Cameron Monson: Stop the Utah Tar Sands

Cameron Monson: Stop the Utah Tar Sands

By Cameron Monson / Deep Green Resistance

When I first read Andrew Nikiforuk’s book Tar Sands, I was deeply disturbed. The gluttonous use of water and natural gas, the destruction of mature boreal forests, the high rates of rare cancers, the sickening reduction in air quality, the malformations of local fish populations, the loss of farmlands, and more—a list of damages so glaring that the project stood out as exemplary of this culture’s insanity. At the time though, the Tar Sands existed there, in Alberta, not here, in the US.

Now that has changed. In January, the Utah Division of Oil Gas and Mining voted in favor of U.S. Oil Sands moving forward with a Tar Sands test-site in Uintah County of eastern Utah. Other companies stand close behind, waiting to tear into hundreds of thousands of acres of land for the heavy oil that rests beneath.

If these extraction projects are realized, much of Utah wildlife will come under assault. A snapshot of some of the creatures that call the high-elevation lands of the test-site home include sage grouse, antelope, mule deer, black bear, cougar, California myotis, and faded pygmy rattlesnake. Their fate at this time looks unpromising. Tar Sands extraction leaves only “one potential fate for this land—scorched, foul, dusty, hot and dead.” [1]

Beyond the horrific material effects, the Utah Tar Sands is the crux of a transformation in the larger Tar Sands struggle, a transformation from importation to importation and domestic production of tar sands fuels. If the Keystone XL Pipeline is the Tar Sands’ frontal attack, the Utah Tar Sands is its Trojan horse—from which numerous domestic projects will spring off.

Imagine the message it would send to investors if they saw the first US Tar Sands mine opposed in full force. Imagine the momentum it would give us if through our actions this first mine was stopped. The success or failure of this project will set the stage for future Tar Sands mines in the US. Now is the time to mobilize.

Fortunately, there are many people and groups already committed to fighting the Utah Tar Sands. Several actions have taken place already, and an action camp is planned for late July. We can help their efforts by offering either our physical support in person or our material support from afar. So much is already in place that has the capacity to stop the Utah Tar Sands that it would be a shame if finances were the limiting factor.

That is why I am asking if you can donate to Deep Green Resistance to help fund our summer of action: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/deep-green-resistance-summer-of-action?c=home

Several DGR groups—including Deep Green Resistance Colorado Plateau, Deep Green Resistance Colorado, DGR Mojave, and Deep Green Resistance Great Basin are converging in Utah this summer to add their voices and their strength to the existing struggles. Deep Green Resistance is also working to help bring Lakota warriors to Utah, warriors who have been at the forefront of resistance to the Keystone XL Pipeline. This is a crucial way in which we can connect the Tar Sands resistance movements and show indigenous solidarity.

Tar Sands extraction in the US can and will be stopped. I have already made my donation, and I hope you will too.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/deep-green-resistance-summer-of-action?c=home

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[1] http://www.peacefuluprising.org/no-ut-tar-sands-peaceup-allies-travel-to-pr-springs-join-us-next-time-20120831

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A good friend recently visited the Tar Sand test-site. Read his detailed account: Utah – The Next Energy Colony

Press Release: Anti-Fracking Activists Drop Banner in Illinois Capitol

Press Release: Anti-Fracking Activists Drop Banner in Illinois Capitol

By Rising Tide Chicago

To the cheers and applause of the dozens of supporters below, anti-fracking activists unfurled a two-story banner with “Don’t Frack Illinois,” from the balcony of the state capitol rotunda. During impassioned testimony from activists with the Illinois Coalition for a Moratorium on Fracking (ICMF), the brightly colored banner gave visual support to the voices gathered from throughout the state who came together in Springfield for this the second lobbying and day of action called for by the coalition. “We won’t allow water, air, and living communities to be traded for short-term jobs,” If the industry pursues fracking in Illinois, we will hold these corporations and the policymakers who support them accountable.” said a member of Deep Green Resistance.

Oil and gas companies have bought mineral rights to land and are poised to start fracking in Southern and Central Illinois. Meanwhile, state lawmakers are debating on how to handle this threat. In February a regulatory, bill HB 2615, was introduced. This bill was crafted by a select group of industry, lawmakers and a few large green groups. This bill puts in place some safeguards, but largely leaves communities vulnerable. Chiefly, HB 2615 does not give local counties local control to ban the practice and it does not require that companies disclose proprietary chemicals used in the mining process prior to introducing them into the environment.

In contrast, a Moratorium bill, SB HB 3086 would put a two year moratorium on fracking in Illinois and require that the state conduct a thorough, independent assessment of the effects of hydraulic fracturing. Southern Illinoisans Against Fracturing our Environment (SAFE) a grassroots group based out of Carbondale, IL and a growing number of environmental groups are pushing for a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in Illinois.

“It’s ridiculous that our lawmakers see hydraulic fracturing is an opportunity for our state. Out of state corporations will be making most of the money while residents and our climate will be suffering from this polluting industry” said Angie Viands of Rising Tide Chicago.

This day of action in Springfield included citizen lobbying, a morning press conference with the banner drop, and Illinois Peoples Action storming the Illinois Manufacturer’s Association (IMA) offices. IMA is a main proponent of bringing hydraulic fracturing to the state.

Time is Short: Militant Mining Resistance

Time is Short: Militant Mining Resistance

Mining is one of the most viscerally destructive and horrific ways in which the dominant culture—industrial civilization—enacts its violence on the living world. As entirely and unequivocally destructive as this society is, few other industrial activities are as horrifically confronting as mining. Whole landscapes are cleared of life as communities—most often indigenous or poor—are forced from their homes. Mountains level to piles of barren rubble which leach countless poisons, scouring life from whole watersheds. Pits of unimaginable size are carved from the bones of the earth, leaving moonscapes in their wake.

Besides the immediate damage to the land at the site of operations, the destruction extends through the uses its products are put to. In this way, mining is crucial to the continued function of industrial civilization, supplying many of the raw materials that form the material fabric of industrial society. Steel, aluminum, copper, coal, tar sands bitumen, cement; the materials extracted through mining are central components of industrial civilization in an immediate and physical way. They are the building blocks of this society.

Fortunately, as is the way of things, where there is atrocity and brutalization, there is resistance. There has been a lot of militant anti-mining action happening recently; in the last few months alone there have been several inspiring incidents of people taking direct militant action against mining projects and infrastructure.

In February, several dozen masked militants raided the Hellas gold mine in Halkidiki, Greece. They firebombed machinery, vehicles, and offices at the site. The attack followed several years of legal challenges and public demonstrations—none of which succeeded in stopping the mine, which will destroy forests, poison groundwater, and release air pollutants including lead, mercury and arsenic.

When local residents tried to stop the mine through the courts the government ruled against them, claiming that the mine would create jobs. As the Deputy Minister of Energy and Environment Asimakis Papageorgiou said, “We can no longer accept this [area] being left unexploited or barely exploited.”

Statements like these on the part of those in power, while not necessarily surprising, help to make clear the reality we face; the dominant culture requires the rending of the living world into dead commodities. It can’t be persuaded to change, no matter how compassionate and compelling the appeals we make. It can only be forced to change.

More recently, the Powharnal coal mine in Scotland was attacked at the beginning of April. An anonymous communique was released via Indymedia Scotland:

At some point over the past weekend multiple items of plant machinery at an extension to the Powharnal open cast coal site in East Ayrshire were put beyond working use. High value targets including a prime mover and bulldozer were also targeted to cause maximum disruption to workings at the mine.

Scottish Coal is falling and not only do we intend to make sure that they go down – but that they stay down too.

This action presents yet another hopeful example of militant action targeting extractive projects. This was not a symbolic act of property destruction, but rather one aimed at materially disrupting and stopping destructive activity. More so, the actionist(s) specifically targeted key equipment and infrastructure at the site to maximize the impact of their actions, making good use of effective systems disruption.

A third example comes from Peru, where in mid-April several hundred protestors stormed the Minas Conga gold & copper mine, occupying the site for a short while and burning equipment. Besides the immediate damage done by the arson, the action forced the operating company, Minera Yanacocha, to evacuate personnel and equipment, further disrupting their operations.

This latest protest in April is the latest in a continuous and diverse tapestry of resistance to the Minas Conga mine. Such direct and militant protests and actions last year forced Yanacocha to put most of the mining project on hold, and the strong unyielding opposition has Newmont Mining Corporation (which owns Yanacocha) considering pulling out of the project altogether. This is yet another example of how effective militant action can be in stopping mining and other extractive projects.

Of course there are plenty of aboveground and nonviolent efforts being made to oppose mining projects happening as well, and this isn’t meant to detract from or dismiss their efforts. But the dominant culture needs access to the raw materials that feed the global economy, and in the end it will secure those resources by force, refusing to hear “no!”

Again, this isn’t to say that nonviolent efforts are by any means doomed to failure each and every time we employ them. It is to acknowledge that the entire existence and operation of industrial civilization requires continued access to “raw materials” (otherwise known as natural living communities), and that the courts, regulatory systems, and laws have all been designed to preserve that arrangement. We may win occasional victories here and there, but like a casino, they—the House, the capitalists, the miners, the extractors, etc.— will always come out ahead in the end.

When aboveground & legal efforts to stop mining and other extraction projects fail, as they so often and reliably do, those determined to protect the lands and communities that are their homes turn to other means.

Attacking and destroying the mining infrastructures themselves—the physical machines that are the immediate and direct weapons used to tear up biomes—forces a halt to extraction with an unmatched directness and immediacy. Beyond mining itself, the strategic efficacy of targeting infrastructure—as the foundational supports of any system—has been proven time and again by militaries and resistance movements around the world.

Of course, attacks targeting mines alone will likely never be enough to stop such harmful and destructive processes altogether. That can only happen by dismantling industrial civilization itself. And like anti-mining resistance, bringing down civilization will require underground action— the targeting of key nodes of critical industrial systems through coordinated sabotage.

That will require building a serious and capable resistance movement, one that is unafraid to name the situation before us—the stakes, the urgency, and the strategic reality—and to confront power. It means building a movement that can navigate around the traps and misdirection historically used to disrupt and disable movements. It means building a movement that is willing and able to defend the living Earth by any means necessary. Toward this end, members of DGR will be traveling the Northeast U.S. & Southeast Canada this summer for the Resistance Rewritten Tour, to talk about what that movement will mean and look like.

As civilization continues its incessant death march around the world— tearing apart and destroying ever more of the living world, ever more human and extra-human communities— resistance against it must of necessity become more militant. With so much at stake, those resisters in Greece, Scotland, Peru and elsewhere using militant attacks on industrial infrastructure to defend their lands and communities deserve our undying support. Those of us who value life and justice should not condemn them, but celebrate them— for theirs is precisely the type of action that will be required to stop the murder of the living world.

Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org

Mora County, NM passes ordinance banning all oil and gas extraction

By Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Earlier today, the County Commission of Mora County, located in Northeastern New Mexico, became the first county in the United States to pass an ordinance banning all oil and gas extraction.

Drafted with assistance from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), the Mora County Community Water Rights and Local Self-Government Ordinance establishes a local Bill of Rights – including a right to clean air and water, a right to a healthy environment, and the rights of nature – while prohibiting activities which would interfere with those rights, including oil drilling and hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” for shale gas.

Communities across the country are facing drilling and fracking.  Fracking brings significant environmental impacts including the production of millions of gallons of toxic wastewater, which can affect drinking water and waterways.  Studies have also found that fracking is a major global warming contributor, and have linked the underground disposal of frack wastewater to earthquakes.

CELDF Executive Director Thomas Linzey, Esq., explained, “Existing state and federal oil and gas laws force fracking and other extraction activities into communities, overriding concerns of residents.  Today’s vote in Mora County is a clear rejection of this structure of law which elevates corporate rights over community rights, which protects industry over people and the natural environment.”

He stated further that, “This vote is a clear expression of the rights guaranteed in the New Mexico Constitution which declares that all governing authority is derived from the people.  With this vote, Mora is joining a growing people’s movement for community and nature’s rights.”

CELDF Community Organizer and Mora County resident, Kathleen Dudley, added, “The vote of Mora Commission Chair John Olivas and Vice-Chair Alfonso Griego to ban drilling and fracking is not only commendable, it is a statement of leadership that sets the bar for communities across the State of New Mexico.”  She explained that the ordinance calls for an amendment to the New Mexico Constitution that “elevates community rights above corporate property rights.”

Mora County joins Las Vegas, NM, which in 2012 passed an ordinance, with assistance from CELDF, which prohibits fracking and establishes rights for the community and the natural environment.  CELDF assisted the City of Pittsburgh, PA, to draft the first local Bill of Rights which prohibits fracking in 2010.  Communities in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, New York, and New Mexico have enacted similar ordinances.

Mora County joins over 150 communities across the country which have asserted their right to local self-governance through the adoption of local laws that seek to control corporate activities within their municipality.

From CELDF:

Utah – The Next Energy Colony

By Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance Great Basin

The first Tar Sands mine in the United States is an open wound on the landscape: a three acre pit, the bottom puddled with water and streaked with black tar. Berms of broken earth a hundred feet tall stand on all sides. To the north and south, Seep Ridge Road – a narrow, rutted, dirt affair – is in the midst of a state-funded transfiguration into a 4-lane paved highway that may soon be clogged with afternoon traffic jams of oil tankers and construction equipment. Clearcuts and churned soil stretch to either side of the road, marking the steady march of progress.

This is the Uintah Basin of eastern Utah – a rural county, known for providing the best remaining habitat in the state for Rocky Mountain Elk, White Tailed Deer, Black Bear, and Cougar. In the last decade, it’s become the biggest oil-extraction region on the state, and in the last five years fracking has exploded. There are over 10,000 well pads in the region. And now, the Tar Sands are coming.

Thirty two thousand acres of state lands situated on the southern rim of the basin – some 50 square miles – have been leased for Tar Sands extraction. If all goes according to plan, the mine at PR Springs that I’m looking at would produce 2,000 barrels of oil per day by late this year, with planned increases to 50,000 barrels per day in the future.

Dozens of similar mines are planned across the whole region. Along with their friends in state and local governments, energy corporations are collaborating to turn this region into an energy colony – a sacrifice zone to the gods of progress, growth, and desecration.

Twelve to 19 billion barrels of recoverable tar sands oil is estimated to be located under the rocky bluffs of eastern Utah, mostly in the southern portion of Uintah County. It’s a drop in the bucket for global production, but it means total biotic cleansing for this land.

Crude oil, tar sands, oil shale, and fracking: these are the wages of a dying way of life, and the ozone pollution that is already reaching record levels in this remote, sparsely-populated region is evidence of the moral bankruptcy of this path. There is no claim to morality in this path. It leads only to death, for us and for all life.

Alongside the test pit and scattered throughout the landscape, drill pads for seismologic assessment and roads to the pads have already been cut through the forests and shrubs, leaving behind a patchwork of shattered sagebrush and mangled juniper – testament to the Earth-crushing consequences of this “development”.

Situated at 8,000 feet of elevation, this wild region is called the Tavaputs Plateau. Unmarked, often muddy dirt roads make travel dangerous, and deep valleys plunge thousands of feet to the rivers that drain the region – the White River to the north, and the Green to the west. Both flow into the Colorado River, which provides drinking water for more than 11 million people downstream.

Resistance to tar sands and oil shale projects in Utah dates at least back to the 1980’s, when David Brower and other alienated conservationists fought off the first round of energy projects in this region. Thirty years later, the fight is on again.

It is likely that the PR Springs mine will be the bellwether of Tar Sands mining in the United States. If the project is stopped, it will be a major blow to the hopes of the Tar Sands industry in this country, while if it goes ahead smoothly, it may open the floodgates for more projects in Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming.

That is why resistance to this project is so important. That resistance is building. Strong organizations based in Moab (Before it Starts and Living Rivers) and Salt Lake City (Utah Tar Sands Resistance and Peaceful Uprising) are working together to organize against the project, and individuals and allies have been scouting the site and preparing to take action this summer.

Campouts at PR Springs will take place in May and June with more gatherings likely throughout the summer. An action camp will take place the fourth week of July, with activists and concerned people from across the country gathering to support one another, prepare for action, and make plans. All are welcome.

Time is short. There is no time to waste, and we are few. If we are to succeed, we will need your help, your solidarity.

Looking out across a landscape that might soon be a wasteland, my gaze wanders across the juniper, scrub oak, and sagebrush that wrap gently over the hillsides and drop into the valleys. The setting sun casts waning light on the treetops, and a small herd of Elk climbs a ridge in the distance and disappears into the brush. Overhead, the few clouds in the broad sky fade from red to deep purple, then to darkness.

The last birds of the day sing their goodnight songs, and the stars begin to appear, thousands of them, lighting up the night sky and casting a dull glow across the countryside. I take a deep breath, tasting the cool night air spiced with the scents of the land.

The bats are out, flitting about snatching tasty morsels out of midair. I can hear their voices. They are calling to me. Tiny voices carrying across miles to whisper in your ear like the tickle of a warm breeze. “Fight back,” they say. “Please, fight back. This is our home. We need you to do what it takes to stop this. Whatever it takes to stop this. Whatever it takes.”

Whatever it takes.
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Companies involved in Tar Sands projects in the Utah include Red Leaf Resources (which also works in the Oil Shale business and is based in Salt Lake City), MCW Energy Group, Crown Asphalt Ridge LLC, and U.S. Oil Sands, a Calgary, Alberta based company.

Red Leaf Resources is currently working on a shale oil operation in the same region as the PR Springs mine, which could eventually produce 10,000 barrels of oil per day. Other large oil shale operations are planned for region by the Estonian company Enefit.

You can learn more about the resistance to Utah Tar Sands projects at the following websites:
http://www.tarsandsresist.org/
http://www.peacefuluprising.org/topic/current-campaigns/stop-tar-sands

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Max Wilbert is a writer and community organizer living in occupied Goshute territory otherwise known as Salt Lake City, UT. He originally hails for occupied Duwamish territory known as Seattle, and organizes primarily with the Great Basin Chapter of Deep Green Resistance to fight injustice and promote strategies towards the dismantling of industrial civilization.

You can contact Max Wilbert at greatbasin@deepgreenresistance.org