Dozens of buildings were leveled and at least five people were killed, while 40 more were still missing as of Monday morning. The fracked oil was en route to New Brunswick, which is home to the largest oil refinery in Canada. From Reuters:
The train, which did not have an engineer aboard when it derailed, was hauling 72 tanker cars of crude from North Dakota to eastern Canada. It rolled downhill from an overnight parking spot, gathered speed and derailed on a curve in the small town of Lac-Megantic at 1 a.m. on Saturday.
Each car carried 30,000 gallons of crude oil. Four caught fire and exploded in an orange and black fireball that mushroomed hundreds of feet into the air and flattened dozens of buildings, including a popular bar.
“It looks like a war zone here,” said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
The disaster plunged the media into debate: Is it safer to move oil through underground pipelines (à la Mayflower, Kalamazoo, and Keystone XL), or to move it by rail?
Frackers and tar-sands miners are extracting record amounts of oil in America and Canada. Existing pipelines can’t carry the whopping bounty to refineries, so energy companies are seeking to lay lattices of new pipes. Meanwhile, the glut of liquid hydrocarbons is being loaded onto trains, which are being sent vast distances — and are triggering high-profile spills and accidents.
The Toronto Globe and Mail argues in the wake of the Lac-Mégantic disaster that “[p]ipelines are the safest way of transporting oil and natural gas, and we need more of them, without delay.”The New York Times considers the pipeline-vs.-train question more impartially, quoting environmental experts:
Edward Whittingham, the executive director of the Pembina Institute, an environmental group based in Calgary, Alberta, said there was not conclusive research weighing the safety of the two shipment methods.
“The best data I’ve seen indicates,” he said, “depending on your perspective, both are pretty much as safe as each other, or both are equally unsafe. There’s safety and environmental risks inherent in either approach.”
Accidents involving pipelines, Mr. Whittingham said, can be more difficult to detect and can release greater amounts of oil. Rail accidents are more frequent but generally release less oil.
But the comparison obfuscates an obvious reality: The oil can’t be moved safely at all. (Same goes for natural gas.)
After a string of pipeline and rail accidents in recent years, it’s clear that letting the energy industry move incendiary bulk fluids around the continent is like tossing a book of matches into the crib to keep little Johnny happy while his folks stare at the television. And that’s without even considering the climate impacts of the fossil-fuel mining binge, or the many hazards of fracking.
The weekend tragedy is a reminder that the energy industry can’t be trusted to do anything safely, let alone transport oil.
On the edge of the western mountain range, protesters with Croatan Earth First! are currently occupying an industrial manufacturing facility owned by Momentive and located at 114 Industrial Drive. North Carolinians, who have been fighting to prevent hydraulic fracturing from coming to central North Carolina are joined in this action by people from around the country who also oppose shale gas extraction nationwide. Momentive is one of the largest worldwide distributors of “resin coated proppants,” a necessary component for fracking. Each fracturing stage requires approximately 136 tonnes of proppants.
“We are here to send a message to the oil and gas industries: we will not stand idly by as you destroy this land, or any other, for your personal profit. Respect existence, or expect resistance,” said an Earth First! activist.
The North Carolina legislature plans to begin permitting frack sites as early as March 2015 in the Cumnock Shale Basin located underneath Lee, Moore, Chatham, and surrounding counties. Fracking has been tied to water aquifer contamination in Pavilion, Wyoming according to an EPA study and linked to high levels of methane in Pennsylvania water wells according to a study by Duke University. Researchers with Cornell University found that fracking operations nationwide released massive amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas) straight into the atmosphere, and concluded that, if not curbed, would speed climate change faster than carbon emissions.
The NC legislature is negotiating on the possibility of legalizing toxic wastewater injection in state or transporting it elsewhere. The process uses 1-8 million gallons of clean water each time a well is fracked.
“We are under drought conditions already, yet the oil and gas industry is allowed to pump millions of gallons of water out of our streams. This is devastating life in our rivers and streams. To make matters worse they send this water back into the riverways poisoned with radioactive materials,” said organizer Lydia Nickles. “Preserving our waters is preserving our lives and all life. We want an end to shale gas extraction everywhere.”
Activists with the Earth First! Movement are calling on people nationwide to resist fracking where they live and organize solidarity actions.
“Even if you don’t have a rig in your area to shut down, you can affect the industry. Momentive and other companies that create proppants for the gas industry have facilities nationwide as well as internationally. It’s time to disrupt the chain of supply. Go to www.frackindustry.org and organize to take action now!”
A message from Croatan Earth First!: “We are acting in solidarity with and take inspiration from the courageous many who have been standing together to take action in the North Carolina capital during Moral Mondays, and we encourage everyone to continue to show our collective power, acting up against the repressive corporate and legislative powers for the liberation of all and the integrity of land, water and air.”
Iraq is among the countries in the Middle East facing severe water shortages. Photo: Ali al-Saadi/AFP
John Vidal, The Guardian
Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world’s leading resource analysts has warned.
The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: “Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.
“The world is seeing the collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them.”
Brown warns that Syria’s grain production peaked in 2002 and since then has dropped 30%; Iraq has dropped its grain production 33% since 2004; and production in Iran dropped 10% between 2007 and 2012 as its irrigation wells started to go dry.
“Iran is already in deep trouble. It is feeling the effects of shrinking water supplies from overpumping. Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological basket case. Grain production has fallen there by half over the last 35 years. By 2015 irrigated fields will be a rarity and the country will be importing virtually all of its grain.”
There is also concern about falling water tables in China, India and the US, the world’s three largest food-producing countries. “In India, 175 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping, in China 130 million. In the United States the irrigated area is shrinking in leading farm states with rapid population growth, such as California and Texas, as aquifers are depleted and irrigation water is diverted to cities.”
Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvest prospects in China, which rivals the US as the world’s largest grain producer, says Brown. “The water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces more than half of the country’s wheat and a third of its maize is falling fast. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep aquifer, which is not replenishable.”
The situation in India may be even worse, given that well drillers are now using modified oil-drilling technology to reach water half a mile or more deep. “The harvest has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but only because of massive overpumping from the water table. The margin between food consumption and survival is precarious in India, whose population is growing by 18 million per year and where irrigation depends almost entirely on underground water. Farmers have drilled some 21m irrigation wells and are pumping vast amounts of underground water, and water tables are declining at an accelerating rate in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.”
In the US, farmers are overpumping in the Western Great Plains, including in several leading grain-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Irrigated agriculture has thrived in these states, but the water is drawn from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground water body that stretches from Nebraska southwards to the Texas Panhandle. “It is, unfortunately, a fossil aquifer, one that does not recharge. Once it is depleted, the wells go dry and farmers either go back to dryland farming or abandon farming altogether, depending on local conditions,” says Brown.
“In Texas, located on the shallow end of the aquifer, the irrigated area peaked in 1975 and has dropped 37% since then. In Oklahoma irrigation peaked in 1982 and has dropped by 25%. In Kansas the peak did not come until 2009, but during the three years since then it has dropped precipitously, falling nearly 30%. Nebraska saw its irrigated area peak in 2007. Since then its grain harvest has shrunk by 15%.”
Brown warned that many other countries may be on the verge of declining harvests. “With less water for irrigation, Mexico may be on the verge of a downturn in its grain harvest. Pakistan may also have reached peak water. If so, peak grain may not be far behind.”
Kevin Shanley says too many cities have an outdated approach to storm protection that makes them vulnerable to the coming mega-storms. The CEO of SWA Group, an international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm, Shanley is an advocate of using “green infrastructure” — human-made systems that mimic natural ones — as bulwarks.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, people are taking note. Some experts believe New York City would not have sustained such severe damage had the original wetlands that lined the coasts not been uprooted by development. In fact, some parts of Staten Island remained relatively unscathed because they were protected by the massive Fresh Kills Park and its wetlands.
SWA GroupKevin Shanley.
What’s needed, Shanley says, are policy shifts “rooted in a natural system-approach that work with nature’s tremendous forces.” Beyond policy changes though, Shanley has also worked on projects, in Texas and elsewhere, that show how these human-made systems could work. But he cautions that more research is needed if communities’ lives and livelihoods are to rely on human-made nature.
Shanley was recently in Washington, D.C., speaking at the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation on improving the resiliency of our coasts in an effort to protect them from increasingly damaging storms and sea-level rise brought on by climate change. I caught up with him there.
Q. What were the lessons of Hurricane Sandy?
A. There are real-world lessons and then “should-be” lessons. The real-world lesson is that everybody is at risk. These storms don’t just happen to Florida or Bangladesh. They can hit New York City. The storm could have hit Washington, D.C., with disastrous results. We’re not ready.
The other lesson we need to learn is quite important: We forget really quickly. Katrina happened, now eight years ago. Some structural changes were made to the levee system, but all of the really great plans to rebuild New Orleans as a more sustainable community, a better community, a more integrated community came to nothing.
The key is finding a way to rebuild strategically and learn lessons from these disasters to shape our future plans.
Q. New York City’s new climate adaptation plans calls for both “hard” infrastructure, like seawalls, and “soft,” green infrastructure. In a recent Metropolis magazine piece, Susannah Drake described soft infrastructure as “transforming the waterfront from a definitive boundary into a subtly graded band.” How well will this work?
A. Soft green infrastructure along coastal fringe areas can play a really important role in restoring ecological functions to our coastlines. Our coastlines have been severely degraded from an ecological point of view. But using these systems to protect urban areas needs really serious science and engineering studies. Just how effective is a coastal marsh of several hundred yards wide? We’re not talking about miles wide. We’re talking probably several hundred yards or hundreds of feet. What is the benefit to, say, Manhattan? Can we take a blended approach to soften our edges and create redundant and resilient strategies?
I’ve seen some beautiful renderings of the edge of Manhattan as it could be. There would be dramatic changes in ecological performance and a transformation in public perception about the city as a green place. There are a lot of wonderful aspects to this. But from a surge and hurricane risk-protection standpoint, we need to be careful not to set up false expectations. To what extent do coastal marshes protect us when a surge comes in that is 15 or 20 feet above those marshes? The green infrastructure could impede the wave action and the movement of the water, or even exacerbate the run-up of a surge in shallow waters. The Gulf Coast of the North American continent has a long, shallow coastal run-up, which tends to exacerbate wind-driven surge.
Also, rising water levels drown coastal marshes. That’s what has happened in the Galveston Bay complex in Texas. Because of subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawal, we lost square miles of emergent coastal marsh. The bottom dropped out and it drowned the marshes. One can say, “Well, the marsh will just march inland.” Well, will it? Does the actual geography allow it to just march inward? These are important questions.
Q. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to spend $400 million to buy up homes in New York City, demolish them, and then preserve the flood-prone land as undeveloped coastline. Does this approach make sense?
A. It’s a potentially very powerful tool. Speaking globally, the British and Dutch have been at it for decades. It’s called “managed retreat.” It’s about getting out of harm’s way. FEMA has been funding buyouts like that for a while now. It’s a really good program to remove the most at-risk structures, particularly federally insured structures that time after time are repeat sinks for federal flood insurance claims.
What needs to be thought about, however, if you’re talking about scaling it up, is how to replace the economic value of the development that’s being removed from harm’s way. There are sales taxes based on the occupants, all kinds of revenue to the community. This revenue pays for schools, sewer systems, security, and all of the other things that we take for granted in government. Coastal real estate is expensive because it’s attractive. If you take that out of the equation, you’ve got to be ready to think how to replace that.
That’s the challenge facing all of us. Great ecological strategies need to be considered economically, and vice versa.
Q. Respected scientists argue that sea levels could rise four feet by 2100. How does this change the timeline for action on improving coastal resiliency?
A. Sea-level rise is like watching the hour hand move. We are like grammar school students: The hour hand doesn’t seem to move during class. Our time horizons are measured in just a few years at best. If we’re forward-thinking, we might think out 10 years. Will public policymakers be able to think out beyond a year or even 10 years to 100-year thresholds? The dialogue is there, but I don’t see it coming down to meet real public policy changes yet.
Q. What’s holding back these policy shifts? Where are the biggest obstacles at the federal and local levels?
A. The biggest obstacle is the lack of public awareness … there needs to be clear communication about the risks. That can be through things like flood insurance rate maps, but it also needs to be through public education and policy. There needs to be clear disclosure on every real estate transaction. There was an effort in the Clear Lake City area, which is in the Houston metro region where NASA’s Johnson Space Center is located. They actually put up signs, little colored pylons, that indicated “This is the water level for a category four storm. This is the water level for a category five storm.” You see it there and you would wonder, “Gee, should I buy a house here?” or certainly “Gee, should I make sure I renew my flood insurance?” A local politician, at the behest of the real estate community, insisted they be taken down.
Q. The Buffalo Bayou Promenade in Houston really set the example for how to turn a trash-soaked eyesore into a beautiful piece of parkland that also supports flood control. What led to the changes in Houston’s approach to its waterways and green space?
A. In Houston, the new riverfront has been the result of years of work by lots of individuals, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Each main bayou in the city has its own citizen advocacy organizations. Some of them are fairly significant and have permanent staff, whereas others are purely volunteer citizen groups. There have been willing ears in the public agencies. More recently, there has been support at an elected official-level, including a very supportive mayor right now. That’s very encouraging. But we have a long ways to go. We’re just starting on this effort. We have 2,000 miles of open stream channels in Harris County alone, so we’re just beginning.
Q. You’ve done a lot of work in China. What is your impression about how the Chinese are approaching coastal resiliency? Is there a uniquely Chinese approach to these issues that we can learn from in the West?
A. The country is doing great wetlands restoration projects. Wetland parks are all the rage across China. Kongjian Yu, FASLA, principal at Turenscape and professor at Beijing University, probably has a dozen wetland parks on his desk in his office at any given time. We’re working on a number of them. It puts to shame anything we’re doing here. On the other hand, one has to balance that against the unbelievable rate of urbanization and its impact on the environment in China. It’s maybe only a drop in the bucket toward mitigating the impacts of urbanization that are going on right now.
You take the whole climate issue in China. China’s doing some of the most progressive carbon-capture energy production in the world. For a while, they were the largest producer of solar cells. They’re the largest producer of wind generating equipment. There are all these sort of extremes of what they are doing. Yet in the global sense, they’re producing more carbon dioxide than anybody on a more rapid basis. They’re increasing their carbon and energy footprints. They’re still below us on a per-capita basis, but they’re working very hard to catch up to our own huge footprints. So you will find a really mixed bag in China.
What can we learn from China? We ought to be studying what they are doing right and trying to learn from their successes. To the extent they’re interested in partnering so they can learn from us, we ought to be sharing those solutions with them. It’s a wild ride, like a rollercoaster, and one whose end we can’t see from our vantage point.
On June 28, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced the approval of a major wind energy project in Arizona that, when built, will provide up to 500 megawatts to the electricity grid—enough energy to power up to 175,000 houses—and create approximately 750 jobs through construction and operations.
The project advances President Obama’s comprehensive plan to reduce carbon pollution and move the country’s economy toward domestic-made clean energy sources, thus hopefully slowing the effects of climate change.
As part of his comprehensive climate action plan, Obama challenged the U.S. Department of the Interior to approve an additional 10,000 above the original goal of 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy production on public lands by 2020.
The project, proposed by BP Wind Energy North America, Inc., would erect up to 243 wind turbines on federal lands for the Mohave County Wind Farm, which would be located in northwestern Arizona about 40 miles northwest of Kingman.
“These are exactly the kind of responsible steps that we need to take to expand homegrown, clean energy on our public lands and cut carbon pollution that affects public health,” said Secretary Jewell. “This wind energy project shows that reducing our carbon pollution can also generate jobs and cut our reliance on foreign oil.”
With this recent announcement, Interior has approved 46 wind, solar and geothermal utility-scale projects on public lands since 2009, including associated transmission corridors and infrastructure to connect to established power grids. When built, these projects could provide enough electricity to power more than 4.4 million homes and support over 17,000 construction and operations jobs.
Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has identified an additional 14 active renewable energy proposals slated for review this year and next. The Bureau recognized these projects through a process that emphasizes early consultation and collaboration with its sister agencies at Interior—the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service—demonstrating President Obama’s and Interior’s ongoing commitment to “smart from the start” planning.
The decision to approve the Mohave County Wind Farm paves the way for right-of-way grants for use of approximately 35,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land and 2,800 acres of Bureau of Reclamation land.
The company agreed to undertake significant mitigation efforts to minimize impacts to wildlife and other resources, including reducing the project’s footprint by about 20 percent from the original proposal. The smaller footprint will protect golden eagle habitat and reduce visual and noise impacts to the Lake Mead National Recreational Area. In particular, the Interior’s decision bars the installation of turbines within designated sensitive areas to avoid golden eagle nesting locations, as well as provides for a 1.2-mile buffer zone to protect the nests.
Additionally, no turbine will be closer than a quarter-mile to private property. “The project reflects exemplary cooperation between our Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation and other federal, state and local agencies, enabling a thorough environmental review and robust mitigation provisions,” said Bureau of Land Management Principal Deputy Director Neil Kornze. “This decision represents a responsible balance between the need for renewable energy and our mandate to protect the public’s natural resources.”
“I added my signature of approval for this vital project on the same week that President Obama challenged Interior to intensify its development of clean, renewable energy,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Michael L. Connor said. “Reclamation’s hydropower resources are a centerpiece of the nation’s renewable energy strategy. We are pleased to also play a significant role in this important wind energy project.”
Sock and supporters of John Levi in front of Moncton Courthouse. Photo: Miles Howe
Mike Howe, Halifax Media Co-op
Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi was today sent to jail until Monday morning at 9:30am, which, according to the presiding judge, was the “earliest convenient time” to set bail.
Levi stands accused of two charges, both related to an anti-shale gas action that took place on June 21st. The first, mischief, is most likely related to the actions of four people, three of whom went out onto highway 126 into the path of SWN Resources Canada’s seismic testing trucks. These four people were arrested – along with eight others on that day – and Levi stands accused of telling protesters to “stand their ground”.
It was three later arrests that broke through an RCMP line and attempted to halt the moving trucks. One woman was also arrested and subsequently punched in the mouth by RCMP, as she attempted to get to her partner, who had thrown himself under the bumper of a moving truck.
Levi also stands accused of obstructing justice, which, actually, is allegedly related to him and I leaving highway 126 together in his truck on June 21st. For that day, I stand accused of ‘threatening’ an RCMP officer. Yesterday, when I was first charged at RCMP ‘Codiac’ station in Moncton, I was also charged with ‘resisting arrest’. This was later changed to ‘evading arrest’ and then subsequently to ‘obstruction of justice’ for alllegedly walking away from the officer that I allegedly threatened, who then allegedly arrested me.
That I was not charged with anything until yesterday, July 4th, suggests that officer Richard Bernard, who allegedly did the arresting, kept the matter of my charges – and subsequently at least one of John Levi’s charges – totally to himself.
There have been ample opportunities to charge me – and Levi – with whatever the RCMP might have liked. Why they chose not to do so, and then arrest us two weeks later, must remain in the realm of conjecture for the moment.
For example:
On June 22nd I was pulled over and my licence was run by the RCMP. There was no charge against me.
On June 24th I was highly visible at an anti-shale gas action in Browns Yard, New Brunswick. No officer approached me to inform me of my arrest.
On June 30th, I gave two RCMP officers a statement in relation to a fire to which I was the first responder. Not only was there no charge at this time, but these RCMP officers then offered me “financial compensation” if I would alert them to information related to the fire or any plans I might hear of that might endanger people or equipment.
This does raise the question:
If no one in the RCMP, save perhaps officer Rick Bernard, knew that I was charged with anything, then how could John Levi have possibly known that he was obstructing justice by having me in his truck when we drove away from the site of the 12 arrests on June 21st?
Levi, for his part, has also suffered numerous threats from the RCMP since June 21st.
“He’s received a lot of phone calls and texts from RCMP, demanding and even threatening him.” said Amy Sock, one of the encampment’s spokespeople, outside of the Moncton courthouse.
“[The RCMP have been saying] they want to see him today, and if not today then they’re going to catch him one day.”
It is also important to note that Levi was never charged with anything until I was charged yesterday. I was arrested at 12:34pm; Levi’s parole officer was served with a notice to appear at approximately 2pm.
Levi is currently on probation for attempting to exercise Treaty fishing rights.
It is also important to note that both my arrest and Levi’s arrest just so happen to have occured yesterday, July 4th. This is the first day that SWN Resources Canada has worked in over a week.
In court this morning, Norma Augustine, Levi’s aunt, attempted to plead with the judge to overturn the decision to imprison her nephew until Monday. The presiding judge stood up while Augustine – an Elder in the Elsipogtog community – was in mid-sentence, and walked away. Many in the nearly packed courtroom turned their backs on the judge as he exited.
“Just because he’s in jail does not mean that this fight will be over. In fact it means more support. More people will be here,” said Sock. “Look at all these people that came here and left at 8 o’clock this morning for John Levi. Because we believe in him and we believe in what he’s doing.”
SWN work update
Unconfirmed sources say that SWN Resource Canada has halted work for the day on ‘Line 5′, the back woods seismic line west of highway 126. The work stoppage is apparently related to a threat for workers’ safety.
A photo taken by Miles Howe on June 21st, when 12 arrests were made near the sacred fire encampment in Elsipogtog.
Ben Sichel, Halifax Media Co-op
Media Co-op reporter Miles Howe has been released from police custody after being detained near Elsipogtog, New Brunswick yesterday afternoon – but Howe says he thinks police are trying to prevent him from reporting news from a controversial shale gas exploration site.
Howe has been in New Brunswick since early June reporting on protests against shale gas exploration near the Mi’kmaq community. He faces charges of uttering threats to a police officer and obstruction of justice.
“I think they’re trying to restrict my access to seismic testing sites,” said Howe.
According to Howe, RCMP chief Rick Bernard approached him this afternoon as he stood next to Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) news reporter Jorge Barrera. The two were waiting for press access to a site where seismic testing, a precursor to hydraulic fracturing or fracking, was said to be taking place.
Bernard then informed Howe that he was under arrest for allegedly uttering threats against a police officer on June 21st.
APTN’s Jorge Barrera tweeted that Bernard arrested Howe “after shaking Miles’ hand.”
The Media Co-op’s Howe “has been doing the bulk of reporting in #Elsipogtog on anti-shale gas protests and has been taken in by the Mi’kmaq community,” Barrera also tweeted.
RCMP Cpl. Chantal Farrah confirmed to CBC that Howe’s arrest was indeed related to an incident on June 21st. The RCMP has not responded to the Media Co-op’s request for comment as to why his arrest was not made for 13 days.
According to Howe, the timing of the arrest is odd, since he has been in contact with police in New Brunswick twice since the alleged June 21st incident without being notified that police wanted to arrest him.
In particular, Howe says he gave a statement to police regarding a fire he witnessedon June 25th, involving equipment owned by SWN, the Texas-based company currently exploring for shale gas in New Brunswick.
“Police went to my house in Halifax seeking a statement about the fire I had seen, since I was the first respondent [at the scene],” Howe said. “When I heard that I went to the police here and they took a statement from me about what I had seen. They knew exactly who I was, yet there was no indication that I was wanted by them for any incident on June 21st.
“After they took my statement, they also mentioned that they’d be able to offer me financial compensation for information [related to the ongoing protests],” Howe added.
Howe also notes that his charges changed over the several hours he was in custody, from resisting arrest to evading arrest to obstruction of justice. He had no comment on the charges themselves.
War chief John Levi also arrested
Howe expressed concern for Mi’kmaq war chief John Levi, who was also charged today with obstruction in relation to Howe’s own arrest.
“He’s basically been charged with abetting me [over the past several days],” Howe said, despite Levi not knowing until yesterday that Howe was accused of a crime.
Howe described the charges against Levi as “trumped-up.”
“They may be using me to get at him,” Howe said. “This is a dangerous situation for Levi, who’s been an important leader for the people here.”
Anti-Fracking protests continue
There is an open invitation to a “Celebration of Unity with Elsipogtog” gathering this Saturday at 10 a.m. by a Facebook group called Walk for a Ban on Fracking.
“In the end [my arrest today] is just one small incident,” Howe said. “People here continue to show amazing strength.
Mathias Colomb Cree Nation, MB: Today, the sovereign Nation of Missinippi Nehethowak as represented by Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (MCCN) delivered an eviction notice to Hudbay Mining and Smelting Co., Ltd. (Hudbay) and the province of Manitoba to vacate MCCN traditional, treaty and reserve territory.
Previously, on January 28 and March 5, 2013 Chief Dumas served two Stop Work Orders to Hudbay and the Province of Manitoba. Both site visits were peaceful gatherings where community members engaged in drumming, singing and cooking traditional foods. Hudbay subsequently sued Chief Dumas, MCCN band members and Pamela Palmater, an Indigenous activist, and obtained injunctions to prevent them from attending the site.
Today, a delegation representing sovereign First Nations and individuals from various parts of Canada, acting under their own control and direction have indicated that they will attend at the Lalor Lake mining site on MCCN territory to support the community of MCCN. Despite recent letters from Hudbay threatening to go afer individuals who support MCCN, the delegation is determined to defend the Aboriginal, treaty and inherent rights of MCCN.
Chief Arlen Dumas said, “The spirit and intent of the treaties was to share the lands, waters and natural resources, not allow one treaty partner to unilaterally prosper while impoverishing the other. We have a responsibility to protect the lands, waters, plants and animals for all our future generations — First Nations and Canadians alike.”
Chief Dumas went on to explain: “lnstead of the province and Hudbay engaging MCCN in a meaningful way, they have partnered to blockade MCCN from accessing the very resources we need to be self-sustaining. This kind of heavy-handed approach by Hudbay will not result in a mutually beneficial resolution, but will only jeopardize the health and safety of an already impoverished community.”
MCCN also issued declarations today informing both federal and provincial governments that no external laws will apply on their territory without their free, informed and prior consent.
Arizona Democratic Sen. Jack Jackson Jr., Navajo, is resigning his post to work as a tribal liaison on environmental issues for the federal government.
Jackson had served one previous term in the state legislature between 2003 and 2005, overlapping with his father, Sen. Jack C. Jackson Sr., who served between 1985 and 2004. They became the first father and son to serve together in the Arizona State Legislature.
But the younger Jackson declined to seek re-election in 2005, and for a time worked as a consultant on tribal issues, among other roles. He returned to elected office in 2011, in the Arizona Senate, and began his second consecutive two-year term in January. But shortly thereafter, he was recruited to serve as senior advisor and liaison for Native American affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environment and Scientific Affairs.
Jackson’s new position was crafted in response to tribal leaders who have complained about improper consultation during the process to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline.
“We know that tribal leaders in North Dakota walked out of a consultation meeting with the State Department, saying that they wanted someone there like the President or Secretary Kerry to meet with them, as tribal leaders,” Jackson said, taking a break from unpacking boxes in Washington on July 4. “I believe that this new position, with someone who is Native American and has a background in dealing with tribes, hopefully that will help those tribal leaders remain at the table.”
Like all oil pipelines, the Keystone XL Pipeline falls under the State Department’s purview because of a 1968 executive order by Lyndon Johnson. Jackson’s bureau, its name often shortened to Oceans, Environment and Science (OES), works on a variety of issues besides energy. They range from water sanitation in developing countries, to climate change, to policies in space.
“For anything that deals with environmental and cultural impacts to tribes, the Department of State is trying to make sure that there’s someone there,” Jackson said.
Jackson is no stranger to Washington; he spent 12 years there after graduating from Syracuse University law school in 1989. He started as a legislative associate, and then was promoted to deputy director for the Navajo Nation Washington Office, representing the concerns of his people before the federal government. During his first stint in Washington, Jackson also worked as a legislative analyst at the National Indian Education Association and director of governmental affairs for the National Congress of American Indians.
He has been back in Arizona for 12 years, during which time he’s served on two different occasions in the state legislature and performed a variety of other roles. Most recently, he has been a senior strategist in the Blue Stone Strategy Group, a national Native-owned consulting firm that helps empower tribes in the areas of sovereignty, self-determination and self-sufficiency in the business and governmental sectors.
Even though he’s vacating his current term early, he said he’s proud of what he accomplished already this year. He was able to secure $2.4 million in emergency funding for the Red Mesa Unified School District, on a remote part of the Navajo nation near Arizona’s border with Utah. The district was threatened with financially necessary closure after it was ruled that it could not count its students from Utah when it received its Arizona state allocations.
He also worked to make tribes eligible to compete for moneys out of Arizona’s aviation fund, which go for maintenance and construction at public airports. There are 14 tribally-owned airports in Arizona. And he secured annual funding so that Navajo Technical College can build a permanent campus in Chinle, Arizona.
He said a farther-reaching effort he began in 2003 has been “inching its way” toward fruition: making sure tribes get back a fair portion of the transaction privilege taxes collected from non-Indian businesses on reservations. As it stands now, the state collects the money and divides it between the state, counties and municipalities, leaving tribes out of the equation. Finally, this year, Jackson’s legislation to remedy that formula made it out of committee – but died in the full Senate.
“I hope that next session my successor and representatives Hale and Peshlakai will be able to keep up that momentum,” Jackson said.
Jackson said he’ll miss his family and friends in Arizona, but he and his husband of five years, David Bailey, will keep a home in Phoenix to facilitate Bailey’s ongoing, Arizona-based job with U.S. Airways. So frequent travel to his homelands will be possible, Jackson said, adding that his new role is worth some sacrifice.
“Having a voice on environmental and cultural impacts on tribes is very important, especially now, with the things that our Mother Earth is facing,” he said. “As a Navajo person, my family made sure all the prayers and blessings were in place.”
Source: USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
WASHINGTON, July 1, 2013 — USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has developed the world’s largest soil carbon dataset to help producers and planners estimate the impacts of conservation practices on soil carbon levels. USDA is committed to reducing agriculture’s carbon footprint, as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack discussed in a June 5 address at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The Secretary outlined USDA’s modern solutions for environmental challenges.
“It is our obligation to equip landowners with the most up-to-date information and technical assistance so we can mitigate the impacts of climate change and help secure sustainable food production systems for the American people,” said NRCS Acting Chief Jason Weller.
Soil has tremendous potential to store carbon, which reduces the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, one of the leading greenhouse gases contributing to climate change.
Storage potential varies among soils, land covers, land uses and management, and NRCS soil scientists took 148,000 individual soil samples and evaluated them for carbon content. This Rapid Carbon Assessment, or RaCA, dataset serves as a baseline or snapshot in time for the amount of carbon each soil type is holding.
“By understanding our soils’ current carbon content, we can target the ones with the greatest potential to store additional carbon. Planners can use models (where accuracy is enhanced by RaCA data) to better predict the impact a conservation practice might have on enhancing the soil’s carbon content,” Christopher Smith, NRCS soil scientist, said.
Increasing soil carbon is also the single most important component of soil health, Smith said.
Several conservation practices, such as conservation crop rotations or planting cover crops, help increase carbon storage in soil. These crops take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and deposit it into the soil as organic matter. They also help reduce erosion and increase water-holding capacity and water infiltration, which increases the resiliency to drought, heavy precipitation and extreme temperatures.
Landowners can calculate how much carbon their conservation practices such as cover crops can remove from the atmosphere with the new tools, COMET- Farm™ and the Agricultural Policy Environmental Extender, or APEX model.
COMET- Farm™, developed in partnerships between USDA and Colorado State University, is a free online tool that allows producers to enter information about their farm or ranch management practices and receive general guidance on actions they can take to build carbon in their soil.
APEX, developed in partnership with Texas Agrilife Research, Texas A&M, and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and NRCS, is planned for use by NRCS conservation planners and private technical service providers. This tool will also assist NRCS and landowners with properly managing nutrients to keep a balance between soil carbon gains, production goals and impacts on water quality.
The Rapid Carbon Assessment, COMET- Farm™ and APEX open the door to new possibilities for producers, said Dr. Adam Chambers, scientist with the NRCS air quality and atmospheric change team in Oregon.
If carbon can be quantified, verified, and then sold into carbon markets, it is “another potential revenue stream for producers,” said Chambers.
As of Jan. 1, California began regulating a cap and trade carbon credit market for industries. The first to do so, the state is looking for agricultural greenhouse gas emission reduction and carbon sequestration projects to provide offsets into their regulated markets, he said.
“The Rapid Carbon Assessment provided baseline data on how much carbon is in each soil type. COMET-Farm™ can then be used to show how different management practices can increase that soil carbon,” said Chambers, who is guiding the work in environmental markets for the agency through NRCS Conservation Innovation Grants programs.
USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service helps America’s farmers and ranchers conserve the Nation’s soil, water, air and other natural resources. All programs are voluntary and offer science-based solutions that benefit both the landowner and the environment.
