by Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill
The Nation magazine, November 16, 1998
We're more likely to see other companies as collaborators rather than adversaries.... We aren't so much competing with each other as we are competing with the earth. And maybe that s a healthy way to look at it. -George Kirkland Chairman & managing director, Chevron Nigeria Limited
The Niger Delta is on fire.
The explosion of a gas pipeline in Nigeria's oil-producing region in October killed more than 700 people. It is also fueling the rage of millions in the delta who want an end to the pollution caused by the oil companies and compensation for their oil-rich land. A third of the country's oil production has been shut down by unprecedented acts of resistance, infuriating transnational oil corporations and their Nigerian military business partners.
Three years after Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution for exposing the relationship between Shell and the regime, it has come to light that US oil giant Chevron played a major role in the killing of two delta activists earlier this year. The corporation facilitated an attack by the feared Nigerian Navy and notorious Mobile Police on a group of people from a delta village called Ilajeland who had occupied one of Chevron's offshore drilling facilities.
Among their demands: clean drinking water, electricity, environmental reparations, employment and scholarships for young people.
On May 28, after occupying the facility for three days, villagers thought they were waiting for Chevron's final response to their demands when helicopters swooped down. "We were looking at these helicopters thinking...people inside these helicopters might have been Chevron's reps who are actually coming to dialogue," said one of the activists, known as Parrere. "They were about to land when we heard shooting of tear gas and guns." The Nigerian military shot to death two protesters, Jola Ogungbeje and Aroleka Irowaninu, critically wounded a third man, Larry Bowato, and injured as many as thirty others. Bowato says, "When they shot these guys, I was rushing there to rescue [them]...it is then they shot me."
Responding to inquiries from Human Rights Watch in London following the attack, Chevron consistently claimed it; action against the occupation was to call the federal authorities and tell them what was happening. But in a startling admission during a recent three-hour interview with Pacifica Radio's daily national newsmagazine Democracy Now! Chevron spokesperson Sola Omole admitted that the company had in fact transported the Nigerian soldiers to the facility.
Q: Who took them in, on Thursday morning, the Mobile Police, the Navy?
Omole: We did. We did. Chevron did. We took them there.
Q: By how?
Omole: Helicopters. Yes, we took them in.
Q: Who authorized the call for the military to come in?
Omole: That's Chevron's management.
Following the interview conducted in Nigeria, Pacifica requested further comment from Chevron's headquarters in San Francisco. Michael Libbey, the company's manager of media relations, wrote the network a letter stating that Sola Omole's comments "fully represent the views of both our Nigerian business unit and of Chevron."
Chevron's acting head of security in Nigeria, James Neku, admitted he flew in with the military the day of the attack. He further revealed that the naval attack force included members of the Mobile Police, known as the "Kill 'n' Go." Niger Delta environmental lawyer Oronto Douglas says, "The Kill 'n' Go shoot without question, they kill, they maim, they rape, they destroy." Douglas was one of the lawyers for Ken Saro-Wiwa, who exposed the brutal record of the Kill 'n' Go in Ogoniland.
Chevron spokesperson Omole concedes that the villagers were unarmed. "I cannot say they came armed," he said. "There was talk of local charms and all that, but that's neither here nor there." Pushed further on whether the protesters came on board with weapons, his answer was
"No."
Chevron contends that when the helicopters landed on a barge at the facility, the soldiers got out and issued a warning. Villagers say there was no warning, that the soldiers simply started shooting. After the shooting incident, eleven activists were held in a barge shipping container for hours and then jailed for three weeks. Bola Oyinbo says that during his imprisonment he was handcuffed and hung from a ceiling-fan hook for hours for refusing to sign a statement written by Nigerian authorities that stated the protesters had destroyed a helicopter.
Among the villagers, it is a fact of life that the Nigerian military serves as a hired gun for the transnational oil companies in the delta. But most oil companies do not want to admit this. When asked who paid the military, Chevron spokesperson Omole said' "Those guys were working for the contractor; I guess you have to ask the contractor that." But Bill Spencer, area manager of ETPM, the company that leased the barge to Chevron, said this was not true. "They were not ours. They were paid. They were supplied by Chevron all of them. Everybody that was out there."
Following the broadcast of the Pacifica program, US Chevron spokesman Libbey described Spencer's comments as "ambiguous" and said, "We categorically deny we paid a dime to any law-enforcement-agency representative."
The Berkeley-based corporate watchdog Project Underground a campaign against Chevron, its San Francisco neighbor Oronto Douglas, the Niger Delta lawyer, says he is continuing filing a lawsuit in the United States against Chevron on behalf of the victims of the attack. "It is very clear that Chevron, like Shell, uses the military to protect its oil activities," he says. "They drill, and they kill."
In addition to his legal work, Douglas is founder of Chicoco, a pan-Delta resistance movement calling on Washington to impose an oil embargo on the Nigerian regime. The United States buys nearly half of all Nigeria's oil and has its own corporate -government alliance. As Steve Lauterbach, the spokesperson for the US Embassy in Nigeria, says, it is the policy of the embassy to support American companies and their operations abroad."
Ultimately, Oronto Douglas wants the transnational oil companies out, and an end to forty years of support for the world's greatest oil kleptocracy.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Transnational_corps/DrillingKilling_OilNigeria.html
Showing posts with label Corp Greed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corp Greed. Show all posts
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Sometimes, the little guy wins against the big company
And it happened tonight down in South Boston!
Barry Tuck had been fighting Verizon Wireless for four months over his bill. With the changeover from Alltel to Verizon, his bill had climbed to over $800. Every time he called them, he’d get no answer to his problem. Verizon had no sympathy for him and disconnected his service. So, what’s one person going to do against a big company?
Barry had an idea. He headed out on a mission, armed with a piece of plywood and can of spray paint. What did he do?
When he told me of his plan, I thought he was nuts. I thought I was going to get a story of either a guy arrested for civil disobedience or a story about a guy getting ran over on Halifax Rd. Turns out I’m writing a story about a guy who get exactly what he wanted.
After being confronted by Verizon store management, Barry stood his ground and said he was doing nothing illegal by standing on the public right-of-way and holding a sign. Store management even tried to take the sign and threatened to call the police. Barry didn’t back down. On the next visit out to him, the manager asked “What’s the problem?”. They talked and the manager went back inside. Barry did the right thing and took his sign down while Verizon worked on his bill. On the next visit out, Barry’s bill was taken care of and his phone was reconnected.
Well done, Barry Tuck. Congratulations on taking a stand and getting what you wanted.
http://www.southsidecentral.com/wordpress/2009/09/21/sometimes-the-little-guy-wins-against-the-big-company/
Barry Tuck had been fighting Verizon Wireless for four months over his bill. With the changeover from Alltel to Verizon, his bill had climbed to over $800. Every time he called them, he’d get no answer to his problem. Verizon had no sympathy for him and disconnected his service. So, what’s one person going to do against a big company?
Barry had an idea. He headed out on a mission, armed with a piece of plywood and can of spray paint. What did he do?
When he told me of his plan, I thought he was nuts. I thought I was going to get a story of either a guy arrested for civil disobedience or a story about a guy getting ran over on Halifax Rd. Turns out I’m writing a story about a guy who get exactly what he wanted.
After being confronted by Verizon store management, Barry stood his ground and said he was doing nothing illegal by standing on the public right-of-way and holding a sign. Store management even tried to take the sign and threatened to call the police. Barry didn’t back down. On the next visit out to him, the manager asked “What’s the problem?”. They talked and the manager went back inside. Barry did the right thing and took his sign down while Verizon worked on his bill. On the next visit out, Barry’s bill was taken care of and his phone was reconnected.
Well done, Barry Tuck. Congratulations on taking a stand and getting what you wanted.
http://www.southsidecentral.com/wordpress/2009/09/21/sometimes-the-little-guy-wins-against-the-big-company/
Saturday, September 19, 2009
“The Informant!,” A Corporate Culture Cornfed on Greed
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: September 18, 2009
If you want to know why Steven Soderbergh tapped Marvin Hamlisch to write the zany score for “The Informant!,” a deadly serious comedy about corporate malfeasance, consider the title’s exclamation point. Like that unexpected mark of exuberance, which hints at fun times (yippee!), the brassy horns and racing piano notes of the neo-slapstick score — think of “Laugh-In,” “Bananas” and Benny Hill — initially suggest that Mr. Soderbergh has put on his party hat and broken out the kazoo. Except that he isn’t laughing, or at least not all the way through. The story he tells is too maddening for sustained mirth, so he kills the jokes, with a vengeance.
Notably, there’s no punctuation mark in the title of Kurt Eichenwald’s book “The Informant: A True Story,” though there might as well be.
A real-life whodunit and why, it recounts the strange tale of Mark Whitacre, a biochemist and executive who, starting in the early 1990s, supplied the Federal Bureau of Investigation with hundreds of tapes that implicated his firm, Archer Daniels Midland, in a global price-fixing scheme.
Known as the supermarket to the world, A.D.M. manufactures, among many other products, the kinds of ingredients that invariably show up in tiny print on the labels of almost everything we eat, mystery matter like lecithin, sorbitol and xanthan gum. It also produces lysine, an amino acid given to feedlot cattle and other livestock.
Lysine proved to be the downfall of A.D.M., or rather its very costly mistake, though that’s getting ahead of the secrets and lies of this movie, which opens with Mark (Matt Damon) waxing philosophical about corn. Over a series of elegant, uncluttered, precisely framed, softly lighted images that are representative of the movie’s visual design, he expounds on the remarkable diversity of corn, the wonder starch. It’s amazing stuff, all righty, he explains in his characteristic intimate voice-over, the words rushing and gushing, unwinding in unbroken if sometimes tangled threads. You then see him talking up corn to one of his sons, first over a meal and then in a red Porsche zipping down the road, an image Mr. Soderbergh briefly flips upside down.
This shot, while it might be mistaken for a filmmaker’s fillip, introduces the topsy-turvy world Mark enters as soon as he steps into the office, where he strides through the sterile headquarters accompanied by his own jaunty theme music. Gently plumped, with a mouth-breather’s slack smile, he looks like an overgrown baby and is, if a generously paid one.
A biochemist and the company’s youngest vice president, he earns a salary hefty enough to stuff a garage with sports cars and cram a large house with all the ugly knickknacks and furniture money can buy. He’s living high on the hog making supplements for hogs. When he stands on his manicured lawn seemingly deep in thought, he looks every overfed inch like the American dream.
It’s the cost of that dream that Mr. Soderbergh takes stock of in this smart, cynical movie about how we buy now — oops, I mean, how we live now.
Money makes the world go ’round in “The Informant!,” much as it does everywhere and much as it most certainly does in his previous movie, “
This time, though, Mr. Soderbergh has trained his focus and expertly wielded digital camera on the other side of the buy-and-sell equation, on the men in suits who fly in corporate planes, nursing drinks while they chortle about the breasts of their female employees. These are masters of our universe, the big little men who control and distort world markets.
Mr. Whitacre rose swiftly through their ranks until he took a detour into the wilderness.
The extreme nature of that turn isn’t immediately evident in the movie, a masterwork of narrative compression that the screenwriter Scott Z. Burns distilled from the book’s some 600 detailed pages. (Mr. Eichenwald covered the story for The New York Times.) You’ll never miss a thing. Like Mr. Soderbergh, Mr. Burns (“The Bourne Ultimatum”) doesn’t appear to have much use for narrative fat. And so they rapidly move Mark into position and just as quickly bring in the F.B.I. agents, Shephard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale), who, after wiring up Mark’s body and briefcase, become so touchingly protective of him that they carry around a photo of his family.
In time the agents sour on their cooperating witness, a grudging metamorphosis that parallels your own. Mr. Damon’s inherent likeability makes him something of a Trojan horse here, not only because he’s a star (and therefore beloved by definition), but also because he’s so boyish no matter the part. That’s true even in “The Informant!,” though he’s been gleefully uglied up for the role with a fake bulbous nose and real pudge. Mr. Damon’s physical choices tell you a lot about the character long before the truth seeps out.
As does Mark’s tendency to drift into banalities in the voice-over — he natters on about ties, polar bears and butterflies while the scandal unfolds — a brilliant screenwriting device that hints at an inner duality.
Something was surely off about Mark, though he and even A.D.M. were really symptoms of a greater disease — greed, corruption, name your capitalist vice — that was eating away at the country, until it popped bubbles, forced millions out of work and plunged the United States into the economic abyss.
In films like “Erin Brockovich” and “Traffic” Mr. Soderbergh has so successfully sexed up the social-issue picture, casting stars as crusading cops and bodacious do-gooders, that it’s been easy to diminish or simply ignore the passion of his commitment. That passion has been more overt in his last two efforts, “The Girlfriend Experience” and “Che,” his epic account of the revolutions won and lost by Che Guevara. In this movie it rages.
For all the silly walks and comic cameos, anger fuels “The Informant!,” giving it its pulse and reason for being. Anger inspires its giggles, forces its tears and might even explain the fiery orange that colors so many faces, as if this world and its people were on the verge of immolation.
Like all of Mr. Soderbergh’s movies, this one can be appreciated on purely formal terms, for the clarity of its images and the economy of the storytelling.
But it is Mr. Soderbergh’s insistence on seeing the A.D.M. scandal as a collective tragedy rather than as another white-collar crime that gives the movie force, resonance, feeling. In the face of such corruption perhaps only laughter will do: after all, for a while now the joke has most definitely been on us.
“The Informant!” is rated R. (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.) Characters are guilty of at least three of the seven deadly sins, none remotely sexy.
THE INFORMANT!
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald; edited by Stephen Mirrione; music by Marvin Hamlisch; production designer, Doug Meerdink; produced by Gregory Jacobs, Jennifer Fox, Michael Jaffe, Howard Braunstein and Mr. Eichenwald; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick
by the film reviewers of The Times.
Warner Brothers Pictures
Matt Damon in "The Informant."
September 18, 2009
A Corporate Culture Cornfed on Greed
WITH: Matt Damon (Mark Whitacre), Scott Bakula (Agent Brian Shepard), Joel McHale (Bob Herndon) and Melanie Lynskey (Ginger Whitacre).
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/movies/18informant.html?th&emc=th
Published: September 18, 2009
If you want to know why Steven Soderbergh tapped Marvin Hamlisch to write the zany score for “The Informant!,” a deadly serious comedy about corporate malfeasance, consider the title’s exclamation point. Like that unexpected mark of exuberance, which hints at fun times (yippee!), the brassy horns and racing piano notes of the neo-slapstick score — think of “Laugh-In,” “Bananas” and Benny Hill — initially suggest that Mr. Soderbergh has put on his party hat and broken out the kazoo. Except that he isn’t laughing, or at least not all the way through. The story he tells is too maddening for sustained mirth, so he kills the jokes, with a vengeance.
Notably, there’s no punctuation mark in the title of Kurt Eichenwald’s book “The Informant: A True Story,” though there might as well be.
A real-life whodunit and why, it recounts the strange tale of Mark Whitacre, a biochemist and executive who, starting in the early 1990s, supplied the Federal Bureau of Investigation with hundreds of tapes that implicated his firm, Archer Daniels Midland, in a global price-fixing scheme.
Known as the supermarket to the world, A.D.M. manufactures, among many other products, the kinds of ingredients that invariably show up in tiny print on the labels of almost everything we eat, mystery matter like lecithin, sorbitol and xanthan gum. It also produces lysine, an amino acid given to feedlot cattle and other livestock.
Lysine proved to be the downfall of A.D.M., or rather its very costly mistake, though that’s getting ahead of the secrets and lies of this movie, which opens with Mark (Matt Damon) waxing philosophical about corn. Over a series of elegant, uncluttered, precisely framed, softly lighted images that are representative of the movie’s visual design, he expounds on the remarkable diversity of corn, the wonder starch. It’s amazing stuff, all righty, he explains in his characteristic intimate voice-over, the words rushing and gushing, unwinding in unbroken if sometimes tangled threads. You then see him talking up corn to one of his sons, first over a meal and then in a red Porsche zipping down the road, an image Mr. Soderbergh briefly flips upside down.
This shot, while it might be mistaken for a filmmaker’s fillip, introduces the topsy-turvy world Mark enters as soon as he steps into the office, where he strides through the sterile headquarters accompanied by his own jaunty theme music. Gently plumped, with a mouth-breather’s slack smile, he looks like an overgrown baby and is, if a generously paid one.
A biochemist and the company’s youngest vice president, he earns a salary hefty enough to stuff a garage with sports cars and cram a large house with all the ugly knickknacks and furniture money can buy. He’s living high on the hog making supplements for hogs. When he stands on his manicured lawn seemingly deep in thought, he looks every overfed inch like the American dream.
It’s the cost of that dream that Mr. Soderbergh takes stock of in this smart, cynical movie about how we buy now — oops, I mean, how we live now.
Money makes the world go ’round in “The Informant!,” much as it does everywhere and much as it most certainly does in his previous movie, “
This time, though, Mr. Soderbergh has trained his focus and expertly wielded digital camera on the other side of the buy-and-sell equation, on the men in suits who fly in corporate planes, nursing drinks while they chortle about the breasts of their female employees. These are masters of our universe, the big little men who control and distort world markets.
Mr. Whitacre rose swiftly through their ranks until he took a detour into the wilderness.
The extreme nature of that turn isn’t immediately evident in the movie, a masterwork of narrative compression that the screenwriter Scott Z. Burns distilled from the book’s some 600 detailed pages. (Mr. Eichenwald covered the story for The New York Times.) You’ll never miss a thing. Like Mr. Soderbergh, Mr. Burns (“The Bourne Ultimatum”) doesn’t appear to have much use for narrative fat. And so they rapidly move Mark into position and just as quickly bring in the F.B.I. agents, Shephard (Scott Bakula) and Herndon (Joel McHale), who, after wiring up Mark’s body and briefcase, become so touchingly protective of him that they carry around a photo of his family.
In time the agents sour on their cooperating witness, a grudging metamorphosis that parallels your own. Mr. Damon’s inherent likeability makes him something of a Trojan horse here, not only because he’s a star (and therefore beloved by definition), but also because he’s so boyish no matter the part. That’s true even in “The Informant!,” though he’s been gleefully uglied up for the role with a fake bulbous nose and real pudge. Mr. Damon’s physical choices tell you a lot about the character long before the truth seeps out.
As does Mark’s tendency to drift into banalities in the voice-over — he natters on about ties, polar bears and butterflies while the scandal unfolds — a brilliant screenwriting device that hints at an inner duality.
Something was surely off about Mark, though he and even A.D.M. were really symptoms of a greater disease — greed, corruption, name your capitalist vice — that was eating away at the country, until it popped bubbles, forced millions out of work and plunged the United States into the economic abyss.
In films like “Erin Brockovich” and “Traffic” Mr. Soderbergh has so successfully sexed up the social-issue picture, casting stars as crusading cops and bodacious do-gooders, that it’s been easy to diminish or simply ignore the passion of his commitment. That passion has been more overt in his last two efforts, “The Girlfriend Experience” and “Che,” his epic account of the revolutions won and lost by Che Guevara. In this movie it rages.
For all the silly walks and comic cameos, anger fuels “The Informant!,” giving it its pulse and reason for being. Anger inspires its giggles, forces its tears and might even explain the fiery orange that colors so many faces, as if this world and its people were on the verge of immolation.
Like all of Mr. Soderbergh’s movies, this one can be appreciated on purely formal terms, for the clarity of its images and the economy of the storytelling.
But it is Mr. Soderbergh’s insistence on seeing the A.D.M. scandal as a collective tragedy rather than as another white-collar crime that gives the movie force, resonance, feeling. In the face of such corruption perhaps only laughter will do: after all, for a while now the joke has most definitely been on us.
“The Informant!” is rated R. (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.) Characters are guilty of at least three of the seven deadly sins, none remotely sexy.
THE INFORMANT!
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald; edited by Stephen Mirrione; music by Marvin Hamlisch; production designer, Doug Meerdink; produced by Gregory Jacobs, Jennifer Fox, Michael Jaffe, Howard Braunstein and Mr. Eichenwald; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick
by the film reviewers of The Times.
Warner Brothers Pictures
Matt Damon in "The Informant."
September 18, 2009
A Corporate Culture Cornfed on Greed
WITH: Matt Damon (Mark Whitacre), Scott Bakula (Agent Brian Shepard), Joel McHale (Bob Herndon) and Melanie Lynskey (Ginger Whitacre).
http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/movies/18informant.html?th&emc=th
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
What Would Uranium Mining Mean? written by Shireen Parsons - Response to Parsons' letter/Response to Dillon's letter
Comment: Please review three letters listed below, the first letter is called: "What Would Uranium Mining Mean?" by Shireen, the second letter Nuke Dude title: " Response to Parsons' (letter 2) and finally Shireen's letter :Response to Dillon's letter (Letter No. 3) .
Thanks Shireen for all the letters!
Response to Dillon's letter (letter 3)
Sep 15, 2009 - 05:17:43 pm CDT
In his September 8 "Response to Parsons' letter," J. Carrington Dillon launched a laughable ad hominem attack on me and on the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, for which I am the Virginia community organizer. It seems that my own commentary about how uranium mining in Virginia would impact communities and the environment downstream in North Carolina has him hopping mad.
According to Dillon, I have a "total disregard for factual information, my "claims" are "ridiculous," I employ "unjustifiable fear tactics" and "completely made-up and baseless facts" (how can a fact be made-up and/or baseless?), and that I'm "grossly unqualified to even participate in this dialog." My goodness! And he describes the Legal Defense Fund as "a group of radical environmental class-action lawyers" and says that I said our goal is to "seize local governing authority."
Whew! Where to start? First, to set the record straight, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit, community interest law firm that provides free and low-cost legal services to communities threatened by corporate assaults, such as mining, land-application of sewage sludge, toxic waste dumps, factory farming.... We assist our partner communities to prevent such corporate assaults by asserting their inherent local governing authority and enacting binding local laws banning specific corporate activities. More than 120 communities in a growing number of states - including Virginia - have enacted such local laws, and have prevented the corporate assaults that threatened them. We don't have to "seize" local governing authority - our federal and state constitutions affirm it. We simply have to wield it. If we don't have democracy in the communities where we live, where on Earth do we have it?
With regard to my statements about the catastrophic impacts of uranium mining on environmental and human health, I and a growing number of Virginia residents have researched those impacts on communities and the environment around the world thoroughly enough to debate anyone on this subject - anyone who has access to the internet can do this. And we all know for a fact that, everywhere in the world where they've operated, uranium mining corporations have contaminated the air, water and soil with heavy metals and radioactive materials, some of which persist in the environment for 4.5 billion years, and that, here in the US, it's been done with the blessing of our federal and state regulatory agencies. If Dillon has evidence of one exception to that statement, I invite him to provide it.
And, yes, Virginia Uranium Inc. is, indeed, wholly owned by Canadian corporations.
Now, whenever I'm subjected to an ad hominem attack, I consider the source. Who is J. Carrington Dillon, and what motivated his angry response to my commentary?
J. Carrington Dillon is a structural engineer for AREVA, a multi-billion-dollar, multinational mega-corporation primarily owned by the French government. According to its corporate website, AREVA is "ranked first in the global nuclear power industry." Dillon's AREVA job description also includes creating and managing Clean Energy Insight (www.cleanenergyinsight.org), a propaganda tool for the nuclear industry.
And what kind of corporate footprint does AREVA have on the environment and human communities where it operates? According to Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), the humanitarian news and analysis service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in Niger, for example, mining operations, owned and operated by AREVA in partnership with the Nigerian government, have contaminated the air, soil and water, resulting in sickness and death for local residents, and have depleted regional groundwater supplies.
And the Paris-based Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD), which specializes in the analysis of radioactivity in the environment, found "serious lapses" in and near AREVA mining sites in Niger. In 2005, CRIIRAD environmental studies found water radiation levels in mining communities up to 110 times higher than the World Health Organization safe drinking water standards for industrial areas. You can read about AREVA's mining impacts in Niger at www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=83706.
Uranium mining corporations profit from environmental devastation and human suffering wherever they operate. J. Carrington Dillon is one of their minions. Consider the source.
Shireen Parsons
Virginia Community Organizer
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
(Nuke response to Shireen's first letter, listed below: "What Would Uranium Mining Mean?"
Response to Parsons' letter (Letter No. 2)
Sep 08, 2009 - 06:47:26 pm CDT I recently read an opinion piece published in the Caswell Messenger titled "What Would Uranium Mining Mean?" written by Shireen Parsons (8/18/09). From the first sentence, I was insulted by Ms. Parsons' total disregard for factual information. Considering my personal and professional background, I felt obligated to provide the readers of the Caswell Messenger a response to Ms. Parsons' ridiculous claims.
I was raised in Ridgeway, Va., and actually spent a couple of my summers playing Dixie Youth baseball in Yanceyville. I grew up witnessing the economic struggles of the Piedmont. I've had family and friends lose their jobs as local textile and furniture mills packed up shop in the past decade or so, and I see possible uranium mining activities as an opportunity for the Piedmont to regain an economic foothold.
I now reside in Charlotte and work in the nuclear engineering field. The people of the Piedmont are important to me, to who I am as an individual and a professional. I feel that they are entitled to the truth from a person who is at least qualified to provide it.
Ms. Parsons is an organizer for the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund a group of radical environmental class-action lawyers whose goal, according to Ms. Parsons "is to seize local governing authority." (Danville Register & Bee, April 2009) With dishonest statements like these, Ms. Parsons has lost all credibility and respect from even local opponents of Virginia Uranium Inc.
It is important to address local concerns when it comes to uranium mining. But it is also important to address these concerns with facts and not unjustifiable fear tactics. The truth is that facts are stubborn things. By providing nothing but completely made-up and baseless facts in her letter, Ms. Parson proved herself to be grossly unqualified to even participate in this dialogue. What I can offer is a personal concern for the safety and economic prosperity of the local communities and the credibility to do so with facts.
Currently, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission is working with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an independent 18-month study to address concerns of Virginians about safety and economic impacts. This study is being paid for by Virginia Uranium Inc., as opposed to taxpayers and was endorsed recently by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu during a trip to Virginia in which he addressed concerns that have been raised about uranium mining in the area. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, stated that in "any kind of mining, whether it's uranium, coal or nickel, or you name it, it has to be done in a way that protects the environment and protects the people. There's a study going on as to whether uranium mining in Virginia is going to do that we will wait for the results of that study."
In order to provide fact-based information, I would like to shortly address some of Ms. Parson's statements from her letter:
1. "Uranium mining has never been done safely anywhere in the world. It cannot be done safely."
This couldn't be any further from the truth. Uranium mining is closely regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in addition to state-level regulation authorities like the Virginia Department of Mining, Minerals and Energy.
There are many federal laws and regulations that provide these government agencies with the ability to ensure safe operations. In fact, since these federal regulations came into effect in 1980, there have been zero uranium mining incidents in the U.S.
2. "(Virginia Uranium Inc.) a US corporation, wholly owned by Canadian Corporations."
Actually, 75% of VUI is owned by the Coles and Bowen families (landowners) from Pittsylvania County. 25% is owned by a Canadian company. Furthermore, the Coles and Bowen families have made it clear that they will not proceed with operations in their backyards until it is ensured that local communities will benefit from uranium mining operations.
3. Ms. Parsons has stated that the Cole's Hill uranium mine would cover an absolutely "huge" amount of land. In her article, Ms. Parsons states that "the Cole's Hill uranium mine would cover an area equal to 55 city blocks."
The Coles and Bowen property is approximately 3,000 acres. Ms. Parsons says that 55 city blocks, or about 220 acres will be mined (about the same size of the Danville Piedmont Mall). This means that only 7 percent of the property will be mined. "Huge" is a subjective term, but law states that the mine must be restored after mining has ended, so it seems to be sort of a moot point anyway.
4. "The radioactive contaminants persist in the environment anywhere from hundreds of thousands of years to four billion years."
Although no studies exist to prove her figures to be accurate, Ms. Parsons is likely attempting to use data from radioactive waste coming from enriched uranium used in a nuclear reactor. The uranium taken from the mine will be naturally occuring, not enriched, and will not have been put through a fission reactor. Uranium in its natural form also exists in things like seawater, granite counter tops, and dirt. We come in contact with it everyday of our lives.
5. "What (VUI) doesn't tell us is that the purpose of our federal and state regulatory agencies is not to protect the environment and human health. Rather, their purpose is to permit corporations to destroy the landscape, contaminate the environment and degrade human health
This is simply an outrageous statement and even publishing it is questionable.
6. "There is absolutely no doubt that the Bannister and all waterways downstream would be contaminated"
If there is "no doubt," then why is the National Academy of Sciences even attempting to conduct a study into whether uranium mining can be done safely at Cole's Hill?
7. Ms. Parsons also makes several general comments about radiation effects on the local area from uranium mining activities.
Aside from Ms. Parsons' statements being absolutely imaginary, studies completed to determine radiation effects from uranium mining do not back up her claims. A 1980 study completed by the NRC concluded that a person living beside a "cluster" of uranium mines for 15 years will receive an effective radiation dose of 41 millirem. A common chest x-ray at a general physician's office will give you 40 millirem of radiation. Think about that one.
The one thing that Ms. Parsons is correct about in her letter is that the U.S. Constitution guarantees people the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that would come from guaranteed economic prosperity in the form of 500 high-paying jobs. Why should "small-town folk" allow an outside organization like the CELDF come in and stifle economic growth in the name of their own personal agenda?
Imagine a new industry being able to come into the Piedmont and do something that has not been done in quite a while - provide 500 jobs and healthy local spending that stimulates the local economy. Hopefully, the National Academy of Sciences study will conclude that uranium mining at Cole's Hill can be done safely and that the Piedmont can look forward to the ensuing economic growth. Until the study is completed, no one should jump to conclusions by subjecting themselves to radical myths and actions peddled by people like Ms. Parsons and the CELDF.
J Carrington Dillon
Charlotte, NC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments:
Karen wrote on Sep 10, 2009 6:03 PM:
" Someone as tightly connected to the nuclear industry (Areva) as Mr. Dillon is would have to take this position. In this country regulatory agencies have not protected the inhabitants of areas where uranium mining has taken place. The post-mining contamination from tailings, (the residue left from rock and soil after uranium is extracted) exists in U.S. In the western U.S. are contaminated areas that will never be made right. People in our western states are fighting at a grass roots level to keep their land from being made uninhabitable. They are starting with their local governments because rarely does the State want to step in. Big money talks, and Mr. Dillon's affiliation can be found at the following address: www.linkedin.com/in/jcarringtondillon. Right here in Caswell there is a toxic waste dump on Dowdy Lane off Rte. 86 that has been condemned by the EPA and designated a Superfund site. It is not being cleaned up as there is no cleanup money in the Superfund. And there are not enough people screaming about it to move the government.
Would Mr. Dillon label the people of West Virginia radical as he has Ms. Parsons group? Are they radical because they protest their homes rendered worthless, their health jeopardized, their communities flooded, and their children's schools made unsafe by toxic mining sludge? All from mountain top removal mining which blasts off the tops of the mountains, clogging mountain streams and ruining the environment. Why is mining done this way? Because it is more profitable for the corporations indulging in this practice. There is no government agency rushing to the aid of all those whose lives are affected. Look up the track record of Massey Corp. and see what they have done to West Virginia. Then think of the consequences of big money, high contamination, and lack of government intervention. The uranium mining industry has been curtailed in Canada because of the damage done there. Virginia Uranium Inc. does have a large Canadian contingent onboard. The company has a Toronto stock exchange listing. There are many corporation names at this point, holding companies, and more twists and turns in the history of VU Inc. than I can relate. And that is what this company is counting on. That no one will figure it all out. Few people will take the time to do the research to discover how dangerous this venture is. The National Academy of Sciences study that is lulling people into a false sense of security will come back without a means to definitely form an opinion either pro or con. And that ambivalence will open the door. Unless there is resistance. How many people will do the research to discover what this proposal means? "
Doug wrote on Sep 9, 2009 12:48 PM:
" It's easy to label people whom you disagree with as radical, without presenting any evidence. This mining will contaminate the Danville area, not Charlotte. Now let's take a look at government regulators--will they do a better job than they did regulating the pig farms, and peanut butter maanufacturers? "
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Who will protect Virginia from uranium mining? (Letter No. 1)
By SHIREEN PARSONS
URANIUM MINING has never been done safely anywhere in the world. It cannot be done safely. Logically, that should end this discussion, but it will not, because a few individuals, shielded from liability behind Virginia Uranium Inc. — a U.S. corporation wholly owned by Canadian corporations — would reap huge profits from mining and milling uranium on more than 2,000 acres in rural Pittsylvania County.
The Coles Hill mine would be merely the first mine in eastern Virginia, as our entire Piedmont is strewn with uranium deposits, and Virginia Uranium’s corporate mandate is to explore and develop them. If, as it surely will, the legislature lifts the moratorium, the Piedmont would become a uranium mining corridor, just as Eastern Kentucky, Southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia are coal mining corridors.
As planned, the Coles Hill uranium mine would cover an area equal to 55 square city blocks and would be 800 feet deep. Through the blasting, extracting and crushing of uranium-bearing rock, all open-pit mines and their waste piles release into the environment heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and mercury, and radioactive materials.
The radioactive contaminants persist in the environment anywhere from hundreds of thousands of years to 4 billion years. They are taken up and retained by plants and animals, and they become part of the food chain forever. In animals and humans, the radioactive toxins cause lung, kidney and liver damage, cancers, leukemias and genetic mutations. In mammals, these contaminants are passed on to future generations in utero and via breast milk.
Once released into the environment, the heavy metals and radioactive contaminants travel great distances. Leached into ground and surface water in Pittsylvania County, they would contaminate the Roanoke River watershed to Virginia Beach, North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. The wind-borne particulates would travel thousands of miles — every way the wind blows — in a few days.
Virginia Uranium’s public relations team tells us that, this time, uranium mining would be done safely, because the mining and milling of uranium in Virginia would be according to a regulatory program developed by the Virginia Department of Mining, Minerals and Energy (DMME).
But monitoring and oversight by our regulatory agencies are inadequate to nonexistent. Since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, one-third of Americans live in areas with unhealthy ozone levels. Forty percent of our rivers, lakes and tributaries aren’t safe for swimming or fishing. Deforestation, excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers — and a 60 percent increase in the amount of refuse generated in the past 25 years — have further contaminated the soil and water.
Virginia's DMME presides over one of the most devastating mineral extraction processes in the world — mountaintop-removal coal mining, which, in the Appalachian coal states, has razed hundreds of thousands of acres of once-forested mountains, buried thousands of miles of streams under the rubble and destroyed hundreds of coalfield communities.. This is a legal activity permitted by the EPA and DMME. Can we rationally expect regulatory agencies to protect us from the catastrophic effects of uranium mining in Virginia?
Those who would profit from uranium mining in Virginia say it would be an economic boon, with jobs and money pouring into the economically depressed Piedmont region.. Virginia Uranium says miners would make $68,000 a year in a county where the 2000 median household income was $35,000, the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent and 12 percent of the population lived below the poverty line.
What the corporate spin fails to mention, however, is that hard-rock mining requires skilled labor, and that experienced miners would be imported from other states to earn those salaries and risk their health and lives. And that, wherever hard-rock mining occurs, surrounding communities become ghost towns and regional economies implode. The economic rewards are enjoyed only by the corporate owners and officers.
In Virginia’s Piedmont, as in all regions cursed with hard-rock mining, the blasting, heavy truck traffic, environmental contamination and impacts to human health would cause real property values to evaporate. Local businesses would shut down, and the regional economy would collapse outward in every direction. The Banister River, a source of Virginia Beach’s water, is less than a mile from the Coles Hill mine site, and there is absolutely no doubt that the Banister would be contaminated.
The relevant question, then, is who decides what Virginia communities look like, how safe they are, what quality of life they enjoy? Who decides whether the Virginia Piedmont and beyond will be sacrificed for a uranium mining corporation’s profits? Is it We, the People, or is it a handful of corporate executives, aided and abetted by the state legislature and regulatory agencies?
An ever-increasing number of citizens in Pittsylvania County and beyond, understanding the catastrophic effects uranium mining would wreak upon their communities and future generations, declare that they will not consent to this corporate assault, and that they will exercise their inherent local governing authority to enact binding local laws that will protect and preserve the health, safety and well-being of their communities and the ecosystem upon which all life depends.
Like Virginia Beach, the Town of Halifax is downstream from the planned uranium mine in Pittsylvania County. In February 2008, the Halifax Town Council voted unanimously to enact the Halifax Corporate Mining, Bodily Trespass and Community Self-Government Ordinance, drafted at the council’s request by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit law firm. The ordinance asserts the town’s inherent local governing authority bans mining within the town and criminalizes chemical and radioactive bodily trespass.
Halifax Town Council member Jack Dunavant said of the decision, “This is an historic vote. We, the people, intend to protect our health and environment from corporate assault. It’s time to invoke the Constitution and acknowledge the power of the people to protect our own destiny and end this era of corporate greed and pollution.â€
Citizens and elected officials of every community downstream and/or downwind from the planned Pittsylvania County mine site would do well to follow Halifax’s lead and exert their inherent governing authority to protect themselves.
Shireen Parsons is the Virginia organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Christiansburg.
http://caswellmessenger.com/articles/2009/09/09/opinion/opinion02.txt
Thanks Shireen for all the letters!
Response to Dillon's letter (letter 3)
Sep 15, 2009 - 05:17:43 pm CDT
In his September 8 "Response to Parsons' letter," J. Carrington Dillon launched a laughable ad hominem attack on me and on the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, for which I am the Virginia community organizer. It seems that my own commentary about how uranium mining in Virginia would impact communities and the environment downstream in North Carolina has him hopping mad.
According to Dillon, I have a "total disregard for factual information, my "claims" are "ridiculous," I employ "unjustifiable fear tactics" and "completely made-up and baseless facts" (how can a fact be made-up and/or baseless?), and that I'm "grossly unqualified to even participate in this dialog." My goodness! And he describes the Legal Defense Fund as "a group of radical environmental class-action lawyers" and says that I said our goal is to "seize local governing authority."
Whew! Where to start? First, to set the record straight, the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is a nonprofit, community interest law firm that provides free and low-cost legal services to communities threatened by corporate assaults, such as mining, land-application of sewage sludge, toxic waste dumps, factory farming.... We assist our partner communities to prevent such corporate assaults by asserting their inherent local governing authority and enacting binding local laws banning specific corporate activities. More than 120 communities in a growing number of states - including Virginia - have enacted such local laws, and have prevented the corporate assaults that threatened them. We don't have to "seize" local governing authority - our federal and state constitutions affirm it. We simply have to wield it. If we don't have democracy in the communities where we live, where on Earth do we have it?
With regard to my statements about the catastrophic impacts of uranium mining on environmental and human health, I and a growing number of Virginia residents have researched those impacts on communities and the environment around the world thoroughly enough to debate anyone on this subject - anyone who has access to the internet can do this. And we all know for a fact that, everywhere in the world where they've operated, uranium mining corporations have contaminated the air, water and soil with heavy metals and radioactive materials, some of which persist in the environment for 4.5 billion years, and that, here in the US, it's been done with the blessing of our federal and state regulatory agencies. If Dillon has evidence of one exception to that statement, I invite him to provide it.
And, yes, Virginia Uranium Inc. is, indeed, wholly owned by Canadian corporations.
Now, whenever I'm subjected to an ad hominem attack, I consider the source. Who is J. Carrington Dillon, and what motivated his angry response to my commentary?
J. Carrington Dillon is a structural engineer for AREVA, a multi-billion-dollar, multinational mega-corporation primarily owned by the French government. According to its corporate website, AREVA is "ranked first in the global nuclear power industry." Dillon's AREVA job description also includes creating and managing Clean Energy Insight (www.cleanenergyinsight.org), a propaganda tool for the nuclear industry.
And what kind of corporate footprint does AREVA have on the environment and human communities where it operates? According to Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), the humanitarian news and analysis service of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in Niger, for example, mining operations, owned and operated by AREVA in partnership with the Nigerian government, have contaminated the air, soil and water, resulting in sickness and death for local residents, and have depleted regional groundwater supplies.
And the Paris-based Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radioactivity (CRIIRAD), which specializes in the analysis of radioactivity in the environment, found "serious lapses" in and near AREVA mining sites in Niger. In 2005, CRIIRAD environmental studies found water radiation levels in mining communities up to 110 times higher than the World Health Organization safe drinking water standards for industrial areas. You can read about AREVA's mining impacts in Niger at www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=83706.
Uranium mining corporations profit from environmental devastation and human suffering wherever they operate. J. Carrington Dillon is one of their minions. Consider the source.
Shireen Parsons
Virginia Community Organizer
Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
(Nuke response to Shireen's first letter, listed below: "What Would Uranium Mining Mean?"
Response to Parsons' letter (Letter No. 2)
Sep 08, 2009 - 06:47:26 pm CDT I recently read an opinion piece published in the Caswell Messenger titled "What Would Uranium Mining Mean?" written by Shireen Parsons (8/18/09). From the first sentence, I was insulted by Ms. Parsons' total disregard for factual information. Considering my personal and professional background, I felt obligated to provide the readers of the Caswell Messenger a response to Ms. Parsons' ridiculous claims.
I was raised in Ridgeway, Va., and actually spent a couple of my summers playing Dixie Youth baseball in Yanceyville. I grew up witnessing the economic struggles of the Piedmont. I've had family and friends lose their jobs as local textile and furniture mills packed up shop in the past decade or so, and I see possible uranium mining activities as an opportunity for the Piedmont to regain an economic foothold.
I now reside in Charlotte and work in the nuclear engineering field. The people of the Piedmont are important to me, to who I am as an individual and a professional. I feel that they are entitled to the truth from a person who is at least qualified to provide it.
Ms. Parsons is an organizer for the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund a group of radical environmental class-action lawyers whose goal, according to Ms. Parsons "is to seize local governing authority." (Danville Register & Bee, April 2009) With dishonest statements like these, Ms. Parsons has lost all credibility and respect from even local opponents of Virginia Uranium Inc.
It is important to address local concerns when it comes to uranium mining. But it is also important to address these concerns with facts and not unjustifiable fear tactics. The truth is that facts are stubborn things. By providing nothing but completely made-up and baseless facts in her letter, Ms. Parson proved herself to be grossly unqualified to even participate in this dialogue. What I can offer is a personal concern for the safety and economic prosperity of the local communities and the credibility to do so with facts.
Currently, the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission is working with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an independent 18-month study to address concerns of Virginians about safety and economic impacts. This study is being paid for by Virginia Uranium Inc., as opposed to taxpayers and was endorsed recently by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu during a trip to Virginia in which he addressed concerns that have been raised about uranium mining in the area. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, stated that in "any kind of mining, whether it's uranium, coal or nickel, or you name it, it has to be done in a way that protects the environment and protects the people. There's a study going on as to whether uranium mining in Virginia is going to do that we will wait for the results of that study."
In order to provide fact-based information, I would like to shortly address some of Ms. Parson's statements from her letter:
1. "Uranium mining has never been done safely anywhere in the world. It cannot be done safely."
This couldn't be any further from the truth. Uranium mining is closely regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in addition to state-level regulation authorities like the Virginia Department of Mining, Minerals and Energy.
There are many federal laws and regulations that provide these government agencies with the ability to ensure safe operations. In fact, since these federal regulations came into effect in 1980, there have been zero uranium mining incidents in the U.S.
2. "(Virginia Uranium Inc.) a US corporation, wholly owned by Canadian Corporations."
Actually, 75% of VUI is owned by the Coles and Bowen families (landowners) from Pittsylvania County. 25% is owned by a Canadian company. Furthermore, the Coles and Bowen families have made it clear that they will not proceed with operations in their backyards until it is ensured that local communities will benefit from uranium mining operations.
3. Ms. Parsons has stated that the Cole's Hill uranium mine would cover an absolutely "huge" amount of land. In her article, Ms. Parsons states that "the Cole's Hill uranium mine would cover an area equal to 55 city blocks."
The Coles and Bowen property is approximately 3,000 acres. Ms. Parsons says that 55 city blocks, or about 220 acres will be mined (about the same size of the Danville Piedmont Mall). This means that only 7 percent of the property will be mined. "Huge" is a subjective term, but law states that the mine must be restored after mining has ended, so it seems to be sort of a moot point anyway.
4. "The radioactive contaminants persist in the environment anywhere from hundreds of thousands of years to four billion years."
Although no studies exist to prove her figures to be accurate, Ms. Parsons is likely attempting to use data from radioactive waste coming from enriched uranium used in a nuclear reactor. The uranium taken from the mine will be naturally occuring, not enriched, and will not have been put through a fission reactor. Uranium in its natural form also exists in things like seawater, granite counter tops, and dirt. We come in contact with it everyday of our lives.
5. "What (VUI) doesn't tell us is that the purpose of our federal and state regulatory agencies is not to protect the environment and human health. Rather, their purpose is to permit corporations to destroy the landscape, contaminate the environment and degrade human health
This is simply an outrageous statement and even publishing it is questionable.
6. "There is absolutely no doubt that the Bannister and all waterways downstream would be contaminated"
If there is "no doubt," then why is the National Academy of Sciences even attempting to conduct a study into whether uranium mining can be done safely at Cole's Hill?
7. Ms. Parsons also makes several general comments about radiation effects on the local area from uranium mining activities.
Aside from Ms. Parsons' statements being absolutely imaginary, studies completed to determine radiation effects from uranium mining do not back up her claims. A 1980 study completed by the NRC concluded that a person living beside a "cluster" of uranium mines for 15 years will receive an effective radiation dose of 41 millirem. A common chest x-ray at a general physician's office will give you 40 millirem of radiation. Think about that one.
The one thing that Ms. Parsons is correct about in her letter is that the U.S. Constitution guarantees people the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that would come from guaranteed economic prosperity in the form of 500 high-paying jobs. Why should "small-town folk" allow an outside organization like the CELDF come in and stifle economic growth in the name of their own personal agenda?
Imagine a new industry being able to come into the Piedmont and do something that has not been done in quite a while - provide 500 jobs and healthy local spending that stimulates the local economy. Hopefully, the National Academy of Sciences study will conclude that uranium mining at Cole's Hill can be done safely and that the Piedmont can look forward to the ensuing economic growth. Until the study is completed, no one should jump to conclusions by subjecting themselves to radical myths and actions peddled by people like Ms. Parsons and the CELDF.
J Carrington Dillon
Charlotte, NC
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments:
Karen wrote on Sep 10, 2009 6:03 PM:
" Someone as tightly connected to the nuclear industry (Areva) as Mr. Dillon is would have to take this position. In this country regulatory agencies have not protected the inhabitants of areas where uranium mining has taken place. The post-mining contamination from tailings, (the residue left from rock and soil after uranium is extracted) exists in U.S. In the western U.S. are contaminated areas that will never be made right. People in our western states are fighting at a grass roots level to keep their land from being made uninhabitable. They are starting with their local governments because rarely does the State want to step in. Big money talks, and Mr. Dillon's affiliation can be found at the following address: www.linkedin.com/in/jcarringtondillon. Right here in Caswell there is a toxic waste dump on Dowdy Lane off Rte. 86 that has been condemned by the EPA and designated a Superfund site. It is not being cleaned up as there is no cleanup money in the Superfund. And there are not enough people screaming about it to move the government.
Would Mr. Dillon label the people of West Virginia radical as he has Ms. Parsons group? Are they radical because they protest their homes rendered worthless, their health jeopardized, their communities flooded, and their children's schools made unsafe by toxic mining sludge? All from mountain top removal mining which blasts off the tops of the mountains, clogging mountain streams and ruining the environment. Why is mining done this way? Because it is more profitable for the corporations indulging in this practice. There is no government agency rushing to the aid of all those whose lives are affected. Look up the track record of Massey Corp. and see what they have done to West Virginia. Then think of the consequences of big money, high contamination, and lack of government intervention. The uranium mining industry has been curtailed in Canada because of the damage done there. Virginia Uranium Inc. does have a large Canadian contingent onboard. The company has a Toronto stock exchange listing. There are many corporation names at this point, holding companies, and more twists and turns in the history of VU Inc. than I can relate. And that is what this company is counting on. That no one will figure it all out. Few people will take the time to do the research to discover how dangerous this venture is. The National Academy of Sciences study that is lulling people into a false sense of security will come back without a means to definitely form an opinion either pro or con. And that ambivalence will open the door. Unless there is resistance. How many people will do the research to discover what this proposal means? "
Doug wrote on Sep 9, 2009 12:48 PM:
" It's easy to label people whom you disagree with as radical, without presenting any evidence. This mining will contaminate the Danville area, not Charlotte. Now let's take a look at government regulators--will they do a better job than they did regulating the pig farms, and peanut butter maanufacturers? "
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Who will protect Virginia from uranium mining? (Letter No. 1)
By SHIREEN PARSONS
URANIUM MINING has never been done safely anywhere in the world. It cannot be done safely. Logically, that should end this discussion, but it will not, because a few individuals, shielded from liability behind Virginia Uranium Inc. — a U.S. corporation wholly owned by Canadian corporations — would reap huge profits from mining and milling uranium on more than 2,000 acres in rural Pittsylvania County.
The Coles Hill mine would be merely the first mine in eastern Virginia, as our entire Piedmont is strewn with uranium deposits, and Virginia Uranium’s corporate mandate is to explore and develop them. If, as it surely will, the legislature lifts the moratorium, the Piedmont would become a uranium mining corridor, just as Eastern Kentucky, Southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia are coal mining corridors.
As planned, the Coles Hill uranium mine would cover an area equal to 55 square city blocks and would be 800 feet deep. Through the blasting, extracting and crushing of uranium-bearing rock, all open-pit mines and their waste piles release into the environment heavy metals, including arsenic, lead and mercury, and radioactive materials.
The radioactive contaminants persist in the environment anywhere from hundreds of thousands of years to 4 billion years. They are taken up and retained by plants and animals, and they become part of the food chain forever. In animals and humans, the radioactive toxins cause lung, kidney and liver damage, cancers, leukemias and genetic mutations. In mammals, these contaminants are passed on to future generations in utero and via breast milk.
Once released into the environment, the heavy metals and radioactive contaminants travel great distances. Leached into ground and surface water in Pittsylvania County, they would contaminate the Roanoke River watershed to Virginia Beach, North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. The wind-borne particulates would travel thousands of miles — every way the wind blows — in a few days.
Virginia Uranium’s public relations team tells us that, this time, uranium mining would be done safely, because the mining and milling of uranium in Virginia would be according to a regulatory program developed by the Virginia Department of Mining, Minerals and Energy (DMME).
But monitoring and oversight by our regulatory agencies are inadequate to nonexistent. Since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, one-third of Americans live in areas with unhealthy ozone levels. Forty percent of our rivers, lakes and tributaries aren’t safe for swimming or fishing. Deforestation, excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers — and a 60 percent increase in the amount of refuse generated in the past 25 years — have further contaminated the soil and water.
Virginia's DMME presides over one of the most devastating mineral extraction processes in the world — mountaintop-removal coal mining, which, in the Appalachian coal states, has razed hundreds of thousands of acres of once-forested mountains, buried thousands of miles of streams under the rubble and destroyed hundreds of coalfield communities.. This is a legal activity permitted by the EPA and DMME. Can we rationally expect regulatory agencies to protect us from the catastrophic effects of uranium mining in Virginia?
Those who would profit from uranium mining in Virginia say it would be an economic boon, with jobs and money pouring into the economically depressed Piedmont region.. Virginia Uranium says miners would make $68,000 a year in a county where the 2000 median household income was $35,000, the unemployment rate was 9.4 percent and 12 percent of the population lived below the poverty line.
What the corporate spin fails to mention, however, is that hard-rock mining requires skilled labor, and that experienced miners would be imported from other states to earn those salaries and risk their health and lives. And that, wherever hard-rock mining occurs, surrounding communities become ghost towns and regional economies implode. The economic rewards are enjoyed only by the corporate owners and officers.
In Virginia’s Piedmont, as in all regions cursed with hard-rock mining, the blasting, heavy truck traffic, environmental contamination and impacts to human health would cause real property values to evaporate. Local businesses would shut down, and the regional economy would collapse outward in every direction. The Banister River, a source of Virginia Beach’s water, is less than a mile from the Coles Hill mine site, and there is absolutely no doubt that the Banister would be contaminated.
The relevant question, then, is who decides what Virginia communities look like, how safe they are, what quality of life they enjoy? Who decides whether the Virginia Piedmont and beyond will be sacrificed for a uranium mining corporation’s profits? Is it We, the People, or is it a handful of corporate executives, aided and abetted by the state legislature and regulatory agencies?
An ever-increasing number of citizens in Pittsylvania County and beyond, understanding the catastrophic effects uranium mining would wreak upon their communities and future generations, declare that they will not consent to this corporate assault, and that they will exercise their inherent local governing authority to enact binding local laws that will protect and preserve the health, safety and well-being of their communities and the ecosystem upon which all life depends.
Like Virginia Beach, the Town of Halifax is downstream from the planned uranium mine in Pittsylvania County. In February 2008, the Halifax Town Council voted unanimously to enact the Halifax Corporate Mining, Bodily Trespass and Community Self-Government Ordinance, drafted at the council’s request by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit law firm. The ordinance asserts the town’s inherent local governing authority bans mining within the town and criminalizes chemical and radioactive bodily trespass.
Halifax Town Council member Jack Dunavant said of the decision, “This is an historic vote. We, the people, intend to protect our health and environment from corporate assault. It’s time to invoke the Constitution and acknowledge the power of the people to protect our own destiny and end this era of corporate greed and pollution.â€
Citizens and elected officials of every community downstream and/or downwind from the planned Pittsylvania County mine site would do well to follow Halifax’s lead and exert their inherent governing authority to protect themselves.
Shireen Parsons is the Virginia organizer for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Christiansburg.
http://caswellmessenger.com/articles/2009/09/09/opinion/opinion02.txt
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Crystal Lee Sutton, the Real-Life ‘Norma Rae,’ Is Dead at 68
Comment: One-woman fight against a Greedy Corporation and she won! Virginia, we need to fight the foreign invasion (Canada and France) uranium mining and Nuke corporations now! Demand Virginia leaders to "Leave it in the Ground (uranium)! Our prayers to Ms. Sutton's family!
September 15, 2009
By DENNIS HEVESI
Crystal Lee Sutton, the union organizer whose real-life stand on her worktable at a textile factory in North Carolina in 1973 was the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning movie “Norma Rae,” died Friday in Burlington, N.C. She was 68.
The cause was brain cancer, her son Jay Jordan said.
Ms. Sutton (then Crystal Lee Jordan) was a 33-year-old mother of three earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at the J. P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., when she took her stand. Low pay and poor working conditions had impelled her to take a leading role in efforts to unionize the plant. She was met with threats, she said.
“Management and others treated me as if I had leprosy,” she later said in an interview for Alamance Community College, in Graham, N.C., which she attended in the 1980s.
After months trying to organize co-workers, Ms. Sutton was fired. When the police, summoned by the management, came to take her away, she made one last act of defiance.
“I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word ‘union’ on it in big letters, got up on my worktable, and slowly turned it around,” she said in the interview. “The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet.”
Within a year, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union had won the right to represent 3,000 employees at seven plants in Roanoke Rapids, including J. P. Stevens, which was then the second-largest textile manufacturer in the country.
In 1977, a court ordered that Ms. Sutton be rehired and receive back wages. She returned to work for two days, then quit and went to work as an organizer for the union.
For legal reasons, Ms. Sutton’s name was not used in the 1979 movie “Norma Rae,” for which Sally Field won the Oscar for best actress, a Golden Globe and the best-actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, all in 1980.
Bruce Raynor, who is now president of Workers United and executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, worked with Ms. Sutton in her organizing career.
In a statement on Monday, he said, “The fact that Crystal was a woman in the ’70s, leading a struggle of thousands of other textile workers against very powerful, virulently anti-union mill companies, inspired a whole generation of people — of women workers, workers of color and white workers.”
Crystal Lee Pulley was born in Roanoke Rapids on Dec. 31, 1940, a daughter of Albert and Odell Blythe Pulley. Both her parents worked in the mills and, starting in her late teens, so did she.
Ms. Sutton’s first marriage, to Larry Jordan Jr., ended in divorce. Besides her son Jay, she is survived by her husband of 32 years, Lewis Sutton Jr.; two daughters, Elizabeth Watts and Renee Jordan; two other sons, Mark Jordan and Eric Sutton; two sisters, Geraldine Greeson and Syretha Medlin; five grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
After more than a decade as a union organizer, Ms. Sutton earned certification as a nursing assistant from Alamance Community College in 1988. In later years, she ran a day care center in her home.
Jay Jordan said his mother kept a photograph of Ms. Field, in the climactic scene from “Norma Rae,” on her living room wall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/us/15sutton.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print
September 15, 2009
By DENNIS HEVESI
Crystal Lee Sutton, the union organizer whose real-life stand on her worktable at a textile factory in North Carolina in 1973 was the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning movie “Norma Rae,” died Friday in Burlington, N.C. She was 68.
The cause was brain cancer, her son Jay Jordan said.
Ms. Sutton (then Crystal Lee Jordan) was a 33-year-old mother of three earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at the J. P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., when she took her stand. Low pay and poor working conditions had impelled her to take a leading role in efforts to unionize the plant. She was met with threats, she said.
“Management and others treated me as if I had leprosy,” she later said in an interview for Alamance Community College, in Graham, N.C., which she attended in the 1980s.
After months trying to organize co-workers, Ms. Sutton was fired. When the police, summoned by the management, came to take her away, she made one last act of defiance.
“I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word ‘union’ on it in big letters, got up on my worktable, and slowly turned it around,” she said in the interview. “The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet.”
Within a year, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union had won the right to represent 3,000 employees at seven plants in Roanoke Rapids, including J. P. Stevens, which was then the second-largest textile manufacturer in the country.
In 1977, a court ordered that Ms. Sutton be rehired and receive back wages. She returned to work for two days, then quit and went to work as an organizer for the union.
For legal reasons, Ms. Sutton’s name was not used in the 1979 movie “Norma Rae,” for which Sally Field won the Oscar for best actress, a Golden Globe and the best-actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, all in 1980.
Bruce Raynor, who is now president of Workers United and executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, worked with Ms. Sutton in her organizing career.
In a statement on Monday, he said, “The fact that Crystal was a woman in the ’70s, leading a struggle of thousands of other textile workers against very powerful, virulently anti-union mill companies, inspired a whole generation of people — of women workers, workers of color and white workers.”
Crystal Lee Pulley was born in Roanoke Rapids on Dec. 31, 1940, a daughter of Albert and Odell Blythe Pulley. Both her parents worked in the mills and, starting in her late teens, so did she.
Ms. Sutton’s first marriage, to Larry Jordan Jr., ended in divorce. Besides her son Jay, she is survived by her husband of 32 years, Lewis Sutton Jr.; two daughters, Elizabeth Watts and Renee Jordan; two other sons, Mark Jordan and Eric Sutton; two sisters, Geraldine Greeson and Syretha Medlin; five grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
After more than a decade as a union organizer, Ms. Sutton earned certification as a nursing assistant from Alamance Community College in 1988. In later years, she ran a day care center in her home.
Jay Jordan said his mother kept a photograph of Ms. Field, in the climactic scene from “Norma Rae,” on her living room wall.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/us/15sutton.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print
Friday, September 11, 2009
If You Think Corporations Run The Government Now…
Published on Thursday, September 10, 2009 by Open Left
by Chris Bowers
Then just wait and see what happens after, as expected, the Supreme Court allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of their favored candidates:
The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored candidates in time for next year's elections. Such a step could roll back a century of attempts to restrain the power of corporate treasuries in American politics.
The justices cut short their summer recess for a lively special argument that indicated the court's conservative skeptics of campaign finance laws have the upper hand over its liberals, including new Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the high court's swing vote, but a firm opponent of many campaign restrictions, at one point told the government's lawyer, "Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election."
To a certain extent, it is hard to even conceptualize why this matters. To paraphrase Dick Durbin, powerful moneyed interests already run the government. From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, check out the gains made by of wealthy interests over the past 30-35 years:
There are the glorious results of bi-partisan, moderate-approved economic policy for you.
Through vast lobbying, astroturf, media and legal efforts that dwarf anything progressives have created, powerful moneyed interests in this country have been able largely to control legislation even after 30-year peak in Democratic electoral success. A ruling like this will simply be the icing on the cake.
© 2009 Open Left
Chris Bowers is a founding member of OpenLeft.com.E-mailPrintShare
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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/10-12
by Chris Bowers
Then just wait and see what happens after, as expected, the Supreme Court allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of their favored candidates:
The Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may let businesses and unions spend freely to help their favored candidates in time for next year's elections. Such a step could roll back a century of attempts to restrain the power of corporate treasuries in American politics.
The justices cut short their summer recess for a lively special argument that indicated the court's conservative skeptics of campaign finance laws have the upper hand over its liberals, including new Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the high court's swing vote, but a firm opponent of many campaign restrictions, at one point told the government's lawyer, "Corporations have lots of knowledge about environment, transportation issues, and you are silencing them during the election."
To a certain extent, it is hard to even conceptualize why this matters. To paraphrase Dick Durbin, powerful moneyed interests already run the government. From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, check out the gains made by of wealthy interests over the past 30-35 years:
There are the glorious results of bi-partisan, moderate-approved economic policy for you.
Through vast lobbying, astroturf, media and legal efforts that dwarf anything progressives have created, powerful moneyed interests in this country have been able largely to control legislation even after 30-year peak in Democratic electoral success. A ruling like this will simply be the icing on the cake.
© 2009 Open Left
Chris Bowers is a founding member of OpenLeft.com.E-mailPrintShare
Close Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/10-12
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
KSU dubs mining move ‘sell-out’
Comment: No one wants uranium mining except the governments all over the world in bed with the uranium mining corporations!
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Shillong, Aug. 25: The anti-mining lobby in Shillong has begun working overtime to oppose the state cabinet’s decision to allow groundwork for uranium mining in West Khasi Hills.
The powerful Khasi Students’ Union today termed the cabinet’s decision as a total sell-out of the interest of the people to the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) and indicated drastic steps to prevent work.
KSU president Samuel Jyrwa said: “Our central executive committee will meet soon to chalk out our action plan to deal with the decision of the cabinet. Our stand is very clear. We are totally opposed to uranium mining and there is no change in our approach.”
He said the state cabinet has taken a hurried decision despite the fact that a majority had opposed uranium mining during the official public hearing held on June 12, 2007, in West Khasi Hills.
The state cabinet yesterday gave its nod to pre-development work to be undertaken by the UCIL at the uranium mining sites with a budget of Rs 209 crore. The cabinet also favoured leasing out around 422 acres to UCIL to start uranium mining.
The government hopes to get a royalty of Rs 20 crore a year once mining begins.
“We feel that these development activities are not for the sake of the people and once the schools and health centres are constructed, they will be taken over by the UCIL and will become their properties,” he said.
“We are not against development, but the aggressive development pattern risking the welfare of the people are not acceptable to us,” Jyrwa said.
The KSU leader said they are also concerned over the heath hazards of uranium mining.
“You cannot buy health with money,” Jyrwa said.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090826/jsp/northeast/story_11406744.jsp
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Shillong, Aug. 25: The anti-mining lobby in Shillong has begun working overtime to oppose the state cabinet’s decision to allow groundwork for uranium mining in West Khasi Hills.
The powerful Khasi Students’ Union today termed the cabinet’s decision as a total sell-out of the interest of the people to the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) and indicated drastic steps to prevent work.
KSU president Samuel Jyrwa said: “Our central executive committee will meet soon to chalk out our action plan to deal with the decision of the cabinet. Our stand is very clear. We are totally opposed to uranium mining and there is no change in our approach.”
He said the state cabinet has taken a hurried decision despite the fact that a majority had opposed uranium mining during the official public hearing held on June 12, 2007, in West Khasi Hills.
The state cabinet yesterday gave its nod to pre-development work to be undertaken by the UCIL at the uranium mining sites with a budget of Rs 209 crore. The cabinet also favoured leasing out around 422 acres to UCIL to start uranium mining.
The government hopes to get a royalty of Rs 20 crore a year once mining begins.
“We feel that these development activities are not for the sake of the people and once the schools and health centres are constructed, they will be taken over by the UCIL and will become their properties,” he said.
“We are not against development, but the aggressive development pattern risking the welfare of the people are not acceptable to us,” Jyrwa said.
The KSU leader said they are also concerned over the heath hazards of uranium mining.
“You cannot buy health with money,” Jyrwa said.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090826/jsp/northeast/story_11406744.jsp
Udall reasserts controversial pro-nuclear position
Comment: Nuke Power is not clean, not CO2 clean, it is full of CO2 from uranium mining to building the nuke plants, from trucking to the processing uranium mills! In addition, it ruins our air, water, our health, and our land. The Nuke Bunch are giving money away to our so call leaders who are sending their people down the nuke river for greed!
By John Tomasic 8/24/09 3:20 PM
At an “open hearing” held at Rocky Mountain National Park today, Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall repeated his support of a national energy plan that would increase use of nuclear power as a way to combat global warming. Udall and U.S. Sen. John McCain blitzed the park this morning, taking a brief tour while reporters trailed along in a bus. Photographers snapped shots of the men gathered with park personnel around one of the state’s millions of red-brown lodge-pole pine trees. The trees, which color whole mountainsides across Colorado, are dying from beetle infestation brought by warming temperatures.
Udall is a strong proponent of the state’s New Energy sector and is seen as a friend to the green movement in the state. His advancement of nuclear power, however, has alarmed environmentalists, who see the risks posed by uranium mining and nuclear power plant construction as far outweighing any benefits to be derived from expanding the contemporary nuclear industry.
Keith Hay, energy advocate for Denver-based Environment Colorado, has argued against the inclusion of nuclear power as a part of any clean-energy discussion. Hay told the Colorado Independent in May that there was “a strong push by southern Democrats to include nuclear and clean coal in the renewable energy standard” but that environmentalists thought any such tack was misguided at best.
“Anyone who has seen the front end of uranium mining for nuclear knows that it is in no way clean.”
Udall falls into a group of green leaders turned by the climate change debate into nuclear supporters.
Stewart Brand, the famous founder of the environmentalist Whole Earth Catalog, made a splash in 2007 by endorsing nuclear power. He claimed that the problem of learning to deal with deadly radioactive nuclear waste was a more acceptable problem to pass on to future generations than was global warming.
But Brand was taken to task by detractors who ran the numbers. Groups such as TreeHugger and the Pembina Institute found that the cost and carbon generated in uranium mining, milling, refining, conversion and fuel fabrication are extremely high, to say nothing of the costs and carbon generated in erecting new nuclear power plants.
Colorado is one of five uranium-producing states in the West and has a long history of producing weapons-grade uranium. A recent boom in mining claims, which has waned a bit in recent months following a drop in prices, has focused mostly on states such as Utah and Arizona, where activists have been fighting new claims near national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Arches and Canyonlands.
Earlier this month, McCain led a congressional junket to the Grand Canyon that included Udall and former Colorado senator and now Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Salazar recently called a timeout on new uranium mining claims on public lands near the Grand Canyon while the administration considers withdrawing up to 1 million acres of national forest from potential uranium mining. The timeout also comes as Congress considers revamping a national mining law put in place in 1872. A revised version would provide hard-rock mining royalties and create a fund for pollution cleanup.
Several uranium mining claims have been filed near the proposed Dolores River Canyon Wilderness Area along the high desert cliffs of a river known for the scenic rafting and kayaking that runs from the San Juan Mountains to the border of Utah.
The nuclear-energy industry is gaining some traction in Colorado, not just among those like Udall seeking to combat climate change, but also among those who envision nuclear plants powering the oil shale industry on Colorado’s Western Slope.
http://coloradoindependent.com/36233/udall-reasserts-controversial-pro-nuclear-position
Friday, August 21, 2009
Changing the Corporation
Published on Thursday, August 20, 2009 by CommonDreams.org
by Robert C. Hinkley
The corporation is no more than an aggregation of capital managed for the proportional benefit of those who supply it. It is a system controlled by managers, administrators and clerks largely for the benefit of passive investors looking for a higher return than they can earn elsewhere.
It makes no sense that government should provide the very wealthy with a tool that poses a continuous threat to the public interest. Government's job is to protect the public interest, not sponsor those that destroy it.
Doing nothing
In Common Sense Thomas Paine from argued for a change of government, but what he said 232 years ago has application today.
The current situation has become intolerable.
Governments now stand by while modern corporations destroy.
Governments are responsible for creating the modern corporation. Citizens are responsible for creating government. We have furnished the means through which the destruction is conducted. In the words of Paine, "our calamities [are] heightened."
This problem is not getting fixed. Indeed it is getting worse. As each year passes, more communities are destroyed, human rights are violated and millions die. Corporate induced climate change now threatens all six and one-half billion inhabitants on this planet.
If nothing is done, the catastrophic effects predicted of global warming will become a reality.
Pollution and human rights abuse will continue to move around the globe as governments in one jurisdiction pass laws and governments in others do not. Employees and our communities will continue to be threatened by globalization. New problems will take their place among those left unsolved as even newer technologies are developed and government finds it impossible to keep up.
The most serious part of this problem, however, is not the physical damage that is being done. It is the damage being done to the civic spirit of the people. They have begun to feel that it doesn't pay to be a good citizen. They have begun to lose hope.
Each year they see governments of their elected representatives acting to prefer corporate interests over their interests. They know this is wrong, but they see no way of correcting it.
Not understanding the true source of this problem results in the blaming of government and corporate personnel. When successive changes in personnel do not solve the problem, despair sets in and people begin to withdraw their support for government and their involvement in politics. They reason that government is ineffective and their involvement will have no effect. They conclude they should not waste their time. Their withdrawal increases the power of the modern corporation to set the agenda. As a result, government loses its focus on solving human problems. This makes it more irrelevant to the average citizen and corporate abuse of the public interest becomes even harder to eliminate.
Each year more give up on government ever solving the problems caused by corporations. They come to believe that big companies will always control government. They no longer worry about what kind of world they will leave to their children and future generations. They believe instead their lot in life is simply to find a way to make a living in this madness.
As they give up on government, they give up any hope of influencing the world we live in and will leave for the generations to come. Corporations then fill the vacuum.
Their political power gets stronger. This, in turn, makes it harder for government to pass new laws protecting the commons from corporate abuse. It is a vicious cycle. Abuse begets loss of hope begets more corporate political influence begets more abuse.
Abuse of the commons by the modern corporation will not go away if it is simply ignored. If nothing is done, humanity's suffering at the hands of the modern corporation will continue to multiply. Each generation will suffer more than the one that precedes it. The question is what to do.
Treating the symptoms
Humanity's future is and always has been dependent on it recognizing and solving the world's problems as they arise. The inability of government to rein in the damage caused by modern corporations is such a problem.
Whenever great change is needed, there are always those who will argue that it is not or that change is impossible. Those that argue change is impossible are the most disturbing. They have given up hope thereby consigning humanity to a future where corporations make the rules and people obey them. This is a form of corporate slavery that no human being should suffer or accept.
Those that will argue change is not needed will almost always come from the classes which are benefiting most under the current system. Their fear of losing the benefits they have earned, won or inherited keep them from taking the next step forward.
They will suggest that the community's afflictions are not that bad and point out that corporations have done much to benefit the community in the past. In making this argument, they give no credit to mankind's ingenuity. They forget that corporations are not the reason for progress—people are. Companies only act through people. Every new piece of corporate invented technology was really invented by a human being or group of them working together.
The company was just the employer. It provided the capital. Essentially, they argue that without the aggregation of capital there would be no progress. In this respect they are probably right. It is desirable for society to have a means to put capital together. Capital funds research and development of new technologies.
However, a corporation with no responsibility to the public interest is not the only possible means for capital to come together. There are other ways to fund the development of new ideas. Capital should be able to come together in ways that are less destructive.
Sometimes those who argue that change is not needed will claim that the market will sort it all out. Those companies that are bad citizens will lose customers and go out of business. The problem with this argument is all the harm that is caused before they do go out of business.
General Motors is a good recent example. Here was a company that dragged its feet every step of the way. Only when the US government saved them from oblivion did they change their mind about designing more fuel efficient cars. In the meantime, billions of tons of carbon dioxide from vehicles they manufactured were emitted into our atmosphere that need not have been.
The idea that the market will demand corporate citizenship is a myth. All we have to do is look around us at the dozens of companies that are destroying the commons to see that the market is not delivering on this idea.
Fundamentally, there are only two answers to the problem of intentional corporate abuse of the commons. Either governments must be strengthened to give them more power to rein in corporate abuse of the commons or the corporation's inclination (and, in certain cases, compulsion) to wantonly harm the public interest must be eliminated.
Strengthening governments
The conventional wisdom is to answer that weak government is the problem. This conclusion is supported by the corporate sector which is forever pointing the finger at government for being the ineffective and incompetent. In doing this, business seems to lose sight of the fact the fact that they have controlled government for more than a generation.
One must wonder if the current financial crisis will change the way business looks at government. The world's financial experts have managed to ruin their businesses losing more than two trillion dollars of other people's money. Who have they called upon to ride to their rescue? Government.
The obvious response to the charge that government is the problem (though not one usually put forth by business) is to try to strengthen government so that when corporate abuse arises, the government can quickly contain it. This has already been tried thousands of times. For the most part, it hasn't worked.
Volumes and volumes of ineffective business regulation are testimony to the fact that making government tougher on business does not work. Since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1961 tens of thousands of environmental laws and regulations have been enacted around the world. These laws undoubtedly have made the world a better place to live today than it would have been otherwise, but is the Earth's environment in better shape today than it was then? Definitely not.
With the rise of the union movement in the US and elsewhere, working conditions in big companies improved. Child labor and working hours were reduced. Workplace safety improved. Yet, these problems were not eliminated. Most of them just moved from one jurisdiction where they would no longer be tolerated to another one where they would. Companies did not stop taking advantage of workers. They simply moved their operations where the lack of regulation allowed them to continue violating the human rights and dignity of those they employed.
I once lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, home of what was once the biggest textile manufacturing complex (also the biggest sweatshop) in the world. When these facilities unionized in the early 20th century, what did the modern companies that owned them do? They moved to the South where the union movement was not as strong and they could continue to pay low wages and impose lousy working conditions. Then, when the union movement caught on there, they moved their operations overseas to Southeast Asia, China and elsewhere. This saga continues today.
When tobacco was found to cause cancer, new regulations were passed in America and the developed world limiting where and how these products could be advertised. Did this halt the steady growth of people dieing every year from tobacco related illnesses? No, the industry simply found other ways to make their products attractive to undiscerning consumers and other markets (specifically China and countries in the third world) in which to advertise them.
The problem of corporate abuse of the public interest cannot be solved by imposing more laws and regulations that try to restrain the corporation one abuse one jurisdiction at a time. The best that can be said about this strategy is that it moves the abuse around from one jurisdiction to another. It doesn't solve the problem; it just moves it elsewhere, to places where local governments are willing to accept it for a while.
Another shortcoming of this strategy is that it actually makes some corporate abuse of the commons legal. That which before was wrong but not illegal becomes legitimatized. Environmental laws don't eliminate pollution. They permit amounts of it up to a level which the government determines for a while to be safe.
Confronting corporate abuse in this manner is like treating the symptoms of a disease. It may reduce the adverse effect of the symptoms, but because the underlying cause has not been dealt with, the problem keeps coming back. Sometimes it comes back in a strain that is even more difficult to cure.
Personhood
Seeing that eliminating corporate abuse of the public interest one abuse one jurisdiction at a time will not work, some have suggested the solution lies in strengthening government by eliminating the constitutional rights of corporations. As Benjamin Franklin did more than 200 years ago, they correctly recognize that the liberal democracy is ill equipped to protect the public interest when the rich and powerful are bent on harming it.
In order to reduce the exposure of the commons to this problem they would change the US Constitution so that corporations no longer be entitled to the protections it affords citizens (e.g. the right to free speech, due process, equal protection and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures). Corporations would remain dedicated to the pursuit of self-interest, but government would be under no restriction in making or prosecuting new laws against them.
It's easy to see why this idea is appealing to some. It takes a "strict construction" approach to the Constitution. "Corporations are not even mentioned in the Constitution. How then can they have rights under it?" Also, "corporations are not people. Why are they afforded the protections provided for people in the Constitution?"
Proponents of the "eliminate corporate personhood" idea believe fundamentally that the key to eliminating corporate abuse is to turn off corporation's right to free speech. They presume that this will eliminate corporations' ability manipulate government through the use of that right. This, in turn, will allow government to more stringently regulate business and, through this rather indirect route, corporate behavior will be improved.
Is this realistic? Money always seems to find its way into politics. If corporations remain dedicated by law to the pursuit of profit, will they not still find ways to bend government to their own purposes? Shouldn't we first try changing the purposes before we start messing with the Constitution?
Corporate constitutional rights also encompass much more than just freedom of speech. When corporate personhood is eliminated does this mean corporations will no longer be entitled to a fair trial? Does it mean legislators will be able to pass laws in favor of one company and against its competitors? Does it mean an individual loses her property rights once she puts her property into the hands of her wholly-owned corporation? Have the proponents of this idea considered the effects of creating two judicial systems: one for corporations that would have no constitutional rights and one for individuals who do? Under which rules would corporate directors and officers be prosecuted? Under existing rules where, as individuals, they are entitled to their constitutional rights or under new rules where, as personnel of (and somehow tainted by) the corporation they serve, no constitutional rights would be recognized?
Finally, this idea also ignores that abuse of the commons by the modern corporation is not exclusively an American problem. It occurs all over the world and is caused by hundreds of companies formed and operating outside the U.S. Judicial decisions by US courts giving companies the rights of citizens under the US Constitution cannot be the source of the problem when companies operating outside the US damage the commons just as much.
Taking away the constitutional rights of corporations is not the answer. There is a conflict between the way our government is supposed to work and the goal of the modern corporation. The way to remedy this conflict is not to make it acceptable for government to treat corporations unfairly.
Changing the corporation
We shouldn't need to change government to allow it to be able to govern its own creation (corporations). Instead, we should modify the corporation into something that is more capable of being governed.
The corporation is an artificial entity created by the corporate law. This law gives the corporation its purpose and dictates in broad terms how it is to be achieved. These terms were changed in the last half of the 19th century to eliminate provisions designed to protect the public interest. That has proven to be a mistake. Doesn't it make more sense to admit that mistake and put respect for the commons back in the corporate law and back in corporations?
Robert C. Hinkley is a corporate lawyer and former partner in one of America's largest law firms. He now lives in Sydney, Australia. "Changing the Corporation" is the third and final excerpt from his new book, "Corporate Citizenship: A Path Towards Eliminating Corporate Abuse of the Public Interest", which have appeared on www.commondreams.org. [1] this week. Those interested in obtaining a copy of Corporate Citizenship can contact him on rbrthinkley@gmail.com [2].
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/20-5
by Robert C. Hinkley
The corporation is no more than an aggregation of capital managed for the proportional benefit of those who supply it. It is a system controlled by managers, administrators and clerks largely for the benefit of passive investors looking for a higher return than they can earn elsewhere.
It makes no sense that government should provide the very wealthy with a tool that poses a continuous threat to the public interest. Government's job is to protect the public interest, not sponsor those that destroy it.
Doing nothing
In Common Sense Thomas Paine from argued for a change of government, but what he said 232 years ago has application today.
The current situation has become intolerable.
Governments now stand by while modern corporations destroy.
Governments are responsible for creating the modern corporation. Citizens are responsible for creating government. We have furnished the means through which the destruction is conducted. In the words of Paine, "our calamities [are] heightened."
This problem is not getting fixed. Indeed it is getting worse. As each year passes, more communities are destroyed, human rights are violated and millions die. Corporate induced climate change now threatens all six and one-half billion inhabitants on this planet.
If nothing is done, the catastrophic effects predicted of global warming will become a reality.
Pollution and human rights abuse will continue to move around the globe as governments in one jurisdiction pass laws and governments in others do not. Employees and our communities will continue to be threatened by globalization. New problems will take their place among those left unsolved as even newer technologies are developed and government finds it impossible to keep up.
The most serious part of this problem, however, is not the physical damage that is being done. It is the damage being done to the civic spirit of the people. They have begun to feel that it doesn't pay to be a good citizen. They have begun to lose hope.
Each year they see governments of their elected representatives acting to prefer corporate interests over their interests. They know this is wrong, but they see no way of correcting it.
Not understanding the true source of this problem results in the blaming of government and corporate personnel. When successive changes in personnel do not solve the problem, despair sets in and people begin to withdraw their support for government and their involvement in politics. They reason that government is ineffective and their involvement will have no effect. They conclude they should not waste their time. Their withdrawal increases the power of the modern corporation to set the agenda. As a result, government loses its focus on solving human problems. This makes it more irrelevant to the average citizen and corporate abuse of the public interest becomes even harder to eliminate.
Each year more give up on government ever solving the problems caused by corporations. They come to believe that big companies will always control government. They no longer worry about what kind of world they will leave to their children and future generations. They believe instead their lot in life is simply to find a way to make a living in this madness.
As they give up on government, they give up any hope of influencing the world we live in and will leave for the generations to come. Corporations then fill the vacuum.
Their political power gets stronger. This, in turn, makes it harder for government to pass new laws protecting the commons from corporate abuse. It is a vicious cycle. Abuse begets loss of hope begets more corporate political influence begets more abuse.
Abuse of the commons by the modern corporation will not go away if it is simply ignored. If nothing is done, humanity's suffering at the hands of the modern corporation will continue to multiply. Each generation will suffer more than the one that precedes it. The question is what to do.
Treating the symptoms
Humanity's future is and always has been dependent on it recognizing and solving the world's problems as they arise. The inability of government to rein in the damage caused by modern corporations is such a problem.
Whenever great change is needed, there are always those who will argue that it is not or that change is impossible. Those that argue change is impossible are the most disturbing. They have given up hope thereby consigning humanity to a future where corporations make the rules and people obey them. This is a form of corporate slavery that no human being should suffer or accept.
Those that will argue change is not needed will almost always come from the classes which are benefiting most under the current system. Their fear of losing the benefits they have earned, won or inherited keep them from taking the next step forward.
They will suggest that the community's afflictions are not that bad and point out that corporations have done much to benefit the community in the past. In making this argument, they give no credit to mankind's ingenuity. They forget that corporations are not the reason for progress—people are. Companies only act through people. Every new piece of corporate invented technology was really invented by a human being or group of them working together.
The company was just the employer. It provided the capital. Essentially, they argue that without the aggregation of capital there would be no progress. In this respect they are probably right. It is desirable for society to have a means to put capital together. Capital funds research and development of new technologies.
However, a corporation with no responsibility to the public interest is not the only possible means for capital to come together. There are other ways to fund the development of new ideas. Capital should be able to come together in ways that are less destructive.
Sometimes those who argue that change is not needed will claim that the market will sort it all out. Those companies that are bad citizens will lose customers and go out of business. The problem with this argument is all the harm that is caused before they do go out of business.
General Motors is a good recent example. Here was a company that dragged its feet every step of the way. Only when the US government saved them from oblivion did they change their mind about designing more fuel efficient cars. In the meantime, billions of tons of carbon dioxide from vehicles they manufactured were emitted into our atmosphere that need not have been.
The idea that the market will demand corporate citizenship is a myth. All we have to do is look around us at the dozens of companies that are destroying the commons to see that the market is not delivering on this idea.
Fundamentally, there are only two answers to the problem of intentional corporate abuse of the commons. Either governments must be strengthened to give them more power to rein in corporate abuse of the commons or the corporation's inclination (and, in certain cases, compulsion) to wantonly harm the public interest must be eliminated.
Strengthening governments
The conventional wisdom is to answer that weak government is the problem. This conclusion is supported by the corporate sector which is forever pointing the finger at government for being the ineffective and incompetent. In doing this, business seems to lose sight of the fact the fact that they have controlled government for more than a generation.
One must wonder if the current financial crisis will change the way business looks at government. The world's financial experts have managed to ruin their businesses losing more than two trillion dollars of other people's money. Who have they called upon to ride to their rescue? Government.
The obvious response to the charge that government is the problem (though not one usually put forth by business) is to try to strengthen government so that when corporate abuse arises, the government can quickly contain it. This has already been tried thousands of times. For the most part, it hasn't worked.
Volumes and volumes of ineffective business regulation are testimony to the fact that making government tougher on business does not work. Since Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1961 tens of thousands of environmental laws and regulations have been enacted around the world. These laws undoubtedly have made the world a better place to live today than it would have been otherwise, but is the Earth's environment in better shape today than it was then? Definitely not.
With the rise of the union movement in the US and elsewhere, working conditions in big companies improved. Child labor and working hours were reduced. Workplace safety improved. Yet, these problems were not eliminated. Most of them just moved from one jurisdiction where they would no longer be tolerated to another one where they would. Companies did not stop taking advantage of workers. They simply moved their operations where the lack of regulation allowed them to continue violating the human rights and dignity of those they employed.
I once lived in Manchester, New Hampshire, home of what was once the biggest textile manufacturing complex (also the biggest sweatshop) in the world. When these facilities unionized in the early 20th century, what did the modern companies that owned them do? They moved to the South where the union movement was not as strong and they could continue to pay low wages and impose lousy working conditions. Then, when the union movement caught on there, they moved their operations overseas to Southeast Asia, China and elsewhere. This saga continues today.
When tobacco was found to cause cancer, new regulations were passed in America and the developed world limiting where and how these products could be advertised. Did this halt the steady growth of people dieing every year from tobacco related illnesses? No, the industry simply found other ways to make their products attractive to undiscerning consumers and other markets (specifically China and countries in the third world) in which to advertise them.
The problem of corporate abuse of the public interest cannot be solved by imposing more laws and regulations that try to restrain the corporation one abuse one jurisdiction at a time. The best that can be said about this strategy is that it moves the abuse around from one jurisdiction to another. It doesn't solve the problem; it just moves it elsewhere, to places where local governments are willing to accept it for a while.
Another shortcoming of this strategy is that it actually makes some corporate abuse of the commons legal. That which before was wrong but not illegal becomes legitimatized. Environmental laws don't eliminate pollution. They permit amounts of it up to a level which the government determines for a while to be safe.
Confronting corporate abuse in this manner is like treating the symptoms of a disease. It may reduce the adverse effect of the symptoms, but because the underlying cause has not been dealt with, the problem keeps coming back. Sometimes it comes back in a strain that is even more difficult to cure.
Personhood
Seeing that eliminating corporate abuse of the public interest one abuse one jurisdiction at a time will not work, some have suggested the solution lies in strengthening government by eliminating the constitutional rights of corporations. As Benjamin Franklin did more than 200 years ago, they correctly recognize that the liberal democracy is ill equipped to protect the public interest when the rich and powerful are bent on harming it.
In order to reduce the exposure of the commons to this problem they would change the US Constitution so that corporations no longer be entitled to the protections it affords citizens (e.g. the right to free speech, due process, equal protection and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures). Corporations would remain dedicated to the pursuit of self-interest, but government would be under no restriction in making or prosecuting new laws against them.
It's easy to see why this idea is appealing to some. It takes a "strict construction" approach to the Constitution. "Corporations are not even mentioned in the Constitution. How then can they have rights under it?" Also, "corporations are not people. Why are they afforded the protections provided for people in the Constitution?"
Proponents of the "eliminate corporate personhood" idea believe fundamentally that the key to eliminating corporate abuse is to turn off corporation's right to free speech. They presume that this will eliminate corporations' ability manipulate government through the use of that right. This, in turn, will allow government to more stringently regulate business and, through this rather indirect route, corporate behavior will be improved.
Is this realistic? Money always seems to find its way into politics. If corporations remain dedicated by law to the pursuit of profit, will they not still find ways to bend government to their own purposes? Shouldn't we first try changing the purposes before we start messing with the Constitution?
Corporate constitutional rights also encompass much more than just freedom of speech. When corporate personhood is eliminated does this mean corporations will no longer be entitled to a fair trial? Does it mean legislators will be able to pass laws in favor of one company and against its competitors? Does it mean an individual loses her property rights once she puts her property into the hands of her wholly-owned corporation? Have the proponents of this idea considered the effects of creating two judicial systems: one for corporations that would have no constitutional rights and one for individuals who do? Under which rules would corporate directors and officers be prosecuted? Under existing rules where, as individuals, they are entitled to their constitutional rights or under new rules where, as personnel of (and somehow tainted by) the corporation they serve, no constitutional rights would be recognized?
Finally, this idea also ignores that abuse of the commons by the modern corporation is not exclusively an American problem. It occurs all over the world and is caused by hundreds of companies formed and operating outside the U.S. Judicial decisions by US courts giving companies the rights of citizens under the US Constitution cannot be the source of the problem when companies operating outside the US damage the commons just as much.
Taking away the constitutional rights of corporations is not the answer. There is a conflict between the way our government is supposed to work and the goal of the modern corporation. The way to remedy this conflict is not to make it acceptable for government to treat corporations unfairly.
Changing the corporation
We shouldn't need to change government to allow it to be able to govern its own creation (corporations). Instead, we should modify the corporation into something that is more capable of being governed.
The corporation is an artificial entity created by the corporate law. This law gives the corporation its purpose and dictates in broad terms how it is to be achieved. These terms were changed in the last half of the 19th century to eliminate provisions designed to protect the public interest. That has proven to be a mistake. Doesn't it make more sense to admit that mistake and put respect for the commons back in the corporate law and back in corporations?
Robert C. Hinkley is a corporate lawyer and former partner in one of America's largest law firms. He now lives in Sydney, Australia. "Changing the Corporation" is the third and final excerpt from his new book, "Corporate Citizenship: A Path Towards Eliminating Corporate Abuse of the Public Interest", which have appeared on www.commondreams.org. [1] this week. Those interested in obtaining a copy of Corporate Citizenship can contact him on rbrthinkley@gmail.com [2].
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/20-5
Friday, August 14, 2009
Tides Shift Against Nestle as Company Reports Decline in Bottled Water Sales
August 13, 2009
12:14 PM
Tides Shift Against Nestle as Company Reports Decline in Bottled Water Sales
Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
WASHINGTON - August 13 - “This week, mounting consumer backlash against Nestle became especially apparent when the mega-conglomerate reported that their sales had dipped by 2.4 percent to 5.07 billion Swiss francs ($4.69 billion) from 5.21 billion francs a year earlier. The company’s bottled water division, which packages and sells water under several brands including Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Poland Spring, and Perrier, among others, recorded a 3.7 percent decline in volume.
“Around the world, but especially in the United States, consumers are recognizing that bottled water is an unnecessary burden on their wallets, the environment, and the communities from which it is taken and sold at thousands of times its actual value. Nestle in particular, has gained notoriety over the past several years for profiting on a natural resource while dumping the costs of its corporate imperialism onto society in the form of pollution, over-consumption of oil, and unfair labor practices, to name just a few offenses.
“Communities too, are pushing back against Nestle. Just last month, citizens in Michigan prevailed when a court there turned down the corporation’s request to pump more water from an already depleting spring in Mecosta County. Similar struggles have played out in California, Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Colorado as part of a growing trend to reclaim public water resources from private control.
“While news of Nestle’s loss is certainly the gain of consumers and communities, the fight is far from other. Food & Water Watch will continue to support the work of those working to keep Nestle out of their communities, while applauding those consumers who, in rejecting bottled water, are helping to make it obsolete.”
Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.
CONTACT: Food & Water Watch
Kate Fried (202) 683-2500
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/08/13-4
12:14 PM
Tides Shift Against Nestle as Company Reports Decline in Bottled Water Sales
Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
WASHINGTON - August 13 - “This week, mounting consumer backlash against Nestle became especially apparent when the mega-conglomerate reported that their sales had dipped by 2.4 percent to 5.07 billion Swiss francs ($4.69 billion) from 5.21 billion francs a year earlier. The company’s bottled water division, which packages and sells water under several brands including Arrowhead, Calistoga, Deer Park, Poland Spring, and Perrier, among others, recorded a 3.7 percent decline in volume.
“Around the world, but especially in the United States, consumers are recognizing that bottled water is an unnecessary burden on their wallets, the environment, and the communities from which it is taken and sold at thousands of times its actual value. Nestle in particular, has gained notoriety over the past several years for profiting on a natural resource while dumping the costs of its corporate imperialism onto society in the form of pollution, over-consumption of oil, and unfair labor practices, to name just a few offenses.
“Communities too, are pushing back against Nestle. Just last month, citizens in Michigan prevailed when a court there turned down the corporation’s request to pump more water from an already depleting spring in Mecosta County. Similar struggles have played out in California, Maine, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Colorado as part of a growing trend to reclaim public water resources from private control.
“While news of Nestle’s loss is certainly the gain of consumers and communities, the fight is far from other. Food & Water Watch will continue to support the work of those working to keep Nestle out of their communities, while applauding those consumers who, in rejecting bottled water, are helping to make it obsolete.”
Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer organization that works to ensure clean water and safe food. We challenge the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.
CONTACT: Food & Water Watch
Kate Fried (202) 683-2500
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/08/13-4
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Underreported Struggles #28, July 2009
Comment: Corporations and government ruining people's lives from mining to oil!
August 1, 2009 at 6:55am
July 31 – Alaska Natives try to halt proposed Pebble Mine – A coalition of village corporations and others files suit to put an end to drilling and exploration for a copper and gold mine above Bristol Bay — a sanctuary for wild salmon.
July 31 – Persecution of Indigenous Leaders Continues in Peru – The UN Special Rapporteur has called for an immediate review of legal charges against all indigenous leaders, who the government is attempting to blame for last month’s violent assault in Bagua. Police are currently preparing to arrest one of those leaders, Santiago Manuin Valera. Manuin was shot 8 times as he approached Peruvian special police forces last month, attempting to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the violence. (sign a petition denouncing the persecution of Amazonian indigenous leaders)
July 30 – Borneo tribe mounts new blockades against rainforest destruction – Dozens of Penan tribespeople armed with blowpipes and spears have erected blockades across the roads cut by logging companies deep into their forest in Borneo. The blockaders are calling for an end to logging on their land.
July 30 – Grand Canyon’s ‘guardians’ press for protections – As the “guardians of the Grand Canyon,” we strenuously object to mining for uranium here. It is a threat to the health of our environment and tribe, our tourism-based economy, and our religion.
July 30 – B.C. Chiefs reject aboriginal title offer – B.C. aboriginal leaders have started working on their own proposed law to redefine their land and resource claims, having scrapped the provincial government’s offer to concede aboriginal title across the province.
July 30 – Vedanta to go ahead with mining sacred Orissa hill – British mining giant Vedanta said on Tuesday it is going ahead with plans to mine a bauxite-rich hillside in Orissa considered sacred land by local tribals, and urged two international NGOs to give up their protest campaign.
July 29 – Six Nations concerns over Edwards landfill – A delegation from the Hoskanigetah (Six Nations Men’s Fire of the Grand River) warns about the possible re-opening of the Edwards landfill, just outside of Cayuga, Ontario. Members from the Six Nations community have been working for years, alongside the non-native environmental coalition, HALT (Haldimand Against Land Transfers), to make sure no more waste is added to the dump.
July 29 – We are NOT A THREAT to the Oil Industry – Here, a statement by Mike Mercredi from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, on the newly-released, roughshod of a report: Resource Industries and Security Issues in Northern Alberta, by the Canadian Defense Security and Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI). The report preposterously claims that indigenous people in Northern Alberta are one of the highest threats to Canada’s burgeoning oil industry.
July 28 – Brazilian judge orders illegal settlers off Awa lands – A Brazilian federal judge has ruled that ranchers and colonists illegally occupying the Awá Indian reserve must leave the territory within 180 days. This is a major victory for the tiny nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe of 300 people in Maranhão state.
July 28 – Boycott Denison Mines – Toronto-based Denison Mines (International Uranium Corporation) is threatening to reopen Canyon mine and drill for uranium at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It only takes a quick look at the company to see that it has targeted Indigenous Peoples around the world with mining, poison and death.
Denison uranium mines and explorations are in White Mesa, Utah, McClean Lake in Saskatchewan, Australia, Mongolia and the Mutanga Project in Zambia.
July 26 – Episcopal Church repudiates Doctrine of Discovery! – In a first-of-its-kind action in the Christian world, the national Episcopal Church has passed a landmark resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and urging the U.S. government to endorse the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
July 24 – Indigenous Communities Angered by Peru Environment Minister – Indigenous communities from the Peruvian Amazon are angry over recent comments from Peru’s environment minister that Pluspetrol’s Lote 8 on the Corrientes river, is a “shining example” of how oil projects can benefit local communities. The only thing “shining” in Lote 8, as evidenced in the attached photograph, is coming from the four major oil spills that have occurred in the region, just this year.
July 24 – Another State of Emergency in Attawapiskat, northern Ontario, Canada – Attawapiskat First Nation is facing a state of emergency after numerous homes were contaminated by sewage. Attawapiskat Deputy Chief Theresa Spence issued a news release stating a failure in the community’s primary sewage lift station left dozens of residents living in contaminated homes.
July 23 – Ampilatwatja elders threaten to abandon community – A group of 30 indigenous elders and leaders from Ampilatwatja, in Australia’s Northern Territory, have said they will soon abandon their community unless the government starts listening to them. The group says that the intervention has brought nothing but shame and misery to their lives, leaving with no choice but to build a new community for themselves.
July 23 - Leech Lake Tribal residents file lawsuit against Enbridge – The tribal grassroots environmental justice group, “IN ZHA WEN DUN AKI” filed a civil lawsuit in a Leech Lake Tribal Court, seeking a temporary restraining order against Enbridge Energy from starting the proposed pipelines on the Leech Lake Reservation. (See www.dirtytarsands.org for more)
July 21 – Mexico: Nahuas win land struggle – On July 17 Michoacán governance secretary Fidel Calderón Torreblanca and the Nahuas’ legal adviser, Carlos González García, reached an agreement in which the Nahuas would receive land in compensation for grievances dating back some 45 years, when their land was taken from therm.
July 17 – All-of-a-sudden cleanup for the world’s Cold War waste – A bit of curious timing, 3 byproducts of the cold war are getting long-needed remediation: More than 800 million tons of uranium waste in Kyrgyzstan, a series of radar sites in Canada, and ’some’ of the more uranium-contaminated sites on Navajoland, America.
July 16 – Land Grabs threaten 20 million hectares throughout Africa – A land grab, motivated by speculators, is threatening several African countries. The United Nations’ estimates that some 20 million hectares is currently – or about to be – under lease to foreign companies operating in Sudan, Tanzania, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia.
July 14 – We will not tolerate another coup in Barriere Lake! – Please take FIVE MINUTES to DEMAND the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have their legitimate leadership recognized!!! JOIN the community and Barriere Lake Solidarity in showing the Department of Indian Affairs that we will not tolerate another coup d’etat in Barriere Lake!
July 13 – Loggers arrested after invading uncontacted tribes’ land – Eighteen illegal loggers have been arrested on land inhabited by uncontacted Indians in Ecuador, according to the El Comercio newspaper. The arrests were made over the last few weeks, after the loggers were found by patrols cutting valuable cedar trees.
July 11 – 19 years later: On the Fraudulent theft of Mohawk Land – While the “Oka Crisis” has been long buried by most Canadians, the Fraudulent theft of land that led to it, remains completely unresolved.
July 9 – Tanzania Government bans water use near Barrick mine – The Tanzania government has banned the use of water from the Tigithe River, which may be contaminated with Sulphiric acid used by the Canadian company Barrick Gold at their North Mara Gold Mine in the Tarime discrict.
July 8 – Secretive Russia-Burma mine could displace thousands – A Russian-backed mining project in Burma’s war-torn Shan State will permanently destroy the homes and farmlands of 7,000 Pa-O villagers, according to a new report by the Pa-O Youth Organization (PYO).
July 8 – Sarawak Government ignores land rights ruling – The government of the Malaysian state of Sarawak is ignoring a recent court ruling recognizing the rights of the Penan and other tribes to their land, according to a leading Sarawak indigenous rights lawyer.
July 1 – Interview: Victory Over Mexico’s La Parota Dam – Since 2004, thousands of Mexican farmers have been fighting the construction of La Parota Dam in the state of Guerrero. They have staged blockades, protests and legal actions and have faced violent police repression in return. In May, the Mexican press reported that the government would postpone La Parota Dam until after 2018. World Rivers Review interviewed Rodolfo Chavez Galindo, a leader of the vibrant movement to stop the dams, about the battle over La Parota.
July 1 – Guatemala village blocking illegal garbage on their land – Neighbors of Pajopom Village from Esquipulas Palo Gordo don´t want trash from San Marcos anymore. From June 15th 2009 they have prevent the discharge of garbage in an illegal garbage dump in their community by having a pacific protest in front of the community saloon.
Videos
Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmy) Culture – “The Abatwa are an example of the phenomenon feared by Subcomandante Marcos and the indigenous communities of the Chiapas region of Mexico, that of being so marginalized as a people that you just don’t matter any more.”
The Voices of the Caribou People – The Voices of the Caribou People is a video-based project that documents the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples who traditionally maintain a close relationship with Caribou.
Interview with Grandma Aggie from the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers – The eldest living member of her tribe, the Takelma Indians of southwest Oregon, Agnes Baker-Pilgrim is a world-renowned spiritual leader, spokesperson and member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, and keeper of the Sacred Salmon Ceremony—a tradition that she revived for her people after 150 years.
http://intercontinentalcry.org/underreported-struggles-28-july-2009/
August 1, 2009 at 6:55am
July 31 – Alaska Natives try to halt proposed Pebble Mine – A coalition of village corporations and others files suit to put an end to drilling and exploration for a copper and gold mine above Bristol Bay — a sanctuary for wild salmon.
July 31 – Persecution of Indigenous Leaders Continues in Peru – The UN Special Rapporteur has called for an immediate review of legal charges against all indigenous leaders, who the government is attempting to blame for last month’s violent assault in Bagua. Police are currently preparing to arrest one of those leaders, Santiago Manuin Valera. Manuin was shot 8 times as he approached Peruvian special police forces last month, attempting to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the violence. (sign a petition denouncing the persecution of Amazonian indigenous leaders)
July 30 – Borneo tribe mounts new blockades against rainforest destruction – Dozens of Penan tribespeople armed with blowpipes and spears have erected blockades across the roads cut by logging companies deep into their forest in Borneo. The blockaders are calling for an end to logging on their land.
July 30 – Grand Canyon’s ‘guardians’ press for protections – As the “guardians of the Grand Canyon,” we strenuously object to mining for uranium here. It is a threat to the health of our environment and tribe, our tourism-based economy, and our religion.
July 30 – B.C. Chiefs reject aboriginal title offer – B.C. aboriginal leaders have started working on their own proposed law to redefine their land and resource claims, having scrapped the provincial government’s offer to concede aboriginal title across the province.
July 30 – Vedanta to go ahead with mining sacred Orissa hill – British mining giant Vedanta said on Tuesday it is going ahead with plans to mine a bauxite-rich hillside in Orissa considered sacred land by local tribals, and urged two international NGOs to give up their protest campaign.
July 29 – Six Nations concerns over Edwards landfill – A delegation from the Hoskanigetah (Six Nations Men’s Fire of the Grand River) warns about the possible re-opening of the Edwards landfill, just outside of Cayuga, Ontario. Members from the Six Nations community have been working for years, alongside the non-native environmental coalition, HALT (Haldimand Against Land Transfers), to make sure no more waste is added to the dump.
July 29 – We are NOT A THREAT to the Oil Industry – Here, a statement by Mike Mercredi from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, on the newly-released, roughshod of a report: Resource Industries and Security Issues in Northern Alberta, by the Canadian Defense Security and Foreign Affairs Institute (CDFAI). The report preposterously claims that indigenous people in Northern Alberta are one of the highest threats to Canada’s burgeoning oil industry.
July 28 – Brazilian judge orders illegal settlers off Awa lands – A Brazilian federal judge has ruled that ranchers and colonists illegally occupying the Awá Indian reserve must leave the territory within 180 days. This is a major victory for the tiny nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe of 300 people in Maranhão state.
July 28 – Boycott Denison Mines – Toronto-based Denison Mines (International Uranium Corporation) is threatening to reopen Canyon mine and drill for uranium at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It only takes a quick look at the company to see that it has targeted Indigenous Peoples around the world with mining, poison and death.
Denison uranium mines and explorations are in White Mesa, Utah, McClean Lake in Saskatchewan, Australia, Mongolia and the Mutanga Project in Zambia.
July 26 – Episcopal Church repudiates Doctrine of Discovery! – In a first-of-its-kind action in the Christian world, the national Episcopal Church has passed a landmark resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery and urging the U.S. government to endorse the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
July 24 – Indigenous Communities Angered by Peru Environment Minister – Indigenous communities from the Peruvian Amazon are angry over recent comments from Peru’s environment minister that Pluspetrol’s Lote 8 on the Corrientes river, is a “shining example” of how oil projects can benefit local communities. The only thing “shining” in Lote 8, as evidenced in the attached photograph, is coming from the four major oil spills that have occurred in the region, just this year.
July 24 – Another State of Emergency in Attawapiskat, northern Ontario, Canada – Attawapiskat First Nation is facing a state of emergency after numerous homes were contaminated by sewage. Attawapiskat Deputy Chief Theresa Spence issued a news release stating a failure in the community’s primary sewage lift station left dozens of residents living in contaminated homes.
July 23 – Ampilatwatja elders threaten to abandon community – A group of 30 indigenous elders and leaders from Ampilatwatja, in Australia’s Northern Territory, have said they will soon abandon their community unless the government starts listening to them. The group says that the intervention has brought nothing but shame and misery to their lives, leaving with no choice but to build a new community for themselves.
July 23 - Leech Lake Tribal residents file lawsuit against Enbridge – The tribal grassroots environmental justice group, “IN ZHA WEN DUN AKI” filed a civil lawsuit in a Leech Lake Tribal Court, seeking a temporary restraining order against Enbridge Energy from starting the proposed pipelines on the Leech Lake Reservation. (See www.dirtytarsands.org for more)
July 21 – Mexico: Nahuas win land struggle – On July 17 Michoacán governance secretary Fidel Calderón Torreblanca and the Nahuas’ legal adviser, Carlos González García, reached an agreement in which the Nahuas would receive land in compensation for grievances dating back some 45 years, when their land was taken from therm.
July 17 – All-of-a-sudden cleanup for the world’s Cold War waste – A bit of curious timing, 3 byproducts of the cold war are getting long-needed remediation: More than 800 million tons of uranium waste in Kyrgyzstan, a series of radar sites in Canada, and ’some’ of the more uranium-contaminated sites on Navajoland, America.
July 16 – Land Grabs threaten 20 million hectares throughout Africa – A land grab, motivated by speculators, is threatening several African countries. The United Nations’ estimates that some 20 million hectares is currently – or about to be – under lease to foreign companies operating in Sudan, Tanzania, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Ghana, Kenya and Zambia.
July 14 – We will not tolerate another coup in Barriere Lake! – Please take FIVE MINUTES to DEMAND the Algonquins of Barriere Lake have their legitimate leadership recognized!!! JOIN the community and Barriere Lake Solidarity in showing the Department of Indian Affairs that we will not tolerate another coup d’etat in Barriere Lake!
July 13 – Loggers arrested after invading uncontacted tribes’ land – Eighteen illegal loggers have been arrested on land inhabited by uncontacted Indians in Ecuador, according to the El Comercio newspaper. The arrests were made over the last few weeks, after the loggers were found by patrols cutting valuable cedar trees.
July 11 – 19 years later: On the Fraudulent theft of Mohawk Land – While the “Oka Crisis” has been long buried by most Canadians, the Fraudulent theft of land that led to it, remains completely unresolved.
July 9 – Tanzania Government bans water use near Barrick mine – The Tanzania government has banned the use of water from the Tigithe River, which may be contaminated with Sulphiric acid used by the Canadian company Barrick Gold at their North Mara Gold Mine in the Tarime discrict.
July 8 – Secretive Russia-Burma mine could displace thousands – A Russian-backed mining project in Burma’s war-torn Shan State will permanently destroy the homes and farmlands of 7,000 Pa-O villagers, according to a new report by the Pa-O Youth Organization (PYO).
July 8 – Sarawak Government ignores land rights ruling – The government of the Malaysian state of Sarawak is ignoring a recent court ruling recognizing the rights of the Penan and other tribes to their land, according to a leading Sarawak indigenous rights lawyer.
July 1 – Interview: Victory Over Mexico’s La Parota Dam – Since 2004, thousands of Mexican farmers have been fighting the construction of La Parota Dam in the state of Guerrero. They have staged blockades, protests and legal actions and have faced violent police repression in return. In May, the Mexican press reported that the government would postpone La Parota Dam until after 2018. World Rivers Review interviewed Rodolfo Chavez Galindo, a leader of the vibrant movement to stop the dams, about the battle over La Parota.
July 1 – Guatemala village blocking illegal garbage on their land – Neighbors of Pajopom Village from Esquipulas Palo Gordo don´t want trash from San Marcos anymore. From June 15th 2009 they have prevent the discharge of garbage in an illegal garbage dump in their community by having a pacific protest in front of the community saloon.
Videos
Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmy) Culture – “The Abatwa are an example of the phenomenon feared by Subcomandante Marcos and the indigenous communities of the Chiapas region of Mexico, that of being so marginalized as a people that you just don’t matter any more.”
The Voices of the Caribou People – The Voices of the Caribou People is a video-based project that documents the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples who traditionally maintain a close relationship with Caribou.
Interview with Grandma Aggie from the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers – The eldest living member of her tribe, the Takelma Indians of southwest Oregon, Agnes Baker-Pilgrim is a world-renowned spiritual leader, spokesperson and member of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, and keeper of the Sacred Salmon Ceremony—a tradition that she revived for her people after 150 years.
http://intercontinentalcry.org/underreported-struggles-28-july-2009/
Friday, July 31, 2009
Water Problems From Drilling Are More Frequent Than PA Officials Said
Comment: Most states are not going to tell the truth about any type of water problems because they want the money over people's health, the state will protect the corporations and not us!
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - July 31, 2009 11:29 am EDT
When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as "an anomaly." But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.
In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson [1].
Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking water systems.
In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania's geology, state inspectors say. But other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled, active natural gas wells.
Dimock resident Norma Fiorentino's drinking water well exploded on New Year's morning. The blast was so strong it tossed aside a several-thousand=pound concrete slab. Click to see more of Dimock's residents' stories. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock [2], in northeastern Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely in concrete — a process known in the industry as "cementing" — and assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.
But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52 separate cases of what the state calls "methane migration" in the last five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.
An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the DEP's Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead to stray gas problems. "Although it rarely makes headlines," the report reads, "damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem in Western Pennsylvania."
Craig Lobins, the DEP regional oil and gas manager who initially described the Dimock case as an anomaly in interviews with ProPublica, said he still believes the frequency of contamination incidents is statistically insignificant.
Records show there are roughly 58,000 active gas wells in Pennsylvania. "We are just dealing with a very small percentage," he said in a follow-up interview.
The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west of Dimock along the state's northern border. Shortly after a contractor for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.
Michael Schreiner, Schreiner's president, declined to comment for this article.
Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination cases across the state — stem from a bad cement job around the core of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete [3] to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system during the process of hydraulic fracturing [4], which pumps water, sand and chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.
In Bradford, Lobins said, concrete was poured into the space around the wells but never filled the space — a sign of a possible leak. Because Pennsylvania does not have regulations that require inspections or testing of the concrete casing, the state didn't notice the problem until methane began showing up in water wells. By then, the suspected concrete error had been repeated in as many as 27 different places, Lobins said.
In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete to keep it isolated from groundwater. This practice of encasing the well is seen as key to protecting water supplies. (Graphic by Al Granberg/ProPublica)Controlling the quality of cementing and well casing is widely viewed as the most important factor in protecting water supplies and ensuring the integrity of a well. A recent federally funded study of state regulations across the country [5] (PDF), published by the Ground Water Protection Council, a consortium of state oil and gas regulators, industry representatives, and some environmental consultants, said that proper concrete casing is critical to environmental protection. While 96 percent of states, including Pennsylvania, have standards specifying that concrete be used to protect aquifers, the report found that one in five, also including Pennsylvania, do not require testing to confirm that the concrete used is strong enough for the job. That means that until water problems arose as a result of the casing problems in Bradford, the state had little recourse.
"What they are doing is not a violation until the gas is leaving the borehole," Lobins said. "We don't know that until it manifests itself somewhere else."
Lobins said the state is reviewing its regulations and that changes are planned to address both well casing and methane migration issues. But when asked what specific changes were being discussed, Lobins said he did not know. Similar questions went unanswered by Ron Gilius, the DEP's oil and gas director, after they were submitted by ProPublica both in interviews and in writing.
For their part, Bradford residents were surprised to learn that their problems were not unique.
"They didn't say that there were other problems similar to this," said Lori Trumbull, who complained about her water but later found that it was OK. "They said that the odds of having water contamination from drilling operations is very rare."
Fred Baldassare, the state's dedicated methane migration investigator, said he has investigated water contaminated with drilling-related methane in numerous places across the state in recent years. In Bridgeville, two homes exploded when a well casing failed and methane seeped into their basements, he said. In Dayton, he said, residents were evacuated after a well casing failed and methane migrated into an adjacent abandoned well, blowing out its casing and travelling a third of a mile underground.
In Vandergrift, drillers stumbled across an old gas well that no one knew was there. Baldassare said that when the new well was hydraulically fractured, the intense pressure forced gas into the adjacent wells. It then percolated up through water and mud until it surfaced just feet from homes in a heavily populated neighborhood.
The most tragic Pennsylvania methane case began on March 5, 2004 in Jefferson County, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. According to Baldassare, gas seeped into the home of 64-year-old Charles Harper and his 53-year-old wife, Dorothy, from one of several adjacent wells being drilled by Snyder Brothers. The gas collected until it exploded and, according to court records and news reports at the time, reduced the home to "a pile of rubble." Debris was found across the road, and insulation hung from trees 30 feet in the air. The bodies of the Harpers and their grandson, Baelee, were found buried in the debris.
Executives from Snyder Brothers did not return calls for comment. The company was sued in state court in Jefferson County and reached an undisclosed settlement with the Harper family.
State officials traced the methane's geochemical fingerprint and determined it had come from one of three Snyder wells nearby. The investigation, however, remains open in part because Snyder has yet to comply with state orders to conduct pressure tests on the wells — orders delivered in 2005, according to Baldassare. But that doesn't mean state officials aren't sure about what happened.
According to Baldassare, the Snyder methane caused the explosion.
"In my view," he said, "there was no uncertainty."
http://www.propublica.org/feature/water-problems-from-drilling-are-more-frequent-than-officials-said-731
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - July 31, 2009 11:29 am EDT
When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as "an anomaly." But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.
In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles. In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson [1].
Methane is the largest component of natural gas. Since it evaporates out of drinking water, it is not considered toxic, but in the air it can lead to explosions. When methane is found in water supplies, it can also signal that deeply drilled gas wells are linked with drinking water systems.
In many cases the methane seepage comes from thousands of old abandoned gas wells that riddle Pennsylvania's geology, state inspectors say. But other cases, including several this year and the 2004 disaster that left three people dead, were linked to problems with newly drilled, active natural gas wells.
Dimock resident Norma Fiorentino's drinking water well exploded on New Year's morning. The blast was so strong it tossed aside a several-thousand=pound concrete slab. Click to see more of Dimock's residents' stories. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)The issue came to the forefront in January when methane was found in the water at 16 homes in the small town of Dimock [2], in northeastern Pennsylvania. State officials cited Cabot Oil & Gas for several violations they say allowed the gas to seep out of the well structures and into water supplies there. The Department of Environmental Protection asked the company to encase its lower well pipes completely in concrete — a process known in the industry as "cementing" — and assured the public that the contamination in Dimock was rare.
But according to a department spokeswoman, there have been at least 52 separate cases of what the state calls "methane migration" in the last five years. In two of the 2009 cases, regulators responded to complaints from more than 32 households and asked gas companies to supply clean water to at least a dozen homes with contaminated wells.
An undated report from the Pittsburgh Geological Society posted to the DEP's Web site makes it clear that old wells and new drilling can lead to stray gas problems. "Although it rarely makes headlines," the report reads, "damage or threats caused by gas migration is a common problem in Western Pennsylvania."
Craig Lobins, the DEP regional oil and gas manager who initially described the Dimock case as an anomaly in interviews with ProPublica, said he still believes the frequency of contamination incidents is statistically insignificant.
Records show there are roughly 58,000 active gas wells in Pennsylvania. "We are just dealing with a very small percentage," he said in a follow-up interview.
The case Lobins was investigating at the same time as the Dimock case concerned a string of problems in Bradford, a rural town 200 miles west of Dimock along the state's northern border. Shortly after a contractor for Schreiner Oil and Gas drilled several dozen wells in the area last spring, residents began complaining of murky and foul-smelling tap water. When the DEP investigated, it found methane in three water wells and metals in six others. It asked Schreiner to supply water to eight homes, and the company has begun installing water treatment systems at each house. While no new gas wells have been drilled in the Bradford area, according to the DEP, the existing ones continue to operate.
Michael Schreiner, Schreiner's president, declined to comment for this article.
Lobins said the problems in Bradford — as in many of the contamination cases across the state — stem from a bad cement job around the core of the well. In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete [3] to keep it isolated from surrounding groundwater. The concrete also contains the enormous pressure exerted on the system during the process of hydraulic fracturing [4], which pumps water, sand and chemicals to the well bottom to break up rock.
In Bradford, Lobins said, concrete was poured into the space around the wells but never filled the space — a sign of a possible leak. Because Pennsylvania does not have regulations that require inspections or testing of the concrete casing, the state didn't notice the problem until methane began showing up in water wells. By then, the suspected concrete error had been repeated in as many as 27 different places, Lobins said.
In most gas drilling, the well pipe is encased in layers of concrete to keep it isolated from groundwater. This practice of encasing the well is seen as key to protecting water supplies. (Graphic by Al Granberg/ProPublica)Controlling the quality of cementing and well casing is widely viewed as the most important factor in protecting water supplies and ensuring the integrity of a well. A recent federally funded study of state regulations across the country [5] (PDF), published by the Ground Water Protection Council, a consortium of state oil and gas regulators, industry representatives, and some environmental consultants, said that proper concrete casing is critical to environmental protection. While 96 percent of states, including Pennsylvania, have standards specifying that concrete be used to protect aquifers, the report found that one in five, also including Pennsylvania, do not require testing to confirm that the concrete used is strong enough for the job. That means that until water problems arose as a result of the casing problems in Bradford, the state had little recourse.
"What they are doing is not a violation until the gas is leaving the borehole," Lobins said. "We don't know that until it manifests itself somewhere else."
Lobins said the state is reviewing its regulations and that changes are planned to address both well casing and methane migration issues. But when asked what specific changes were being discussed, Lobins said he did not know. Similar questions went unanswered by Ron Gilius, the DEP's oil and gas director, after they were submitted by ProPublica both in interviews and in writing.
For their part, Bradford residents were surprised to learn that their problems were not unique.
"They didn't say that there were other problems similar to this," said Lori Trumbull, who complained about her water but later found that it was OK. "They said that the odds of having water contamination from drilling operations is very rare."
Fred Baldassare, the state's dedicated methane migration investigator, said he has investigated water contaminated with drilling-related methane in numerous places across the state in recent years. In Bridgeville, two homes exploded when a well casing failed and methane seeped into their basements, he said. In Dayton, he said, residents were evacuated after a well casing failed and methane migrated into an adjacent abandoned well, blowing out its casing and travelling a third of a mile underground.
In Vandergrift, drillers stumbled across an old gas well that no one knew was there. Baldassare said that when the new well was hydraulically fractured, the intense pressure forced gas into the adjacent wells. It then percolated up through water and mud until it surfaced just feet from homes in a heavily populated neighborhood.
The most tragic Pennsylvania methane case began on March 5, 2004 in Jefferson County, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. According to Baldassare, gas seeped into the home of 64-year-old Charles Harper and his 53-year-old wife, Dorothy, from one of several adjacent wells being drilled by Snyder Brothers. The gas collected until it exploded and, according to court records and news reports at the time, reduced the home to "a pile of rubble." Debris was found across the road, and insulation hung from trees 30 feet in the air. The bodies of the Harpers and their grandson, Baelee, were found buried in the debris.
Executives from Snyder Brothers did not return calls for comment. The company was sued in state court in Jefferson County and reached an undisclosed settlement with the Harper family.
State officials traced the methane's geochemical fingerprint and determined it had come from one of three Snyder wells nearby. The investigation, however, remains open in part because Snyder has yet to comply with state orders to conduct pressure tests on the wells — orders delivered in 2005, according to Baldassare. But that doesn't mean state officials aren't sure about what happened.
According to Baldassare, the Snyder methane caused the explosion.
"In my view," he said, "there was no uncertainty."
http://www.propublica.org/feature/water-problems-from-drilling-are-more-frequent-than-officials-said-731
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Uranium mining, milling brings more than money
Comment: Great Letter Mr. Lovelace about what uranium mining will do to our lovely state of Virginia for the price of greed of uranium companies and Corp. Virginia!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 9:44 AM EDT
It saddens me to think some can only think of dollar signs and not the contamination and sickness from uranium mining and milling. We, the citizens, have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
I would like to know when the price of uranium drops, whether Virginia Uranium Inc. or any other uranium mining companies handle their mining and milling operations like all the other mining companies in the world do. Will you stop operations temporarily or permanently until the price of uranium rises again?
Keep in mind even if you are an experienced miner, these jobs could be part-time. You might be laid off for months. Can you support your family on a part-time job? Would you try and build or buy a house or buy a new vehicle knowing you might only work three or four months a year? The only milling facility (White Mesa) in the United States has only operated a few months this year and announced in May it would not process ore for the remainder of 2009 because the cost is higher than the spot price of uranium, according to the owner, Denison Mines President Ron Hochstein.
Let's not forget about all the part-time tax revenue for our county and state. My understanding of the tax revenue with mining and milling operations is the company has to be running and the jobs being worked to get the tax revenue. Our great state and county are not run on part-time taxes and jobs. It might help, but it does not outweigh the contamination of our drinking water and land, the sickness to our families and the tax increases to clean up this mess if it ever could be cleaned up.
Mr. Roach, haven't you been working on and off? Well, let me say this another way. Haven't you worked part-time for Virginia Uranium Inc. over the last several years? I am sure you have not depended on this solely to support your family. You also speak of us having a thriving community, I wonder if the Navaho Indians would agree with you on this issue.
All I hear is we need to mine this uranium, get it out of the ground, it's a matter of national security, and we need to dig so we can power our nuclear plants now. Well, watch the price drop and you will see the mining stop. The nuclear plants still need the uranium whether the price is high or low, but we have an excess of uranium and the mining and milling will stop and start with the greed and costs of operations. If dug up, the radon released would be 10,000, yes that is 10,000, times more than if left in the ground.
What I feel is a matter of national security is destroying your own water and agricultural land and depending on foreign countries to feed you or provide you with drinking water.
Phillip Lovelace
Gretna
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 9:44 AM EDT
It saddens me to think some can only think of dollar signs and not the contamination and sickness from uranium mining and milling. We, the citizens, have nothing to gain and everything to lose.
I would like to know when the price of uranium drops, whether Virginia Uranium Inc. or any other uranium mining companies handle their mining and milling operations like all the other mining companies in the world do. Will you stop operations temporarily or permanently until the price of uranium rises again?
Keep in mind even if you are an experienced miner, these jobs could be part-time. You might be laid off for months. Can you support your family on a part-time job? Would you try and build or buy a house or buy a new vehicle knowing you might only work three or four months a year? The only milling facility (White Mesa) in the United States has only operated a few months this year and announced in May it would not process ore for the remainder of 2009 because the cost is higher than the spot price of uranium, according to the owner, Denison Mines President Ron Hochstein.
Let's not forget about all the part-time tax revenue for our county and state. My understanding of the tax revenue with mining and milling operations is the company has to be running and the jobs being worked to get the tax revenue. Our great state and county are not run on part-time taxes and jobs. It might help, but it does not outweigh the contamination of our drinking water and land, the sickness to our families and the tax increases to clean up this mess if it ever could be cleaned up.
Mr. Roach, haven't you been working on and off? Well, let me say this another way. Haven't you worked part-time for Virginia Uranium Inc. over the last several years? I am sure you have not depended on this solely to support your family. You also speak of us having a thriving community, I wonder if the Navaho Indians would agree with you on this issue.
All I hear is we need to mine this uranium, get it out of the ground, it's a matter of national security, and we need to dig so we can power our nuclear plants now. Well, watch the price drop and you will see the mining stop. The nuclear plants still need the uranium whether the price is high or low, but we have an excess of uranium and the mining and milling will stop and start with the greed and costs of operations. If dug up, the radon released would be 10,000, yes that is 10,000, times more than if left in the ground.
What I feel is a matter of national security is destroying your own water and agricultural land and depending on foreign countries to feed you or provide you with drinking water.
Phillip Lovelace
Gretna
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