Tar-Sands

Unist’ot’en Camp, January 2015 Night sky over the Wedzin Kwah, unist’ot’en camp, in love with the land The storm enveloped us. Snow lashed the road. The darkness was total, our headlights casting weak yellow beams into the darkness. Most people had hunkered down in homes and motels, and the roads were near empty. Still, every few minutes a passing truck threw a blinding cloud of dry snow into the air, leaving us blind for seconds at a time as we hurtled onwards at the fastest speeds we could manage. ...

“Protecting Sage Grouse in the Great Basin” “…Restoring native plants and biodiversity in the sagebrush-steppe ecosystem of the Great Basin, where a massive invasion of non-native grasses, particularly cheatgrass, has turned millions of acres into a fire-prone monoculture. As Climate Progress has reported, finding innovative ways to beat back the cheatgrass invasion and restore sagebrush and other native plants has a huge potential for sequestering carbon and aiding in the fight against global climate change.” ...

Work on the Utah Tar Sands project continues. The following is excerpted from Oilvoice. " During the third quarter of 2014, the Company’s project team continued to work with its engineering consultants and equipment suppliers to complete final engineering design and procure equipment for the PR Spring Project. For the remainder of 2014, the Company will continue to focus on the PR Spring Project Phase 1 detailed engineering of the modules. US Oil Sands Inc. (TSXV: USO) announce that it has filed its unaudited interim financial statements (“Interim Report”) for the three month period ended September 30, 2014 (“Q3 2014”) along with the management discussion and analysis (“MD&A”) of the financial results of US Oil Sands for such period. A copy of the aforementioned documents may be found for viewing on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval website at www.sedar.com as well as US Oil Sands’ website at www.usoilsandsinc.com. “US Oil Sands met a significant milestone during the quarter by completing the grading and preparation of the PR Spring Project plant site and procuring all major equipment for the PR Spring Project,” said Cameron Todd, CEO of US Oil Sands. “We are excited to progress to the fabrication phase of the Project in preparation for modular installation, commissioning and ultimately, commercial production in 2015.” ...

This spring and summer, multiple action camps will take place on the Tavaputs Plateau, where the first Tar Sands and Oil Shale strip mining projects in the “USA” are getting started. To be effective, this resistance will need your support. We’re looking for donations of non-perishable foods, camping supplies, and cash. Can you put together a care package for us? Get in touch with us if you can: greatbasin@deepgreenresistance.org or send us a Facebook message.

Oct. 25-27: Stop Enefit! No Oil Shale Campout | Utah Tar Sands Resistance. From UTSR: " We with the Utah Tar Sands Resistance aren’t all about tar sands, you know. Eastern Utah has become a sacrifice zone for the Western United States in terms of destructive, toxic fuel extraction, and we’re standing up to say “No!” to extreme energies in the Uintah Basin–and that includes oil shale. Enefit, an Estonian government-owned company with some half-baked ideas about mining for oil shale in Eastern Utah (in order to produce Kerogen), is bringing the usual lines about “minimizing land disturbance,” “reclamation” of the land, and their “commitment to environmental stewardship.” ...

By Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance Great Basin The first Tar Sands mine in the United States is an open wound on the landscape: a three acre pit, the bottom puddled with water and streaked with black tar. Berms of broken earth a hundred feet tall stand on all sides. To the north and south, Seep Ridge Road – a narrow, rutted, dirt affair – is in the midst of a state-funded transfiguration into a 4-lane paved highway that may soon be clogged with afternoon traffic jams of oil tankers and construction equipment. Clearcuts and churned soil stretch to either side of the road, marking the steady march of progress. ...

DGR Michigan passed this along - they are on the scene: MI-CATS (Michigan Coalition Against the Tar Sands) press release: Support the bail fund for the arrested activists. Monday, July 22nd, 2013 This morning Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands (MI-CATS) is taking direct action near Stockbridge `to halt construction of the Tar Sands pipeline 6B expansion project of Canadian corporation Enbridge. Over 40 Michiganders have come to oppose the infamous corporation’s flagrant expansion of the very same pipeline that spilled out into the Kalamazoo River only three years ago. Enbridge claims they have restored the river after a spill is no excuse to expand the pipeline, expanding the pipeline increases the risk for everyone. ...