WWPBlog

It was quite a surprise to read that the Bush U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service is having a Rachel Carson Revival Jubilee of sorts.

According to this Fish and Wildlife Press Release:  

"Rachel Carson is considered by many to be the mother of modern-day ecology. This year, to mark the 100^th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s birth and join in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Centennial celebration, the Friends of the National Conservation Training Center will celebrate the achievements of the Service’s most notable employee by launching the Rachel Carson Online Book Club".

The last time I was in the main Interior Building in Washington DC — And granted this was almost four years ago, on the March 2003 eve of the start of Bush’s Iraq War disaster. Literally it was the eve. We later had a lonely dinner in a French restaurant, our own little anti-Freedom Fry Acte de Resistance. The waitress took the six of us to a table in a back area where she told us that JFK had eaten at times. Perhaps it was true, or perhaps the jingoism over France’s refusal to join the Coalition of the Oil Grabbers and the Misled had been bad for business, and she was hoping we would feel very special and come back — ANYWAY, the only detectable trace of Rachel Carson that  we saw in the Interior Department were photos and a bit of information in its drab basement catacombs. You had to really, really go out of your way to see any trace of her.

We can only imagine that  Rachel Carson, a scientist, has been rolling in her grave over the lies, omissions and rabid anti-science bent of the Cattle, Chemical, Developer, and Timber Industry Hacks who have poisoned or killed every U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Endangered Species Act Listing process, and every other environmental action, since the Bush cabal hit town. 

Of course, our own favorite tale of FWS malfeasance and shameless lying for Public Lands Welfare Ranchers is that of slickspot peppergrass, where Dirk Kempthorne’s Interior Department failed to List slickspot peppergrass, Lepidium papilliferum, a species hurtling towards extinction, because there are more plants in years with more rain. We have discussed this in several January Posts at www.wwpblog.com.

Since those Posts, we have had an opportunity to digest the hatchet job on common sense, decency and reason that "The Service" under Kempthorne conducted on the genetically unique and isolated Mono Lake sage grouse population ESA listing petition. See  

http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/2006/December/Day-19/i21135.htm 

The FWS concluded (this is its blanket conclusion these days): 

"We find that the petitions do not present substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that listing this population may be warranted. Therefore, we are not initiating a status review in response to these petitions".  Translation: Kempthorne Interior FWS to Mono Lake Sage Grouse: Drop Dead.

Therein we learn that no matter the cows, cow facilities, roads, weeds, development, mining, West Nile virus, habitat fragmentation, etc. that this tiny and isolated populations of sage grouse are faced with,"The Service" has been presented with NO SOLID evidence, NONE, mind you, that ANY of the ecological problems with cows, cow facilities, roads, weeds, development, mining, West Nile virus, habitat fragmentation, etc. that researchers everywhere else have shown are killing sage grouse could EVER be harming the Mono Lake birds. The denial of this Listing Petition, is essentially based on the claim that You Can’t Prove Aldrin, DDT, chlordane, ever hurt any living creature in any place a detailed egg-shell thinning, cancer, mutant freak or other study was not done. Under this reasoning, we would still be using DDT, especially in places like Idaho where we don’t even allow ourselves to think that global warming may be occurring.

If this all isn’t anti-science, I don’t know what is.

Now think of the titles of the chapters in Silent Spring:

A Fable for Tomorrow

The Obligation to Endure

Elixirs of Death

Surface Waters and Underground Seas

Realms of the Soil

Earth’s Green Mantle

Needless Havoc

And No Birds Sing

Rivers of Death

Indiscriminately from the Skies

Beyond the Dreams of the Borgias

The Human Price

Through a Narrow Window

One in Every Four

Nature Fights Back

The Rumblings of An Avalanche

The Other Road   

I believe the FWS folks who are hosting this Rachel Carson forum have good intentions — can you imagine having to go to work every day and lie about things that you once cared about? Perhaps this is the only the outlet they have under this regime.

But also, I believe that any upcoming effort by the higher up politicos at Dirk Kempthorne’s Interior, and especially Dirk, and those whose names are increasingly known that to have axed ESA Listings for industry, to glom onto Carson’s legacy must be met with a fierce effort to expose them for the shameless fabricators of anti-science lies and destroyers of Earth’s Green Mantle that they are.

Beyond the Dreams of the Borgias? I just opened up a page in that Chapter. My eyes fell on this line first "Advertisements contain no suggestion that lindane is dangerous. Neither do the ads for a device that dispenses lindane fumes we are told that it is safe and odorless …". And randomly a few pages later "damage to the nervous system is not confined to acute poisoning; there may also be delayed effects from exposure". Rachel Carson laid it all out for us. The Bush administration has spent six plus years lying about everything Carson knew to be true.

And how will this Administration REALLY be celebrating Carson’s legacy? We keep hearing rumors that the hideous BLM Final Vegetation Treatment EIS (aka the Weed EIS) which is also under Kempthorne’s domain, may be due out anytime now.

See http://www.sagebrushsea.org/mn_BLM_weeds.htm 

THIS loathesome EIS is gonna’ revive the wonders of diquat for use on public lands, plus some brand new poisons that Monsanto and Dow and their ilk want to sell us to "treat" millions of acres of cow-caused weeds. And poison many more places into which these chemcials willl drift, spread, seep. Especially chemicals like Tebuthiuron that persist for 10 years or more slowly browning and killing sagebrush and pinyon pines and junipers on the surface of the earth, and all the while moving towards groundwater that many herbicides have a special affinity for. 

And be aware that most of the drinking water in the West ultimately originates on public land.  

And the BLM Weed EIS will never, ever address the root cow cause of the problem.    

HERE is an example of the industry scoundrels that are the antithesis of Rachel Carson: 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/29/AR2006102900776.html  The Boss of Julie MacDonald has been a fellow named Craig Manson, another industry Hit Person.

Time for them all to go off on a nice Jack Abramoff-II lobbyist excursion to a freshly diquated golf course somewhere, and keep their grubby paws off Carson’s legacy. 

Ramblings on Mosquitoes, Gravel Pits and Wolves 

I, for one, fled the Boise Valley last summer for a few days when the West Nile virus mosquito pesticide spraying hit. The spraying was in response to human deaths and illness from West Nile virus. Birds, too, were dying right and left.

As we all learned in first grade, stagnant water provides a great rearing area and hatchery for mosquito larvae. At the height of the concern about West Nile in Idaho, we were all urged by the local media to do our part to abolish prime mosquito habitat. Make sure we had no stagnant birdbaths in the backyard, old tires languishing in the back 40, and the like.

Today’ s Statesman has an article about the Idaho legislature moving forward on an Eagle Island State Park gravel mining (for the local contractor cartel) and pond building enterprise to help develop MORE recreation opportunities by making some nice new gravel pit artificial ponds and lakes at the Park.

I’m betting there will be some nice new commercial "partnerships" coming down, too. Can’t you just see the jet ski rental facility this all will make at Eagle Island State Park???

http://www.idahostatesman.com/244/story/73223.html  Yep, we can have it all.

Here is an older story about the Pits for Parks Kempthorne Legacy Project. It was bubbling in the news just as Dirk was hitting the road to the Interior Department in DC. See  http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/boise/archive.asp?postID=3066 describing the Eagle Island West Nile mosquito hatchery project-to-be.

And the last thing that we need is more bulldozing of the Boise River corridor. Birds are having a tough enought time in the increasingly fragmented river bottom forested habitat that keeps falling to development. Not to mention the West Nile impacts to songbirds and raptors:

And Rachel Carson made us all aware of the toll sprays (like for West Nile skeeters) take on the natural world.  

Why are we further destroying the floodplain of the river by building some big new mosquito hatcheries out there??? Remember, folks, this Pits for Parks thing was part of Secretary of Interior Dirk Kempthorne’s Great Big Environmental Legacy of his entire term as Idaho Governor.

And Dirk as Interior Secretary is now The Decider on Gary Wolf De-Listing.

AH! They’ll likely be selling some of those nice Chinese import plush wolf pups (the kind that even lack their baby teeth), and with pink bows around their necks, at the Kempthorne Memorial Eagle Island State Park Pondside Gift Shop. See demarcatedlandscapes link  to The Onion on biodiversity, 

http://www.demarcatedlandscapes.com/2007/02/onion-on-biodiversity.html  Now that’s the kind of biodiversity our Interior Secretary can relate to!

And if gray wolf de-listing goes forward in idaho, those baby-faced Chinese wolf pups may be the only ones left in the state.  That, and a wolf head or two on a pike in the office of Kempthorne’s successor, Butch Otter, of Wolf Pelt Tag #1 Fame

See http://wwpblog.com/blog1/2007/01/  Search for article "Now Idaho is running away from its Governor’s Tag to kill wolves".

NOTE: We predict The Statesman local media coverage of the upcoming wolf de-listing (Death Warrant) hearings on March 6th at the Grove (6 to 8 pm is public comment, 3 to 5 is a FWS presentation) in Boise will be milquetoasty.

The local newspaper seems to be getting more and more leery of letting folks in the rest of the country and the world see the ignorance and brutality of mindsets that are common in Idaho. We predict syrupy news goo profiling starveling set-upon ranchers who have lost 2 sheep to wolves while in the same herd 200 died of eating the wrong kind of weed. And lots of whining by ATV elk hunters who can’t find elk anymore. Funny thing, ever since they got that new Predator Model ATV, the wolves started making the elk scarce. So we’ll be exploring other avenues to get the message out.

Anyway, please come out and see for yourself what these meetings are all about:

http://wolves.wordpress.com/2007/02/27/hearings-on-wolf-delisting-begin-tonight-in-cheyenne-wy/ 

These type of events are always a great insight into local custom and culture. 

Help stop Kempthorne’s Fish and Wildlife Service wolf de-listing Legacy Project! 

"The percentage that you’re paying is too high priced 

 While you’re living beyond all your means ..."

      Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

That line kept haunting me as I was Googling for hydrologic maps, and thinking about the Brand New Colorado River Water Report and how it is being spun. 

The report and Las Vegas Water Empress Pat Mulroy make official what everybody already knew: Las Vegas, and southern Nevada and the rest of the Colorado River Compact states have no intention of trying to live within their water means.  

Given the impending industrialization and de-watering of the Great Basin and central Nevada for their benefit, this all quite caught my eye. See The Las Vegas Review Journal 

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2007/Feb-22-Thu-2007/news/12744068.html

The article commences:  "As bad as it may be, the current dry spell is nothing compared to what may be in store for the Colorado River, and no amount of conservation will be enough to stave off water shortages in the region".

HMMM. No amount of conservation means: We are not even going to try very much to live within our water means. We will just work harder to liberate ourselves from those silly little natural and hydrological contraints of  weather patterns and river systems, and aquifers. And now we can use rising temperatures, less water [NEVER does the report in what we’ve read so far even mention, directly, the role of COWS and destruction of public lands watersheds on BLM and National Forest lands in desertification processes and killing perennial water supplies], and Global Warming as an excuse to do so. 

Here’s Mulroy:

"It confirms a lot of things that we’ve been saying," said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority. "It says there’s no way you can conserve your way out of this. There has to be a larger solution somehow."

For the Las Vegas Valley, which gets 90 percent of its water from the Colorado, that solution is to develop an alternative supply, Mulroy said.

"In my mind, it underscores the critical need for Nevada to diversify."

The alternative she is talking about, of course, is the $2 billion pipeline network the authority plans to build to tap groundwater from as far north as White Pine County, 250 miles away."

                                        ************************* 

This effort includes well fields to mine aquifers - with the help of Vidler Water in Lincoln County, and the pipeline and energy corridors extending into portions of White Pine County to Spring Valley and Great Basin National Park, as well as Vegas acquiring surface water rights in the region.  

BUT I think the article is wrong in thinking that Mulroy is ONLY talking about the pipelines - am betting these are just the beginning.  

Las Vegas is tapping ground water to, essentially MINE, aquifers. While its water pipelines may for now lie ON THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH inside the Colorado River’s drainage Basin, that is likely only the FIRST part of this Water Grab.

See  http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/nv/planning_documents/water_development/southern_nevada_water.Par.92098.File.dat/newsletter%201%20web%20version.pdf

Red lines on the map are Power and Water Corridors, Green lines are (and we are betting only for a wee bit longer) power corridors. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the next step is extending the water lines outside the surface water basin - and over to Ely. Where, as we describe, there is a SEPARATE new Water Mining effort underway to drill and pipe new water well fields as far north as Lages Junction on the Elko County line, These are, for now, to used be for groundwater for coal-fired power plants. See our prevoius Post: http://wwpblog.com/blog1/2007/02/coal_carnage_in_the_great_basi.html     

See also this map of "Hydrologic Basins and Flow Systems to see how far the hydrologic basins extend:

http://www.nv.blm.gov/GWProjects/map_segments/basins_upated_0206.htm 

AND here is a map of the Colorado River Hydrologic Basin:

http://dels.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs/colorado_river_management_final.pdf

The carbonate aquifers extend well beyond the surface Hydrologic Map from the Report at this link will be tapped and drained for Vegas and the Colorado River Compact extend east into Utah, west towards California, as well as north perhaps even to portions of southeast Idaho.

**************************************************************************** 

Back to the Press Info on the new Colorado River Report that Mulroy uses as justification for more … innovation, or shall we say, water piracy. Here is an excerpt from the Press Release for the Colorado River Report:

"The combination of limited water supplies, rapidly increasing populations, warmer regional temperatures, and the specter of recurrent drought point to a future in which the potential for conflict among existing and prospective new water users will prove endemic, the report concludes.  This will inevitably lead to increasingly costly, controversial, and unavoidable trade-offs among water managers, policymakers, and their constituents. 

It was therefore a welcome development when the seven Colorado River basin states presented preliminary proposals for managing water shortages in a letter last February to the U.S. secretary of the interior, the committee said.  Such interstate cooperation will prove increasingly valuable, and likely essential, in coping with future droughts and water demands."

Here is the Big Report itself:

Colorado River Basin Water Management: Evaluating and Adjsting to Hydroclimatic Variability   

http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11857.html#toc 

Now, we have not read it all, on-line in tiny type, but this little part on Cloud Seeding caught our eye:

"Prospects for Conserving and Extending Water Supplies [Page] 87 December 16, 2006. Cloud seeding operations are planned in the Wind River Mountains and the Medicine Bow Range/Sierra Madre Mountains. The program is important because of its potential scientific and operational evaluation for Colorado River compact states and because the five-year program is to utilize a solid scientific base for the experiments. If the Wyoming pilot trials increase snowpack by 10 percent, the additional yield would, on average, be on the order of 130,000 to 260,000 acre-feet of additional runoff each spring (WWDC, 2006), which would represent a notable increase in water supplies."

The report continues: 

"In addition to the Colorado River basin states, entities such as municipalities and the ski industry are interested in the prospects of augmenting water supplies and snowpacks by cloud seeding. Denver Water, for example, commenced cloud seeding again in 2002 after 20 years of putting its program on hold. Denver Water’s cloud seeding program was re-initiated as a response to the 2002 drought and was conducted through March 2003 (see http://www.denverwater.org/cloud_seeding.html; accessed October 10, 2006). In evaluating the success or benefits of cloud seeding operations, the experience of six decades of experiments and applications that failed to produce clear evidence that cloud seeding can reliably enhance water supplies on a large scale should be kept in mind. Of course, clear evidence is difficult to produce in cloud seeding experiments, as they are not amenable to case- control studies. Furthermore, such experiments are seen by many as being relatively inexpensive even if they do not definitively result in greater precipitation. Given increasing demands for water across the Colorado River basin, cloud seeding is likely to continue to be pursued as a means for augmenting water supply."

Oh! THIS cloud-seeding, now, puts an article that appeared in papers a couple months ago about a cloud-seeding operation in Wyoming in a new light. I had thought it was primarily LOCAL greed for water. See

http://wolves.wordpress.com/2007/01/06/windriver-cloud-seeding-controversial/ 

What I didn’t understand so clearly about the Wind River seeding (western slopes drain into Colorado system, and it appears if YOU are a part the Colorado part of the "Compact States" no matter what your geographic location you get special seeding treatment) at the time was that it was at least partially aimed at short-stopping moisture in clouds (moving from west to east and north) before it left the hydrologic Colorado Basin/Compact states and all those nice eagerly waiting not too very full reservoirs.

AND that likely moreso than being an effort to boost water supplies for local cattle interests to squander more water in growing cow food in an arid landscape, it is an effort to put more water into the whole multi-state Colorado Water Pot, by robbing the rest of Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, etc. to the east and North - essentially - the Missouri River system, of rain and snow. 

And observe that the U. S. Forest Service was trying to sneak this Water Pirating "experiment" through with a Categorical Exclusion (agency way of saying an action really it has no significance whatsoever - like painting an outhouse, or putting up signs in the parking lot). I wonder who put them up to THAT?

***************************************************************************** 

AND then there is this little gem in the Colorado Water report:   

OFFSTREAM WATER BANKING AND RESERVES Water banking and groundwater recharge programs have been used for many decades in the western United States, and there has been an especially strong interest in these programs during the past decade.

… "Water bank" generally applies to two different types of arrangements: 1) groundwater storage projects, and 2) arrangements to facilitate voluntary water transfers through rental markets (http://www.isse.ucar.edu/water_climate/banking.html; accessed August 3, 2006). Water banking and groundwater storage programs have several objectives … 1) the (hoped for) creation of reliable supplies during extended drought, 2) promotion of water conservation by encouraging "deposits" into groundwater storage, and 3) recharging of groundwater tables and reduction of evaporation from surface reservoirs.  (Page 93).

It’s gonna take a while to digest all THAT may mean. BUT I am betting those new Energy Corridors about to explode across Canada and the Western US may be tied into this grand water banking system lurking in the wings …  Are we going to ultimately be depositing water, say from the Snake River system, or beyond, into this nice Water Banking scheme? NO wonder the recent crop of failed Idaho wilderness bills didn’t have a provision for a federal reserve water right.

As we’ve discussed in previous Posts, the vehicle that has now greatly freed Las Vegas from living within ANY reasonable means has been a series of quid pro quo Wilderness Bills.  In fact, the most recent Nevada Wilderness Bill, White Pine, contained the go ahead for a nice little storage reservoir about which Mulroy crows in this early January 2007 article in the Ely Times newspaper:

http://www.elynews.com/articles/2007/01/22/news/news001.txt 

"One key provision would allow the state to collect credits for the rural Nevada groundwater that Mulroy’s agency plans to use in the Las Vegas Valley and release back into Lake Mead as treated wastewater".

AND the Ely paper it continues:

"The agreement also allows Nevada to receive a greater share of Colorado River water, including permanent access to 75,000 acre-feet a year and a one-time infusion of at least 280,000 acre-feet in exchange for building a new reservoir in California near the U.S.-Mexico border.

An acre-foot is enough water to support two Las Vegas Valley homes for one year.

County commissioner and water authority board member Rory Reid [Yes, the son of Harry Reid] said Mulroy and her staff deserve a lot of credit for their work in hammering out the deal".  
Do you understand that neither the clouds overhead, nor your aquifer, is safe from this band of water pirates, especially once they get a system of large new 3/4 mile wide "Energy" Corridors in place?????

Ban on feeding cows dope

Switzerland’s Agriculture Ministry has called on the country’s farmers to stop feeding their cows cannabis.

Several recent adverts have promoted feeding hemp to farm animals even after a March 2005 law banning its use.

The Agriculture Ministry has now warned that farmers doping their cows will be prosecuted.

Farmers consider the cheap and easy to grow plant is good for their cows.

They believe the active ingredient in cannabis, THC, makes cows happy and produce more milk, but the Agriculture Ministry say THC can get into the milk and create a health risk.

They also said that there was a risk that Swiss cheese products could be contaminated.

Our preceding post describes Harry Reid telling White Pine County Commissioners "Sell your groundwater, Be happy ". It touched on the coal-fired power plant and energy development calamity that is being enabled by the mandated sell offs of BLM land (OUR public land) in the recent  White Pine and Lincoln County Nevada Wilderness Bills.  

There are at least three or more separate coal-fired plant processes underway in eastern Nevada. These include:

1) Topuop (started out as natural gas, now to be coal).

2) White Pine Energy Center (LS Power). Ely. Between Scoping and Draft EIS.

3) Ely Energy Center (EEC). Sierra Pacific Power. Ely. Scoping comments due by February 26.

Tremendous transmission line, aquifer water mining infrastructure and railways and railway resurrection are being planned to support this all. We in no way understand ALL that is transpiring or foreseeable. This Post focuses primarily on the Ely Energy Center and corridors for it and the White Pine Coal Project.

We know that the wind blows Nevada air and pollution, ranging from gold mine mercury to nuclear testing fallout, north and east towards Idaho, Utah and other states in the region. We downwinders will receive the soot and mercury pollution from the Ely area coal plants.  

Below are photos of the maps from the hard copy Scoping Mailing for the Ely Energy Center. BLM neglected to post any maps on the Internet so that that the public across the affected region can see what is going on with these developments that are going to end up clogging our lungs. You think those Salt Lake City inversions are bad NOW? Or those Boise yellow, orange, red air quality alerts? Don’t jog, stay indoors, become sedentary couch potatoes. Just wait until the industrialization of the Great Basin is put in place.      

NOTE: We contacted Ely BLM over a week ago, and asked that they post maps so the public can understand what is going on. Response: BLM whined about how expensive GIS was. Well, we suggested that they do what we po’ folk did to Post the photos here - take a digital picture of the hard copy map info and slap it up on the Internets!  As of this writing — Nada.

Here is Ely’s Mapless Website, and a couple of excerpted paragraphs:

 http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/ely_field_office/blm_programs/energy/energy_projects__transmission.html

"In brief, Sierra Pacific Resources on Wednesday, June 14, 2006, filed an application with the BLM Ely Field Office to develop in White Pine County a coal-fired electric power plant and 250-mile transmission line that would connect northern and southern Nevada. The power generation facility would initially consist of two coal-fired 750-megawatt (MW) units. The first unit would become operational in 2011. The second unit would become operational within the following three years. Also, two 500 MW coal gasification units would be constructed once the technology becomes commercially viable. Nevada Power, Sierra Pacific’s sister company, would construct the gasification units.  The Bureau of Land Management has established a new email address for receipt of scoping comments on the Ely Energy Center EIS. The new e-mail addres is: eec_eis@nv.blm.gov. If you have already submitted scoping comments to the previously announced email address (Doris_Metcalf@blm.gov), those comments will be saved and evaluated. If you have not yet submitted your email comments, please do so to the new email address". 

NOW, what about those powerlines, including portions of SWIP that will open the door for all manner of New Energy Develoment ? BLM is trying to sneak this part through on a mere EA, unlawfully segmenting impacts and claiming an old 1994 analysis suffices: