In a statement issued today, the BLM said it will continue to process the applications while, “continuing to identify issues during public scoping underway for the programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).

In the statement, BLM Director James Caswell said:

“We heard the concerns expressed during the scoping period about waiting to consider new applications, and we are taking action. By continuing to accept and process new applications for solar energy projects, we will aggressively help meet growing interest in renewable energy sources, while ensuring environmental protections.”

A storm of protest arose last month when the BLM said it was suspending applications pending processing of the 125 applications previously received.

Public scoping continues through July 15th, when the public has the opportunity to comment on the PEIS, either through the online comment form, or by mail to; Solar Energy PEIS Scoping, Argonne National Laboratory,  9700 S. Cass Ave. – EVS/900, Argonne IL 60439.

Details about the three public scoping meetings on July 8 in Tucson, Arizona; July 9 in San Luis Obispo, California; and July 10 in El Centro, California; are available on the project website.

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Image Source:  www.scienceclarified.com

The winning submission was sent to us by Mary Lemmer, a student at the University of Michigan, who, like many of the entrants emphasized the gains made by the environmental movement while also pointing to the insufficiency of those gains in terms of actual substantive achievement. Mary wrote:

“Youth across the nation are energized about issues concerning global warming, alternative fuels, and other environmental topics. Young adults are driving the sustainability movement, studying related topics, encouraging people to recycle, and proclaiming the green word!

However, the environmental movement today involves too much talk and not enough action, and action is often hypocritical. Traveling across the country to brainstorm ways to combat climate change emits more emissions than resulting reductions! People talk about great ideas, but talk is cheap, and the best solutions will be those actually implemented! Less talk, more action, better results! Let’s create change!”

Other notable quotes include:

“What is going right with the environmentalist movement is precisely what is going wrong: environmental gains are pitted against economic realities, but only become truly effective when coupled with an economic benefit” -Zachary Kasprzak

“Today, more people are realizing that it is possible for humans to have a profound effect on our environment, although many still refuse to acknowledge this” -Tommy Felts

“In order to make significant steps forward we need to get rid of are [sic]bloody “make everything faster easier and disposable” LAZY! habits” -Andrew P. Rottier

“So even if some people are just going Green for the look of it, then please be my guest, as long as it’s a step forward” -Torie Zalokar

“It would be nice if humans were more altruistic, but the “sustainable” solution is providing them with products and services they want to embrace” -Tom Lyon

“This is detrimental to the movement because more environmental groups are losing their strength on environmental issues in the publics’ eye and are now being treated as mere “special interest groups” -Brooke Robinson

Please stay tuned to the Green Options Media network over the next several days, as I will be posting live updates, interviews, pictures, and much more, from ROTHBURY.

Related Posts:
“Win ROTHBURY Tickets”
“ROTHBURY: A Music Festival With a Purpose”

The CDC sent an e-mail warning about high levels of fecal coliform bacteria in water tested in 4 Iowa cities: Burlington, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, and Hamburg.  Increased levels of fecal coliform bacteria (types of bacteria that include E. coli) may indicate contamination from human or animal waste. The CDC did not report on drinking water; this is the water from the flooded fields.  Cedar Rapids had a particularly high bacteria level in its water because its waste water treatment plant is not working.

I’ll keep you updated on flooding, bacteria and water safety.  Just remember not to wade around in any Iowa farms.

Photo courtesy of Shannonpatrick17 at flickr.com

Now — in one of the most significant conservation sales in history — The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land have preserved 320,000 acres of forestlands in western Montana that provide valuable habitat for species in the Crown of the Continent.

A Superior Court Judge in Fulton County, Georgia has ruled that construction of Dynegy’s Longleaf plant be halted until it is assured the plant will limit the amount of carbon dioxide it releases.

The original permit would have allowed the plant to emit 9 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, something the court said was unreasonable.

The court cited the Supreme Court’s 2007 ruling recognizing that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.  It’s the first time any court has applied the ruling to an industrial source.

Commenting on the ruling, Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign said:

“Coal-fired power plants emit more than 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution.  Thanks to this decision, coal plants across the country will be forced to live up to their clean coal rhetoric.”

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius rejected construction of a new coal plant in that state, saying global warming is a public health threat.

It isn’t known yet whether Dynegy, the largest coal plant developer in the country, will fight the ruling.  Dynegy has more new coal plants planned in the country than any other developer.

Coal Related Posts:

Florida Weighs Clean Energy, Coal Plants

Does Coal Have a Role in “Clean” Energy?

e2 energy: “Coal & Nuclear: Problem or Solution?”

Tangled Up in Green: A Tale of Two Energies

Featuring a diverse musical line-up including Widespread Panic, Modest Mouse, Trey Anastasio, Dave Mathews Band, Primus, and many, many more - the festival is certain to be one of the best gatherings of the summer.

Well, would you like to go to ROTHBURY: The Music Festival With A Purpose at the Double JJ Ranch in Michigan this weekend, July 3rd - 6th?

I figured as much. And because I’ll be covering the event for the Green Options Media Network, and reporting back all week, I was able to score a few extras that I’d like to share with our readers. But I can’t just give them away, so in 100 words or less, answer the following question:

What is right, and what is wrong, with the environmental movement today?

Take the question in any direction you want. Sorry, I won’t be able to answer questions about contest details -pretend it’s a pop-quiz and do your best :). The most intriguing short essay wins its author a pair of four-day passes to the festival (a $500 value).

Email your entry (and include your full name and phone number) to: timothy [at] greenoptions [dot] com

by 5 PM CST, Tuesday July 1st

.

The winner will be announced here at Planetsave by 9AM MST Wednesday.

I wish you all the best of luck.

-Tim Hurst
(Lead Writer- Red, Green, & Blue)

UPDATE: Tim has announced the winner of the ROTHBURY tickets.

Some near 10 months later, Dr. Serreze has predicted that, unless weather and ocean conditions change, it does not look like there will be any summer ice in the Arctic this year.

“A large area at the North Pole and surrounding the North Pole is first-year ice,” Serreze said. “That’s the stuff that tends to melt out in the summer because it’s thin,” and thus, doesn’t have the strength to stand up to the increased temperatures. And so far, the preliminary evidence from a NASA satellite is showing that the ice surrounding the North Pole is “considerably thinner” than scientists have seen previously. This, according to NASA ice scientist Jay Zwally, who believes there is slightly less than a 50/50 chance that the North Pole will be ice free.

We know that last year was a record year for ice melt across the entirety of the Arctic, and as such, the young ice that sprung up between the end of 07’s summer and 08’s summer will be young, and more susceptible to melting.

With a more conservative estimate, Cecilia Bitz at the University of Washington puts the odds of an Arctic without ice at 1 in 4. However, even though this is half what Serreze is predicting, it is still much worse than many climate models had been predicting, which was 1 in 70 sometime in the next decade.

Though there is nothing scientifically significant about the North Pole being ice free, it does hold a symbolic significance. It caused such massive controversy last year when the Northwest Passage opened up that people begun to pay closer attention to it. And, as Seth Borenstein of the AP notes, it is where Santa Claus lives.

Source

credit: lemoncat1 at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

Unfortunately for these media outlets, they have only shamed themselves by doing lousy reporting. Here’s what Mike Krumboltz from Yahoo news said:

It All Depends On Who You Ask

Las Vegas Water Offical Warns Radioactive Levels Rising

Sunday’s news was a bit disconcerting, when I read a small story at Tri-State Online.  Pat Mulroy, head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority was quoted as saying measurable quantities of uranium are showing up in Colorado River water, something difficult and expensive to remove before passing it on to consumers in Las Vegas.

She blames upstream uranium mining, especially in the Moab, Utah area, so I decided to take a look and see what’s happening up there.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no operating uranium mines in or near Moab, UT, or anywhere in the state of Utah.  So, I felt Ms. Mulroy was referring to the uranium mill tailings just outside Moab, where they’ve been for decades after the failure of the Atlas Minerals Corporation mill.

Well, the 16 million tons of radioactive dirt is still there, but according to Moab Mayor David Sakrison, they are no danger to the community or the river.

In a phone interview, the mayor said the federal government has done an exemplary job of mitigating dust and water runoff that would contaminate the Colorado.  Sakrison did say, however, this has been the case for the past eight years, and before that, Colorado River water was indeed being polluted.

Had the tailings pile presented a health risk to his community, especially through it’s drinking water?  “No”, said the mayor, “our aquifer is on the other side of the Colorado and our water supply is not contaminated.”

It was in 2000 that then Energy Secretary Bill Richardson promised to relocate the tailings pile, and Congress had given the Department of Energy authority to begin cleanup.  President Bush, however, included NO money in his 2000 budget for the removal project.

Cleanup About To Begin at Moab

Donald Metzler, Federal Project Director for the Moab cleanup, told me everything is in place to begin transporting the contaminated soil to a storage area at Crescent Junction, Utah.  The site is about 30 miles north of Moab, and is in a formation called Mancos Shale bedrock, a hard, almost impenetrable formation that will isolate the site from any aquifer.  After all the tailings have been removed from the Moab site and placed in storage, it will be capped and should be safe for at least 1000 years.

I asked Mr. Metzler about the possibility that the tailings were still polluting the river, and he assured me there is absolutely no contamination.  He said tests from a few hundred feet south of the Ajax site showed no increase in radiation other than background, caused by nature.

Taking my query a bit further, some 500 miles, I spoke with Mitch Basefsky, PIO for the Tucson Water District, and he assured me they are monitoring the level of radiation in water coming into the area from the Colorado River via the Central Arizona Project.  Basefsky said they have not seen a change in water radioactivity over the years, but remain concerned that eventually, if nothing is done to stem the release of radioactive materials into the river, it will become a problem here.

So, Where’s The Radiation Coming From?

Southern Nevada’s Mulroy has supposedly written federal Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne, asking him to “carefully evaluate” further uranium mining along the Colorado to determine the risk of further contamination of the river.

I’ve tried for days to get someone in her office to talk with me about her statement and what they’re finding in the water near Las Vegas, but no one has been forthcoming, and I can find nothing on the SNWA website concerning the issue.

There are no operating uranium mines in Utah, and according to Mayor Sakrison, most of the abandoned sites have been cleaned up, and clean water is leaving the Moab area.  What’s the problem?

Grand Canyon Exploration and Possible Uranium Mining

While writing this story, word came to me from the Sierra Club, stating the House Natural Resources Committee has ordered the Bush administration to immediately stop mining claims on public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon.  Good news, because of fears that pollution from uranium mines could threaten the drinking water for more than 25 million people living in the southwest, and just the idea that mining operations are going on within three miles of the canyon is unthinkable.

Until I hear something concrete from the folks in Nevada, there appears little or no danger at this time from uranium-polluted Colorado River water.

Stay tuned.

Links to Related Articles:

Uranium Mining Claims in Grand Canyon Area Ordered Withdrawn

Does Sen. John McCain Approve of Proposed Uranium Mines Near the Grand Canyon?

Federal Judge Blocks Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon

Our Discussion Forum:
Nuclear Energy, Good or Bad?

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/53074617@N00/2242825510

]]> http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/06/25/is-colorado-river-becoming-radioactive-from-upstream-uranium-mines/feed/ http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/06/25/uranium-mining-claims-in-grand-canyon-area-ordered-withdrawn/ http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/06/25/uranium-mining-claims-in-grand-canyon-area-ordered-withdrawn/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:52:47 +0000 Max Lindberg http://planetsave.com/?p=2624 For the 5th time in history, the House Natural Resources committee invoked its authority and ordered the Bush administration to stop mining claims in the Grand Canyon.  The measure was urged by Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva of Tucson, chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands.

The withdrawal halts thousands of mining claims in national forest areas surrounding the Grand Canyon amid fears that resumption of uranium mining presents a danger to drinking water for some 25 million people in the southwest.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano had requested that Interior Secretary Kempthorne withdraw the Grand Canyon area from mining.  The request was denied on the grounds that Congress must make the request.

The four previous emergency withdrawal authority requests were authored by Rep. Morris Udall, who was Chairman of the House Interior Committee.

Will the Bush administration abide by this authority, or is Bush still “the decider”?

Source:  Press Release from The Sierra Club

Image Credit:  www.inetours.com/…/ Tours/Grand_Canyon_7739.jpg