Chevron Diesel Spill in Utah is Larger than First Thought

WILLARD, Utah — A Chevron fuel spill near a northern Utah bird refuge is much worse than originally thought as up to 27,000 gallons might have leaked, authorities said.

A split in a pipeline that runs from Salt Lake City to Spokane, Wash., is suspected of releasing diesel fuel into soil and marshes at Willard Bay State Park, according to the U.S. Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

The agency has filed a corrective action order against Chevron Pipe Line Co. that requires it to gain government approval before the pipeline can reopen. The order also requires Chevron to operate the pipeline at only 80 percent of normal pressure once it reopens.

Peru Declares Amazon Oil Contamination Emergency

by The Associated Press

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s government declared an environmental state of emergency on Monday in a remote Amazon jungle region it says has been affected by years of contamination at the country’s most productive oil fields, which are currently operated by Argentina-based Pluspetrol.

Indigenous groups in the Pastaza River basin near the Ecuador border have been complaining for years about the pollution and the failure of successive governments to address it. Authorities say one reason the pollution was never addressed is that until now Peru lacked the requisite environmental quality standards.

In declaring the emergency, Peru’s Environment Ministry said the contamination included high levels of lead, barium and chromium as well as petroleum-related compounds. The region is inhabited mostly by the Quichua and Ashuar, who are primarily hunter-gatherers.

Indigenous Panamanians Protest Dams Which Could Displace Thousands

by Jack Fischl / policymic

Last week, indigenous groups in western Panamá once again clashed with police while protesting the construction of the Barro Blanco dam. In 2012, similar protests resulted in the deaths of several protesters and alleged human rights abuses perpetrated by the police. As the Panamanian government aggressively expands its hydro capacities over the next few years, they will face more indigenous resistance. How can they pursue their economic interests without trampling the rights of their largest indigenous population?  

With around 200,000 people, the Ngäbe (pronounced “naw-bey”) are the largest indigenous group in Panamá. Like most indigenous groups around the world, they have a long history of being bullied, cheated, and displaced by the government.

Murder of Indigenous Protester puts Ngabe ‘On Alert’ in Panama

By Richard Arghiris / Survival International

An indigenous Ngäbe protester, Onesimo Rodriguez, was killed last Friday 22 March 2013 in the hamlet of Las Nubes, Chiriquí province, after attending a rally against the controversial Barro Blanco hydroelectric dam. It was World Water day.

According to Manolo Miranda, a leader of the Moviemiento 10 de Abril (M10), the Ngabe and campesino resistance movement currently defending the Tabasará river, a migrant labourer from Hato Chami, 20-year-old Onésimo Rodríguez, was viciously attacked at a bus stop in the late afternoon after participating in a 200-strong solidarity march in the nearby town of Cerro Punta. Sr Rodríguez had also allegedly taken part in a protest camp near Vigui, broken up by riot squads last week.

According to M10, his bludgeoned and strangled corpse was recovered from a ditch on Saturday morning, along with a second seriously injured protester, apparently left for dead but now being cared for at an undisclosed location.

Russian Indigenous Victory: RAIPON Reopens

Re-posted from Survival International

An Evenk boy with reindeer in Siberia.
© Raipon/Survival

RAIPON, the organization representing Russia’s indigenous peoples, has been given permission by the Russian authorities to reopen. It was forced to close by Russia’s Ministry of Justice in November last year.

The official reason given for the shutdown was that the organization’s statutes were not in line with federal law. However, many believed the closure was an attempt to quell opposition to the exploitation of Russia’s natural resources in Siberia, and was part of a crackdown on organizations with foreign links.

RAIPON was formed in 1990 and represents more than 270,000 indigenous people. It has given a voice to tribal people in some of the most remote and inhospitable places on earth.

The Earth First! Journal, Liberal Politics and Ted Kaczynski Walk Into a Bar…

[Editors Note: The following article is re-posted for our readers enjoyment, and though we must recognize that it is a rather cheap and factually incorrect hit piece, it is, nevertheless, kinda interesting for us to appear in the UK Daily Mail, in a 7-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon spin-off kind-OF-WAY. Please enjoy.]

from the UK Daily Mail

As New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich prepared to visit the Oval Office to mark the birth of a new national park in his home state, revelations emerged about his past partnership with an environmental extremist who pleaded guilty to plotting an eco-sabotage crime against a nuclear power plant in 1990.

Fracking Boom to Hit New Mexico

 by Kevin Robinson-Avila / from the Albuquerque Journal

 

FARMINGTON — Preliminary results from Mancos shale wells in northwestern New Mexico are boosting industry excitement about a new oil and gas boom in the region.

Companies must learn a lot more about the shale formation before any gushers explode, but some of the 22 exploratory wells drilled to date have shown solid commercial potential for oil and gas production, according to industry executives who attended a conference this week in Farmington to discuss production potential in the Mancos play, a previously untapped section of the San Juan Basin.

Last Member of 65,000-Year-Old Tribe Dies

by Anny Shaw

The last member of a 65,000-year-old tribe has died, taking one of the world’s earliest languages to the grave.

Boa Sr, who died last week aged about 85, was the last native of the Andaman Islands who was fluent in Bo.

Named after the tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to the pre-Neolithic period when the earliest humans walked out of Africa.

Tibet Glaciers Melting Due to South Asian Pollution

from the Economic Times

BEIJING: About 90 per cent of glaciers in Tibet called the Third Pole region, are shrinking because of black carbon pollution “transferred from South Asia” to the Tibetan Plateau, a Chinese scientist has warned.

The Third Pole region, which is centred on the Tibetan Plateau and concerns the interests of the surrounding countries and regions, covers more than five million square kilometres and has an average altitude of more than 4,000 metres.

14 Religious Leaders Arrested at Climate Action in DC

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Dear friends,

Yesterday, along with 14 other religious folk, clergy and committed “laity,” I was arrested for standing at the White House with signs and songs, reciting the names of more than 100 people who had been killed by one result of the climate crisis: Superstorm Sandy.

The action was organized by Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, of which The Shalom Center is a vigorously active member. We were calling on the president to act swiftly to heal our Mother Earth from the climate crisis, from the plagues that modern Pharaohs — Big Oil, Big Coal, Unnatural Gas — have brought upon us.