Tag Archives: environment

Licensing Private Fuel Storage Moves Forward

Posted on February 14, 2006 | Leave a comment

While our legislators are debating over clubs in schools, dictating what is to be taught by public school teachers (e.g., evolution vs. intelligent design), making decisions to build more roads (instead of putting the money towards better mass transportation), creating a tax structure that will benefit only the most wealthy of Utahns, and deciding to permit Envirocare to expand its toxic waste faciltiy to accept yet more toxic waste (against the outcry of citizens), Private Fuel Storage is edging its way closer to being able to open a facility in Utah’s west desert.

Despite snags in its efforts to have a facility on the Goshute reservation to store spent nuclear fuel rods, Private Fuel Storage (PFS) is moving forward with obtaining its license.

PFS has obtained a draft license that could become final by the end of this month, according to a Deseret News article today.

This is going to be huge. The state is against it. The citizens oppose this. Stay tuned for updates on actions by various groups to stop PFS.

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Green Blogathon!!!

Posted on February 13, 2006 | 1 comment

My job as a school teacher will prevent me from participating in this, but I hope many others will be able to. It sounds like fun and for a great cause!
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Hi fellow Green Bloggers,

Shea Gunther, the Eco-Entrepreneur and blogger behind sheagunther.

I wanted to let you know about the upcoming Green Blogathon and to encourage you to participate. I’ll be hosting it along with Jeff over at Sustainablog.

I’m gathering green bloggers together to blog for 12, 18, or 24 hours straight coming up on Friday, February 24th. Bloggers commit to making two posts an hour and to raising money for a non-profit of their
choice on a per-post pledge basis from their readers/friends/family.

You can find more details and signup for the blogathon here

Let me know if you have any questions. Even if you can’t join us, I hope you’ll consider posting about it, the more readers who see it the more money we have a chance of raising.

Cheers!
Shea

PS- I’ll be raising money to preserve rain forest through the Nature
Conservancy.

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GPUS Voting results

Posted on February 13, 2006 | Leave a comment

Three proposals were adopted last night by the National Committee of the Green Party of the United States:

Hosting of the 2006 Annual National Meeting
Through ranked preference voting, delegates voted to have this year’s annual National Committee Meeting in Tuscon, Arizona from July 27-30.

GPUS National Committee Approval of Forum Managers
Three Discussion List Forum Managers and one alternate were voted in by a simple majority of votes:
51 “yes”; 27 “no”; 5 “abstain”.

(I am one of the three newly elected Forum Managers.)

Endorsement of Letter from Coal River Mountain Watch
In the spirit of the Key Value of Ecological Wisdom and in light of the recent tragedy at the Sago mines in West Virginia, the NC voted unanimously to the signing of the “Coal’s Dirty Secret” letter, drafted by Coal River Mountain Watch. The letter opposes the use of the misleading term “clean coal” by mine owners.

(Readers can sign on to the letter here.)

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This Week’s Radio Program Selections-Rocky takes legislators to task

Posted on February 11, 2006 | Leave a comment

There are a couple of radio programs I thought I’d post about from the past week.

First is the (“Rocky Day”)February 7th Midday Metro from a Salt Lake public radio station, KCPW. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson was this day’s host (my husband, Tom King, called in and talked to him). The program’s topic for this day was the Utah Legislature. Discussion topics on this program include the “Intelligent Design” and “Gay-Straight Alliance” Bills, with guests in the studio and caller comments.
Rocky also takes Rep. Hansen to task for accepting gifts from lobbyists.

Listen here. (mp3 file)
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Second is the February 9th Midday Utah from the same station, in which Jason Groenwald, from HEAL Utah talks about the nuclear waste transportation issue in Utah.

Listen here. (mp3 file)

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S.B. 70 – Envirocare….continued

Posted on February 8, 2006 | Leave a comment

The fight to keep Envirocare from expanding its toxic waste facility continues with Utah S.B. 70.

HEAL Utah has issued another call for volunteers to help educate people on this issue. You can find out more at Progrossive Utah.

You can see how Utah senators voted on this bill. There are three weeks left in the Legislative Session and HEAL is asking people to work over the next two weeks to stop this bill. “Envirocare has just raised the stakes even higher with their recent mergers and acquisitions of nuclear waste handling companies.”

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Response to Rep. Mike Noel’s Nuke Research Amendment

Posted on February 7, 2006 | Leave a comment

My good friends and activist colleagues Pete Litster and Eileen McCabe-Olsen wrote a repsonse to the amendment to HB46 for nuclear energy research by Representative Mike Noel. Pete is the Executive Director and Eileen the Associate Director of Shundahai Network in Salt Lake City, an organization dedicated to breaking the nuclear chain through its lobbying and direct action efforts. Shundahai specifically works with indigenous groups to provide a voice against the ongoing development of nuclear projects.

Noel is wrong about nuclear energy’s safety
By Eileen McCabe-Olsen and Pete Litster

We were appalled to learn that Rep. Mike Noel’s amendment specifically advocating research into nuclear energy has been attached to HB46. While it is commendable that the House wants to explore alternative energies, nuclear power is not a credible alternative energy source. It is an immature technology that should be discontinued, not expanded in commercial use.
Noel cites that “nuclear energy is clean and it is safe.” Neither is true. While nuclear power production does not emit greenhouse gases during its generation, it produces tons of toxic waste, for which there is still no acceptable storage or detoxification solution. Further, unlike coal, which is readily usable after being mined, uranium must be processed through several steps — milling, conversion to uranium hexafluoride, enrichment and fuel rod assembly — before it can be used in a reactor. All of these steps consume energy produced by conventional sources that do emit greenhouse gases.
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Senate votes to pass S.B. 70-contact these legislators

Posted on February 1, 2006 | Leave a comment

HEAL Utah has sent this out:

By a vote of 21-5, the state Senate this afternoon voted to pass Senate Bill 70. The bill will now move towards a final vote in the senate and, if passed again, go over to the House. As bad as it is when over two-thirds of our state senators vote to make it easier for nuclear and toxic waste dumps to expand or develop in Utah at the expense of our health, this fight is still far from over.
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Strategic Grazing

Posted on January 31, 2006 | Leave a comment

Awhile back I posted news on an organization of environmentalists that bought land in southern Utah to graze, the purpose being to control and lessen grazing by livestock on public lands.

Today’s Deseret News has published an article on the grazing permits, which are being viewed as a threat to ranchers in the area. A judge has upheld the permits, which were challenged by ranchers.

The battle revolves around the purchase of three large grazing permits in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by Canyonlands Grazing Corp., an affiliate of the preservationist Grand Canyon Trust. The permits, sold by ranchers in 2000 and 2001, concern the Clark Bench, Last Chance and Big Bowns Bench grazing allotments.
Together, they cover 303,000 acres and rights to graze about 775 cattle. If the BLM approves, conservationists would reduce that amount to about 150 cattle.

With the decision, cattle grazing can be sharply reduced in some areas and ended in others, said Bill Hedden, the Moab-based executive director of Grand Canyon Trust and president of Canyonlands Grazing Corp.
The object, he said in a telephone interview, is to improve “the health of the land.” Where reductions in grazing are supported by the BLM, the groups support it. Meanwhile, he noted, the groups have purchased two large ranches separate from this, where they are investing millions of dollars and grazing cattle.

It’s an interesting strategy. Environmentalists see this a victory to public lands preservation. Ranchers see this as a means to ending their livelihoods.

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S.B. 70 – Envirocare – A P.R. Ploy

Posted on January 27, 2006 | Leave a comment

S.B. 70, the bill that would allow Envirocare to double its capacity for receiving toxic waste, has apparently been halted – at least for this year. Envirocare officials claim that there are too many hurdles to jump and have withdrawn their submittal to the legistlature to expand. However……..our representatives are STILL scheduled to vote on this today or Monday (you know, it’s good for our economy…..jobs…..all that stuff.).

This is obviously a p.r. tactic to make Envirocare look “good” and allow legislators who are in favor of this dangerous bill to go ahead with it anyway. If legislators vote to in favor of this bill, Envirocare will get its way, without ruining its “reputation”.

HEAL Utah is calling for continued vigilance and action to make sure this issue stays alive and Envirocare doesn’t get its way. Learn how you can help HERE.

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Citizen Lobbying; S.B. 70 – Envirocare Update

Posted on January 26, 2006 | Leave a comment

Jen’s Green Journal has an account of the Citizens Lobbying 101 Training, organized by HEAL Utah, held last night at the Utah Capitol Complex.

HEAL Utah has this update and request on Utah S.B. 70:

The State Senate is likely to vote on SB 70 today (Thursday) or perhaps Friday. I want to thank everyone who has sent in a comment to the legislators we’ve been emailing out. Your comments keep this process we call democracy working. If you haven’t yet done so, I’ve listed the legislative leadership in the senate below. You should send a comment in the next few hours (even if you’ve already sent a comment, forward it to numbers 4 and 5, who we haven’t included yet).

1) Senate President John Valentine, (801) 224-1693, jvalentine@utahsenate.org
2) Senate Majority Leader Peter Knudson, (435) 723-2035, pknudson@utahsenate.org
3) Senate Majority Whip Dan Eastman, (801) 295-5133, deastman@utahsenate.org
4) Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, (435) 637-0426, mdmitrich@utahsenate.org
5) Senate Minority Whip Gene Davis, (801) 484-9428, gdavis@utahsenate.org
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