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Participants in Native Nations Rise gather outside of the
headquarters of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on March 10, 2017.
Photo by Indianz.Com (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The Trump administration has yet to release its revised Dakota
Access Pipeline decision, more than two weeks after it was announced
in federal court.
No one -- except for a few people in Washington, D.C. -- have seen
it. That includes the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose leaders and
citizens began the fight against the controversial crude oil
pipeline more than two years ago, turning the #NoDAPL movement into
an international cause....
MERCERSBURG, PA: On Saturday, the General Council of the Ho-Chunk
Nation voted overwhelmingly – 86.9% in favor – to amend their tribal
constitution to enshrine the Rights of Nature. The Ho-Chunk Nation
is the first tribal nation in the United States to take this
critical step. A vote of the full membership will follow.
The amendment establishes that “Ecosystems, natural communities, and
species within the Ho-Chunk Nation territory possess inherent,
fundamental, and inalienable rights to naturally exist, flourish,
regenerate, and evolve.” Further it prohibits frac sand mining,
fossil fuel extraction, and genetic engineering as violations of the
Rights of Nature.
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), with its
International Center for the Rights of Nature, assisted members of
the Ho-Chunk Nation in drafting the amendment....
Jenna Loring (left), the aunt of Ashley HeavyRunner Loring, cries
with her cousin Lissa Loring, during a traditional blanket dance on
the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Montana. The 'dance'
was held to raise awareness for the disappearance of Ashley, who
went missing in 2017. David Goldman/AP
Feds Pledge More Funds to Target Violence Against Native American
Women
For decades, Native
American women have been disappearing across both the US and Canada
with little law enforcement recognition or media coverage. The US
Justice Department plans to do more.
by Mary Hudetz, AP;The Christian Science Monitor - 19 SEP 2018
Albuquerque, N.M. -- The US Justice Department will double the
funding it grants tribes for public safety programs and crime
victims as it seeks to tackle the high-rates of violence against
Native American women, a top official said.
In an interview, the Justice Department's third-highest ranking
official told The Associated Press that officials are seeking, in
part, to address the issue with more than $113 million in public
safety funding for 133 tribes and Alaska Native villages that will
be announced Wednesday, and another $133 million that will be
awarded in the coming weeks to tribes to help serve Native American
crime victims...
Protesters disrupt construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline in
early September. Trespassing near pipelines is now a felony offense
in Louisiana, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Travis Lux/WWNO
After a high-profile campaign to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline
in 2016, a number of states moved to make it harder to protest oil
and gas projects. Now in Louisiana, the first felony arrests of
protesters could be a test case of these tougher laws as opponents
vow a legal challenge.
The controversy here is over the Bayou Bridge Pipeline, the last leg
of the Dakota Access. If completed, it will bring crude oil from the
Bakken oil fields of North Dakota, through Louisiana, where it will
be exported abroad....
The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service will host
three public meetings as part of the planning process for the Bears
Ears National Monument. Courtesy photo
The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service will host
three public meetings in Utah as part of the planning process for
the Bears Ears National Monument.
The draft management plans for the Shash Jáa and Indian Creek units
and associated environmental impact statement were released for
public review on Aug. 17.
More information about the planning effort may be found on
the BLM ePlanning project page at
https://goo.gl/uLrEae.
The meetings are:
Oct. 2, from 5 to 8 p.m., San Juan High School, 311 N. 100 E,
Blanding. Oct. 3, from 5 to 8 p.m., Bluff Community Center, 190 N.
Third St. E, Bluff. Oct. 4, from 5 to 8 p.m., White Horse High School, Utah
Highway 262, Montezuma Creek.
Residents may speak
with resource specialists, ask questions and submit written
comments. Written comments also may be submitted through Nov. 15 via
mail or email.
The BLM initiated planning to prepare management plans for the Bears
Ears National Monument Indian Creek unit and for the Shash Jáa unit,
which is co-managed with the Manti La-Sal National Forest.
Since then, the BLM and the Forest Service have worked with agencies
to develop management plans and a draft EIS reflecting input from
stakeholders and the public. The plans include options addressing
management issues brought forward during scoping.
People who use a telecommunications device for the deaf may
call the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339. Replies are provided during normal business
hours....
People drum during a rally celebrating a recent federal court ruling
against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion in
Vancouver, Sept. 8, 2018. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)
The federal government is shopping around for a retired federal
judge to help guide a renewed consultation with Indigenous
communities on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
The Federal Court of Appeal last month quashed the approval given to
the project, saying the consultation with Indigenous communities
wasn't good enough and criticizing the lack of attention paid to the
environmental impact of increased tanker traffic off the coast of
British Columbia.
The Liberals are still considering whether to appeal the decision,
but at the same time are looking at how they can do what the court
said was lacking in order to get the pipeline work back underway.
An official close to the plan told the Canadian Press one option
being closely considered is hiring of a former senior judge,
possibly a retired Supreme Court of Canada justice, to advise the
government on what would constitute meaningful consultation with
Indigenous communities to satisfy the conditions of the court.
The Liberals intend to announce the next steps in their pipeline
plan before the end of September....
Gary Red Owl, right, a descendant of Santee Chief Cut Nose, receives
an apology letter from Jeff Bolton, the Vice President and Chief
Administrative Officer of the Mayo Clinic, at the Ohiya casino and
Resort on Friday, Aug. 31. Ryan Soderlin / The
World-Herald
SANTEE, Neb. — The important looking man walks to the front of the
room. In the crowd, the important woman and the 50 others fall
silent.
The crowd is mostly in jeans and T-shirts, including several that
say, “Exiled Indian.”
The Important Man is wearing pressed slacks and an ironed dress
shirt. He glances at his notes and clears his throat.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be here with you today,” he says.
The Important Man’s name is Jeffrey Bolton. He’s a bigwig at the
most famous hospital in the United States. He flew on an airplane
from Rochester, Minnesota, to this Santee Sioux Reservation in rural
northeast Nebraska to say what has gone unsaid for the past 156
years.
The Important Woman sitting in the crowd is named LeAnn Red Owl. She
and many Red Owls in the audience today are the descendants of the
great warrior Marpiya Okinajin, commonly known as Cut Nose. These
Santee Dakota people hitched rides and drove in used cars from as
far away as Omaha to be inside this casino conference room.
They are here to hear what they have needed to hear for the last
seven generations since the Mayo Clinic treated their ancestor’s
body like a hunter might treat a deer head he mounts on his wall.
“The Dakota people and the Mayo Clinic are connected,” Bolton says.
“History can also bind us in broken ways. We acknowledge our role in
that broken relationship.”...
Desert Mountain Energy Corp. recently leased more than 3,000 acres
near Petrified Forest National Park. The company, which already
leases 37,000 acres of state land, plans to expand its existing
helium operation. File photo by Jesse Stawnyczy/Cronkite
News
PHOENIX – A Canadian energy company will add to its helium operation
with more than 3,000 acres of newly leased federal land near
Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona. But an
environmental group and Arizona U.S. Rep. Tom O’Halleran worry that
operations could threaten key water sources and at least two
endangered species.
Desert Mountain Energy Corp. of Vancouver purchased two oil and gas
leases auctioned by the Bureau of Land Management late last week,
paying $2 an acre. The company already leases nearly 37,000 acres of
state land in the nearby Holbrook Basin, where the company has found
seven helium deposits so far. Helium is critical to manufacturing,
technology and aerospace industries.
Arizona does not have a rich history of natural gas deposits, but
the oil and natural gas rights to land in the basin are a hot
commodity to energy developers who believe “Arizona is the Saudi
Arabia of helium.”...
"Too Precious to Mine" Uranium Mining in Havasupai Homelands
Media Contact: International Uranium Film Festival Media Contact:
Anna Marie Rondon, Executive Director Norbert G. Suchanek, General
Director New Mexico Social Justice and Equity Institute
International Uranium Film Festival 505-906-2671 (c)
info@uraniumfilmfestival.org nmsjei@gmail.com
www.uraniumfilmfestival.org
Santa Fe Media Contact:
Susan Gordon
Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment 505-577-8438
sgordon@swuraniumimpacts.org
The issue of nuclear power is not only an issue of the Navajo
Nation, who suffered for decades because of uranium mining. All
people should be informed about the risks of uranium, nuclear
weapons and the whole nuclear fuel chain, states International
Uranium Film Festival’s Director Norbert G. Suchanek. In an effort
to keep people informed and aware, particularly during this critical
time of escalating nuclear threats, the International Uranium Film
Festival returns to the U.S. Southwest.
Following screenings in Berlin Germany, the U.S. Southwest tour of
the 2018 International Uranium Film Festival will begin at the
Navajo Nation Museum with screenings in Window Rock, Navajo Nation,
USA scheduled for November 29th and 30th and December 1st. The
Festival travels to Flagstaff, AZ for December 2nd screenings, then
on to Albuquerque, NM for December 6th screenings. Grants, NM will
host December 7th screenings with the Festival’s touring closing in
Santa Fe on December 9th.
We are currently selecting the films which will comprise the
International Uranium Film Festival. We especially encourage Native
American and women filmmakers to send their films about uranium
mining or any nuclear issue to the Festival. The selected films will
be shown not only in the Navajo Nation Museum but also in venues in
Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Grants and Santa Fe. The best productions
will receive the Uranium Film Festival´s award in Window Rock. For
additional information on the submission process, contact Norbert G.
Suchanek, General Director at:
info@uraniumfilmfestival.org...
.
Activist Cedar George-Parker addresses a crowd protesters opposed to
the Trans Mountain Pipeline in British Columbia in April. Darryl
Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP
The flyer shows a mob of balaclava-clad activists dressed in black,
lobbing bottles at an undefined target. They could be protesting
anything, but for attendees at a petroleum industry conference in
Houston earlier this year, it was pretty clear what the violent
demonstrators were targeting: the fossil fuel industry.
The scary image of protesters was distributed by Welund North
America, a private intelligence firm that promises to help oil and
gas operators mitigate the threat posed by an increasingly
sophisticated activist movement. On the back of the flyer an
anonymous testimonial reads, “Since subscribing to Welund we’ve
dramatically increased our ability to pre-empt and better manage
activist engagements and minimize reputational damage.”
Logos—presumably of Welund’s clients—listed on the flyer include a
who’s who of Big Oil and Gas: Royal Dutch Shell, Kinder Morgan, Duke
Energy, Dominion, and Chevron. Welund has even secured contracts
with the Canadian government.
In the past year, Welund has presented at several energy industry
conferences and has also partnered with the Texas Independent
Producers and Royalty Owners Association—or TIPRO—to promote its
intelligence-gathering services. The company bills itself as a
leader in “understanding the activist threat” and in the past has
provided intelligence on social movements and activist groups,
including Greenpeace, Occupy Wall Street, and animal rights
advocates.
Welund and its top North American officials ignored repeated
requests for interviews and did not to respond to detailed written
questions. But publicity materials and other documents reviewed by
Mother Jones shed light on the company’s strategies....
The company depicts the environmental movement as one of the energy
industry’s most dangerous adversaries—comparable to the challenges
posed by international industrial espionage. “What we’re talking
about here is an existential threat,” Moran told the audience of oil
and gas executives in Houston....
This story was originally published by High Country News, and is
reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Uranium, it’s now part of Navajo DNA. With over 500 abandoned
uranium mines on the Navajo Nation, people living near these mines
are exposed daily to radiation exposure at a rate several times
higher than normal background radiation. Last week, President Donald
Trump announced he was summarily reducing the Bears Ears National
Monument by 85 percent, thereby opening archaeologically rich sites
to uranium mining.
Over the past two months, at administrative chapter houses adjacent
to Bears Ears, 98 percent of Navajos voted in support of the
national monument designation. These voters are likely voting for
more than the protection of sacred sites. Many are likely also there
for a say in the future of the uranium mining that has plagued
Navajo communities since World War II, when the development of the
atom bomb created a demand for yellowcake.
From the 1940s to the 1980s, 30 million tons of uranium were
extracted from mines on the Navajo Nation. Today, more than 500
abandoned uranium mines remain on the reservation, which stretches
27,000 square miles from the south rim of the Grand Canyon past
Gallup, New Mexico, and north to the San Juan River in Utah,
poisoning the water and carrying in the dust. Only one mine has been
cleaned up. It is estimated that total cleanup will cost between $4
billion to $6 billion and could take a century to complete. A recent
study by researchers from the University of New Mexico found 85
percent of Navajo homes had uranium contamination, and Navajos
living near these mines have higher levels of uranium in their bones
than 95 percent of the American population. Even infants have been
found to have uranium in their urine.
In a penetrating series of articles on uranium mining’s legacy in
the Navajo Nation, published by the Arizona Republic in 2014, Lillie
Lane, the Navajo Nation’s Environmental Protection Agency outreach
coordinator, told the newspaper the radiation has tainted their
chromosomes. “I think we are still in the infant stages of seeing
what the impacts are in the gene pool of the Navajo people,” she
said.
Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Trump have tried not to
portray the shrinking of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante as
energy issues. In his announcement at the Utah Capitol steps in Salt
Lake City, Trump did not mention “energy dominance,” a favorite
phrase. Zinke told reporters prior to the announcement his review
was “not about energy.”
Maybe that’s true. In fact, a gaffe the previous week, in which
Trump used a ceremony honoring the Navajo Code Talkers for their
service as a chance to take a political swipe at Sen. Elizabeth
Warren, D-Mass., by again calling her “Pocahontas,” reminded Indian
Country that this wasn’t all about energy.
Hiding behind the fig leaf of “local” concerns, Trump expressed
outrage at how the monument is allegedly preventing rural families
in San Juan County “from enjoying their outdoor activities.”
This turn of phrase inevitably brings to mind Ryan Bundy, son of the
Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy who led an armed standoff against the
Bureau of Land Management, for which he and several of his sons are
presently being tried on federal charges in Nevada. Ryan and his
brother Ammon famously led a second armed takeover in 2016 of the
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and have also been active
in Utah. Ryan led armed ATV riders in 2014 over ancient Puebloan
villages in San Juan County during a protest organized by County
Commissioner Phil Lyman in protest of the closure of an illegally
created road through the ruins. In April, Zinke announced the
opening of some of these sites (although not the trail Bundy
protested) to motorized traffic, citing the right of people with
disabilities to have access to them.
Lyman (who was convicted of a misdemeanor for his role in the ATV
ride) was on stage with Trump last week for the announcement. Trump
flattered Utah Republican leaders who flanked him onstage, including
Gov. Gary Herbert, Sen. Orrin Hatch and Rep. Rob Bishop. All have
been staunch opponents of Bears Ears, a groundbreaking monument
proposed by five Indigenous nations: Navajo Nation, Hopi, Zuni, Ute
Mountain Ute and Uintah and Ouray Ute.
So in that way, the monument isn’t about energy. But in another way
it is, especially when it comes to uranium. During Zinke’s review of
27 national monuments, the Utah legislature submitted a 49-page
comment claiming Bears Ears National Monument would destroy the
state’s uranium industry.
On Friday, the Washington Post broke the story that Energy Fuels
Resources, owners of the Daneros Uranium Mine and the White Mesa
Uranium Mill, had lobbied the Interior Department to reduce the
monument because it impeded their business interests in the area,
effectively refuting Zinke and Trump’s claims energy interests did
not play a role. In a May 2017 letter to the Interior, the company’s
chief operating officer, Mark Chalmers, urged the monument be
reduced because there are “many known uranium and vanadium deposits
located within the newly created (Bears Ears National Monument) that
could provide valuable energy and mineral resources in the future.”
The monument has many inactive uranium mines and unused mining
leases that are not being used due to a poor market for uranium. But
one mill, the White Mesa Uranium Mill, is still of concern....
Good riddance to San Francisco’s “Early Days” statue
SAN FRANCISCO — The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC)
celebrates a victory with the removal today of a racist statute
known as the “Early Days Monument” depicting the colonization of
California. The statute has been located at 147 Fulton Street in San
Francisco, the site of the historic Ohlone village of Yelamu.
In a unanimous vote on the evening of September 12, the San
Francisco Board of Appeals decided to deny the appeal made by one
individual from the Sausalito area and to allow the statue’s removal
as long demanded by Indigenous Peoples and organizations including
the IITC. On hearing the decision, Bernadette Smith (Manchester Band
of Pomo) stated, “My people are up here crying their hearts out and
speaking their minds of things that matter. I am glad we are here
today in solidarity, so that we can remove it as one people.”...
A couple embraces as authorities prepare to shut down the main
Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp in Cannon Ball, N.D.
(James MacPherson/AP)
Here’s a good-governance aphorism for the ages: If you want to
foster an atmosphere of trust and transparency—and if you truly have
nothing to hide—then don’t hide stuff.
It’s such an obvious point. And yet it’s one that has somehow
managed to elude the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
So what’s the Corps hiding? Its
reassessment of the potential environmental impacts of the
Dakota Access oil pipeline, or DAPL, ordered by a federal judge in
2017. (You probably recall the
massive demonstrations and
international outcry that took place beforehand.) Under the
terms of the court order, the Corps was instructed to reexamine
whether a leak in the pipeline would pose a disproportionately high
risk to the Standing Rock Sioux’s “distinct cultural
practices”—which, in this case, include the ability of its 8,000
members to obtain food and water from the Missouri River and Lake
Oahe.
Two weeks ago, the Corps finally took a step toward
compliance—albeit insufficiently and insultingly. It released
a two-page memo summarizing its reassessment but refused to
release the actual report on which the memo is based, citing an
ongoing “confidentiality review.” And the gist of this memo? We
looked at the whole thing again more closely, Your Honor, just like
you told us to. And we stand by our earlier assessment: It’s all
good.
That’s it. No publicly available backup, no explanatory details, no
further justification provided....
The owners of an Atchafalaya River Basin property are suing the
company building the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (https://topics.nola.com/tag/bayou%20bridge%20pipeline),
claiming that Energy Transfer Partners illegally seized and damaged
private land on the oil pipeline's route.
Filed in 16th District Court in St. Mary Parish on Wednesday (Sept.
12), the lawsuit challenges Energy Transfer's (https://www.energytransfer.com/)
assertion that it has the right to take portions of private property
to build the 163-mile pipeline. Energy Transfer has justified its
use of expropriation, a process similar to eminent domain, by
claiming the pipeline is in the public's interest.
Attorneys representing the owners of the 38-acre wetland property
say the pipeline is "actually contrary to the public interest,"
noting Energy Transfer's history of spills and leaks with other
pipelines, the oil industry's contribution to erosion on the
Louisiana coast and global climate change.
"Bayou Bridge's attempt to expropriate this land is not only a
violation of the rights of the hundreds of property owners who share
a stake in these precious wetlands, but it's a grave environmental
threat to this vital ecosystem," Theda Larson Wright, one of the
landowners, said in a statement.
Energy Transfer did not respond to requests for comment on Thursday.
The lawsuit comes two days after
Energy Transfer agreed to halt construction on the property,
which the owners say was damaged by tree removal and other pipeline
construction activities. The agreement was reached Monday, just
before a judge was scheduled to hear an injunction property owners
had filed against Energy Transfer. The injunction asserted that the
company illegally trespassed and began construction without formally
starting the expropriation process.
The New York-based
Center for Constitutional Rights, which is part of the legal
team representing the landowners, claims Energy Transfer is not the
proper entity to exercise land seizures for the public good, and did
not undertake a "thorough, good faith effort to locate and negotiate
with landowners as required by law before starting expropriation
proceedings," CCR said in a statement....
The San Francisco Board of Appeals voted unanimously on Wednesday to
remove a controversial statue that activists say is “racist” and
demeaning to Native Americans.
The “Early Days” statue, which was erected in 1894, depicts a fallen
Native American man at the feet of a Spanish cowboy and a
missionary. The statue is one of five that comprise the Pioneer
Monument in San Francisco, which commemorates the settling of the
state.
“This has been a tough 30-plus years. But this is wonderful,” Dee
Dee Ybarra, an Ohlone tribal leader, told the San Francisco
Chronicle.
Native American activists have pushed for decades to have the statue
removed, an effort that saw renewed energy amid the nationwide
debate over Confederate monuments. Critics have long said the
sculpture inappropriately celebrates the oppression of Native
American people.
The board’s vote on Wednesday overturned a decision not to remove
the monument earlier this year. The city’s Arts Commission
originally proposed removing it after the deadly white supremacist
rally in Charlottesville, Va., which unfolded around the proposed
removal of a Confederate statue....
Tara Sweeney, the newly-installed Assistant Secretary for Indian
Affairs, poses with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke at
Department of the Interior headquarters in Washington, D.C. Photo:
U.S. DOI
Less than two months into the job, the new leader of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs has set an ominous tone for the Trump
administration's dealings with tribal nations.
Tara Sweeney, the recently-installed Assistant Secretary for Indian
Affairs, issued a decision on Friday that paves the way for a
reservation to be taken out of trust for the first time since the
termination era. The victim in this age of self-determination and
sovereignty is the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, whose homelands in
Massachusetts are now on the chopping block.
But the People of the First Light aren't accepting Washington's
dictate without a fight. An emergency council meeting is taking
place at tribal headquarters on Monday to address what Chairman
Cedric Cromwell described as an "unbelievably grave injustice.'
"We have been on this land for 12,000 years and we are not going
anywhere," Cromwell declared after receiving the negative decision.
Key to the effort is legislation in Congress which would prevent the
reservation from being taken out of trust. With the executive branch
willing to walk away from any responsibilities, passage of the
Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act appears to be
the only hope for success.
“The decision by the Trump administration to move forward with
denying the Mashpee Wampanoag a right to their ancestral homeland
and to keep their reservation is an injustice," Sen. Ed Markey
(D-Massachusetts) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), the
sponsors of S.2628, said in a joint statement on Friday.
"America has a painful history of systematically ripping apart
tribal lands and breaking its word," the lawmakers added. "We cannot
repeat that history."...
Navajo and Hopi groups target Avenue Capital Group in New York
City on September 10, 2018 over its interest in Navajo Generating
Station. CREDIT: Tó Nizhóní Ání
In a steady rain, more than a dozen Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe
members protested Monday outside the New York City offices of Avenue
Capital Group, a private equity firm that wants to purchase the
coal-burning Navajo Generating Station (NGS) in Arizona.
They had traveled from their homes in northern Arizona to oppose the
private equity firm’s proposed acquisition of NGS, the largest
coal-fired power plant in the western United States, and to advocate
for clean forms of energy in the Four Corners region.
The facility — which spews tons of the most hazardous air pollutants
— was on its way to shutting down in 2019. But Avenue Capital
Group’s interest in purchasing a majority stake in the plant has
brought new life to the highly polluting facility.
The current operator of NGS — the Salt River Project — has suggested
keeping the coal plant open past 2019 will result in losses
exceeding $130 million annually. Avenue Capital Group likely could
profit from its purchase of NGS only through some combination of
federal subsidies and cuts to jobs, health, and safety protections,
experts say....
Protesters demonstrate along Market Street at Fifth Street and
Cyril Magnin Way before the Global Climate Action Summit led by Gov.
Jerry Brown at Moscone Center. Activists say the fight against
climate change should be given maximum urgency.
Photo: Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
Hundreds of activists snarled commute-heavy traffic, picketed or
simply sat in yoga poses outside the Parc 55 hotel in San
Francisco’s clogged downtown Market Street area Monday morning, the
first weekday leg of what promises to be a rocky series of protests
against this week’s Global Climate Action Summit.
Monday’s main goal was to deliver an open letter to Gov. Jerry
Brown’s Climate and Forest Task Force, demanding that local and
indigenous protest representatives be given a seat at the table.
They were partially successful: About 10 of them were allowed inside
the hotel, where the task force was meeting, to read the missive out
loud.
“I think the tone was still somber” after the letter was delivered,
said Cindy Wiesner, national coordinator for the Grassroots Global
Justice Alliance, one of the organizations participating in the
demonstrations. “The goal was to actually talk to Jerry Brown
directly and, of course, that did not happen.”
The rally came two days after thousands of people marched through
San Francisco to demand action on “climate, jobs and justice,” and
three days before a scheduled march and “mass action” near Jessie
Square between Market and Mission streets, near the Global Climate
Action Summit at Moscone Center, as well as other actions throughout
the week....
The first day that Jacqueline Whitman’s daughter didn’t come home,
she wasn’t that worried. It was last summer, the Fourth of July.
Twenty-six-year-old Ariel had headed out the day before with her
boyfriend, who had picked her up at the three-bedroom house she
shared with her mother, her grandfather, and five of her six
siblings at the eastern edge of the Navajo reservation in Arizona.
She called the next afternoon, telling Jacqueline she’d try to make
it home for dinner. She didn’t, but she’d texted the family. (“You
jerks,” it said. It was what she always affectionately called them.)
The second day that Ariel didn’t come home, she called her cousins,
telling them she was in a town just off the reservation with some
friends. But she didn’t call her sister Valya’s three-year-old son,
which she usually did every day. On the third and fourth days that
Ariel didn’t come home, she didn’t call anyone. And she wasn’t
active on Facebook, which was highly unusual. She was always on
Facebook. She didn’t respond to texts, and calls to her phone went
straight to voicemail.
By the fifth day, Jacqueline was starting to panic. If Ariel didn’t
come home that night, she decided, she was going to call the police.
Valya made some posters with Ariel’s picture on them, but she didn’t
put them up at first; she felt a little ridiculous. “She’s going to
come home,” Valya kept thinking. “When Ariel comes home, she’s going
to say, ‘Why did you do this? You’re silly.’”
As of 2016, the Navajo Generating Station was the 11th biggest
producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, according
to the Environmental Protection Agency. (Eflon/Flickr)
PAGE, Ariz. – Members of the Navajo Nation are in New York City
Monday to call attention to the fate of the biggest coal power plant
in the West.
The Navajo Generating Station in Northern Arizona is set to close
next year. But New York investment firm Avenue Capital Group is
considering buying it.
The coal plant provides hundreds of jobs to Navajo people and is a
major source of revenue for the tribe. This is critical on the
Navajo reservation where unemployment is around 45 percent. So, many
Navajo support the sale and continued operation of the plant.
But Nicole Horseherder, executive director of the Navajo
environmental group To Nizhoni Ani, says the coal plant has led to
air and water pollution, and health consequences for her neighbors.
"I think it's important for people out there to know that the type
of jobs and the type of revenue we need is one that doesn't kill
people and doesn't kill the environment,” she states. “So to those
people that are concerned about the jobs and revenues, we are also
concerned."...
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The company building an oil pipeline through
environmentally sensitive south Louisiana agreed Monday to
temporarily halt the project on one piece of private land while
a legal dispute plays out.
Environmentalists hailed agreement, saying it will delay
completion of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline at least until after a
November hearing on company efforts to obtain the property
through a process called expropriation. However, Energy Transfer
Partners in Dallas, the majority owner of the project, said in
an email that the agreement will not affect the timing of the
project's completion. It has said in court records it expects to
complete construction by October.
The agreement announced in St. Martin Parish followed the filing
of a state court lawsuit by landowner Peter Aalestad. It said
evidence showed Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC had already begun
tree-clearing and other construction preparation without
obtaining consent....
Chief Stanley Charles Grier of the Piikani Nation hands over a
declaration to Yellowstone National Park Deputy Superintendent Pat
Kenney. Nate Hegyi/Mountain West News Bureau
On a cold January day more than a century ago, U.S. troops massacred
nearly 200 Piikani people on a Montana river bank. Most were women,
children and old folks.
"It's hard to imagine," Chief Stanley Charles Grier of the Piikani
Nation in Alberta, Canada said.
The people killed were his ancestors and accounts of the massacre
are brutal. Soldiers killed a mother breastfeeding her baby. They
shot sick people hiding under blankets.
"Survivors were basically executed by axes," Grier says. "That's
pretty barbaric."
The man who helped perpetrate this massacre was Army Lt. Gustavus
Doane. He later went on to explore parts of Yellowstone and his
compatriots named Mount Doane after him. The name stuck, and Grier
wants to change it.
"Lieutenant Doane led that attack and fully implemented the
massacre," he says. "We feel that's an atrocity to humanity and it's
essentially a war crime."...
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and the Fort Belknap
Indian Community (Assiniboine (Nakoda) and Gros Ventre (Aaniiih)
Tribes) in coordination with their counsel, the Native American
Rights Fund, on September 10, 2018, sued the Trump Administration in
the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Great Falls
Division, for numerous violations of the law in the Keystone XL
pipeline permitting process. The Tribes are asking the court to
declare the review process in violation of the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA), the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),
and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and to rescind the
illegal issuance of the Keystone XL pipeline presidential permit.
On March 23, 2017, the U.S. Department of State granted
TransCanada’s permit application and issued it a presidential permit
to construct and operate the Keystone XL Pipeline. This decision
reversed two previous administrative decisions and was done without
any public comment or environmental analysis....
We have been tased, pepper sprayed, put into choke holds and beaten
with batons to stop this illegal construction that ETP was carrying
out despite not having an easement for the land.
Now a court has validated our claims and has banned all ETP
employees and workers from the site and banned any form of
construction activities.
While this is a major victory, construction of the Bayou Bridge
Pipeline continues in other parts of the Atchafalaya Basin. We won't
stop until completely shut down the Bayou Bridge Pipeline.
JOIN US on the frontlines by emailing
resist@nobbp.org with your
name, phone number, why you want to come to camp, when you will be
arriving and how long you plan on staying. We will respond with the
directions to camp and what to bring.
Traumatized Children at the Border - Video by The Atlanticono lawyer, Jodi Goodwin,
who aggressively
advocates for their release from their respective ICE detention
centers, Anita and Jenri are reunited after a month apart. But the
damage has been done. The Separated, a new documentary from The
Atlantic, is an intimate window into the chaos and trauma caused by
the separation. "You don't love me anymore,” Jenri says to Anita
after they arrive at a temporary shelter. “You're not my mom
anymore."
Water protectors from the
L'eau Est La Vie Camp argue that Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) does
not have an easement agreement with Theda Wright, one of the
property owners; therefore, the construction on Wright’s land to
build the pipeline is illegal.
Courtesy of Karen Savage
Four water protectors from the
L’eau Est La Vie Camp in southern Louisiana were arrested on Tuesday
while taking action against Energy Transfer Partners’ Bayou Bridge
Pipeline. What began as a check on the status of construction turned
into a multi-hour shutdown of work by the members of the camp.
Pipeline workers called the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office, and tensions rose when their reinforcements arrived on site, eventually
leading to apparent violations of human rights and the safety of
those attacked by law enforcement.
Deputies also used pepper spray, had their batons out, and strangled
Foytlin and “Patch,” another indigenous water protector.
“I can’t breathe!” Patch yelled while being restrained by St. Martin
Parish Sheriff’s deputies...
.
A Sept. 10 special meeting organized by the Lafayette City council
that would discuss a controversial plan by PG&E to uproot hundreds
of trees, has drawn ire from residents who want the trees to remain.
The pending tree removal is part of the utility company's Community
Pipeline Safety Initiative, a statewide effort aimed at improving
public safety by clearing structures that could stand in the way of
first responders attempting to access gas transmission lines.
Tree roots also corrode the underground pipelines, which can lead to
hazardous leaks, according to PG&E.
The trees that are scheduled for removal include 207 on public
property and 245 in Briones Regional Park.
Critics of the plan say that removing hundreds of trees threatens
local wildlife and significantly impairs the character of the
neighborhood. They say the city should have conducted an
environmental assessment before authorizing the plan in 2017....
Trump Administration to
Lease 4,200 Acres in Northern Arizona for Fracking
Press statement Sept. 6, 2018
PHOENIX— The Bureau of Land Management today plans to auction off
4,200 acres of public land for oil and gas leases in northern
Arizona near Petrified Forest National Park and two rivers. Parcels
that do not receive bids today will be available for noncompetitive
leasing for two years.
The sale will put the land at risk of chemical spills and water
contamination that could harm the Little Colorado River and Silver
Creek, threatening endangered species and water users.
“It’s appalling that the Trump administration would consider this
reckless plan that puts Arizonans and wildlife at risk,” said Taylor
McKinnon, a public lands campaigner at the Center for Biological
Diversity. “Public health, precious water and wild places shouldn’t
be sacrificed for corporate profits.”...
MASHPEE, Mass. — In a major blow to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, the
Trump administration’s Department of the Interior – Indian Affairs
on Friday issued a determination to the tribe saying it could not
keep 321 acres of land taken into trust during the Obama
administration. The determination now puts the Mashpee Wampanoag
Tribe’s planned $1 billion casino on hold indefinitely.
Mashpee Wampanoag tribal leaders vow to continue their fight to
retain its reservation and push for passage of bipartisan
legislation to protect its land after Friday’s determination.
“We have been on this land for 12,000 years and we are not going
anywhere. This only underscores the urgency of passing the Mashpee
Wampanoag Tribe Reservation Reaffirmation Act immediately. We
implore Congress to act now,” said Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council
Chairman Cedric Cromwell.
Friday’s decision was issued after a court-ordered review to
determine if the Interior Department has the authority to hold the
historic tribe’s Land-in-Trust under a different legal category
within the Indian Reorganization Act than the one previously issued.
In September 2015, after a decades-long examination of
archeological, anthropological, and historical evidence, the
Interior Department officially moved to hold 321 acres of land in
Mashpee and Taunton in trust on behalf of the tribe under the IRA on
the grounds that the Mashpee Tribe had maintained ties to an
existing reservation since time immemorial. A lawsuit funded by an
out-of-state casino developer was then filed challenging the
Interior Department’s legal reasoning. A subsequent federal district
court opinion remanded the initial 2015 reservation declaration back
to the Interior Department for further review.
“Let’s call it what it is: a grave injustice initiated by an
out-of-state casino developer to undermine the rights and
sovereignty of native people. This is a tremendous blow to our Tribe
without whom America’s earliest settlers would not have survived and
it should also alarm Tribal Nations all across Indian Country,”
Cromwell said..
In 2017, NPQ reported that 2016 was the deadliest year for
indigenous activists; in the end, 2017 surpassed even that. With
large-scale projects promising heaping profits, the alarming trend
of the murder, persecution, and criminalization of indigenous
peoples continues to rise, as indicated in the latest report by the
UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria
Tauli-Corpuz. NPQ readers are encouraged to read the full report, as
Tauli-Corpuz explains the crisis and its root causes in detail.
According to the report, the basis for these attacks lies in “the
intensified competition over natural resources led by private
companies, at times with government complicity” which “has placed
indigenous communities seeking to protect their traditional lands at
the forefront as targets of persecution.” Tauli-Corpuz explains:
Instances of criminalization and violence arises, in most cases,
when indigenous leaders and community members voice opposition to
large projects relating to extractive industries, agribusiness,
infrastructure, hydroelectric dams and logging. In other instances,
indigenous peoples’ ways of life and subsistence are deemed illegal
or incompatible with conservation policies, leading to the
prohibition of indigenous traditional livelihoods and the arrest,
detention, forced eviction and violations of other human rights of
indigenous peoples.
Because of this, most of 2017’s attacks and transgressions took
place in resource-rich countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Mexico,
and the Philippines. However, we also saw human rights violations
unfold in our own backyard with the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation
and the Dakota Access Pipeline. Moreover, this is not a new
phenomenon. NPQ has been reporting on these human rights violations
since at least 2014, covering the murders of high-profile indigenous
activists in both Peru and Honduras....
On Friday, at a speech in Fargo, North Dakota, the president made a
strange appeal to Native American voters. “Maybe they don’t know
about what’s going on with respect to the world of Washington and
politics, but I have to tell you, with African-American folks, I
would say what do you have to lose?” he asked.
Trump has often made disrespectful comments about Native Americans.
Testifying before congress in 1993, he challenged the casino license
given to some reservations. “If you look, if you look at some of the
reservations that you’ve approved, that you, sir, in your great
wisdom have approved, I will tell you right now—they don’t look like
Indians to me,” Trump said....
Even as the Trump administration rolls back regulations meant to
protect Americans from pollution, the EPA recently released a report
that finds that people of color are much more likely to breathe
toxic air than their white counterparts. The study's basic
findings—that non-whites bear a higher burden in terms of pollution
that leads to a range of poor health outcomes—is supported by other
similar studies, and underpins the issue of environmental injustice
that impacts many politically marginalized communities.
It's these communities that are hardest hit by the climate
crisis––even though they are the least responsible for causing it.
In addition, these communities, by design, are most imperiled by
environmentally devastating extractive industries like coal mining,
tar sands, fracked gas and more. Let's be clear: Climate change
isn't just a scientific issue—it's an issue of racial inequity,
economic inequity and cultural genocide.
Indigenous peoples around the world are quickly becoming the
generation that can no longer swim in their own waters, fish in
their rivers, hunt their traditional foods or pick their traditional
medicines. The climate isn't just changing the landscape—it's
hurting the culture, sovereignty, health, economies and lifeways of
Indigenous peoples around the world. Yet despite the immense impacts
climate change and fossil fuel industries have on Indigenous
cultures and ways of life, Indigenous communities are tremendously
resilient....
A long procession of
more than 500 clergy of numerous denominations and faiths walked on
Highway 1806 from the Oceti Sakowin encampment on Nov. 3, 2016.
Mike McCleary - Tribune
A new study on the Dakota Access Pipeline likely won’t change the
opinions of supporters and opponents of the project. The person who
counts, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, received the study on
Friday, but hasn’t ruled on it.
Boasberg ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct the
study more than a year ago. He said the corps hadn’t adequately
considered how an oil spill under the Missouri River would impact
the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's fishing and hunting rights. The
judge also wanted to know whether it might disproportionately affect
the tribal community -- a concept known as environmental justice.
The goal is to ensure development projects aren't built in areas
where minority populations might not have the resources to defend
their rights....
Seattle — A landmark court decision issued Thursday casts doubt on
whether Kinder Morgan’s troubled and controversial Trans Mountain
pipeline project can go forward. United States Coast Salish Tribes —
including the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Tulalip Tribes,
Lummi Nation, and Suquamish Tribe — are celebrating the decision,
which finds that the permits for the pipeline were issued illegally.
“Over the last 100 years, our most sacred site, the Salish Sea, has
been deeply impacted by our pollution-based economy,” said Swinomish
Tribal Chair (and Co-Chair of the Coast Salish Gathering) Brian
Cladoosby. “The place that we’re living now is where we have been
since time immemorial. All of our roots go deep and our bloodlines
are woven thru out the Salish Sea. Coast Salish and all native
peoples are what you call a place-based society. What that means is,
we just can’t pick up and move to Ottawa or Montana or Texas. We are
where we are.”...
NEW DOCUMENTARY: "MORE THAN A PIPELINE"
5 WAYS TO WATCH THE COMPLETE FILM FOR FREE
SEE LINKS BELOW:
Documentary: More Than a Pipeline
Watch in English or in Dutch MoreThanAPipeline - 29 JUN 2017
We need your help! The making of the film 'More than a
pipeline' has cost us over €28.000,-
We made the film from our hearts and would love to make it
available online for free so as many people as possible around the
world learn about the suppression of the First Nations....
More Than a Pipeline, Documentary - English Version
by Robert Bridgeman, YouTube - 30 JUN 2017
We are grateful, humble and proud to announce the online
release of More than a pipeline. MORE THAN A PIPELINE is a story
about 500 years of suppression of the First Nations and how Standing
Rock is basically a next chapter in that story.
This is a 100% non- profit project that relies on donations
of viewers. The objective of the film is to increase global
awareness about the suppression of The First nations of the US and
other countries around the world. But also to show how they
resurrected and found back their identity.
A Word About Brenda
Norrell and Censored News Al Swilling, SENAA International - 14 FEB 2015 For those wondering why the vast majority of shared
posts on SENAA International's Web site and Facebook page are from
Brenda Norrell's Censored News, it's very simple—and very complex. For
many years, Brenda Norrell was a major journalist for (forgive me,
Brenda) Indian Country Today (ICT) until they censored Brenda's articles
and terminated her without cause. After leaving Indian Country Today,
Brenda created the appropriately
named Censored News.
While at
ICT, Brenda was a voice for the Dineh (Navajo) people at
Black Mesa, Arizona, where bed partners Peabody Coal and the BIA were trying to
forcibly remove Dineh residents from their ancestral homes in order to
strip mine the land of its coal. That greed took the form of a
contrived, fictional "land dispute" between Dineh' and Hopi....
Censored
News by Journalist & Publisher Brenda Norrell Censored News - 12 FEB 2015
Censored News was created in 2006 after staff reporter Brenda
Norrell was censored repeatedly, then terminated by Indian Country
Today. Now in its 9th year, with 3.7 million page views around the
world, Censored News is published with no advertising, grants or
sponsors.
Today, Censored News maintains a boycott of Indian Country Today,
whose reporters have relied on plagiarism of others' hard work for
years, instead of being present to cover news stories. Now, with a
collective of writers, Censored News focuses on Indigenous Peoples and
human rights.
www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Please Donate to and Support this important voice for Indigenous
people and human rights. --Al Swilling, Founder, SENAA International
FIXED:
Hyperlinks Won't Open in Outlook 2003 Installed on Windows 10 Error Message: "This operation has
been canceled due to restrictions
in effect on this computer. Please contact your system
administrator." by Al Swilling, SENAA International
- 06 NOV 2017 THE PROBLEM:
In Windows 10, You open an email in Outlook 2003. You click
on a hyperlink in the email. The link does not open.
Instead, you get the following error message:
"This operation has been canceled due to
restrictions in effect on this computer. Please
contact your system administrator."
You do a search for a solution, but none of the solutions
work for you....
THE SOLUTION:
The solution to this problem is a simple, two-step process,
and involves modification of one, possibly two,
registry key Default values....
TUTORIAL
LSO MANAGEMENT: What They Are
and What to Do About Them SENAA International - 16 FEB 2010
Introduction
The computing public is becoming increasingly aware
of the existence of Local Shared Objects (LSOs),
also called "Flash cookies" or "Persistent
Identification Elements" (PIEs), the dangers they
pose, and the unethical ways that they are placed on
our machines. LSOs are the busybodies of the
Internet, sticking their
noses in your personal
business at every opportunity without
your knowledge or consent; and like most
busybodies, they're being found out.
With growing public awareness of LSOs comes a growing
demand for effective, real time control of them. Most
LSO management solutions offer management or deletion of
LSOs after potentially malicious ones have had time to
do their damage. Stand-alone LSO management utilities do
not offer real time protection, either. This tutorial
provides real-time management of LSOs....
IF YOU DON'T KNOW YOUR
CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, LEARN THEM! READ THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
AND THE BILL OF RIGHTS!
Transcripts of the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of
Rights (1st 10 amendments), and other Constitutional Amendments for your
perusal. A public service endeavor of SENAA International.
The PATRIOT Act's Impact on Your Rights - ACLU
The
ACLU’s National Security Project is dedicated to ensuring
that U.S. national security policies and practices are
consistent with the Constitution, civil liberties, and human
rights.
