Filthy development in the Four Corners

A new report shows the poisoning of the Four Corners region, which has been used as a sacrifice area by the US government since uranium mining, power plants and oil and gas wells took over the region in the mid 1900s.
Who lives there? Navajos, Utes, Jicarilla Apaches and non-Indians, all breathe the air and drink the water. They also die of cancer and respiratory diseases. --Censored News

Tribal, Environmental Groups Call for Quick Action to Safeguard Four Corners Region from Dirty Energy Development

http://www.wildearthguardians.org/library/paper.asp?nMode=2&nLibraryID=776

New Study Shows Air Pollution Reductions from Oil and Gas, Coal Burning Needed to Protect Public Health; Future of Desert Rock in Question

Wild Earth Guardians
Photo of NM power plant by National Park Service
FARMINGTON, N.M. - A new report shows that dirty energy development is the biggest threat to clean air in the Four Corners region, spurring WildEarth Guardians, Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, and the San Juan Citizens Alliance to call for quick action to reduce air pollution and safeguard public health.
“This report confirms that dirty energy is taking a dangerous toll on clean air and public health in the Four Corners,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “But more importantly, it confirms that with cleaner energy we can make progress toward keeping communities safe.”
The Air Quality Modeling Study for the Four Corners Region, prepared for the New Mexico Environment Department, shows reducing pollution from oil and gas operations and coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners is the most effective strategy to keep harmful levels of ozone air pollution in check. Ozone, the key ingredient of smog, is a corrosive gas that can trigger asthma attacks, scar lungs, and lead to premature death. It forms when two key pollutants—nitrogen oxides, or NOx, and volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, react with sunlight.
“Protecting public health in our medically under-served tribal communities should be prioritized,” said Lori Goodman of Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment. “Tribal members are passing resolutions for clean energy solutions. The New Mexico Environment Department and federal agencies need to act on our serious air quality issues.”
The Four Corners region is on the verge of violating federal health standards that keep children, seniors, and even active adults safe from ozone. If ozone levels escalate at the Navajo Lake ozone monitor in San Juan County, New Mexico, the region will likely violate these standards, triggering more stringent clean air safeguards and federal oversight.
When ozone levels are high in the Four Corners region, the latest study shows that local oil and gas drilling operations and coal-fired power plants are the largest local contributor to the problem. The study sates “local oil and gas and EGU [electric generating units] are the biggest contributors to local ozone episodes.”
(See Report at page 5-2). The study reveals that oil and gas drilling operations are the largest source of human-created VOCs, while both oil and gas and the region’s two coal-fired power plants - Four Corners and San Juan - release three and a half times more NOx than the region’s cars and trucks.“These findings underscore the need for clean energy solutions in the Four Corners,” said Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico Energy Coordinator with the San Juan Citizens Alliance.
“And with our communities struggling against mounting air pollution, the time for solutions is now.”
The report also models several scenarios to determine the most effective strategy for combating ozone. The report found that curbing VOC and NOx pollution from oil and gas drilling, together with NOx cuts from coal-fired power plants will achieve “the overall largest” and “the most wide-spread” ozone reductions. (See Report at page 5-3).These findings support New Mexico Environment Department efforts to cost-effectively reduce NOx and VOC pollution from oil and gas operations in San Juan County and neighboring Rio Arriba County. The Department is developing proposed rules that would reduce emissions from natural gas compressor engines and pneumatic controllers at oil and gas wellsites. The proposed rules are available here.
In addition, the study continues to call into question the future of the Desert Rock coal-fired power plant. The power plant would add more than 2,000 tons of NOx emissions into the air of the Four Corners region.
The latest modeling report is available on the New Mexico Environment Department’s website.
Date: 7/22/2009 Press Release
Author: WildEarth Guardians
Contact: Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians, (303) 573-4898 x537
Email: jnichols@wildearthguardians.org
Additional Contact: Mike Eisenfeld, New Mexico Energy Coordinator, San Juan Citizens Alliance: (505) 325-6724

Listen at: Censored Blog Talk Radio: Pueblo and Navajo Uranium Victims speak at Havasupai Summit

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell/ ... Pueblo and Navajo uranium victims at Havasupai Summit at the Grand Canyon: Manny Pino, Acoma Pueblo; Carletta Garcia, daughter of Dorothy Purley, ore truck driver, Laguna Pueblo; Larry King, Navajo from Church Rock, NM; Phil Harrison, Navajo from Cove in the Four Corners area. Music recorded live: Birdsongs, Navajo and Supai traditional songs and Summit Dub Squad. Recordings by Earthcycles http://www.earthcycles.net/

A time for eagles: Code Pink, Muntadar and Ackerman

Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News
A call for whistleblowers: Cyclops in the Closet
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

In Washington outside the White House, the Code Pink ladies were throwing shoes at a Bush effigy on Wednesday, while a lone woman, Judy Ackerman, 55, was getting arrested in El Paso for defending the Rio Bosque Wetlands from the destruction of the US Border Wall construction.
It was a day for eagles.
We can only hope that more eagles in the form of whistleblowers will step forward before another dirty coal mine, Desert Rock, becomes a reality on the Navajo Nation, and Peabody Coal is allowed to expand its genocidal tentacles into the heartland of Black Mesa.
Like a morbid octopus, Peabody wants to usurp everything that does not belong to the coal-chewing monster. Like a thirsty cyclops, Peabody wants to drain the pristine waters of the Navajo and Hopi aquifer, with its one eye focused on more dirty millions.
If the highly-paid spin doctors have their way, there will be more Navajo relocation to make way for the Peabody Coal dragon. There will be more lies in the media and more Navajo elderly will die from broken hearts.
Through the years there have been many whistleblowers on the Navajo Nation, exposing the dirty backdoor deals of Navajo politicians and corrupt corporate spiders.
Today, the Censored News blog calls on all those whistleblowers who are home biting their nails to come out and tell the world about the sleazy deals behind the Desert Rock scheme and Peabody Coal's latest parasitic coal mining plan.
Already, the sex and cocaine of the US Mineral Management Service in Denver with the Big Oil daddies has been exposed.
We would like to hear from the whistleblowers of the Office of Surface Mining in Denver. We would like to hear about the cash that is flowing to keep people silent in corporate offices and what is going on in the US Interior closets.
We would like to hear about the lush meals and lavish hotels aimed at keeping American Indian politicians voting for dirty power plants in tribal council sessions. We would like to hear about the advocates who receive scholarship dollars to speak out in favor of digging into the Earth Mother.
We would also like to hear from whistleblowers at the BLM and elsewhere within the Bush Family. We would like to hear more about how President Bush Sr., before leaving office, cleared the way for Barrick Gold mining to lease lands in Nevada. Once he was out of office, Bush Sr. then went to work as a senior consultant for Barrick. Barrick tore out the trees and bulldozed the area of the Western Shoshone's sacred Mount Tenabo in the past two weeks, as it prepares to core out the mountain for gold mining and poison the water with cyanide leaching.
We would also like to hear from the whistleblowers in the Cheney ring of private prison thieves, who profiteered from imprisoning migrants and all people of color. Surely there are whistleblowers in the US military torture schools and the private mercenaries for profit empire.
Meanwhile, there are the shoes to consider.
With more than 8,300 online articles now in Google Breaking News, Muntadar al-Zaidi -- the shoe-throwing journalist who called Bush a "dog" and remembered the dead, orphans and widows -- has become one of the most famous people in the world.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said of al-Zaidi, "What courage."
Today's AP article on the Code Pink shoe throwers outside the White House says, "The U.S. Secret Service stood by during the protests; however there were no conflicts with authorities and no arrests were made."
How could anyone have a conflict with what the reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi did in Iraq. There is no way to bring back the dead women, children and elderly of Iraq. The mass murders in Iraq can only be considered an act of US genocide. The US kidnappings and tortures were violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News. VIDEO: 'Code Pink Shoe-in at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOC4ckof04
VIDEO: 'Shoe-icide at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju0VpP4oUyM