 2013 | Toxification
By Agence France-Presse
Crews were working Thursday to clean up as much as 30,000 gallons of oil that spilled onto a Minnesota field after a mile-long train derailed.
It was not yet clear whether the Canadian Pacific train was transporting regular crude or oil from the Alberta tar sands, but the spill will certainly add fuel to the fight against the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
Luckily, frigid temperatures helped contain the environmental damage after 14 train cars fell off the tracks and three began leaking oil on Wednesday morning.
“Minnesota is having a late spring and the site is still frozen and covered with quite a lot of snow, which helped prevent any oil from moving down the ditch or soaking into the soil,” said Dan Olson, a spokesman for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.”
“The accident currently poses no threat to either surface or ground waters.”
The bulk of the oil spilled from a single tank, which lost a “substantial amount” of its 26,000 gallon capacity, Olson told AFP. Two other tanks were leaking more slowly and the spill was estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 gallons.
No injuries were reported as a result of the derailment in a rural area about a mile north of Parkers Prairie in west central Minnesota, the Otter Tail county sheriff’s office said.
Environmental activists are preparing to flood an April 18 public hearing in Nebraska to discuss the controversial $5.3 billion Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline.
The US State Department released a draft environmental impact statement on March 1 suggesting the rerouted pipeline, which would transport some 830,000 barrels a day, would have no major impact on the environment.
Critics contend that the heavy tar sand oil would be nearly impossible to clean up if it were to spill in one of the more than 1,000 waterways that will be traversed by the pipeline, because it sinks instead of floats.
The exploitation of the tar sands also results in significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than traditional oil extraction because it must be dug out of the ground and then basically melted with the heat of natural gas.
From The Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/28/train-derailment-spills-30000-gallons-of-oil-in-minnesota/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Jan 24, 2013 | Agriculture, Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Toxification
By Damian Carrington / The Guardian
Widely used pesticides can kill frogs within an hour, new research has revealed, suggesting the chemicals are playing a significant and previously unknown role in the catastrophic global decline of amphibians.
The scientists behind the study said it was both “astonishing” and “alarming” that common pesticides could be so toxic at the doses approved by regulatory authorities, adding to growing criticism of how pesticides are tested.
“You would not think products registered on the market would have such a toxic effect,” said Carsten Brühl, at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Germany. “It is the simplest effect you can think of: you spray the amphibian with the pesticide and it is dead. That should translate into a dramatic effect on populations.”
Trenton Garner, an ecologist at the Zoological Society of London, said: “This is a valuable addition to the substantial body of literature detailing how existing standards for the use of agricultural pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers are inadequate for the protection of biodiversity.”
Amphibians are the best example of the great extinction of species currently under way, as they are the most threatened and rapidly declining vertebrate group. More than a third of all amphibians are included in the IUCN “red list” of endangered species, with loss of habitat, climate change and disease posing the biggest threats.
Brühl had previously studied how easily frogs can absorb pesticides through their permeable skins, which they can breathe through when underwater. But pesticides are not required to be tested on amphibians, said Brühl: “We could only find one study for one pesticide that was using an exposure likely to occur on farmland.”
His team chose widely used fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. The most striking results were for a fungicide called pyraclostrobin, sold as the product Headline by the manufacturer BASF and used on 90 different crops across the world. It killed all the common European frogs used as test animals within an hour when applied at the rate recommended on the label. Other fungicides, herbicides and insecticides also showed acute toxicity, even when applied at just 10% of the label rate, with the insecticide dimethoate, for example, killing 40% of animals within a week.
The study, published on Thursday in Scientific Reports [will be live after embargo], concluded: “The observation of acute mortality in a vertebrate group caused by commercially available pesticides at recommended field rates is astonishing, since 50 years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring one would have thought that the development of refined risk-assessment procedures would make such effects virtually impossible.”
A BASF spokesman disputed the findings: “This study was performed under laboratory ‘worst-case’ conditions. Under normal agricultural conditions amphibians are not exposed to such pesticide concentrations. According to our knowledge, no significant impact on amphibian populations has been reported despite the widespread and global use of the fungicide pyraclostrobin.”
Brühl said the method, a single spray directly on to the frogs, sometimes at just 10% of the label rate, was a “realistic worst-case” scenario. He added that in the field, multiple sprays of a variety of pesticides was likely and that chemicals might run off into ponds where frogs lived.
Sandra Bell, Friends of the Earth’s nature campaigner, said: “From frogs to bees, there is mounting evidence that the pesticide bombardment of our farmland is having a major impact on our precious wildlife. Strong action is urgently needed to get farmers off the chemical treadmill.
“As well as banning the most toxic products, governments must set clear targets for reducing all pesticides and ensure farmers have safe and thoroughly tested alternatives.”
Earlier this month, the world’s most widely used insecticide was for the first time officially labelled an “unacceptable” danger to bees feeding on flowering crops, by the European Food Safety Agency. The agency had previously stated that current “simplistic” regulations contained “major weaknesses”.
“There is an urgency to address [the amphibian issue] as pesticides will be applied again soon because it’s spring, and that’s when we have all these migrations to ponds,” said Brühl.
“We don’t have any data from the wild about dead frogs because no one is looking for them – and if you don’t look, you don’t find. But the pesticides are very widely used and so have the potential to have a significant effect on populations.”
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/24/pesticides-kill-frogs-within-hour
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 30, 2012 | Toxification
By Georgia Institute of Technology
If the 4.9 million barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico during the 2010 Deep Water Horizon spill was a ecological disaster, the two million gallons of dispersant used to clean it up apparently made it even worse – 52-times more toxic. That’s according to new research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes (UAA), Mexico.
The study found that mixing the dispersant with oil increased toxicity of the mixture up to 52-fold over the oil alone. In toxicity tests in the lab, the mixture’s effects increased mortality of rotifers, a microscopic grazing animal at the base of the Gulf’s food web. The findings are published online by the journal Environmental Pollution and will appear in the February 2013 print edition.
Using oil from the Deep Water Horizon spill and Corexit, the dispersant required by the Environmental Protection Agency for clean up, the researchers tested toxicity of oil, dispersant and mixtures on five strains of rotifers. Rotifers have long been used by ecotoxicologists to assess toxicity in marine waters because of their fast response time, ease of use in tests and sensitivity to toxicants. In addition to causing mortality in adult rotifers, as little as 2.6 percent of the oil-dispersant mixture inhibited rotifer egg hatching by 50 percent. Inhibition of rotifer egg hatching from the sediments is important because these eggs hatch into rotifers each spring, reproduce in the water column, and provide food for baby fish, shrimp and crabs in estuaries.
“Dispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters,” said UAA’s Roberto-Rico Martinez, who led the study. “But we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion.”
Martinez performed the research while he was a Fulbright Fellow at Georgia Tech in the lab of School of Biology Professor Terry Snell. They hope that the study will encourage more scientists to investigate how oil and dispersants impact marine food webs and lead to improved management of future oil spills.
“What remains to be determined is whether the benefits of dispersing the oil by using Corexit are outweighed by the substantial increase in toxicity of the mixture,” said Snell, chair of the School of Biology. “Perhaps we should allow the oil to naturally disperse. It might take longer, but it would have less toxic impact on marine ecosystems.”
From Georgia Institute of Technology
