Take Action: Protect the San Pedro River and Our Climate

Your voice is needed to defend the Sky Islands on two fronts — one local, the other national.

 

1) The San Pedro River, a life force in our region, is at risk from an aluminum melting plant proposed for Benson, Arizona. The 200-acre facility would be located right next to the river and has raised concerns about water usage, air pollutants, and toxic run-off, especially worrisome given the company’s track record of violations. Get more details and sign a coalition petition opposing this project.  

https://www.change.org/p/save-our-health-our-river-from-industrial-harm-in-benson-az

 

2) The Trump administration recently proposed to repeal the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, in which the agency formally acknowledged decades of science showing how greenhouse gases harm the climate and our health. The finding set the stage for crucial regulatory actions, as well as emission limits on factories, power plants, vehicles, and agriculture. If the finding is revoked, it’ll eliminate the legal basis for the EPA to rein in pollution under the Clean Air Act, harming people and our climate and pushing species closer to the brink. Learn more and take action with our allies at the Center for Biological Diversity (comments due Sept. 22).

https://act.biologicaldiversity.org/cMe-8_08KUGelloWGdcskw2

- Action by Sky Island Alliance 

Support Historic Bill to Reform Destructive, Old U.S. Mining Law

A new bill has been introduced in Congress that would overhaul the 1872 Mining Law and at last bring the United States into the 21st century — ready to meet the demands of a clean energy economy while not repeating the mistakes of the past. Tell your elected officials to support this historic legislation, and help protect the Santa Ritas, Patagonia Mountains, and other Sky Islands from toxic hardrock mining. For 151 years, mining for copper, uranium, and other minerals has been governed by a gold-rush era law that promoted westward expansion and extraction at all costs. As a result, according to the EPA, 40% of western watersheds are now polluted. Hundreds of thousands of mines have been abandoned and left to taxpayers to clean up. And Indigenous tribes and other communities have been polluted with arsenic, mercury, and lead. This is unacceptable.  The Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act, introduced by Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), offers several solutions. It would: Establish environmental standards that don’t exist under the current law and make industry clean up their abandoned mines; Ensure a fair return to taxpayers with a royalty for mining on public lands; Create space for meaningful tribal consultation and improve siting/permitting with a leasing system and public process; and Give land managers power to protect sacred and irreplaceable resources.  Urge your elected officials to support this visionary bill and protect our public lands and water for future generations. Find Sky Island Alliance's action here:  https://skyislandalliance.org/2023/06/rosemont-mine-alert/