The case against uranium mining/The case for uranium mining

The blue is caused by copper contamination, but there could also be other heavy metals present (came from the uranium mine, all metals were mined, this happen after a flood!)

Comment: Please read the two letters about uranium mining!

The case against uranium mining

14/10/2009 8:39:00 AM

A LONG term North West cattle station owner believes primary producers need to be consulted on how their land would be affected by uranium mining before any decision on the industry’s future was made.

Margaret Campbell owned the “Rosebud” cattle station, which bordered the former Mary Kathleen uranium mine near Cloncurry, while it was still in operation from the 1950s to the 80s.

She said she had seen firsthand how a uranium mine could be a health and economic problem for those living in such close proximity to the site.

She can remember a flock of ducks being killed instantly when they landed on a nearby creek that allegedly contained radioactive water.

“I can remember the pipes at the mine breaking and this horrible grey stuff running past my kitchen window,” she said.

“The message the mine sent back was it is only the tailings but don’t let your kids play in it.”

Mrs Campbell said creek overflows during the wet season would destroy surrounding vegetation.

“It can’t all be cleared away – it stays radioactive. Cattle producers wouldn’t be able to sell their cattle if they’re contaminated and it would be hard to know which cattle are contaminated. The government and the mining companies need to talk to producers before any decision was made,” she said.

“It is not really the kind of industry you want around.”

The case for uranium mining

14/10/2009 8:40:00 AM

IT WOULD take about three years for a uranium mining industry to be established in Mount Isa if the Queensland Government was to give the go-ahead for the industry to begin, a leading industry expert has said.
Alan J Eggers served as the managing director of Summit Resources when the company began developing uranium exploration in the Mount Isa region from 1990.

He is currently the executive chairman of Manhattan Corporation Limited, a public listed company with uranium interests in Western Australia.

As a long term uranium industry figurehead and among the first to explore sections of the North West for the controversial mineral, he has seen the debate for and against uranium mining rise and fall on the political agenda during the past two decades.

However, he believes it was “inevitable” Queensland would begin uranium mining.

He said advanced exploration had already been conducted throughout the North West and companies were simply waiting for the State Government to give the industry the thumbs up.

“We have everything in place to export uranium - including the skills, the knowledge and the ports – the only thing standing in the way is the political will,” he said.

“There are already uranium mines in Australia and several other mining leases in Western Australia being considered. So Queensland is simply losing out on royalties and revenue by not allowing uranium mining.”

In Australia, the industry produces uranium entirely for export.

Uranium is exported under a framework of anti- nuclear weapons proliferation safeguards and strict health, safety and environmental regulations.

Full year exploration statistics released last month by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show a 20 per cent decline in uranium exploration Australia-wide, compared with 2007-08 (from about $231 million to $185 million).

In Queensland, exploration spending during the year was weaker, although spending in the June quarter ($6.3 million) was up slightly on March.

http://www.northweststar.com.au/news/local/news/general/the-case-for-uranium-mining/1648705.aspx?src=rss

http://www.northweststar.com.au/news/local/news/general/the-case-against-uranium-mining/1648704.aspx?src=rss

France dumps nuclear waste in Siberia, reports say

Nuclear 13.10.2009
Editor: Kate Bowen

Nuclear waste from France has been sent to Siberia for storage. According to news reports, over 100 tons of uranium were transported to Seversk. France's ecology minister has called for an investigation into the case.

According to the French daily newspaper Liberation and Franco-German television broadcaster Arte, France's electricity company EDF has sent 108 tons of uranium to Siberia since the mid-1990s. About 13 percent of France's nuclear waste is stored in open-air parking lots near a nuclear plant in Seversk, said reports on Monday.

EDF said it sends uranium left over from nuclear plant production in France to Russia to be treated so that it can be used again.

Ten to 20 percent of the uranium came back to France to be used in French power plants, an EDF spokeswoman said Monday. A company official denied that waste was left outdoors.

Liberation based its information on an eight-month investigation which was broadcast by Arte on Tuesday.

Legal loophole

The container was allegedly shipped by boat from Le Havre in northern France to the Siberian atom complex "Tomsk-7," located 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) away. This was only possible due to a legal loophole: In Russia, depleted uranium, recharged uranium and plutonium are not considered atomic waste but "radioactive material," according to the report by journalist Laure Noualhat.

Therefore, the shipment to Russia was not officially treated as an atomic waste transport overseas - that would have been forbidden by law.

France's ecology minister, Chantal Jouanno, has called for an investigation into the case. Jouanno said Tuesday on France-Info radio that the country's nuclear energy industry "must be completely transparent."

Anti-nuclear power movement group "Sortir du Nucleaire" accused Jouanno of trying to win time by announcing an investigation. The group has demanded that the atomic waste be brought back from Russia.

France, like Germany, has not yet found a location to permanently store nuclear waste underground. French nuclear authorities are considering permanently storing the waste generated in the past three decades and the waste produced in the future near Bure in eastern France, 500 meters (1,640 feet) below ground.

sst/AFP/AP
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4786672,00.html?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf

US nuclear regulators accept application to review Canadian firm’s planned SD uranium mine

Canadian firm gets key OK in SD uranium mine plan

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The Canadian developer of a planned uranium mine in southwest South Dakota can move ahead with its request for a federal permit, one of four needed to operate.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission informed Powertech Uranium Corp. that its application for a detailed technical and environmental review has been accepted for the Dewey Burdock project near Edgemont.

The company is currently operating under a state permit to drill exploratory holes. It withdrew the federal application in June so it could fix several deficiencies that would have led to the proposal being rejected.

NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said Tuesday that those issues have been addressed and the NRC staff has started reviewing the application. There will be an opportunity for a public hearing before the agency makes a decision on the project, which could happen within about two years, he said.

The application accepted by the NRC is for a Source Material License, which deals with nearly every aspect of the proposal, said Mark Hollenbeck, Dewey Burdock project manager.

“It covers all issues related to radiation, health and safety,” he said.

Powertech also needs a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency and two from the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Hollenbeck said.

The company has a corporate office in Vancouver, British Columbia, and operations in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, as well as the Edgemont project in South Dakota.

Powertech wants to inject chemically treated water into holes to dissolve the uranium, then pump out the solution and collect the uranium for processing. Company representatives said the process, called “in situ leach-mining,” is safe and does not cause contamination.

But some environmental and American Indian groups oppose the project for fear it would harm underground aquifers and disturb sacred and burial sites. The land is about 60 miles from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and lies on the southern edge of the Black Hills, which Indians consider sacred.

Charmaine White Face with Defenders of the Black Hills said the groups have already filed opposition at the state level and also plan to oppose the project when the federal process allows it.

“I’m sure that between all of us we will push it as far as we can to stop this,” she said.

On the Net:
Powertech: www.powertechuranium.com
NRC: adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/idmws/ViewDocByAccession.asp?Acce
DENR: denr.sd.gov/Powertech.aspx
Defenders of the Black Hills: www.defendblackhills.org

http://blog.taragana.com/n/us-nuclear-regulators-accept-application-to-review-canadian-firms-planned-sd-uranium-mine-194897/

Uranium and cancer

By Christina MacPherson

Uranium development a sham Eastern Panorama Agnes Kgarshiing (India)

11 Oct 09

Cancer cases among Aboriginal people living near Australia’s biggest uranium mines is doubling, a study by the Federal Governments leading Indigenous Research body shows, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, of the 23rd November 2006.

There have also been many Uranium Tailing disasters, in Australia, Canada and the United States, even though these countries are armed with the most “State of the Art” tailing dams.

According to the AFP news, a French physicist Bruno Chareyron of France’s CRIIRAD laboratory, which measures radioactivity in the environment, has joined representatives of indigenous peoples from Africa, Australia and the United States to send US lawmakers a stark warning about the dangers of uranium mining.

He spoke in a conference in Washington DC in the month of Feb 2009 where he stated that that he wants the US lawmakers to understand that uranium mining is highly pollutant and that there is presently no scientific answer to the question of radioactive waste containment. He mentioned that the information given by mining companies is not entirely reliable.

http://nuclearnewsaustralia.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/uranium-and-cancer/

To read whole story, click below:
http://www.easternpanorama.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=769:uranium-development-a-sham-&catid=45:web-special&Itemid=24

Chemicals From Former Missile Sites Pose Water Contamination Risk

By Mead Gruver
Associated Press
Sunday, October 11, 2009

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- As U.S. Air Force officials marked the 50th anniversary of the deployment of nuclear missiles to sites in the rural United States this past week, residents in some of these communities are still grappling with another legacy -- groundwater pollution from chemicals used to clean and maintain the weapons.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is identifying and cleaning up dozens of former nuclear missile sites in nine states.

To date, the corps has spent $116 million at 44 former Atlas and Titan intercontinental ballistic missile -- or ICBM -- sites and 19 former Nike antiaircraft missile sites from the early Cold War. The missile sites include 14 in Kansas, 10 in Nebraska, seven in Wyoming, seven in Colorado and two in Oklahoma. California, New Mexico, New York and Texas have one contaminated site each.

Total cleanup costs are projected to be $400 million, according to corps spokeswoman Candice Walters.

The sites are contaminated with the chemical trichloroethylene, or TCE, which was used to keep missiles clean and ready to deploy on short notice.

Exposure to high concentrations of the chemical can cause nervous system problems, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat, coma and death, according to the Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. TCE also may cause cancer, other government agencies say.

TCE may have polluted many more missile sites than the corps is aware of.

The corps has evaluated a total of 395 former ICBM and Nike missile sites since the Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, program began in the early 1980s. But the corps didn't identify TCE as a high priority until the Environmental Protection Agency adopted a drinking water standard for the chemical in 1989.

"As new contaminants are identified, then we have to go back and look at some of the sites we have and say, 'Ooh, maybe this is something we should be looking for,' " Walters said.

The FUDS program gets $306 million a year for cleanup work at more than 9,000 former defense sites nationwide that is projected to cost $17.8 billion, Walters said.

Deciding which contaminated missile sites to clean up depends in part on how many people nearby could be exposed to TCE, said Jeff Skog, TCE remediation manager for the corps office in Omaha. "So it sort of depends on what's available during any given year and how high on up the list it is for priority projects," he said.

The most common use for TCE -- especially in decades past, before it was identified as toxic -- was as a degreaser and lubricant. TCE also has been used in model airplane glue, typewriter correction fluid and dry-cleaning chemicals.

The National Toxicology Program has determined that TCE is "reasonably anticipated" to be a human carcinogen and the International Agency for Research on Cancer has said that TCE is "probably carcinogenic" in people. Large-scale studies of health effects from TCE in drinking water, however, have been inconclusive.

In southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado, the corps has identified TCE pollution at 11 former Atlas D and Atlas E missile sites that were overseen by F.E. Warren Air Force Base before being decommissioned and sold off in the mid-1960s. Most of those sites are remote, making them low priorities for cleanup.

One site north of Fort Collins, Colo., is close to a river. An environmental group says a planned reservoir that would partly cover the site could contaminate the Poudre River and municipal water supplies downstream.

"If the TCE plume gets to the river, it will be a dangerous chemical pollutant that the water providers have to deal with," said Gary Wockner with SaveThePoudre.org.

The city of Cheyenne has been using four water wells about 10 miles west of town and eight miles east of the second ICBM site that was built in the American heartland. The wells are located within an unusually large, eight-mile-long plume of TCE within the Ogallala Aquifer.

TCE was first detected in the city wells in the 1990s but levels mostly remained below the EPA's drinking water standard of 5 parts per billion. Aeration at the city's water treatment plant broke down the TCE and made it undetectable in the city's drinking water, said plant manager Bud Spillman.

Hank VanGoethen, who lives west of Cheyenne, said he's not convinced that drinking his well water for 27 years did him any harm. TCE in his well recently increased to more than five times the government standard, prompting the corps to install a filter on his well earlier this year.

He said he drank bottled water for months until the work was finished.

"So far it hasn't cost me anything but aggravation, waiting for them to get it done and watching them do it," he said. "It was definitely a government job."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101002301.html

Marcellus question: Who will pay to monitor gas drilling?

October 10, 2009
By Tom Wilber
twilber@gannett.com

And now for a little homework ...

The state is asking local government agencies to regulate key aspects of the natural gas industry, raising yet more questions about who will pay for manpower to oversee multinational energy companies setting up shop in Southern Tier's backyards.

The industry's effect on water resources and roads are included in a report released Sept. 30 by the Department of Environmental Conservation outlining environmental concerns from full-scale Marcellus Shale development.

Risks to water, the report says, include turbidity, methane contamination and, to a lesser degree, potential for hazardous chemicals to breach well-bore casings or spill while being handled or disposed of on the surface.

To deal with those threats, the state is calling on local health departments to oversee a testing program of private wells in drilling zones. Testing would begin before drilling starts, and continue for a year after it ends.

DEC would also require drilling companies to work out a plan with local governments to minimize traffic problems and cover damage to roads caused by fleets of heavy equipment, water tankers and drill rigs caravanning from site to site.

The industry's promise of affluence, supporters say, will help the struggling economy and bolster the tax base. Yet officials have yet to figure out how to pay to oversee an onslaught of permitting and drilling activity - mostly in the Southern Tier - that is expected to begin next year.

The county is looking at a 3.9 percent tax hike and job cuts to help balance next year's budget. Gov. David Paterson has ordered state agencies to cut operating expenses 11 percent.

"How will we pay? That is a concern," said Broome County Legislator Stephen Herz, D-Windsor, a member of the Finance Committee.

A proposal to steer industry fees and taxes into the state's general fund died in Albany earlier this year. Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell, favors a plan to raise permit fees and earmark them for regulatory staffing. So does the industry.

Yet that plan is yet to materialize.

"There will have to be money to pay for staff time, no matter where it comes from," said Chip McElwee, executive director of the Broome County Soil & Water Conservation District, an agency that works with landowners to preserve water resources.

Who pays for what?

The state suspended permitting for the Marcellus last summer in order to take a closer look at an industry expected to change the Southern Tier's economic and physical landscape.

Results arrived last month via the 809-page draft called the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement. While the proposal lays the ground rules for Marcellus development, it's only one piece of a complicated regulatory puzzle.

Local governments must provide the missing pieces, including the wherewithal to protect water and roads.

The clock is ticking.

The public comment period ends Nov. 30. As of Friday, representatives from industry and government said they are still reading through it. Hard copies were not available at public places, and the DEC still hasn't scheduled public meetings to review it.

While the review proposes a regulatory framework, it does not address costs.

County health agencies, the plan says, would take on a "primary role" in overseeing a program to review water data at private wells within 1,000 to 2,000 feet of a drilling rig, before, during and up to a year after operations. Counties also would flag problems and investigate complaints.

Drilling companies are responsible for testing and sending results to the health department and residents for interpretation.

County officials are still trying to determine how that translates into staffing needs.

Here are the numbers they will work with:

The Marcellus is capable of supporting between 2,000 and 4,000 gas wells in Broome County, based on an economic development report commissioned by the legislature. Each gas well has the potential for producing water testing at multiple spots for years.

How much oversight would that require?

"We have to see how it fits in with our resources," said Robert Denz, director of environmental health for the Broome County Department of Health.

Tough sell

As a preliminary step, the county added $28,000 to the Health Department's budget for 2010 to pay for an additional part-time position to respond to complaints involving drilling's effect on private water supplies. Denz said he did not know whether this would be enough without further evaluating the DEC's proposal.

Any staff additions might be a tough sell, however, given the budget problems.

"Nobody has come to grips with it yet," said Herz, who, as a member of landowner coalition dealing with energy companies, has been following the issue closely. "We are looking at a budget in the county that is pretty harsh."

While officials work on the funding puzzle, the state's regulatory proposal is finding general support among drilling industry leaders and bitter criticism from advocacy groups.

Adam Flint, a member of the Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition, said officials are too quick to embrace economic promises of Marcellus development without assessing the costs.

"People are playing fast and loose with the figures," he said. "The reports are not spelling out who pays."

The state report lays the groundwork for drilling to begin. Industry supporters see that as encouraging.

"It seems that the state set the conditions so that actual production could proceed, even under tightly defined parameters," said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a national trade group. "That's why we support this and they (opponents) do not. There is no way to split the baby on this."

Full-scale Marcellus production is on the Southern Tier's threshold. When it arrives and how it unfolds depends largely on how the regulations are crafted. That, in turn, depends on how the public and officials respond to the state's proposal.

They have homework to do in the next few weeks.

Additional Facts
Why it matters
The Marcellus shale runs from the Southern Tier of New York, through the western portion of Pennsylvania into the eastern half of Ohio and through West Virginia. Many gas production companies are now interested in the Marcellus, so they are approaching land-owners with offers to lease the rights to natural gas deposits below houses and farms.

The implications for residents of the region are significant. Gas-leases can generate income for residents, but might create costs for local governments that could be charged with some of the responsibilities for oversight. Gas-drilling in other areas has prompted issues related to pollution, noise, and safety.

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20091010/NEWS01/910100362/Marcellus+question++Who+will+pay+to+monitor+gas+drilling

Meghalaya Govt. leases out land for uranium mining despite locals protest

AniSeptember 30th, 2009

SHILLONG - The Meghalaya government has decided to lease out 422 hectares of land in the West Khasi Hills region for 30 years to the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) for pre-project developmental works, a step which is agitating a number of locals.

According to locals, Meghalaya’s environment has been destroyed by the through unscientific mining of coal, limestone and other natural resources.

They claim that uranium mining will only add to environmental degradation of Meghalaya.

“First thing is the health-issue relating to uranium mining and the impact it will have in those areas where there will be uranium mining, and the second point is that the amount of royalty that the government will get,” said Michael Syiem, President, Mait Shaphrang Movement, an NGO spearheading the protest against uranium mining.

“Will it be just something which you see— peanuts are we really getting our worth from the wealth the God has given us?” said Syiem.

Apart from the Mait Shaphrang Movement, the Khasi Students Union (KSU), several other NGOs have joined the crusade against the prospecting of uranium.

They allege that pre-development works are only a precursor to the mining of radioactive mineral, which in turn could lead to serious environmental and health problems.

“We are opposed to this pre-project development activities on the ground that the government is misleading the people of the state and also the district that this pre project development activities is for the area and also for the whole of West Khasi district, which is in fact, not true and very misleading,” said Samuel Jrywa, President, Khasi Students Union (KSU), Meghalaya.

As per UCIL estimates, there could be 3, 75,000 tonnes of uranium deposits in Meghalaya.

While exploratory surveys were carried out in early 1990s, the mining project is yet to begin. By Hempi D.Henpilen (ANI)

http://blog.taragana.com/n/meghalaya-govt-leases-out-land-for-uranium-mining-despite-locals-protest-182801/

Drilling and Killing

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

Senior Citizens March 25 Miles to End Mountaintop

posted by: Beth B.

Fifteen individuals between the ages of 50 and 83 set off on a March to End Mountaintop Removal at 10 a.m. on October 8th, 2009. The march was preceded by a rally and press conference in front of the State Capitol building in Charleston, Virginia, and is sponsored by a coalition that includes Climate Ground Zero, Mountain Justice, Intergenerational Justice and Christians for the Mountains. It is part of an ongoing civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal in West Virginia.

The seniors are walking five miles each day for five days, ending at Massey subsidiary Mammoth Coal on Monday, Oct. 12. In a statement issued by the US Mine Safety & Health Administration yesterday, Mammoth Coal was named as one of ten mining operators that need to improve performance or face tougher enforcement.

The mountaintop removal mine and processing plant, formerly operated by Cannelton Coal, was bought out by Massey in 2004. Massey cut the United Mine Workers of America contract and reopened the site, located east of Charleston on Route 60, as the non-union Mammoth Coal Company. The decision was met with a UMWA-organized picket and lawsuits.

"Mountaintop removal is closing in on our home place in Coal River, destroying the ridge up and down the river," said Julian Martin, 73, a coal miner's son and Vice President of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, "I see mountaintop removal as probably the world's worst environmental disaster." Martin's grandfather fought in the largest organized labor uprising in United States history, the Battle of Blair Mountain.

March organizers Roland Micklem, 81, and Andrew Munn, 23, are planning activities and speaking events each evening, including talks by Larry Gibson of the Keepers of the Mountain Foundation and Jesse Johnson, 2004 and 2008 Green Party gubernatorial candidate at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charleston on Friday and Saturday night.

This action is monumental in demonstrating the way that mountaintop removal mining affects the lives of all humans, regardless of age, occupation, religion or political orientation. In a movement that is characterized by the actions of the "young and the restless" these seniors are taking a stand against the unneccessary destruction of West Virginia's mountains.

"We seniors need to make a statement with our own actions and share the risks that are part of this ongoing effort to stop the obliteration of West Virginia’s mountains," said Micklem, a Korean War veteran and former environmental journalist. His organizing philosophy is rooted in Ghandian principles of nonviolent civil disobedience and dialogue with opposition; the energetic senior invited Massey Energy officials to speak with him at the gates of Mammoth Coal Company on Monday. Micklem has not yet received a response.

These seniors are setting an incredible example for young activists, who sometimes have difficulty channeling their passion into peaceful, productive protests.

"As a young person, it is inspiring to see the strength with which senior citizens are stepping forward to meet the task at hand," said Munn, "Climate justice and the preservation of ecological and cultural heritage are issues for all generations, so I think it is fitting that we see this coalition emerging at the forefront of the movement to stop mountaintop removal."

Updates and multimedia can be found on www.climategroundzero.org
http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/senior-citizens-march-25-miles-to-end/

Uranium Corporation of India Limited: Wasting Away Tribal Lands

by Moushumi Basu, Special to CorpWatch
October 7th, 2009

Creative Commons Licensed: Adapted by Ionia Kershaw for Truthout.org (via Flickr)

“I have had three miscarriages and lost five children within a week of their births,” says Hira Hansda, a miner’s wife. “Even after 20 years of marriage we have no children today.” Now in her late forties, she sits outside her mud hut in Jadugoda Township, site of one of the oldest uranium mines in India.

The Uranium Corporation of India Limited (UCIL) operates that mine, part of a cluster of four underground and one open cast mines and two processing plants, in East Singbhum district in the Eastern Indian state of Jharkhand. The deepest plunges almost one kilometer into the earth.

Incorporated as a public sector enterprise under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in 1967, UCIL has sole responsibility for mining and processing all of India's uranium. And since the strength of the Jadugoda region's uraninite ore is extremely low, it takes many tons of earth as well as complex metallurgical processes to yield even a small amount of useable uranium ore—along with tons of radioactive waste, disposed of in unlined tailing dams.

UCIL processes the ore into yellowcake and sends it to the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad, where it is officially designated for use in nuclear reactors. But it is an open secret that some of the nuclear material becomes the key ingredient in India's nuclear arsenal. (India is one of only three states—along with Israel and Pakistan—that are not signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. North Korea withdrew from the Treaty in 2003.)

Unhealthy Villages

Radiation and health experts across the world charge that toxic materials and radioactivity released by the mining and processing operations are causing widespread infertility, birth defects and cancers. A 2008 health survey by the Indian chapter of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), found that “primary sterility was found to be more common in the people residing near uranium mining operations area.”

Jadugoda residents Kaderam Tudu and his wife, Munia, considered themselves fortunate when their infant was born alive, until, “I found that my baby son did not have his right ear and instead in its place was a blob of flesh,” says Tudu, a day worker in his late thirties. Their son, Shyam Tudu, now eight, has a severe hearing impairment.

Even children who appear healthy are impacted. "The youths from our villages have become victims of social ostracism," says Parvati Manjhi, and cannot find spouses. "And a number of our girls have been abandoned by their husbands, when they failed to give birth,” Now middle-aged, Parvati and her husband, Dhuwa Manjhi, who used to work for UCIL, are childless.

Harrowing tales fill the region around the mines, and add irony to the area's name, Jharkhand, which in the local tribal language means “forest endowed with nature’s bounties.” If the lush land was the indigenous population's boon for centuries, its rich mineral reserves have become their bane. Six decades of industrialization has depleted the forest cover, degraded the environment, displaced tribal peoples—who along with Dalit ("untouchables") form an oppressed underclass—and devastated a way of life deeply interwoven with nature.

Despite India's economic boom and proximity to one of the country's richest mineral reserves, the villages in Jharkhand are now among the poorest in the country, according to the Center For Science & Environment’s (New Delhi) 2008 report “Rich Lands Poor People.”

Uranium Corporation of India Limited in Jharkhand

UCIL’s underground mines in Jadugoda, Bhatin, Turamdhih, Narwapahar, and its open cast mine at Banduhurang extract 1,000 tons per day (TPD) of uranium ore. Two underground mines in the pipeline at Baghjata and Mahuldih will boost that amount. The ore is processed at the Jadugoda and Turamdih mills with a combined capacity of 5,000 TDP. The company earned $64 million in 2007-08, and made a $3 million profit.

The 20-year lease for UCIL's mines was up in 2007, and a new application is being processed. Under it, the company wants to add 6.37 hectares to tailing dam capacity and expand production, according to UCIL Chairman and Managing Director Ramendra Gupta. This move requires an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP) drawn up by the Central Institute of Mining & Fuel Research (CIMFR), along with a public hearing.

Addressing the affected community at the May public hearing in Jadugoda, the company represented the local plans as “a marginal expansion.” But the UCIL website promises “a quantum leap in UCIL’s activities” that includes plans to "deepen the existing mines, expand its processing facilities,” and “not only opening new mines, but also the development of the community around its operations.”

While the company has created local schools and provides jobs and social services, villagers who attended the hearing argued that these provisions do not compensate for the health effects and destruction of their way of life.

“Why are we being made to pay such a heavy price, for so many decades”? Asks Hira Hansda, speaking of her three miscarriages and birth to five infants that quickly died. Her husband Sonaram worked at the tailing dam as a casual employee between 1984-87, and like many villagers, he links the deterioration in local health conditions to the arrival of the uranium mines. The last three surveys conducted in the area found increased radiation levels.

Heavy Security at UCIL’s Public Hearing Keeps Villagers Out

The public hearing on UCIL's new application took place at the heavily fortified camp of the Central India Security Force (CISF) within the UCIL colony at Jadugoda. Conducted by the Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board, the proceedings were marked by restrictions on personal liberties under sections of a law applying to situations with the potential to cause civil unrest.

Leaving little room for the public or protesters, the hall was packed with hundreds of UCIL workers and other company beneficiaries who held placards reading: “When compared to hunger, pollution is a small issue," and "Save UCIL.”

Those who had lost their lands and health to the mines were physically barred from the tent. Outside the proceedings, protesters shouted: “Do not destroy our land," “No uranium, no uranium waste, no weapons, care for the future." Many indigenous villagers waved the banner of the Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation (JOAR), winner of the Germany-based Nuclear Free Future Award for its long crusade against the hazards of uranium mining in Jadugoda. The protesters denounced the hearing as "a farce" and demanded that it be immediately stopped.

Villager and JOAR president, Ghanashyam Biruli, issued the demands: no new uranium mines, bring the existing mine under international safety guidelines, return unused tribal land, provide livelihood and rehabilitation to displaced people, clean up the contamination, commission an independent study of environmental contamination and health effects, and monitor water bodies to ensure that the radionuclides do not seep into the aquifer that is the lifeline of more than 100,000 people. The activists also argued that since the country can buy uranium on the international market, there is no compelling need to expand UCIL's capacity.

The real compelling need, they asserted, was protecting health and the environment. The 2008 health survey by the Indian chapter of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) provided clear evidence, finding that:

* Couples living near the mines were "1.58 times more vulnerable to primary sterility" with 9.6 percent of couples in study villages unable to conceive after three years of marriage, compared with 6.27 percent in a reference (control) group.

* Birth defects followed a similar pattern with 1.84 times higher incidence: “[B]abies from mothers, who lived near uranium mining operation area, suffered a significant increase in congenital deformities,” according to the report. While 4.49 percent of mothers living in the study villages reported bearing children with congenital deformities, only 2.49 percent of mothers in reference villages fell under this category." The national rate for people with disabilities (including congenital deformities) is 3 percent, according to official government statistics.

* Deformed babies near the mining operations are almost 6 times more likely to die, with 9.25 percent mothers in the study villages reporting congenital deformities as the cause of death of their children. In the reference village, mothers reported 1.70 percent of babies died of deformities.

* Cancer deaths were also higher: 2.87 percent of households in study villages attributed the cause of death to be cancer, compared to 1.89 percent in the reference village.

These factors contributed to a lowered life expectancy. In the study villages 68.33 percent of the population died before reaching the state's average life expectancy: 62 years old.

UCIL Denies Contamination

Despite such alarming reports, radiation data are not made public because they fall under the purview of the Atomic Energy Act of 1962. UCIL / DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) also cites security concerns for refusing to release data on health of the workers. But Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda, a 1999 award-winning film by Shri Prakash documented that, despite a law mandating regular monitoring, in the last five- to ten-year period few workers underwent blood and urine tests to assess the impact of radiation.

Independent scientists have confirmed the danger. Professor Hiroaki Koide, from the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University, Japan, sampled soil and air in the surrounding villages and documented that “The circumference of tailing ponds is impacted with uranium radiation. The strength of the radiation is of 10 to 100 times high in comparison to places without contamination. ...There are places where uranium concentration is high in the road or the riverside, and it is thought that tailings are used for construction material,” including on villagers' houses." Tailings are production waste material that, according to critics are unsafely stored, dumped, and used for landfills, roads and construction.

UCIL Technical Director D Acharya denied that the company was responsible for radiological contamination. “UCIL’s safety and pollution control measures are at par with the international standards, comparable at any point of time,” he said. The company is dealing with naturally occurring materials, he noted, the very low grade ore extracted is a minimal environmental hazard, and the company is not enriching the ore in Jadugoda.

But tacitly acknowledging the risks, UCIL head, Gupta, noted in the 2008 Annual Report that "External gamma radiation, Radon concentration, suspended particulate matters, airborne long lived Alpha activity and concentration of radio nuclides- uranium and Radium in surface and ground water, in soil and food items etc are monitored regularly."

Although he presented no evidence, UCIL Technical Director Acharya said that allegations of health problems are canards spread by anti-uranium lobbies, and that the physical fitness of the employees can be gauged the UCIL football team's success in winning the DAE tournaments for the past five years.

“From time to time we have also conducted structured health surveys and examinations, by independent sources," said Acharya. "One was done by the erstwhile Bihar Assembly, about ten years ago, but the findings are absolutely normal.” (The area was part of Bihar at the time.) "The effects of radiation are being constantly monitored by independent watchdogs, and there are health physics experts who are always with us, for round-the clock-vigil of the situation. Hence, there is really no cause of concern,” he added.

That is not the experience of many villagers, who link serious health problems to the mines. Like many of the women in the surrounding areas, Hansda's pregnancies were a time of terror. “It fills within us fear and apprehensions of the possible ordeal that may be in store. Who knows what would be the fate of the baby,” she said.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15450

Cañon City uranium contamination looms over Montrose mill battle

By David O. Williams
9/25/09 8:39 AM

MONTROSE — For many in Montrose County and surrounding counties and communities in Southwest Colorado, the proposed Piñon Ridge uranium mill really is a clear-cut case of NIMBYism.

But for residents of Cañon City area, some of whom made the long trip to a special-use permit hearing in Montrose earlier this month, declaring “not in my back yard” could have spared them decades of health problems associated with the metal the Navajo Indians call “yellow death.”

Rebecca Lorenz of Colorado Springs was one of the attorneys who in the 1990s convinced two separate federal juries to award Cañon City area residents millions in damages stemming from radiation poisoning produced by Cotter Corp.’s uranium mill near Lincoln Park that was declared an EPA Superfund Cleanup site.

At a hearing before the Montrose County commissioners earlier this month, Lorenz read a laundry list of illnesses stemming from Cotter Corp. uranium processing that began in the 1950s and ran well into the 1980s: cancer, arthritis, bronchitis, infertility, birth defects and learning disabilities, to name a few.

She urged the commissioners to consider those considerable health risks before approving a special-use permit on Sept. 30 for a Canadian company, Energy Fuels, which wants to process uranium ore in far western Montrose County in the Paradox Valley between Bedrock and Naturita.

Cañon City resident Sharon Cunningham also made the long drive to Montrose, telling the commissioners that “ore from this area and tailings are less than a mile from my house.” She related the story of Cotter Corp. chemist Lynn Boughton, who worked at the Cañon City mill for decades and fought Cotter and Pinnacle Insurance for years to secure a settlement after contracting cancer.

Cotter Corp.’s Glen Williams also attended the hearing, acknowledging his company’s problems processing ore near Cañon City. But he said technology has changed dramatically since the state’s uranium-mining heyday, and he urged the commissioners to approve the Paradox Valley mill so mines Cotter still owns and operates in the area will have a much closer processing facility. Milling involves leaching uranium ore with sulfuric acid to produce uranium oxide, or yellow cake, which can then be converted into fuel rods for nuclear power plants.

“The [Paradox Valley] area is nice, but this county was built on natural resources,” Williams said.


uranium
Frank Filas, environmental manager for a U.S. subsidiary of Ontario-based Energy Fuels, said Cañon City is ancient history in his industry, with Cotter using unlined tailings ponds that led to groundwater contamination.

“You just can’t use [tailings] for sandboxes the way they were in the ’50s and ’60s, but comparing our situation to historic situations is a little disingenuous,” Filas said, adding his company will use state-of-the-art, double-lined ponds in the Paradox Valley.

Montrose internal medicine specialist Dr. Christine Gieszl and others cited numerous federal studies and a 2007 Colorado Medical Society (CMS) finding that uranium mining and milling pose a major public health risk. But Filas discounted the CMS decision.

“Our feeling is that decision was mostly political based on opposition to Powertech in Weld County,” Filas said, referring to a proposed uranium mine 15 miles northeast of Fort Collins that has now been opposed by the cities and towns of Fort Collins, Greeley, Ault, Wellington, Timnath and Nunn, according to the Fort Collins Coloradoan.

There are a number of other concerns associated with a revival of Colorado’s uranium mining industry to meet a growing call for carbon-free nuclear power in the United States and around the world, including transportation of ore and other mining materials on two-lane mountain roads.

The Montrose County commissioners have finished taking public testimony on the proposed mill and appear ready to make a decision at their next hearing on the proposal, set for 10 a.m., Sept. 30, at Friendship Hall in the Montrose County Fairgrounds and Event

http://coloradoindependent.com/38522/canon-city-uranium-contamination-looms-over-montrose-mill-battle

Preventative measures help South African mines avoid massive job losses

The director of the country's mines department said although 30,000 had been lost, greater losses have been avoided

Posted: Thursday , 08 Oct 2009

LUANDA (Reuters) -

South Africa's mining sector has shed close to 30,000 jobs due to the global economic downturn, but avoided greater losses because of measures put in place by the government and companies, a senior official said.

Sandile Nogxina, director general of South Africa's mines department, also urged mining firms to improve miners' safety.

"If you recall around December last year there was a projection we would lose about 150,000 jobs by now," Nogxina said during a visit by a South African business delegation.

"But because of the initiative that we took in December...we have managed to ensure until now we have lost close to about 30,000 jobs," he told Reuters.

On mine safety, Nogxina said South African mining companies were not doing enough to curb fatalities.

Some 120 mineworkers have died this year, compared with 168 in 2008.

"It is unacceptable that people are still dying as a result of mining operations," he said.

"We believe that mining companies can do better than they are doing right now."

He said changes to safety legislation would mean hefty fines for deaths due to negligence but said the proposals had yet to be signed into law by President Jacob Zuma.

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page72068?oid=90387&sn=Detail

Irreparable Damage: Senate Must Block OSM Nominee Pizarchik Today

Jeff Biggers
Posted: October 8, 2009 12:53 AM

As Consol Energy crews clean up another mysterious coal slurry spill in West Virginia today, the nation's largest producer of high-Btu bituminous coal -- and an aggressive operator of devastating mountaintop removal and longwall mines -- will be closely watching the nomination hearing of their southwestern PA hometown mining bureaucrat Joseph Pizarchik to head the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE).

With millions of pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives being detonated nearby and flyrock, coal slurry spills and coal dust threatening their lives, so will everyone else in the coalfields across the nation -- and so should every American who believes we must not appoint reckless public officials whose records fail to uphold science and law in our mining policies.

When the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources meets today, October 8th, the stakes over the crucial directorship of the embattled OSMRE, charged with enforcing the sweeping surface mining reclamation laws, could not be higher.

If the Obama administration truly plans to move toward a "firm departure from the previous administration's approach to mountaintop coal mining, which failed to protect our communities, water and wildlife in Appalachia." according to Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, it must appoint a director who will lead the agency into a new era of regulatory integrity.

Given the irreparable damage of his mining record, Pizarchik's entrenched support of the coal industry suggests that the OSM would continue its decades-old tradition of empty promises, lawlessness, and betrayal of coalfield residents.

This is not only unacceptable: The egregious crimes of mountaintop removal and coal ash dumping alone should compel the Senate to block Pizarchik's nomination.

Widely denounced by virtually every major environmental and citizens group from his native Pennsylvania, and across the nation. the controversial Pizarchik is not only saddled with a growing number of legal prerequisites per SMCRA for his "chronic failures" at the PA Bureau of Mining and Reclamation, and his defiant support of coal ash dumping in the face of growing scientific evidence of mind-boggling toxic ramifications, but his disingenuous attempts to shrug off the crisis of mountaintop removal as an insignificant problem that requires him to "learn more about the facts and details."

"OSM is a demoralized, hollowed-out agency and the prospects are it will stay that way," Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Jeff Ruch pointed out last month. "Putting forward a nominee who claims ignorance on a central issue so that his true position cannot be discerned is the sort of cynical politics I thought President Obama vowed to change."

Pizarchik's long-time role in failing to enforce PA mining laws has already drawn numerous complaints.

In filing a new notice of intention to sue the OSMRE this week, the PA-based Citizens Coal Council, a national organization, determined: "In sum, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ("PA DEP") -- is engaged in a pattern and practice of failing to perform its non-discretionary duty to establish minimally adequate state equivalents to the applicable provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act."

Last month, the Citizens Coal Council filed another prerequisite over PADEP's failure "to implement, administer, enforce and maintain its approved state regulatory mining program in accordance with SMCRA and the federal regulations that implement that important landmark federal environmental law."

CCC Board member, Michael Nixon, pointed out: "This is just one of the many reasons that President Obama's nomination of PA DEP's Joe Pizarchik to be OSMRE Director is unacceptable to so many people, in Pennsylvania and nationwide. It's not too late to find the right person for the job, because that person certainly isn't Joe Pizarchick, the ringleader of DEP's chronic servitude to industry's coal ash disposal and mine dumping schemes."

In their report, Mining the Data:Pizarchik's Decisions Have Been Contrary to Fact, Overturned by Administrative Law Judges, and Detrimental to Pennsylvania, the Environmental Integrity Project concluded that Pizarchik's nomination testimony in August included several inaccuracies. Specifically on Pizarchik's denial of any pollution related to his program of coal ash dumping, the report found:

"The Clean Air Task Force's (CATF) review of the impacts of coal ash minefilling in Pennsylvania found that contamination of groundwater was greater after ash placement at 10 of the 15 minefill sites studied. These conclusions of extensive contamination from coal ash minefilling were corroborated by three Pennsylvania scientists: two hydrogeologists and a professor of chemistry versed in coal chemistry."

"At the PADEP, Pizarchik has dismissed evidence verifying contamination from minefilling as "outlier data," yet his refusal to objectively review undesirable facts does not eliminate the overwhelming evidence of contamination. PADEP simply dismissed high data values in the CATF Pennsylvania minefill report as "outliers" without following procedures outlined in Pennsylvania guidance as well as federal guidance for assessing and verifying outliers or extending the "outlier" label to any data values that were low."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/irreparable-damage-senate_b_313450.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-biggers/irreparable-damage-senate_b_313450.html

John Redhouse: Hate crimes and uranium mining

Posted by Brenda Norrell - October 8, 2009 at 12:07 pm

When longtime Navajo activist John Redhouse speaks of the hate crimes against American Indians in northwest New Mexico, he knows what he is talking about. He has lived it.

Redhouse, who has lived with the racism in the Navajo bordertown of Farmington, N.M., writes about the recent hate crimes by non-Indians against homeless Indians in Grants. Redhouse said the recent racially motivated beatings began after Mount Taylor was designated as a Traditional Cultural Property.

As Native Americans prepare for the Indigenous Uranium Forum at Sky City on Acoma Pueblo to battle new uranium mining in Indian country, Oct. 22-24, Redhouse points out that the new wave of hate crimes in the Uranium Belt of Grants, west of Albuquerque, is not the first.

"As an old civil rights activist and veteran of the bordertown wars in Gallup and Farmington in the early 1970s, I don't think these beatings are an isolated incident. I think they are directly related to a non-Indian backlash against the TCP designation and what it means in terms of protecting and defending our sacred mountain from more uranium mining and milling," Redhouse said.

When Redhouse was on the New Mexico State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in the late 1970s, the Commission made a similar connection with the rise of anti-Indian groups in Grants and northwestern New Mexico and growing Indian resistance. At that time, leading the resistance in the Grants Mineral Belt were the American Indian Environmental Council, First Mount Taylor Gathering and Mt. Taylor Alliance.

Now, American Indians are taking action to halt more uranium mining and destruction to their sacred mountains and homelands. The Ninth Circuit Court first took action to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks from snowmaking from sewage water for tourists, then the Ninth Circuit reversed its decision, allowing the defilement of the places and plants used by medicine people of at least thirteen Indian Nations for ceremonies.

At the same time, Navajo, Pueblo, Ute, Hopi, Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai and Apache, in this region of northern Arizona and New Mexico, are beaten and killed in hate crimes.

Redhouse remembers Clint John, Navajo, shot and killed by a Farmington police officer in a Wal-Mart parking lot in 2006. Farmington police officer Shawn Scott was exonerated by the police department and found not guilty of using excessive force in court.

Redhouse said it is time for action.

"And now in light of the recent outcomes of the Clint John and San Francisco Peaks cases, I think we need to put these recent anti-Indian developments in context and start a regional intertribal movement to deal with all this shit because it is getting more violent and deadly as we are still fighting the continuing Indian Wars as we have since 1492."

"We need another Pueblo Revolt, a Navajo revolt, a general uprising among our people and nations."

Redhouse's words are more in demand now than ever.

Within minutes of Redhouse's comments appearing online, Bahe Katenay of Big Mountain, publisher of Sheep Dog Nation Rocks, responded. "It is so nice and uplifting to hear from John. He may call himself an 'old activist' but only if we, the current indigenous movements, can truly rely on 'old' wise activism, we can all be so empowered. Yes, Viva Pueblo / Dineh Revolt! Hokahey! Thanks."

Redhouse said, "Bahe, Roberta Blackgoat, and other youth and grandmother warriors were at the First Mount Taylor Gathering. They walked all the way from Big Mountain."

Read more by John Redhouse at http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
Sheep Dog Nation Rocks: http://www.sheepdognationrocks.blogspot.com
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2009/10/john-redhouse-hate-crimes-and-uranium-mining