Environment Archives - Page 93 of 106

Feds advance plan to kill 3,603 barred owls in Pacific Northwes

A barred owl is seen near Index, Wash. The federal government is considering killing some of the owls in the Pacific Northwest to aid the smaller northern spotted owl in the area. (Barton Glasser / Associated Press)

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal wildlife officials have moved one step closer to their plan to play referee in a habitat supremacy contest that has pitted two species of owl against one another in the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a final environmental review of an experiment planned in three states to see if killing barred owls will assist the northern spotted owls, which are threatened with extinction after a major loss of territory since the 1970s.

The agency’s preferred course of action calls for killing 3,603 barred owls in four study areas in Oregon, Washington and Northern California over the next four years. At a cost of $3 million, the plan requires a special permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which prohibits killing non-game birds.

“It’s a fair assessment to say that going after the barred owls is the plan we’d prefer to pursue,” Robin Bown, a federal wildlife biologist, told the Los Angeles Times.

The agency began evaluating alternatives in 2009, gathering public comment and consulting ethicists, focus groups and conduction scientific studies.

It will issue a final decision on the plan in 30 days.

Animal activists have blasted the federal plan, saying the government should stay out of the fray and let the more dominant bird prevail, as nature intended.

The northern spotted owl is at the center of an ongoing battle between woodcutters and environmentalists across the Pacific Northwest. Because of its dwindling numbers, the little bird is listed as a threatened species by the federal government and in Washington, Oregon and California, Bown said.

On Tuesday, the timber industry criticized the barred owl harvest.

“Shooting a few isolated areas of barred owl isn’t going to help us as forest managers, nor is it going to help the forest be protected from wildfires, and catastrophic wildfire is one of the big impediments to spotted owl recovery,” Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group, told the Associated Press.

Bown disagreed.

“To people who say to me that we should leave those owls alone, my response is that ‘So you’re accepting the extinction of the spotted owl? That’s OK?’”

Bown told The Times there have been several mischaracterizations of the federal plan.

“We’re not sending public hunters into the woods to declare open season on the barred owl. This is a controlled experiment, using folks who are trained and skilled at animal removal. Our goal in this experiment is twofold: Will moving barred owls help the spotted owl population to recover? And can we use removal of barred owls as a management tool?”

Unless barred owls are brought under control, the spotted owl in coming decades might disappear from Washington’s northern Cascade Range and Oregon’s Coast Range, where the barred owl incursion has been greatest, Bown said.

“In our projected study areas, the removal would represent a very small percentage of the barred owls,” she said. “We’re also taking steps to mitigate habitat threats to the spotted owls, such as large-scale fires and timber harvests.”

Barred owls are bigger and more aggressive than the northern spotted variety. Native to the East Coast, they began working their way across the Great Plains in the early 1900s, driven west by human development. By the 1970s, the species had spread to the West Coast, where their numbers have multiplied.

In some areas of their range, northern spotted owls are outnumbered 5-to-1 by barred owls.

“While some people just feel we should leave things alone, we want to take a small step at a resolution with this experiment,” Bown told The Times.

“After all, humans had a hand in getting the barred owl here in the northwest.”

Despite slowdown, global coal remains a planet-destroying monster

David Roberts, Grist

In my last post, I referenced a new report from Goldman Sachs analysts showing that the market for seaborne thermal coal (overseas imports and exports used to fuel power plants) is likely to fall from 7 percent annual growth to around 1 percent, and stay there for the foreseeable future. This is great news, in that it has the potential to render several new large-scale coal-extraction projects around the world — including export terminals in the U.S. Pacific Northwest — unprofitable before they are completed or, in some cases, begun.

However, this bit of good news should not distract from the larger picture, which is decidedly grim. As oil prices remain stubbornly high, the rapidly urbanizing developing world has turned to coal, which has been growing at a furious pace and is on the verge of becoming the world’s primary energy source. Even if its momentum is slowing slightly, it remains a world-crushing behemoth.

No one has been following this story more closely than energy analyst Gregor Macdonald. This is from his blog:

Gregor.us: world coal consumption — Gregor.us

Yikes! As Macdonald writes, “Only a very small portion of the global public is aware that global coal consumption has advanced by over 50% in the past decade.”

By 2011, coal represented 30.34 percent of total global energy use, according to the BP Statistical Review, just a few points shy of Old King Oil:

Gregor.us: world energy consumption by source — Gregor.us

What’s more, while coal’s hyper-growth may be slowing slightly, many of the long-term drivers behind it remain firmly in place. In particular, as developing-world urbanization pushes more global energy demand into cities, the balance of power (as it were) shifts to electrical grids, precisely where coal is strongest.

In China, coal expansion is slowing in part due to small, inefficient plants being closed, but as Michael Davidson explains (in a great series on energy in China), shifting to bigger, more efficient, longer-lived plants may lock in a coal “floor” in China for many decades to come.

It’s worth noting that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is somewhat more bullish on coal than Goldman Sachs. According to its 2013 International Energy Outlook, in the absence of strong climate policies, coal will grow … well, a whole sh*t ton. Climate Progress reports:

If business as usual continues for the world’s climate policy, the EIA’s mid-range projections show consumption of coal — the dirtiest fossil fuel in terms of carbon emissions — increasing by over a third by 2040. It nearly doubles by that time under the worst case scenarios. Specifically, the EIA’s “Reference Case” projects global coal consumption jumping from 147.4 quadrillion Btu of energy in 2010 to 219.5 in 2040. … But looking across the range of scenarios the EIA lays out, coal consumption could only reach 182.2 quadrillion Btu by 2040 — or go as high as 297.3 quadrillion Btu.

Even the low end of that range is scary as hell. When we talk about a decline in global coal’s growth rate, it’s crucial to remember that even a small percentage of a gargantuan amount is … a lot. When I ran the Goldman Sachs report by him over email, Macdonald pointed out that the analysts forecast growth in global coal demand from 5,564 million tons per anum in 2013 to 6,564 mtpa in 2017. That’s relatively slow growth, percentage wise, but in absolute terms it is 1,000,000,000 more tons of coal a year being burnt. “This is some serious BTU growth,” Macdonald says.

The global coal juggernaut is so large now that even a low rate of growth represents an enormous amount of new greenhouse gas emissions. Not only that, it represents an enormous amount of new momentum. If there is to be any hope in the long term, the trajectory of coal urgently needs to change. Concludes Macdonald:

A tonne of coal stopped right now by other means, other sources, and preferably renewables, is equal to many, many tonnes stopped in the future. Stop that tonne of coal today and you kill path dependence, beat sunk-cost decision making, and divert the Big River of global energy ten years from now. It’s critical to think in these dynamic terms, as the very large system lumbers forward, with its constellation of politicians, corporations, and myriad other dependencies attaching themselves to whatever system comes into being. Renewables create their own constituency, just like coal. Coal is not special. Change the river now, and you amplify what happens a decade from here.

If we can’t divert that river, if we can’t find some way of urbanizing the developing world with low-carbon power, we are well and truly screwed. Coal must be attacked head on, much more furiously than anyone has yet contemplated, if there is to be any hope of climate stability.

EPA chief: Stop saying environmental regs kill jobs

U.S. EPAGina McCarthy takes the oath of office, with Carol Browner and Bob Perciasepe.

Claire Thompson, Grist

Tuesday, in her first speech as EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy got real with a crowd at Harvard Law School, the AP reports:

“Can we stop talking about environmental regulations killing jobs? Please, at least for today,” said McCarthy, referring to one of the favorite talking points of Republicans and industry groups.

“Let’s talk about this as an opportunity of a lifetime, because there are too many lifetimes at stake,” she said of efforts to address global warming.

The GOP has resorted to calling pretty much every Obama plan, especially those related to the climate, “job-killing.” McCarthy hammered home the emptiness of that claim. The Hill relays what she said:

The truth is cutting carbon pollution will spark business innovation, resulting in cleaner forms of American-made energy …

Right now, state and local communities — as well as industry, universities, and other non-profits — have been piloting projects, advancing policies, and developing best practices that follow the same basic blueprint: combining environmental and economic interests for combined maximum benefit. These on-the-ground efforts are the future. It’s a chance to harness the American entrepreneur spirit, developing new technologies and creating new jobs, while at the same time reducing carbon pollution to help our children and their children.

By appointing McCarthy, who pushed through tougher air-pollution regulations while at the head of EPA’s office of air quality, Obama signaled that he’s serious about using his executive power to cut carbon emissions. She warned him that she wouldn’t have an easy time getting Senate confirmation, The New York Times reports:

“Why would you want me?” Ms. McCarthy said she asked the president when he offered her the top job. “Do you realize the rules I’ve done over the past three or four years?” …

The president told Ms. McCarthy that his environmental and presidential legacy would be incomplete without a serious effort to address climate change.

She was right: Winning confirmation was an arduous process. But now that she’s in, she is “pumped” about the new job. More from the Times:

[S]he said the agency would play a crucial role in dealing with climate change, both in writing the rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from new and existing power plants and in helping communities adapt to the inevitable changes wrought by a warming planet.

She also said the agency had to do a better job of explaining its mission to hostile constituencies, including Congress and the agriculture, mining and utility industries. …

“I spend a lot of time protecting what we are doing rather than thinking about what we should be doing.”

McCarthy’s trip to Cambridge for her Harvard speech is the first of many public appearances she’ll be making over the coming weeks, part of a big push by the Obama administration and other Democrats to promote Obama’s climate plan. Politico reports:

Starting [this] week, McCarthy will begin traveling around the country to discuss the importance of acting on climate change. The White House official said her schedule includes speeches, media events and meetings with outside groups — all of which will be promoted heavily on social media. And the official added that McCarthy will begin meeting with states soon to discuss the agency’s pending climate regulations.

It’s nice to see Democrats going on the offensive for climate. If you happen to belong to the 80 percent of voters under 35 who support the president’s climate plan, you can launch your own promotion effort, too — maybe start by convincing your cranky uncle that emissions regulations don’t kill jobs.

US Renewable Energy Tops Record in 2012

Wind energy production increased by 16 percent in the United States from 2011 to 2012.Credit: S.R. Lee Photo Traveller | Shutterstock — Wind energy production increased by 16 percent in the United States from 2011 to 2012.
Credit: S.R. Lee Photo Traveller | Shutterstock

By Laura Poppick, Staff Writer

LiveScience.com July 30, 2013

Renewable energy production hit an all-time high in the United States in 2012, according to a recent annual energy report.

A combination of government incentives and technological innovations has helped solar and wind power grow in the United States in recent years, the report suggests. From 2011 to 2012, production increased by 49 percent and wind energy increased by 16 percent, according to a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory annual energy analysis published earlier this month.

“I attribute the steady growth to technological advancements as well as tax incentives and state mandates for renewable energy,” said A.J. Simon, an energy analyst at LLNL, who wrote the report. “I would expect this to continue for a while.”

Though the trend is notable, wind and solar energy combined still accounted for only about 2 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption in 2012. Denmark and Spain, in comparison, produced an average of about 30 percent of their energy from wind power last year. [Power of the Future: 10 Ways to Run the 21st Century]

Oil and natural gas accounted for the majority of energy consumption in the United States, and will likely continue to dominate given recent investments in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” Simon said. Fracking is the forceful injection of water, sand and chemicals deep into shale rock that releases previously trapped oil and gas deposits.

By opening up reservoirs of cheap and accessible fossil fuels, fracking could slow efforts to expand renewable energy, though this remains uncertain, according to Simon.

‘Potential game-changer’

Still, those involved in solar and wind energy production in the United States remain confident that these alternative options will continue to grow despite advancements in fracking.

“The turbines are capturing more energy and [the wind industry] is managing to keep costs low,” said Jason Cotrell, the manager of wind turbine technology and innovation with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Recent efforts to improve wind power have focused on making the turbines taller so that they reach stronger air currents higher above the ground. This would allow wind farms to expand to areas that have previously been unsuitable for turbines due to low ground-level wind speeds.

“That would be the potential game-changer, when every state in the U.S. could benefit from wind,” Cotrell said.

Solar oversupply

Solar power has also benefitted from new innovations, but its recent success stems largely from a global oversupply of photovoltaic cells. The combined effects of the economic downturn in 2008 and overambitious renewable policies around the world resulted in an abundance of panels and a relatively small market, according to Tom Kimbis, vice president of Solar Energy Industries Association.

At this point, Kimbis said, expanding the reach of solar energy depends more on the price of the panels than improving their efficiency.

“The efficiency of the panels is now good,” Kimbis said. “The industry has been working to improve efficiency of solar cells for decades and it’s easy to buy a solar module with a 20 percent or higher efficiency today. That’s not really the issue right now. The issue that people care about is how much will it cost and will it work for them.”

Costs depend largely on government tax incentives, which vary from state to state and from year to year. Cotrell and Kimbis both believe that current work in innovating solar and wind power will continue to reduce baseline prices and increase the prevalence of renewable energy in the United States.

Follow Laura Poppick on Twitter. Follow LiveScience on Twitter,Facebook and Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

Hawaii Ocean Debris Could Fill 18-Wheeler

Some of the 4781 bottle caps collected from Midway Atoll shorelines by a 9-member team from the PIFSC Coral Reef Ecosystem Division during a cleanup mission in April 2013.Credit: NOAA photo by Kristen Kell — Some of the 4781 bottle caps collected from Midway Atoll shorelines by a 9-member team from the PIFSC Coral Reef Ecosystem Division during a cleanup mission in April 2013.
Credit: NOAA photo by Kristen Kell

Elizabeth Howell, LiveScience Contributor | July 30, 2013

In an area of Hawaii, far removed from most human habitation, a recent cleanup effort yielded an 18-wheeler’s worth of human debris during a 19-day anti-pollution campaign this year.

The region, which includes Midway Atoll, some 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) from the Hawaiian mainland, acts as a “fine-tooth comb” in picking up debris from elsewhere, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) told LiveScience. Broken fishing gear, tattered nets and plastic fragments litter the water and land on the beaches.

As challenging as it is to clean up that much debris, it’s even more of an undertaking to remove it. Heavy machinery could damage the environment, so about 90 percent of the underwater cleanup is done by divers, said Kyle Koyanagi, NOAA’s marine debris operations manager.

“They physically go down and remove the net little by little with pocket knives, slowly cutting away at the debris that is entangled,” Koyanagi said. “They remove it from that environment, pull it in with their arms, hands and back, and transport it in small vessels on to larger support vessels.”

NOAA does this campaign every year, but the annual budget is in “soft money,” Koyanagi said, which means it’s vulnerable to budgetary effects such as sequestration.

Cleanup changes every year

The Coral Reef Ecosystem Division Marine Debris Project, run by NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, has collected 848 tons (769 metric tons) of debris —about the weight of 530 sedan-size cars —in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands since the program began in 1996.

Efforts began after pollution was identified as a major threat to monk seals, an endangered species native to Hawaii. Decades of built-up pollution required NOAA to spend anywhere from 60 to 120 days at sea between 2000 and 2005, when intensive anti-pollution measures began in earnest. [Video: Humans Hit the Oceans Hard]

With the buildup now addressed, the agency has now been in “maintenance mode” since 2006, picking up whatever gets washed into the area annually. A typical field season lasts 30 to 60 days.

“We put together an annual effort every year depending on our budget that gets allocated,” said Mark Manuel, NOAA’s marine ecosystems research specialist. “It will be some kind of survey effort, whether a shore-based, three-week mission or an extensive, two-month cleanup [at sea].”

James Morioka, Kerrie Krosky, Kristen Kelly, Tomoko Acoba, Kevin O’Brien, Kerry Reardon, Edmund Coccagna, Joao Garriques, and Russell Reardon (clockwise from upper right) pose on April 18 atop the large, 13,795-kilogram (about 30,400 lbs) pile of fishing gear and plastic debris collected during their 2013 cleanup effort around Midway Atoll.Credit: NOAA photo by Edmund Coccagna — James Morioka, Kerrie Krosky, Kristen Kelly, Tomoko Acoba, Kevin O’Brien, Kerry Reardon, Edmund Coccagna, Joao Garriques, and Russell Reardon (clockwise from upper right) pose on April 18 atop the large, 13,795-kilogram (about 30,400 lbs) pile of fishing gear and plastic debris collected during their 2013 cleanup effort around Midway Atoll.
Credit: NOAA photo by Edmund Coccagna

Turning nets to energy

The amount of debris collected varies wildly from year to year. Surveyed areas in Hawaii include the French Frigate Shoals, Kure Atoll, Laysan Island, Lisianski Island, Maro Reef, Midway Atoll and Pearl and Hermes Atoll.

This year’s efforts stayed on the shore due to budgetary concerns, Koyanagi added, which likely reduced the amount of debris collected, even though it could have filled a big rig.

“As you can imagine, the ship time is very expensive,” Koyanagi said. “Because of budget cuts this year, we could not afford to do a full-blown effort and get to the remote atolls.”

Once the debris is picked up, NOAA works to recycle as much of it as possible. Nets, for example, are sent to Schnitzer Steel Hawaii Corp. on the mainland, where they are chopped up for the City and County of Honolulu’s H-Power plant to convert into electricity.

The facility, run by Covanta Energy, burns the nets and generates steam, which is used to drive a turbine and create electricity.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Climate justice activists occupy two tar sands mining sites in Utah

July 29, 2013. Source: Earth First! News

In a direct action following the Canyon Country Action Camp, hundreds of activists have swarmed two mining sites in Utah tar sands. Activists are currently locked down to machines, stopping work.

Canyon Country Rising Tide have joined with the Lakota, Dine, and Idle No More in condemning the tar sands in Utah as a defiling of the precious Green River ecosystem, and an assault on fresh air and clean water in the US. The tar sands and oil shale mining proposed in Utah and neighboring states would traverse more than one thousand square miles.

The first blockade went up two hours ago, and is still holding. Contracted Cardwell, Inc. contractors attempted to hit peaceful protestors with their trucks, but the activists were able to lock down, and unfurl a banner that reads, “If you build it they will come.”

Private security personnel and three police cars have shown up on the scene, but no arrests have been made yet.

The second blockade went up approximately one hour later, and is still holding.

What the empire didn’t hear: US spying and resistance in Latin America

By Benjamin Dangl, Toward Freedom

US imperialism spreads across Latin America through military bases and trade deals, corporate exploitation and debt. It also relies on a vast communications surveillance network, the recent uncovering of which laid bare Washington’s reach into the region’s streets and halls of power. Yet more than McDonald’s and bullets, an empire depends on fear, and fear of the empire is lacking these days in Latin America.

The controversy stirred up by Edward Snowden’s leaked documents reached the region on July 7th, when the first of a series of articles drawing from the leaks were published in the major Brazilian newspaper O Globo. The articles outlined how the US National Security Agency (NSA) had for years been spying on and indiscriminately collecting the emails and telephone records of millions of people in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina, just as it had done in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

The articles pointed out that data collection bases were located in Bogota, Caracas, Mexico City and Panama City, with an additional station in Brasilia which was used to spy on foreign satellite communications. The NSA gathered military and security data in certain countries, and acquired information on the oil industry in Venezuela and energy sector in Mexico, both of which are largely under state control, beyond the reach of US corporations and investors.

As with the spying program in the US, Snowden’s leaks demonstrate that this method of collecting communications in Latin America was done with the collusion of private telecommunications companies in the US and Latin America.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called the spying a “violation of sovereignty and human rights.” The presidents of Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and other nations in the region condemned Washington for its actions and called for an inquiry into the surveillance.

“A shiver went down my back when we learned that they are spying on us from the north,” Argentina’s President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said in a speech. “More than revelations, these are confirmations of what we thought was happening.”

Indeed, the region is no stranger to US spying and interference. And with the election of leftist presidents across Latin America over the past decade, it should come as no surprise that the US has been spying into what Secretary of State John Kerry recently referred to as Washington’s “backyard.”

The shadow of 20th century dictatorships hangs over much of Latin America, orienting the region’s democratic processes and struggles for justice. Brazil’s Rousseff and Uruguayan President José Mujica are among today’s various Latin American presidents who were active in the social movements fighting against brutal US-backed dictatorships in their respective countries.

Rousseff was jailed for her activism from 1970-1972, and Mujica was shot by the police six times, tortured and imprisoned for 14 years, including being confined to the bottom of a well for over two years. Under the leadership of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner, Argentina has sought justice for the some 30,000 people disappeared during that nation’s dictatorship. Needless to say, the legacy of US-backed coups, right-wing spying networks, and police states looms large in Latin American politics and recent memory.

So when Snowden’s leaked documents pointed to contemporary spying, it harkened back to Washington’s Cold War allies who, through coordinated efforts like Operation Condor, collaborated regionally to monitor dissidents and supposed communists, intercepting mail and spying on phone communications as a part of their continental nightmare.

But the Cold War is over, and from Argentina to Venezuela leftist politics have dominated the region’s landscape over the past decade, labor and indigenous movements have been on the rise, and a decidedly anti-imperialist stance has been common in campaign platforms and political policy.

While Washington has succeeded in supporting coups against left-leaning leaders in Honduras and Paraguay in recent years, a US-dominated regional trade agreement was shot down, its military bases have been pushed out of certain areas, US policy in the war on drugs is meeting resistance in key countries, and Latin American governments are going elsewhere for loans and aid. As a historic shift in politics has taken place south of the US border, Washington has often appeared out of touch and grasping for allies.

In this context, leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales’ plane was grounded in Europe upon its return home from Russia on July 2nd. US officials behind the grounding of the plane believed Snowden, currently based in a Moscow airport, was on Morales’ flight, as the whistleblower was seeking asylum in South America.

After returning to Bolivia, where a meeting was convened among Latin American leaders to address the US and European nations’ action against Morales, the Bolivian president said “the United States is using its agent [Snowden] and the president [of Bolivia] to intimidate the whole region.”

Latin American presidents across the board were outraged at the actions against Morales, and Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia all offered asylum to Snowden in a protest against the US and in solidarity with the whistleblower. Others said they would help to protect him from US prosecution.

When US Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa to not give asylum to Snowden, Correa thumbed his nose at the US, renouncing $23 million in US trade benefits, and offering those funds instead for training of US officials on civil liberties and human rights.

In regards to the spying revelations and to the grounding of Morales’ plane, Correa told reporters, “We’re not 500 years behind. This Latin America of the 21st century is independent, dignified and sovereign.”

In all of the data that the US gathered across the region, it missed one crucial fact: that Latin America is no longer Washington’s backyard. In spite of the empire’s wide reach, there are places where it will always be defied, in the telephone booths and dreams of a world that it will never truly own.

Forceful evictions of Maasai a recipe for tribal clashes in Kenya

Ben Ole Koissaba, Intercontinental Cry

Kenya was at it again last Friday when a 33-year old land ownership dispute between the Maasai and Kikuyu in Naivasha, Kenya, took an ugly turn. Reminiscent of the post-election violence of 2007/2008, over 200 youths believed to be members of the proscribed sect Mungiki–under the escort of heavily armed police–descended on the Maasai community in Narasha with all manner of crude weapons, burning and destroying 240 houses. The arsonists, who were protected by the armed police, rendered 2,300 people homeless, killed over 20 calves and over 600 lambs. During the raid, 2 elderly Maasai men sustained bullet wounds as well as cuts from machetes; they are now recuperating in hospitals.

Narasha is the home of the Maasai who suffered massive land dispossession dating back to the 1900s when the colonial government forced the Maasai off 75 per cent of their ancestral land. Subsequent post-independence government-driven initiatives continued to alienate land from the Maasai.

The tussle for ownership is focused on a 15,000 acre area to which the Maasai claim ancestral ownership. The Kikuyu also claim ownership resulting from an allocation by the first post-independence president Jomo Kenyatta, who happens to be the father of the current president of Kenya.

The bone of contention is that the land is rich with geothermal power; government functionaries want to make a killing by displacing the Maasai. Narasha village is sitting on top of lucrative geothermal power potential. A combination of senior government officials, businessmen and the energy giant KenGen are all involved in making sure the Maasai people are moved away from the area. The Geothermal project has attracted both multi-national and bilateral donors with the World Bank being the main financier of the project.

The forces behind the inhuman act are undoubtedly Kenya’s energy giant, KenGen which is undeniably at the center of the problems facing the Maasai people in nearby Olkaria. The company has embarked on a new geothermal energy project that will add 560 megawatts of power to Kenya’s national grid. This is so far the largest geothermal project in the world. The Ksh165 billion (US$2 billion) project will require expansion beyond the current land that KenGen’s wells occupy in Olkaria. Narasha community is in the middle of the areas earmarked for the new geothermal wells. KenGen has been negotiating for the last few years with the Maasai in Olkaria on issues of compensation and relocation. Not all is going well with the process; There are big trust issues between the parties.

Ngati Farm, a company owned by the Kikuyu from central Kenya, claims to have bought the disputed land from colonialists in 1964. For the last 33 years, the company and the Maasai (who have called the land home for the last 400 years) have been fighting court battles. With the recent push by KenGen for geothermal power generation, the land is now worth billions of shillings which means the stakes are now even higher for both parties.

Leading the pack behind the evictions is Eddy Njoroge, the former Managing Director of KenGen, who is currently serving as President Kenyatta’s advisor on energy and petroleum. Njoroge is closer to the Maasai-Olkaria troubles than anyone else; He knows the potential of the resources on the ground as well as the ability of the community to fight back. Sources claim that he is planning to buy the disputed Narasha land from Ngati Farm as long as the Maasai problem is brought to an end. Njoroge is also said to be closely associated with a tender by KenGen that will see another geothermal plant developed at Narasha.

The Governor of Nakuru, Kinuthia Mbugua, is said to be the mastermind of the Enarasha attack as well as another attack in recent history. The former Police Commissioner, who claims to be a member of Ngatia Farm, has a long history of hostility with the Maasai in Naivasha. After being elected as Governor, sources say Kinuthia vowed to remove the Maasai from Nakuru County. He is also said to be personally interested in a piece of land that is currently being occupied by the family of Odupoi ole Parsitau. He offered the family Ksh2 million if they would move away; Ole Parsitau declined the offer. Kinuthia is reportedly planning additional evictions in Kedong Ranch – another historically disputed area. Governor Mbugua will benefit greatly from KenGen’s projects.

Amos Gathecah, the new Nakuru County Commissioner, is Governor Mbugua’s foot soldier. He has been used as a go-between in negotiations with Enarasha community. Gathecah recently held a meeting with leaders from Narasha at Nashipae Hotel in Naivasha where he offered the community Ksh31 million to relocate from the area. When the offer was declined, he made a threat that he would use the same money to fight the community and force them to leave. This meeting was triggered by a June 19 petition by the community to the National Land Commission concerning the dispute with Ngatia Farm. The Commission started investigations that will delay any plans for the generation of Geothermal Power in the area.

Helen Kiilu led dozens of policemen to support Governor Mbugua’s hired goons in attacking Narasha. Ms. Kiilu takes orders from Commissioner Gathecah.

Former Councilor Ole Linti, a former area councilor, is said to have changed allegiance in exchange for a share in Ngati farm or the proceeds from the KenGen deals. Ole Linti has a long history of fighting for the community against Ngati Farm and KenGen. He is said to have run out of steam after many years of struggle.

While the government denies knowledge of the evictions, the presence of the police and the manner in which the raids were carried out is indicative of a well-executed plan with backing from state machinery.

Grassroots anti-pipeline groups and Idle No More say “Enbridge no more! Shut down the tar sands!”

Source: Intercontinental Cry, July 27, 2013

Today, members of Aamjiwnaang and Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP) along with supporters of the Idle No More movement and environmental groups gathered in Sarnia’s Chemical Valley at Lasalle Line where Enbridge’s Line 9 comes above ground across the road from the border of the Aamjiwnaang reserve. Community members and grassroots activists briefly blocked the Lasalle Line road with a mock oil spill, calling attention to the risks posed by the Line 9 Reversal Project and to commemorate the 3 year anniversary of the Line 6 spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The demonstration on Lasalle Line is at the spot where Line 9 comes above ground and there is a small Enbridge facility right on the edge of Aamjiwnaang. At this site, Aamjiwnaang community members will conduct a land protection ceremony.

The Line 9 Reversal Project is Enbridge’s plan to ship tar sands oil east for export through a nearly 40 year old pipeline for which experts not employed by oil companies agree that it is a matter of when, not if, this line will spill.

Today’s demonstrators call attention to the broader destruction caused by the tar sands and not just the local risks posed by the Line 9 reversal Project. “All pipeline spills are overlooked by the media all the time,” says Vanessa Gray, a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and a founding member of ASAP. “The problem is not how we transport the product, it’s the product itself and the oil companies we should question. The Tar Sands is the most destructive project exploiting First Nation’s territories on Turtle Island today and the future generations of all peoples are depending on the actions we take to defend the air, water, and land we need.” said Gray.

Today’s demonstration was called to commemorate the three year anniversary of the spill on Enbridge’s Line 6 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which started spilling on July 25, 2010, and was the largest inland oil spill in US history. Communities around that spill site continue to deal with devastating local environmental and health impacts. However, the message coming from Chloe Gleichman of the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands was similar to Gray’s, in that she too was interested in focussing on broader, rather than local impacts.

“The community and climate devastation caused by tar sands transcends fabricated boundaries drawn by governments and authorities in collusion with companies like Enbridge,” said Gleichman. “Tar sands development is industrial genocide to indigenous cultures, ecosystems, and anyone who stands in the way of infrastructure expansion. We must resist Enbridge because no community should become collateral damage in the endless and reckless pursuit of profit,” she said.

Clayton Thomas Muller, National Campaigner for Idle No More’s Sovereignty Summer (#SovSummer) campaign, says that, “a movement is rising up from coast to coast to coast against the Canadian Tar Sands and will continue to grow incrementally until we take back our democracy from the hands of corporations like Enbridge who would see all our streets, rivers, lakes and coastal areas destroyed by tar sands pipeline spills.” Thomas-Muller continues, “We will not stop until the six core demands of Idle No More & Defenders of the Land’s campaign, #SovSummer, including the right of communities to say NO are respected by the Harper Government.”

Expansion of drilling prompts deep fears in Michigan

Gary Heinlein, Detroit News

A new environmental fight looms over a huge natural gas harvesting project opponents claim will industrialize northern Lower Peninsula forests and drain billions of gallons of water from aquifers that feed treasured trout streams.

A Canadian firm proposes to use hydraulic fracturing to draw natural gas from as many as 500 wells extending nearly two miles underground and the same distance horizontally.

“It’s intense industrial resource use, intense water use unprecedented in Michigan,” said Traverse City environmental lawyer Jim Olson, who represents an outdoors organization that wants to protect the unspoiled Jordan River Valley in Antrim County near the affected area. “We need to get a handle on this way ahead of time.”

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been used in Michigan for 60 years on 12,000 wells with very few problems and little public attention, but not in shale formations this deep.

Environmental activists, partially driven by highly publicized fracking battles in other places, are starting to butt heads with state agencies that oversee oil and gas drilling and with Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration.

Calgary, Alberta-based Encana Corp.’s project dovetails with Snyder’s energy plan.

“I am committed to ensuring that Michigan can take advantage of the reliability, affordability and environmental and economic benefits of natural gas resources,” Snyder said in a special address to lawmakers last November.

Calling Michigan “a very strong natural gas state,” Snyder also called for a state reserve to set aside some of what’s harvested and hold down the price.

The governor defended the use of hydraulic fracturing and announced a University of Michigan study that will guide state policies for tapping the abundant natural gas deposits discovered over the past decade or so in Michigan.

Encana is tapping Michigan’s mammoth Antrim and Collingwood shale formations, which zig-zag from the tip of the mitt all the way down the middle of the state to Gratiot County. The company’s mineral rights are mostly in Cheboygan, Emmet, Kalkaska and Missaukee counties but also spread into other counties.

Fracking sparks concern

Controversies have swirled around the fracking technique, which opens vast new sources of oil and gas to world markets but has been blamed for environmental problems, from earthquakes and tremors in England to methane gas in drinking water in Pennsylvania.

Two recent movies, “Gasland” and Gasland II,” stoked new concerns and made claims disputed by the industry and some studies.

Encana’s project, for which it has leased mineral rights to 432,000 acres of public and private land, has the potential to make fracking more of an issue than it has been in the past in Michigan.

Fly fishermen are starting to wonder if their favorite waters will be harmed; Charlevoix-headquartered environmental activists want voters to ban the technique; and House Democrats are calling for tighter state restrictions. Also, fracking opponents have held demonstrations at DNR mineral rights bidding sessions in the past year and a half.

“My big concern is where’s the water going to come from?” said Josh Greenberg, owner of Gates Au Sable Lodge, next to Michigan’s most-popular trout stream in the Grayling area. “It’s coming from here. Who’s going to benefit? Someone who’s not here.”

Encana says fracking uses 58,800 to 31.5 million gallons of water per well. The amount varies from one well to another.

Olson last September urged the state’s Natural Resources Commission to slow down mineral rights leasing on public lands and declare absolutely off-limits state game reserves, recreational and natural areas he characterizes as Michigan’s “crown jewels.”

Safety ensured

Officials at the two key regulatory agencies expressed confidence hydraulic fracturing can continue to be done safely.

“The biggest concern is the volume of fluids (water) being used,” said Harold Fitch, state geologist and head of the Office of Oil, Gas and Minerals at the Department of Environmental Quality. “If you manage water consumption and the waste water that’s produced, you’ve got control.”

The Department of Natural Resources, which oversees mineral rights, is careful about where drilling is permitted, added spokesman Ed Golder. Special areas such as critical dunes, Great Lakes bottom lands and the Jordan River Valley are off-limits.

“We do a thorough analysis of the land we lease and what type of use should be allowed,” Golder said.

Fracking uses high volumes of water, sand and a chemical mix, pumped under very high pressure, to create fissures in shale formations, releasing the natural gas they hold.

Two-thirds or more of the mixture stays in the deep formation, Encana says. The rest shoots back up the pipe to be drawn off into special tanks and trucked to one of 740 deep-formation chemical waste storage wells.

The hydraulic fracturing takes from a few days to a few weeks. Once that’s completed, a well can continue to produce natural gas for as long as 40 years, according to company literature.

Encana has drilled a dozen wells since 2009. One goes down 10,500 feet and about two miles horizontally, said spokesman Doug Hock.

“We’re in the early stages,” Hock said of new drilling in northern Michigan. “Til we do the exploration, we won’t know whether we have something that can scale up and be economic.”

Hock said the investment could be huge: $10 million per well.

Dems seek safeguards

House Democrats argue for more safeguards and have rolled out bills with stringent requirements for disclosure of fracking chemicals and water use. Municipalities and individuals would be entitled to court hearings before permits are issued.

“If I lived in northern Michigan and they were putting (fracking chemicals) in the ground near my house, I’d want to know,” said Rep. Andy Schor, D-Lansing, one of the bill sponsors.

Fitch, the state geologist, said the DEQ has looked into a recent case in which the process temporarily affected a homeowner’s well. Beyond that, he said, fracking has been almost trouble-free here: two limited wastewater spills.

That’s not enough assurance for those who worry about toxic chemicals left in the ground, no matter how deep, and waterways that might be hurt by massive groundwater withdrawals.

Charlevoix-based Ban Michigan Fracking wants to collect at least 258,088 registered voter signatures by Oct. 1 for a 2014 ballot proposal to prohibit fracking. A similiar effort to get a ban on the 2012 ballot failed when opponents didn’t collect enough petition signatures.

At Gates Au Sable Lodge, Greenberg views Encana’s project with deep concern. For his lodge, shop and restaurant to thrive, the Au Sable River always must flow clear and cold.

“I’m scared and a little concerned about what it’s going to look like if it all comes to pass,” Greenberg said.

“I don’t think you could ever convince me you can take that much water from what’s under the earth and not affect what’s on top of it.”