Category Archives: Mining

Petition Governor Jerry Brown to “Ban Fracking in California”

Given the current dialog and understanding about fracking and the environment, it is difficult to believe that California’s Governor Brown would participate in jeopardizing the drinking water of current and future generations. But that is what is on the table.

In much the same manner that Big Food has spent millions to subvert GMO labeling, or the way that the tobacco industry did their damnedest to obfuscate facts regarding their cancer causing products, so too runs the lobbyist machine of the petroleum industry.

Our public lands – the birthright of citizens of the United States – are being destroyed by mining operations.  Not just the fracking pads which are drilled on one mile grids.  There are thousands of miles of roadways cut into wilderness lands to connect the pads, billions of gallons of freshwater used for the extraction process, and a staggering number of ponds constructed to hold contaminated water.   Where ever a fracking operation has occurred the structure of the biosphere and the earth below will have been irrevocably altered for millennia.

Some of the fossil fuels which are extracted are sold back at a premium to the American people, with the rest exported and sold to profit multinational corporations.   This defacto state of affairs is a far cry from the original bill of goods sold to the American public about energy independence.  During the days of the Bush presidency, exemptions were made to the Clean Water act.  This action allowed the injection of all manner of poisonous compounds into the earth. Contrary to Philip K. Howard’s mantra that, “industry sets the highest standards,” multinational corporations are simply out to screw us all.   Two examples come to immediately to mind.  The first is Exxon-Mobil who has yet to pay the state of Alaska and the Federal Government one-tenth of a $5 billion dollar fine for damages and clean up from an eleven-million gallon oil spill in 1989.

While this is ancient history for some, there are currently over twelve hundred abandoned, uncapped, un-sealed, open petroleum drill sites in the state of Wyoming alone, with thousands more to on the way: “In all, the fate of some 11,800 idle coal-bed methane wells remains uncertain….”

Businesses have simply walked away from entire sites on private, state, and federal lands alike which were no longer profitable. NYT

The question becomes, who in their right mind believes that any corporation (Chinese owned or not) will correct damage to our nation’s drinking water?   And that question is based on the optimistic, pollyana-esque notion that such damage could be repaired (Fukushima’s nuclear reactors are still spewing radiation into the Pacific and our atmosphere and there is no “fix” in sight).

Take two seconds and sign the Move-on petition (even if they spam you afterwards) below. Maybe it will make a difference. Maybe not. But at least you will have made your keyboard heard in the wilderness and you can feel like you at least did something positive.

Liberty Quarry Quick Facts

Reality vs. Public Relations

• Over 30,000 Temecula Community citizens, 159 physicians, and 467 local businesses have signed petitions protesting the Liberty Quarry Project.
• Since 2005, the City of Temecula has spent $784,000 dollars to combat Granite Construction’s Liberty Quarry
• Temecula City Council passed a resolution opposing Liberty Quarry.
• Blasting would occur six days a week for the seventy-five year lifetime of the project.
• 5 million tons of aggregate would be removed by trucks every year (7 am until 9 pm).
• Asphalt, concrete, and concrete re-cycling plants, would be part of the quarry.
• Excavation would be approximately 1000 feet deep. The observatory deck at the Empire State Building is 1224 feet from the ground
• Excavation intended to be equal to 117 football fields in width.
• Once completed, there are no plans to remediate the land: a hole would remain.
• The land is held to be Sacred by Native Americans who have called the area their home for generations before being forced at gunpoint to resettle on the reservation.
• The “undeveloped land” is part of a greater area of uninterrupted forest which comprises the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve – a living laboratory under continuous operation by San Diego State University and researchers for the past forty years.
• The acreage in question feeds the Santa Margarita River (flowing through the Reserve) and supplies drinking water to nearby, down-river Camp Pendleton.
• Liberty Quarry would consume 130,000,000 gallons of water per year.
• The Santa Margarita River is the LAST wild river in Southern California.
• The Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve and the surrounding area comprise the LAST wildlife corridor between the Santa Ana Mountains and the Palomar Mountain Range.
• Other sources for construction aggregate exist in the region, at least one of which is owned by Granite Construction Corporation.

A 1,000 residents of Temecula gathered to make their voice heard
A Message to Elected Officials and Granite Construction Corporation

From the Granite Construction Website:
Character Matters

Honesty, Integrity, Fairness, Accountability, Consideration of Others, Pursuit of Excellence, Reliability, and Citizenship are the fundamentals of our Code of Conduct.”
– Walter Wilkinson, First President of Granite Construction Coporation