Public Comments: Exploratory drilling in Patagonia Mountains

The San Antonio exploratory drilling project, located on the eastern side of the Patagonia Mountains and owned by junior Canadian mining company Barksdale Resources, is now listed on the Forest Service SOPA page. The scoping period is currently underway, and the Forest Service is accepting public comments through October 19, 2020.

Currently, the Forest Service lists the San Antonio project as a categorical exclusion (CE). This means the project does not need to go through an environmental assessment, as it is “a kind of action that has no significant individual or cumulative effect on the quality of the human environment.”

However, we're skeptical of this decision for many reasons, including project size, safety issues, road traffic, and wildlife impacts on known sensitive, threatened, and endangered species (including the yellow-billed cuckoo).

Patagonia Area Resource Alliance is currently working on writing organizational comments for this project, but we also need individuals to send comments in on this project. The Forest Service must count every comment, big or small—so the more we speak up on this, the better.

However, comments must include specific details to be counted. To help the public write comments, PARA will be hosting two workshops via Zoom at the end of September. These workshops will walk you through the steps and considerations needed to write comments on the San Antonio project.

Tuesday, September 29; 6 - 7 p.m. Arizona:

URL: Join Zoom Meeting > 
Meeting ID: 811 8115 7270
Passcode: 095638

Phone: +1 669 900 6833
Meeting ID: 811 8115 7270
Passcode: 095638

Saturday, October 3; 10 - 11 a.m. Arizona:

URL: Join Zoom Meeting >
Meeting ID: 828 0020 6825
Passcode: 866962

Phone: +1 669 900 6833
Meeting ID: 828 0020 6825
Passcode: 866962

Stop Rosemont mobilization action: Thursday, August 1st

The Rosemont mine would be built above the Cienaga Creek that feeds into Tucson's aquifer 

UPDATE: August 1, 2019

 Federal judge bars Rosemont Mine construction
- Tony Davis Arizona Daily Star

U.S. District Judge James Soto heard oral arguments Tuesday on several cases related to the Rosemont Copper Mine, including a request by mine opponents for a preliminary injunction to halt construction until all other court cases challenging the mine are decided.

The main disagreement at the preliminary injunction hearing was whether the Army Corps of Engineers has the responsibility and authority to regulate downstream secondary and cumulative impacts from dredge and fill operations on the mine site.

Attorneys for tribes and environmental groups who oppose the mine argued that the agency has that authority. They argue that when the Army Corps of Engineers granted the mine's 404 permit under the Clean Water Act, it didn’t adequately analyze related impacts, including dewatering and polluting nearby water sources.

The attorney for the Army Corps of Engineers disputes that claim and says the Forest Service is the main regulatory agency for the mining project, and pointed to proposed mitigation for those impacts on Sonoita Creek.

Opponents also criticized Rosemont and the Army Corps of Engineers for insufficient public notice and financial guarantees on the mine project.

Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition and the Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter have filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers over that 404 permit. In April, the Pima County Board of Supervisors voted to back the lawsuit.

The Tohono O'odham, Pascua Yaqui and Hopi tribes oppose the project over concerns it would damage ancestral homelands, and have filed a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service decision to approve the final environmental impact statement for the mine.

The judge took all cases under advisement. He will make a decision on the injunction by Aug. 1.

More Information:

https://www.sustainablelivingtucson.com/2018/10/find-out-whats-up-with-proposed.html

Ask Members of Congress to Co-sponsor the Save Oak Flat Act

Please, ask your Members of Congress to Co-sponsor the Save Oak Flat Act. It's so easy. Click this link and in put your zip code and it automatically pulls up your Members of Congress and a pre-filled letter. Just put in your into and hit send. It doesn't matter what state you live in. It takes less than a minute. Please, help #SAVEOAKFLAT #PROTECTOAKFLAT from destruction. Please, we are running out of time to save Chi' Chil Bildagoteel.. Learn more at Apache-Stronghold.com

On January 17, 2019, the Save Oak Flat Act was introduced in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. The Bills would repeal Section 3003 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2015 and keep Oak Flat in public ownership.

Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) introduced the US House version, HR 665, with 29 cosponsors from both parties.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced S 173, the Senate version of the Save Oak Flat Act with four cosponsors, Senators Warren (D-MA), Merkley (D-OR), Wyden (D-OR), Heinrich (D-NM), and Booker (D-NJ).

The success of the Save Oak Flat Act is very important for the protection of Oak Flat.

Please contact your Representative asking him/her to cosponsor HR 665 and your Senators to cosponsor S 173. (If your Congressional delegation members are already cosponsors, please thank him/her for helping to protect Oak Flat).

Oak Flat is critical for the religious freedom of Native Americans and is an ecological and recreational haven. Oak Flat is located 60 miles east of Phoenix, Arizona and is public land managed by the Tonto National Forest.

Rio Tinto, one of the world's largest mining companies, wants to privatize Oak Flat to build a copper mine, destroying Oak Flat in the process. Rio Tinto's Congressional supporters had been unsuccessful 12 times over ten years to give Oak Flat to Rio Tinto, but managed to attach the Oak Flat land exchange to the National Defense Authorization Act in the dead of night in December of 2014. The land exchange, which would give Oak Flat to Rio Tinto upon completion of an "environmental" study, is Section 3003 of the massive defense bill.

Rio Tinto’s mining plan for Oak Flat is currently being analyzed by the US Forest Service with public input. The more the public learns about Rio Tinto’s planned block cave mine at Oak Flat and the associated 5,000 plus acres of public land that would be permanently destroyed by a toxic waste dump and other mine facilities, the more convinced we become that this project is not feasible and must be stopped.

- Arizona Mining Reform Coalition

For More Information:

Arizona Mining Reform Coalition website page
H.R. 665 (House Version) Cosponsors
Grijalva Save Oak Flat Act Press Releasehttp://org.salsalabs.com/o/676/p/dia/action4/common/public/…

Protect Arizona's Wild and Scenic River - Fossil Creek!

Congress designated the Fossil Creek a Wild and Scenic River in 2009 -- only the second river in Arizona to be designated as Wild and Scenic. Fossil Creek includes a unique and important riparian environment that is one of Arizona's best habitats for threatened and endangered native fish and other wildlife. It and the surrounding wilderness areas are also popular recreation sites for hiking, birding, fishing, nature study, photography, and more.

The Forest Service has developed a Draft Comprehensive Resource Management Plan (CRMP) and a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will guide management actions and policies on Fossil Creek for decades. This is our last chance to improve the proposed plan. The Forest Service needs to hear from everyone who cares about this beautiful and biologically rich area.

Please use the button below to send your message to the Forest Service to develop a plan that better protects the unique and important values of this beautiful area or consider writing and sending comments to:

Coconino National Forest
Attention: Fossil Creek CRMP
P.O. Box 20429
Sedona, AZ 86341

Send email comments to: comments-southwestern-coconino-redrock@fs.fed.us.

Comments are due April 4th, so please take action today!

A summary of the CRMP and public concerns for Fossil Creek with maps is available here.

Take Action!

For questions about the Fossil Creek plan, contact Gary Beverly at gbverde99@gmail.com

Public Comments Needed: Keep Clean Car Emissions Standards

TAKE ACTION! By 2030, the pollution equivalent of this rollback will be like firing up 30 coal power plants.

Emissions from transportation make up the largest share of air pollution in the United States. The pollution pumped out of cars’ tailpipes, from ozone to particulate matter, is linked to asthma, bronchitis, and 30,000 premature deaths each year. But now the future of the nation’s tailpipe pollution protections is under attack. The Trump administration is charging ahead with a plan that would unleash tailpipe pollution across the country, and we need your help to keep those protections in place. Last month, Trump’s EPA chief proposed scrapping one of the country’s biggest public health victories in recent years — the clean car emissions standards — and proclaimed that states like California shouldn’t have the legal authority to set their own, safer limits on tailpipe pollution. Earthjustice is part of a coalition already challenging preliminary portions of the rollbacks in court, but we need your help to stop the EPA’s new proposal. The first step in any federal rulemaking process is a public comment period, and you only have until October 23 to raise your voice. Tell the EPA that we won’t stand for its reckless rollbacks. The rollback is the latest in a long list of gifts from the Trump administration to the oil industry given at the cost of Americans’ health. By 2030, the pollution equivalent of this rollback will be like firing up 30 coal power plants. In 2025, we’ll all pay $17 billion more at the gas pump if we lose this fight. We remember the thick smog that used to choke our cities, and we refuse to return to those times. We shouldn’t have to worry about whether our air is safe to breathe. Our families deserve clean car standards that protect our health and save money at the gas pump. Everyone who breathes should be worried about the tailpipe pollution Trump’s administration wants to unleash. Our health is too valuable to cede to polluter interests and we’ve fought too hard for our clean air to lose the progress we’ve made. Today, your support is more critical than ever.

Paul Cort, Staff Attorney, Earth Justice

Click here to send the following message

(Consider personalizing it for more impact.)

Dear Forest Service,

I strongly oppose the proposal to roll back clean car standards and infringe on the longstanding authority of states to protect their citizens from air pollution. Undermining these achievable, successful, and commonsense standards will allow automakers to manufacture dirtier cars that pollute the air and harm our health. History has shown that we can simultaneously reduce tailpipe emissions of air pollutants and make our cars more fuel-efficient, safer and cheaper. Much of that leadership has come from the states. Rolling back federal vehicle standards while taking away states’ authority to protect their residents is inconsistent with federal environmental and energy conservation goals. Americans deserve clean air. We shouldn’t be rolling back the standards and safeguards that protect them.

STAND UP FOR THE PUBLIC’S VOICE AND SOUND DECISION-MAKING ON PUBLIC LANDS!

For nearly 50 years, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, has been an empowering legal tool that allows communities to defend themselves and their environments from dangerous, rushed or poorly planned federal and industry projects. The law ensures that your community has a say when special interests want to build a toxic waste incinerator in your neighborhood or a dangerous pipeline next to your child’s school.

Now, the United States Forest Service, under pressure from the timber and mining industries, is considering putting our nation’s oldest and most important environmental law on the chopping block. This decision could result in massive logging, drilling and other extractive projects being rammed through without proper oversight, accountability or input from people like you.

But under the very law that special interests would like to gut, the Forest Service must solicit public input on their plan to undercut their NEPA process. Tell them that this won’t be the last time you have a say in how your public lands are managed.

To send the following petition, click here. 

Dear Chief Tooke,

I urge you to reject any proposal to weaken the Forest Service’s National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] process, and keep the law as it is. NEPA ensures that our communities have a say in major federal decisions that affect our public lands, health and safety. It is often the only way for people to voice their concerns about the consequences federal projects will have for their communities and demonstrate how local expertise can improve them. Our communities are safer and healthier because of NEPA.

While some argue that environmental analysis required by NEPA takes too long and results in bulky, unhelpful documents, such outcomes are caused by funding, staffing and training issues wholly unrelated to following the law. Instead of amending its NEPA regulations, the Forest Service should fight for more funds, personnel and education to ensure effective environmental review and public participation.

The Forest Service manages 193 million fragile acres of our national forests and grasslands from Puerto Rico to Alaska, from lands close to cities to remote wilderness. The Forest Service should conduct thorough analysis and weigh the irreversible consequences of each project the agency considers. These are serious decisions that deserve the “hard look” at environmental impacts that NEPA requires.

Robust public engagement and sound science are essential to informed decision making. This is, and must remain, the public’s right under NEPA. When we take the time to understand each other, we can jointly develop solutions to manage our public lands. Undercutting our founding environmental law in the name of “streamlining” is not and never will be the answer.

TAKE ACTION! Our nation’s oldest environmental law is under attack

Protect your community's voice on public lands

Robust public engagement and sound science are essential to informed decision making.

Tell the Forest Service: This is, and must remain, the public’s right under NEPA.

For nearly 50 years, the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, has been an empowering legal tool that allows communities to defend themselves and their environments from dangerous, rushed or poorly planned federal and industry projects. The law ensures that your community has a say when special interests want to build a toxic waste incinerator in your neighborhood or a dangerous pipeline next to your child’s school.

Now, the United States Forest Service, under pressure from the timber and mining industries, is considering putting our nation’s oldest and most important environmental law on the chopping block. This decision could result in massive logging, drilling and other extractive projects being rammed through without proper oversight, accountability or input from people like you.

But under the very law that special interests would like to gut, the Forest Service must solicit public input on their plan to undercut their NEPA process. Tell them that this won’t be the last time you have a say in how your public lands are managed.

Extractive industries have long pressed the Forest Service to “streamline” public participation opportunities right out of NEPA. But without the feedback of stakeholders and the public, we could see ancient forests harvested with impunity, coal mines fast-tracked and watersheds decimated on our public lands.

NEPA is woven so deeply into our political framework that we often take it for granted, but it’s so fundamental to our democratic process that it’s considered the “environmental Magna Carta.” It can help reduce public controversy, build consensus with local officials and ensure that projects are done correctly from the start, often saving time and money. NEPA permits the public to hold the Forest Service accountable in court when the agency ignores important information or refuses to consider alternative measures that could better protect our air, water and communities. NEPA is a powerful legal tool because it works. Federal agencies have responded to the public’s concerns by modifying projects to reduce their impacts.

The Trump administration shouldn’t undercut NEPA—which applies to major federal decisions across all 190 million acres of National Forest lands—so that unaccountable bureaucrats can hawk your public lands to the highest bidder and ignore public outcry. Tell the Forest Service to keep the law as it is. Stand up for the public’s voice and sound decision-making on public lands!

- Ted Zukoski, Staff Attorney, Earth Justice 

Sign petition: Don't open Grand Canyon to new uranium mining leases

The petition to the Trump administration reads: "Do not open the Grand Canyon to new uranium mining leases." Add your name:

It’s unbelievable that we have to protect one of America’s most precious national treasures – the Grand Canyon – from something as dangerous and destructive as radioactive uranium mining. But that’s exactly what we have to do right now. Thanks to an executive order from Donald Trump, the U.S. Forest Service has taken the first step toward ending a 20-year moratorium on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon watershed. Uranium mining would threaten ancient forests, Native American communities and the Colorado River – a source of drinking water for millions. We must push back now on this dangerous and misguided proposal. Tell the Trump regime: Don't allow destructive uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. Click here to sign the petition. This March, Trump signed an executive order telling federal agencies to review their rules to find ways to allow more destructive oil drilling, natural gas fracking, and coal and uranium mining. In response, the U.S. Forest Service has proposed ending a ban on uranium mining in and around Grand Canyon National Park.1 The Obama administration enacted a moratorium in 2012 that was intended to last for 20 years, but now the Trump administration could lift the moratorium at any time. Uranium mining would threaten the land, water and communities around the Grand Canyon. The Havasupai Tribe, who live at the bottom of the canyon, use water from the canyon's seeps and springs to water their beans, corn, melon and other crops.2 Mining around the canyon could release uranium pollution into the groundwater, threatening the Havasupai community's health for generations. We know how destructive uranium can be. On the nearby Navajo Nation, where mining companies have blasted 4 million tons of uranium from more than 500 mines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found uranium already present in newborn babies.3 Uranium exposure is linked to lung cancer, bone cancer and impaired kidney function, all of which have plagued Navajo people around the mines.4 Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon could also threaten the health of people hundreds of miles away. The Colorado River, fed by the watershed, supplies water to 40 million people in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix and other cities.5 It is unconscionable to risk human health by re-opening the Grand Canyon to mining uranium. Tell the Trump regime: Don't allow destructive uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. Click here to sign the petition. The Forest Service has admitted that the federal government will receive no revenue from any uranium mining that happens. Rather than saving money, reversing the ban on mining would actually force taxpayers to shell out funds for pro-mining studies.To get rid of the ban, the administration would have to undertake environmental studies that try to refute the scientific findings that uranium is harmful to local wildlife and communities.6 The Grand Canyon ecosystem is unique and incredibly complex. The Obama administration enacted a 20-year ban in part because 20 years is the estimated time required to complete an Environmental Impact Statement on such a large-scale ecosystem.7 Now the Trump administration wants to barrel ahead without any understanding of the harm that could be caused. Tell the Trump regime: Don't allow destructive uranium mining near the Grand Canyon. Click the link below to sign the petition: https://act.credoaction.com/sign/save-grand-canyon?t=8&akid=26065%2E3130208%2Ev9TMDX -Brandy Doyle CREDO Action from Working Assets Add your name: References: Erin Ford, "USFS proposes revisions to 20-year uranium mining ban," Grand Canyon News, Nov. 7, 2017. Joanna Walters, "In the Grand Canyon, uranium mining threatens a tribe's survival," The Guardian, July 17, 2017. Laurel Morales, "For The Navajo Nation, Uranium mining's deadly legacy lingers," NPR, April 10, 2016. Susan E. Dawson, "Navajo uranium workers and the effects of occupational illnesses: A case study," Human Organization, Vol. 51, No. 4, 1992. Ron Dungan, "Is uranium mining near the Grand Canyon safe? The answer may be in the water," The Republic, March 8, 2017. Sierra Club Grand Canyon Chapter, "Trump administration targets uranium mining ban near Grand Canyon," Sierra Club, Nov. 1, 2017. Earthjustice, "Protecting the Grand Canyon against uranium mining," accessed Nov. 13, 2017.