News — jmblog

Link to article: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/05/17/federal-lawsuit-visitor-center-rocky-flats

You can comment at suwa.org/comment. Also, here is info from High Country News. Here is sample letter from Beverly Kurtz: "President Trump and Secretary Zinke, I have spent most of my adult life recreating in Utah. I am a hiker and river runner and I believe that the areas protected by Bears Ears and Grand Staircase – Escalante are invaluable national treasures that must be protected. As a trained archaeologist I have been thrilled by the amazing array of archeological sites that have been protected in these monuments. Even now those are often under assault by unscrupulous “pot hunters” – but at least the monument designation gives them some additional protection. The beauty of the landscape, the opportunity for solitude and connection with our wild heritage is beyond that found anywhere else in the world. There is a lot of misinformation being shared about how these monuments came into being and I implore you to look at the FACTS, not just the CLAIMS.

• Although Native Americans are split on the issue of Bears Ears, leaders of the Navajo Nation and more than two dozen other tribes joined in requesting the designation of the monument. Six out of seven Navajo chapters in San Juan County officially supported designation
• Polls showing that a majority of Utahns opposed the creation of the monument differed significantly from polls done when former President Obama’s name was removed from the polling questions – reflecting a general dissatisfaction with the president as opposed to opposition to creation of the monument.
• The monument designations are not a federal “land grab”. There were significant public comment periods and participation by all stakeholders in gathering input on the planned designations. The administration had numerous exchanges with Utah officials and several top federal land management officials traveled to southeastern Utah, met with local officials and held a public hearing in Bluff that was attended by approximately 1000 people. All of the land designated was already managed by federal land agencies. No private, state or other land was “grabbed”.
• In response to local concerns, Obama left nearly 600,000 acres out of the original proposal, land that holds potential for motorized recreation and extractive industries. Traditional Native American uses are explicitly preserved.

I have personally been privileged to hike Comb Ridge and White Canyon in Bears Ears, Calf Creek and Coyote Gulch in Grand Staircase – Escalante and many other smaller, less well-known areas. Grand Staircase was designated in 1996. Over twenty years have passed with growth trends in the surrounding areas with rising population, jobs and per capita income. Tourism is a healthy and mostly non-destructive economic boon to this area. No president has ever revoked a monument and there is no express authorization for such an act in the 1906 Antiquities Act. Our National Parks and Monuments are unique treasures of these United States, visited by millions of people from the US and abroad every year. Please do not sully our international reputation as protectors of wild and precious lands by abolishing or shrinking either of these national treasures."

Here is what one activist, Susan Elofson-Hurst, said afterward: "I was at the Sharing session at the Arvada Center last night; the only ones allowed to share were the speakers. It seemed obvious that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife staff is afraid of what the public has to say. This is a tactic that CDPHE adopted many years ago so the could sidestep any criticism. The response from the public was overwhelmingly NOT in favor of the Wildlife Refuge being opened to the public. These are the question I had for the speakers last night: • It appeared that “dose” to individuals was based on exposure to plutonium (Pu). Since the Aerial Gamma Survey from 20 years ago showed an Americium (Am) field approaching Indiana Street, are any Am exposures being taken into account?

  The PR flack running the meeting would not let the public speak to the meeting or ask questions in public. Ann Fenerty, with a masters in chemistry, tried to use the microphone to talk about the plant being superfund site. The PR flack took the mike out of Ann's hands and would not let her speak. So some of us did the "Occupy mike check" version of a loudspeaker where we loudly repeated what Ann said. We were told to go into corners and talk amongst ourselves. There were many good activists there though, and they did talk. Leroy Moore wrote that they sampled nothing below six feet. Building walls were collapsed into their basements and the remains covered with soil. The cleanup was driven by a decision between DOE, Kaiser-Hill and Congress that set a limit of $7 billion and 10 years. It gave bonuses for a quick partial clean-up. Ann had brought a large DOE map showing that Rocky Flats was a superfund site full of contaminated buildings and spray fields. It showed deep underground tunnels for trucks and 4 story underground buildings that were collapsed onto themselves and buried. So that the underground tunnels, pipelines of plutonium, and the contaminated floor slabs were left and buried there.

The plant is being greenwashed- the DOE pretends it is cleaned up by making it a wildlife refuge, which is a way to avoid having to clean it up more fully ( the standards of clean-up are lower for wildlife and for visitors and workers who would be exposed for only 8 hours per day versus for residents who would be exposed 24 hours per day. A wildlife refuge sounds safer than a polluted nuclear weapons plant full of radioactive and solvent hazards. They didn't cleanup the pipes with plutonium when they were below ground more than a certain short depth. They didn't include thyroid cancer in their studies, because it is one of the most common cancers next to nuclear facilities. They didn't collect samples to test where they thought toxics would be, as they didn't want to want to increase the cost and the time for the clean-up. Great article in the Boulder Weekly on the nuclear weapons plant clean-up and a hearing today: USFWS will be holding its ... Rocky Flats Sharing Session, “Safety Concerns and Risk Management,” on Monday, May 15 at the Arvada Center from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Officials from DOE, EPA, CDPHE and USFWS will first speak about potential health risks at the Refuge and later take public comment.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/news/buried-in-the-past

   

Trump and EPA head Pruitt just reversed the protection of Alaska's Bristol Bay salmon rivers. Please write your politicians and letters to the editor to protest this. Pruitt is approving a mine that will produce 10 million tons of mining waste at the headwaters of the watershed. Native-Americans, Alaskans, fishermen, and enviros oppose the Pebble mine.

Link: https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/12/trumps-epa-chooses-foreign-mining-interests-over-critical-alaska-watershed

"Bristol Bay is a critical wild salmon fishery, providing 46 percent of the world's supply of wild sockeye salmon, according to the NRDC. Its fishery is worth $1.5 billion a year, and it provides habitat for 29 fish species, 40 terrestrial mammal species, and 190 bird species."

Ask your senators and representatives to stop the international trade bullies at the WTO and NAFTA from imposing big fines to get the US to drop its "dolphin safe" labels for tuna. These labels allow shoppers to avoid tuna caught in large purse seine nets that drown dolphins. Also, you can write letters to the editor of your local paper? Here is link: http://action.citizen.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=13493 You need to spell out all of your street address to sent them messages here.