FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 7, 2008
12:29 PM

CONTACT: Environmental Groups
Stephen Bloch, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, (801) 486-3161 x.3981
Pam Miller, Nine Mile Canyon Coalition, (435) 650-2900
Johanna Wald, Natural Resources Defense Council, (415) 875-6100
Suzanne Jones, The Wilderness Society, (303) 650-5818 x.102
Thomas Kleinschnitz, Utah Guides and Outfitters, (800) 423-4668

Public Overwhelms Interior Dept. With Opposition
to Latest Proposed Oil & Gas Project in Utah’s Famed Nine Mile Canyon

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH - May 7 - Last week tens of thousands of Americans from across the nation called on the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to reject a Denver-based gas company’s plans to drill more than 800 new natural gas wells in eastern Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon region, an area world-renowned for its fragile rock art sites. Local and regional businesses and conservation groups also have asked the Interior Department to go back to the drawing board and not approve the West Tavaputs full-field development project offered by Bill Barrett Corporation and supported by the BLM.

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Something to Celebrate!

BLM Withdraws Proposed Energy Leases in Southern Colorado
The Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 05/02/2008 04:45:41 PM MDT

DENVER—Federal officials are withdrawing most of the proposed oil and gas leases up for sale in a May 8th auction.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Friday that it will defer offering leases on 144,000 acres out of the original 175,430 acres. The parcels withdrawn are in the Rio National Grande Forest in southern Colorado.

BLM officials say the parcels could be auctioned later. They’ll go over the analysis of the sites with the Forest Service

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 28, 2008
1:10 PM

 CONTACT: Center for Biological Diversity
Rob Mrowka, Center for Biological Diversity, (702) 249-5821
 
 
Federal Proposal to Open 1.7 Million Acres of Nevada Public Land to Oil and Gas Development Would Worsen Global Climate Change and Imperil Species
 
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - April 28 - Today the Center for Biological Diversity submitted comments urging the federal Bureau of Land Management to scrap its proposal to open 1.7 million acres of public lands in Lander and Nye counties to oil and gas development because the drilling would exacerbate global climate change and further threaten imperiled species.

At the heart of the Center’s complaint is the Bureau’s failure to analyze or even acknowledge the environmental impacts from the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the development and consumption of oil and gas produced from the area, despite the National Environmental Policy Act’s mandate to fully disclose the environmental impacts from federal actions.

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FIRST NATIONS, FIRST RESISTANCE—

SUPPORT THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL AT BIG MOUNTAIN, BLACK MESA, AZ.

On behalf of their peoples, their ancestral lands, and future
generations, more than 350 Dineh residents of Black Mesa continue
their staunch resistance to the efforts of the US Government– acting
in the interests of the Peabody Coal Company—to relocate the Dineh
and destroy their homelands. This land is the basis for the Black
Mesa peoples’ traditions, livelihoods, and spirituality.

At this moment the decision makers in Washington D.C. are planning
ways to seize tribal lands to extract mineral resources. The coal
companies are funding both the Republican and Democratic parties
because they have huge interests at stake. Presidential candidate
John McCain recently sponsored forced-relocation legislation
targeting these Dineh families; Peabody Coal, the world’s largest
coal company, currently has plans to expand its strip mine operations
and to seize more deep aquifers beneath these indigenous lands.
Peabody Coal Company has completely dug up burials, sacred sites, and
shrines designated specifically for offerings, preventing religious
practices. Not only were the principal concerns of the communities
directly affected by the legislation never addressed, those
communities were not even notified.

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*New **James Bay** Dams to Destroy Pristine **Quebec** **River** *

International Opposition and Outrage over Hydro-Quebec’s Destructive $5B
Power Grab

ALBANY, NY, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ - American environmental groups today
announced their support for Canadian environmental groups and three Cree
Indian communities fighting Hydro-Quebec’s most recent assault on the James
Bay wilderness in Quebec, Canada.

Hydro-Quebec’s primary purpose for damming and diverting the Rupert River
-one of the last undammed major river in Northern Quebec - and creating a
massive reservoir equivalent in size to flooding two-thirds of Montreal, or
half of New York or New Orleans, is to generate new power capacity to sell to
the northeastern United States. Continue Reading »