The Newsletter of the Conservation Committees
Angeles Chapter, Sierra Club Email items or articles to Editor: Robin Ives, Publisher/Webmaster: Lori Ives
The Conservation Committees provide forums for Club members to discuss impending conservation issues and to coordinate efforts of conservation subcommittees with groups and sections. They meet monthly every third Tuesday (Orange County) and third Wednesday (Angeles Chapter). Contact the Conservation Committee Chairs by the end of the previous month for a place on the agenda. Deadline for newsletter submissions is 16 days before the Chapter meeting.

Quotes of Note:

You kill people. There's no replacement downstate for Indian River.

        John Hughes, Delaware environment secretary, on the reasoning behind a state agreement with NRG Energy Inc to curb emissions from the company's Indian River power plant.

 

It's like Santa Claus just dropped in on us.

Dying Trees in Sierra Nevada
by Jodi Frediani
Chair, Forestry Task Force, Santa Cruz Group

 

Trees in the Sierra Nevada are dying at a rate nearly double that of two decades ago, and scientists say global warming is likely to blame. A federal study released this week says that one-time evergreens have turned brown and brittle because of drought, a condition that may become more frequent and more intense as the climate changes. While small trees are most at risk, the death rates have increased for a range of species at just about any elevation, the study by the U.S. Geological Survey says. Environmentalists said the news should reinforce the serious consequences of global warming by providing visual proof for the thousands who visit Lake Tahoe or Yosemite National Park each year or, closer to home, drive through the Stanislaus National Forest. "It's not as simple as saying temperatures will be a little bit warmer and you won't have to put on a sweater. The impacts reach much further than that," said Jason Barbose, an advocate with the global warming watchdog group Environment California. USGS scientists in 1983 began monitoring more than 21,000 trees in 21 locations at Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. Annual visits to each tree showed that death rates were climbing an average of 3 percent each year, while the rate of new growth didn't change. The die-offs seemed to coincide with periods of drought, which typically make trees more susceptible to bug infestations or pathogens. Many fir and pine trees appeared to be most at risk; giant sequoias were too sparsely located to detect any trends. Climate change can bring about both drought and drenching rain, but in the arid Sierra Nevada, temperatures are warming without a marked increase in precipitation.

 

Something New in River City
by Carl Pope

Apologies to Karl Rove
Thursday, August 16, 2007

 

Washington DC—It appears that I may have been unfair to Karl Rove in blaming him for the singularly tone-deaf politics of the Bush administration's approach to public lands issues: Mark Rey's sustained campaign to cut off funding for rural schools; the oil and gas drilling orgy that turned much of the rural West from red to blue; the decision to have EPA set different, and less health-protective air quality standards for rural Americans; the indifference to the needs of blue-color commercial fishermen; and the systematic refusal to adequately fund fire-protection for Bush-loyal rural communities.

 

According to two recent reports, Rove didn't actually drive environmental policy for the administration—it was almost entirely the bailiwick of Vice-President Cheney. Cheney's role on environmental issues was laid out earlier this summer in a long report in the Washington Post that detailed Cheney's unprecedented involvement in the seeming minutiae of environmental conflicts like water management on the Klamath River. The Post report documents calls made to front-line bureaucrats in the Department of the Interior.

 

Cheney had reached far down the chain of command, on so unexpected a point of vice presidential concern, because he had spotted a political threat.... By combining unwavering ideological positions—such as the priority of economic interests over protected fish—with a deep practical knowledge of the federal bureaucracy, Cheney has made an indelible mark on the administration's approach to everything from air and water quality to the preservation of national parks and forests.

 

Now, in an Atlantic Monthly article that eerily appeared just as Rove walked out the door, Joshua Green argues that Rove by and large left environmental policy, like foreign affairs, to Cheney, and never saw environmental issues as being part of his master plan to reshape the American electorate. Since the rural Westerners Cheney's policies alienated were already a part of Rove's assumed Republican base, perhaps Rove myopically overlooked the possibility that even as he was struggling—ultimately unsuccessfully—to create a political realignment by broadening his party's base, Cheney was systematically hollowing out its foundations. Rove did, it is true, join Cheney in micro-managing the Klamath issue, making a 2002 election briefing to top managers at the Department of Interior on how much trouble the Klamath could make for Oregon Senator Gordon Smith. And his fine rhetorical hand was evident even in the 2000 campaign, softening Bush's hard edges with the pledge to do something unspecified about carbon dioxide pollution, as well as in terms like "Healthy Forests" and "Clear Skies." And Rove did, perhaps grudgingly, intervene in clean water regulation on behalf of Bush campaign donor Ernest Angelo—one of the "appeals" that Joshua Green says Rove hated being asked to do.

 

But as Green points out, Rove was acutely sensitive to politics, not policy—and was blind to the fact that policy impacts politics in ways that are not always intended. He left environmental policy to Cheney because it didn't figure in his grand scheme, except as a source of money for campaigns. But it appears that he never understood that Cheney was acutely sensitive only to policy, and to the financial base of the party, not its voters. Cheney's chickens would come home to Rove's roost.

 

In some ways, the picture of the White House you piece together from these two analyses is a new one: not the monolithic, unified, disciplined image the administration projected for years, but that of a weak, if stubborn, president presiding over a two-headed "push me-pull you" creature out of Doctor Doolittle. And it's clear that Cheney is still running the show. Just this week the Forest Service, having been rebuffed once by the federal courts, announced again a whole complicated set of regulatory and guidance changes for the Forest Service, all predicated on the notion that the American people have to be denied any knowledge about what is planned for their public lands, and that the Forest Service political leadership and the timber industry need unfettered control of our National Forests. A few days earlier the BLM proposed a sevenfold increase in logging old-growth trees that help forests resist fires.

 

So things may actually get worse environmentally as this administration heads for the exit. We're going to be seeing a lot of folks rushing to the federal courthouse now that Cheney stands alone.

 

California Global Warming Solutions
by Jim Stewart

 

Please join us at the next Global Warming, Energy and Air Quality Committee meeting, Thursday, September 13, 7 - 9 pm.

Conference call free access (starting at 7:10 pm): (866) 501-6174, Conference Code: 1000400#

 

AGENDA

1. AB 32 Implementation California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 Scoping Plan (see CARB invitation below). We will be reporting on the Statewide meeting in San Luis Obispo September 8 & 9.
2. 7 new power plants in LA? We need you to testify at AQMD in Diamond Bar October 5. Comments are due to AQMD to cob@aqmd.gov on or before Tuesday, September 25, 2007.
   (I will prepare a sample comment, but basically it is that global warming means we can't allow any more investments in new fossil fuel plants.)
3. Cool Cities Campaign—great progress to report (Culver City is now a Cool City) and others are on the way!

Record Amount of New California Parkland
by Rex Frankel

With Californians packing our beaches and state and national parks this summer, an online guide to the millions of acres of new California parkland has just been posted at http://www.connectingcalifornia.org.

 

Together, our State parkland and wildlife habitat agencies and the Federal government have bought and preserved a record amount, or more than 1.5 million acres of California natural lands and wildlife habitat between January 2000 and August 2007. This comes after a 12 year lull (1988 to 2000) between approval of California Parks bonds. Since the year 2000, voters have approved 5 bond issues to save land statewide.

 

To put this in context, the recently preserved land is 42% of size of the land covered in urban sprawl in the state, based on a year 2000 State Housing Department study which found that around 3.5 million acres of California was then urban sprawl, equaling over 100 years of development. This newly preserved land equals over 4 times the acreage of the State's largest city, Los Angeles. This 1.5 million acres is also double the size of Yosemite National Park.

 

Many of these purchases have been in partnership with local land trusts, which are non-profit charitable groups.

 

The just-released report is part of the California Conservation Lands Inventory, which has been assembled by http://www.ConnectingCalifornia.org, the place on the web to find information about saving land in our state, connecting our parks together, and supporting the groups that are doing it. Included in the report are maps and photos of the new parklands and links to reports, background information and the local environmental groups that helped make the purchases happen.

 

What are taxpayers getting for their money?

• Buying up the rivers that flow from the mountains to the sea in Ventura, LA, Riverside and San Diego Counties
• Buying up a ring of parks and wildlife areas around the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas
• Buying up thousands of acres of redwood forests on the Northern California coast
• Buying river park corridors in the Central Valley's Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers
• Buying the old railroad checkerboard lands in the Mojave Desert

The largest publicly funded purchases:

• California Desert-San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial Counties - 700,000 acres
• Hearst Ranch-San Luis Obispo County - 82,000 acres
• Blue Ridge-Berryessa Natural Area/Yolo Bypass-Yolo and Napa Counties - 46,000 acres
• Mendocino County Coast timberlands - 46,000 (an additional 50,000 acres has recently been saved with private funds)
• San Diego County - 40,800 acres
• Diablo and Gabilan Range-Monterey, Santa Clara, San Benito and Fresno Counties - 38,900 acres
• Lassen Foothills-Tehama County - 34,000 acres
• Riverside County - 34,000 acres
• Carrizo Plain-San Luis Obispo County - 30,000 acres
• Mill Creek-Del Norte County - 25,500 acres
• Sierra Valley-Sierra, Nevada and Plumas Counties - 24,000 acres
• Mendocino National Forest Inholding-Glenn County - 23,000 acres
• Merced County wetlands and vernal pools - 21,000 acres
• Butte County - 20,000 acres
• Kern County - 19,000 acres
• Shasta County - 16,000 acres
• Anza-Borrego Desert-San Diego County - 11,000 acres
• Sacramento County - 10,000 acres
• Big Sur-Monterey County - 8,500 acres
• Santa Clara River-Ventura County - 2000 acres

The report concludes that, along with well-informed voters and strong local control of development decisions, "the best way to truly control urban sprawl is to buy that land and add it to our state's great park system".

 

Stop Bush Administration's Plans to Clearcut Forest Heritage
by Caitlin Hills

 

On August 10, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a draft environmental impact statement for the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR). The revision intends to increase old growth logging on 2.6 million acres of public land in Western Oregon by clearcutting old growth forests and reducing protections for salmon-bearing creeks and streams. A sweetheart legal settlement between the timber industry and the Bush administration led to the plan, which is the latest in a series of actions designed to destroy the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The NWFP is the landmark plan that significantly reduced the liquidation of ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest and ended the timber wars of the 1990s.

 

Make your voice heard and send a comment letter to the BLM. The deadline for comments is November 10, 2007.

 

What's at Stake

 

According to The Oregonian, the BLM's draft plan would boost logging of trees 200 years and older sevenfold over the next decade by opening up currently protected streamside forests and old growth reserves to clearcutting in 2.6 million acres of public land in Western Oregon stretching from Willamette Valley to the Siskiyou Mountains.

 

The 2.6 million acres (an area larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined) encompass much of Oregon's last remaining old growth, wild and scenic rivers, municipal drinking water supplies for cities and towns, some of the state's most prized fishing and hunting grounds, and habitat for many rare and imperiled species, including all five species of Pacific salmon.

 

The WOPR has three primary alternatives, and the outlook for Oregon's federal forests under the agency’s preferred Alternative 2 is grim. The BLM would clearcut 139,700 acres (over 200 square miles) of mature and old growth forest while building 1,000 miles of logging roads per decade, converting pristine ancient forests into monoculture tree farms. Clearcutting would become the preferred logging method, and 24% of all logging would target trees 200 years and older.

 

The WOPR effectively pulls the BLM forests out from the scientific framework of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP). The NWFP, which covers Oregon, Washington, and Northern California, was enacted in 1994 and is considered one of the most advanced plans to conserve forest ecosystems. Every alternative in the WOPR, however, would greatly increase the logging of mature and old growth forests to levels before the Northwest Forest Plan.

 

Comment Period Open on BLM OHV Grant Applications
by George Barnes

 

An important opportunity to comment on BLM applications for state OHV grants for the coming grant cycle is provided by the website http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/info/newsroom/2007/august/SONews0710_ohv_grants.html.

 

The BLM is inviting public comments on its draft grant applications being proposed to the California Department of Parks and Recreation, Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division. The draft BLM applications encompass approximately 90 projects, ranging from facility developments to restoration work proposed throughout BLM’s 16 field offices in the state.

 

Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan Open Houses
October 16 and 18
by Roy Averill-Murray

 

The revision process for the desert tortoise Recovery Plan is moving along on schedule. On September 14 the Desert Tortoise Management Oversight Group will be discussing the internal agency-review draft. This meeting is open to the public. For more information, see http://www.fws.gov/nevada/desert_tortoise/dtro_announcements.html. This message is also a "Save the Date" announcement to save the date for a round of public open houses to learn more about, discuss, and provide input on the draft Recovery Plan.

 

October 16 - Redlands, California (10 am-12 pm, 2-4 pm; and 5-7 pm)
October 18 - Las Vegas, Nevada (10 am-12 pm; 2-4 pm; and 5-7 pm)

 

Each open house will include three, 2-hour sessions. Each session will begin with an overview of the draft plan. Participants will then be able to interact with, ask questions of, and provide feedback to recovery planning staff in an informal setting. Participants are welcome to attend one or more sessions throughout the day and come and go at their leisure. After considering input received at the open houses, the draft Recovery Plan will be revised, and a final, formal public comment period will be opened following the release of the official final Draft Recovery Plan near the beginning of the next calendar year. Additional information on the locations and logistics for the open houses will be posted to the Desert Tortoise Recovery Office website as it becomes available. We will also be sending locations. The Draft Recovery Plan will be publicly available for review approximately two weeks prior to the open houses.

 

Angeles Chapter PAC Fundraiser
by Carole Mintzer

The Political Committees for Los Angeles and Orange County are jointly holding a PAC Fundraiser on September 29 from 1:00 to 4:30 pm at the Audubon Center in Debs Park, 4700 N Griffin Ave, Los Angeles 90031. The cost for individuals to attend is $35.00; the funds raised will be used to support Sierra Club-endorsed candidates for political offices in both Orange County and Los Angeles. One way we promote our conservation agenda is by helping pro-environment candidates get elected to office. Anyone who has had to go before a city council with a conservation issue understands the importance of having councilmembers who are informed and concerned about environmental issues. We also increasingly are looking for candidates who recognize that there are many things local governments can do to address global climate change through decisions they make about municipal operations and local development.

 

If those aren't good enough reasons for someone to want to attend this fundraiser, here are a few more: The Audubon Center is a green building, worthy in its own right of being visited. The fundraiser kicks off with a 30-minute walk at 1:00 to see native plants, birds, and wildlife. The fundraiser is honoring Orange County's Joe Dunn, one of our environmental heroes. And, it's good to socialize with fellow environmentalists from time to time—perhaps we don't do this often enough...

I look forward to seeing a good representation of Orange County activists at this event!

 

Hear Nature Stories on Your Local Radio Station
by Sue M. Citro

You're invited to hear Stories from the Heart of the Land, a public radio series hosted by Jay Allison of National Public Radio's "This I Believe."

This five-part radio series sponsored by The Nature Conservancy and Visa ranges across the world — from Australia to Newfoundland, Mexico to Tibet — to capture the human connection to land and landscape.

 

You may be able to hear these tales on your local radio station — check our latest list of participating radio stations.

If your favorite public radio station isn't listed — don't despair. You can listen to our featured segments online including these great stories:

1. Elizabeth Arnold gets face to face with a grizzly bear.
2. Barrett Golding bikes into the American West...and finds a lot of road kill.
3. The Kitchen Sisters meet three activists who led the fight to save the West's wild rivers.
Jonathan Goldstein goes camping…and confronts his fear of the woods.
4. Ann Hepperman and Kara Oehler visit the meticulously taxidermied animals at the American Museum of Natural History.

We hope you enjoy these narratives focusing on the human connection to protect nature and preserve life.

 

Rochelle Becker

 

Rochelle Becker, Executive Director, Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility and Chair of Diablo Canyon Task Force, was on the agenda for the September CNRCC meeting. She will also be on the agenda for the September 19th meeting of the Angeles Conservation Committee.

 

She has been active on nuclear safety issues in California for 30 years. As the past Mothers for Peace spokesperson and project director, Rochelle testified before the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the California Energy Commission the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the state legislature and Congress. Currently Rochelle is representing the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility and Sierra Club before the CPUC addressing issues of license renewal and other ratepayer costs in PG&E 2007 General Rate Case.

 

Rochelle was instrumental in gaining the support of California’s Attorney General and the County of San Luis Obispo for a federal appeal filed in December 2003 addressing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s refusal to allow hearings on post 9/11/01 security before licensing an expanded high-level radioactive waste facility on California’s vulnerable earthquake active coast.

 

Rochelle has also worked with organizations on safety issues at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). She is currently working with California Earthcorps in legal proceedings to address the safety concerns of replacing steam generators at the Southern California nuclear plant before the CPUC. Rochelle has recently been appointed to the Sierra Club’s newly formed Radiation Committee.

 

Rochelle Becker is the first member of the public from California to be invited to speak twice as a panelist at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's annual conference in March 2005 and again on issues of emergency planning and security in September 2005.

As the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility Executive Director Rochelle has testified on energy issues from Chula Vista to San Francisco and before cities, counties and service organizations.

 

Rochelle has won several environmental awards and for several years was the President of the Board of the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo. Rochelle currently is the west coast representative to the Sierra Club’s National Radiation Committee and in September 2007 was asked to be a member of the Smart Energy Solutions CIC's Nuclear Task Force.for Sierra Club.

 

Rochelle’s non-environmental community activism includes: founding the birthday program for homeless children at the Santa Barbara County’s after school program in Santa Maria, worked on Child Abuse issues in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County, president of the Camp Fire Board and Executive Director of the March of Dimes in Santa Maria. When not working directly on nuclear power safety concerns, Rochelle helped to guide the board of directors, as the president of The Utility Reform Network (TURN) on issues that influence our state’s utility customers (2000 to July 2007).

She represented TURN at community hearings in San Diego during the state’s energy “crisis.”

Rochelle Becker graduated from the University of San Francisco. She lives with her husband of 40 years in Grover Beach.

 

Next Wilderness Meeting
by Vicky Hoover

The Sierra Club's California/Nevada Wilderness Committee will meet in Idyllwild, Riverside County, CA, October 13 and 14. On the 13th, we'll have a sit-down meeting to discuss topics of interest, starting with the legislative effort by Rep. Mary Bono and Sen. Boxer to give wilderness protection to areas in Riverside County, going on to potential desert legislation by Senator Feinstein, and more......

Nevada issues will also be on the agenda, as our committee promotes wilderness in Nevada just as much as in California. Off road vehicle issues, particularly agency travel management plans, will also be covered.

 

Anyone with an interest in protecting wild, undeveloped public lands in our two states is welcome. To fill out the agenda, I hope for input from YOU.

 

What ELSE should be discussed?

 

Please give me your ideas by September 12.

About that time or shortly after, we'll send out further meeting details, including a description of our meeting facility; many thanks to Idyllwild volunteer (and former Sierra Cub staffer) Holly Owens for making arrangements for us.

 

The Committee will host lunch during Saturday's meeting, plus dinner that night, and probably Sunday breakfast; the hat will be passed..

 

On Sunday we'll enjoy a hike to one of the proposed areas, probably Cahuilla Mountain.

 

The first preliminary notice for this meeting apeared in the recent (August) issue of our wilderness newsletter, Words of the

Wild. If you are not on our mailing list, but would like to be, please let me know.

 

This newsletter also appears on the Sierra Club website: http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/wilderness/wow/2007-08.pdf

 

Please join us in Idyllwild. Fall in the Riverside County mountains should be most pleasant.

 

Leadership Training Oct 13

 

The Leadership Training Committee is offering its twice-a-year seminar for potential outings leaders Saturday, October 13, at Griffith Park. This is a perfect chance to recruit new leaders and keep your outings programs vibrant. Please talk to your members about becoming leaders. The outings program is one of the crown jewels of Angeles Chapter; new leaders help keep it that way.

 

Ron Campbell, LTC Vice Chair

 

Fall Outing in the Sequoia Monument
by Carla Cloer

Hug a Sequoia! October 5 - 7

The Sierra Club's Sequoia Task Force invites you to a Fall Outing in the magnificent Giant Sequoia National Monument, about 90 minutes from Porterville, CA on Oct 5-7th. You can arrive anytime after 2:00 pm Friday, Oct 5. Saturday morning we will hike to see a wide variety of spectacular scenery. We will hike through the Wheel Meadow Grove down the South Fork of the North Fork of the Tule River. Later we may take a short but steep jaunt to a secret waterfall. We will enjoy the vista from Dome Rock with an overview of the Kern Valley and views into the high peaks of Sequoia National Park. Saturday night we will join together for a potluck—a favorite, creative treat.

 

As always, seeing old friends and meeting new people from all over the country are the best part of these outings. Talk with the activists who worked to protect these forests and groves for a quarter of a century and discuss why the Monument should be managed by Sequoia National Park with their long history of science based Sequoia management.

 

Sunday morning, we will hike to a hidden glade in a beautiful stand of Sequoia with no crowds and no ORV's. Hug a Sequoia that may well have been a seedling when Cleopatra was crossing the Nile. If enough of us make the trip, we just might be able to stretch all our arms around one single tree. Others may chose to continue to the Bush Tree at the bottom of the Freeman Creek Grove or hike out to the Needles Lookout before heading home. Our itinerary is subject to change.

 

Sierra Club, Teamsters, Public Citizen Ask
for Emergency Stay to Halt Mexican Trucks
by Josh Dorner

 

August 29, 2007, San Francisco CA—Sierra Club today joined with Public Citizen, the International Brother of Teamsters and others seeking an emergency stay against a pilot cross-border trucking program that fails to follows Congressional mandates for evaluating its impact on health and safety. The Bush administration's pilot program, which would open the US-Mexico border for up to 100 carriers—with multiple trucks per carrier—would begin this weekend.

 

"We are proud to stand up with Public Citizen and the Teamsters against this attempt to circumvent health and safety protections," said Carl Pope, Executive Director of Sierra Club. "Before providing unconditional access throughout the country to tens of thousands of big rigs we know little to nothing about, we must insure they meet safety and environmental standards."

 

According to the request for stay, the pilot program breaks laws requiring the Department of Transportation to:

• create a program that yields statistically valid findings;
• show that U.S. trucks have the same right to travel in Mexico that Mexico-domiciled trucks have to travel here;
• reveal the inspection results for all motor carriers allowed to drive beyond the border zone before the program starts.

Allowing these long-distance hauling companies to operate in the U.S. could result in increased traffic congestion and air pollution. These trucks spew high levels of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter—pollutants that contribute to respiratory illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis. The exhaust fumes also contain chemicals that are likely carcinogenic. The government has never analyzed how all of these new trucks will cumulatively impact air quality and health.

 

"Until we know much more about these trucks, and until we've got a program that would properly and legally evaluate their impact, this effort cannot move forward," continued Pope.

 

The lawsuit was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

 

A Phyrric Victory
by Carl Pope

 

August 27, 2007, Washington DC—Last Friday, the Bush administration handed a seemingly huge payoff to the coal industry, which has been hammered all summer on Wall Street by a recognition that the tide of public and regulatory opinion in state after state is turning against the dirty fuel: the administration proposed new regulations which explicitly authorized coal companies to continue mountaintop removal mining, even though federal judges have found the practice illegal. The administration had hoped to bury the story with a Friday release, but the New York Times actually broke the story on Wednesday, and in doing so has made much more visible a reality that, however illegal, had remained largely invisible to most Americans. The fact is that, thirty years after Congress passed a law to regulate strip mining and protect streams and communities from its ravages, strip mining has been put on steroids and that Appalachia is literally being turned into a moonscape. By issuing the regulation Bush actually stepped up public criticism and awareness. Local opponents of mountaintop removal called the regulation "a declaration of war on the Appalachian people."

 

The community response was prompt. Back in May, EPA had filed an enforcement action against Massey Energy Company that alleges thousands of violations of Section 402 of the Clean Water Act by Massey in connection with mountaintop removal and other surface mining operations in West Virginia and Kentucky. The government sought injunctive relief and damages—a figure that could approach $2 billion. The administration's new rule may have been designed to set the stage for a subsequent settling of this lawsuit; it was certainly designed to avoid the risk to Massey and other coal companies of any future such enforcement actions. So, the Sierra Club, Earth Justice, the Appalachian Center for the Environment, Coal River Mountain Watch, the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition today filed for the right to enter the EPA enforcement action as Intervenors, to ensure that the administration does not settle the case out from under the Department of Justice. And it's very clear that there will be a long, protracted legal battle over the proposed new regulation—which means that, for the first time, opponents of mountaintop removal may have a national fulcrum for their campaign against the devastating practice. And as Archimedes said, "give me a lever and a fulcrum and I will move the world."

 

Big Carbon's Summer of Discontent
by Carl Pope

 

August 23, 2007, San Francisco—Congress is on its August recess, but the steadily rising tide of public and political demand for a new energy course keeps surging. The biggest news of the recess was Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that he opposed all new coal-fired power plants, anywhere in the world, because all of them are dirty, they all threaten our ability to curb global warming, and we have, in renewables and efficiency, the alternatives we need to live without them.

 

At the Nevada Clean Energy Summit, in July, Reid made news when he came out against three proposed coal-fired power plants in his home state of Nevada, but by calling for a global end to new pulverized coal plants Reid put himself at the leading edge of political opinion.

 

Things didn't go much better for the carbon lobby next door in California. After the Republican Senate leadership tried to hold up the state's budget to prevent Attorney-General Jerry Brown from using lawsuits to help clean up global warming pollutants, the final deal which approved the budget allowed the most important of the lawsuits to continue. Political analysts said the effort to curb the state's ability to insist that land use and transportation planning take global warming into account had backfired, because the Democratic legislative leadership stood firm, and that the overall result meant that, "The Republican Party, as a whole, doesn't come out looking very good." Remember, this was a dispute about lawsuits, which have never been wildly popular with the public—and the Democrats came out ahead by standing firm on global warming. One political analyst said, bluntly, that the Republicans had been "snookered."

 

Meanwhile, Brown showed that his lawsuits were not an empty threat. San Bernardino County, his first target, settled Brown's complaint by agreeing that the County, which expects to grow by one million people or 50% by 2030, would factor the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions into its land use planning. This is, as far as I know, the first time any jurisdiction has entered into a legally binding agreement to look at the overall impact of its planning on global warming—and this is in one of California's most conservative and fastest growing counties. And listen to what the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Gary Ovitt, said about the settlement: "We are confident that we can address climate issues in this manner while still supporting the county's efforts to create jobs, reduce traffic and gridlock, and improve our quality of life." Furthermore, Ovitt said the settlement would serve as a model for other counties.

 

And if you needed any more proof that the times they are indeed a-changin'—yesterday, a federal judge ruled that the Bush administration had unlawfully refused to release new data on the effects of global warming in violation of the Global Change Research Act of 1990. In Wyoming, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a hunting and fishing network which boasts of its largely Republican membership, sued the Bureau of Land Management for its proposal to lease 2,000 more oil and gas wells in the state in "reckless disregard" of the environmental consequences. (The Bush administration kept judges busy this month, and not just on climate change. In Montana Federal Judge Donald Molloy threatened to throw Forest Service boss Mark Rey into jail for being in contempt of court for failing to provide an environmental assessment of the effects of dumping fire retardants into fish streams. If Rey doesn't back down, this administration may be headed for a record number of contempt citations.)

 

But Big Carbon is fighting back—with big money. The Federal Election Commission revealed that electric utilities, oil companies, automakers, and mining interests donated nearly $4 million during the first half of 2007 to lawmakers in the three House and Senate committees responsible for writing energy legislation. The main man for the old-line energy industry—New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici—raked in $185,000 from energy lobbies. But back home in New Mexico, as he prepares to run for a seventh term, local Sierra Club volunteers were taking Domenici on for his single-handed efforts to block passage of federal legislation to encourage renewable energy. The Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter announced a major citizen mobilization campaign to urge Domenici to line up with the voters of New Mexico, not his campaign contributors. Billboards saying, "Don't Dim our Future Domenici," and radio ads accompanied the grass-roots, door-to-door effort.

 

So, the money is still flowing, but the momentum this summer has clearly shifted. The big risk is that instead of letting the American people put our energy future on a new course, Washington will try to cut a deal to keep the people out of energy poltics and go back to backroom deals as usual. Yes, they will toss in a little bit of efficiency and renewables, and offer a jot of progress in kicking our oil addiction, but nothing close to what we need. And need quickly.

 

Bush Ordered to Release Overdue Global Warming Report

 

Last Tuesday, August 21, US District Judge Saundra Armstrong ruled that the Bush administration violated the Global Research Act of 1990 by suppressing the release of required research and assessment reports on climate change. Since in office, the Bush administration last released a research plan in 2003 and an assessment in 2000, despite the Act which mandates a research plan every three years and an assessment every four years. Judge Armstrong ordered the administration to release the research plan and scientific assessment on climate change no later than March 1 and May 31 of next year, respectively.

 

The research plan directs all climate research while the assessment is published as a summary of global warming impact on human health, US economy, and the environment for use by Congress and federal agencies. The court's ruling comes from a lawsuit initiated last November by various plaintiffs including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and Center for Biological Diversity.

 

Instead of taking action to address and curb global warming, the Bush administration is in fact suppressing research and evidence. It is now more important than ever for Congress to pass legislation that requires the U.S. to cut carbon emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

 

Workshop On Linking Land Use and Water in LA Region
by Stephanie Taylor

It's time to register for the Linking Land Use and Water in the Los Angeles Region workshop presented by the Local Government Commission, CSU San Bernardino Water Resources Institute, and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers Watershed Council!

To register: online at http://www2.lgc.org/events/ or fax registration to: 916-448-8246

Questions? Please contact Julienne Kwong by emailing her at: jkwong@lgc.org

 

Bush Orders Federal Agencies to
Maximize "Hunting" Opportunities"

Washington DC—A vacationing President Bush issued an Executive Order directing federal land management agencies to "expand and enhance hunting opportunities." While the order does not overturn any conservation laws, it establishes a preference for hunting at the expense of all other activities in the administration of federal lands, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

 

Although the order explicitly covers national forests, wildlife refuges and range lands, it also applies to all federal agencies "that have a measurable effect on land management," such as military bases and nuclear weapon reservations. These federal agencies must now "evaluate the effect of [their] actions on trends in hunting participation [and] consider the economic and recreational value of hunting in agency actions."

 

"This is political meddling posing as a conservation policy," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "This order reads like it was written by a lobbyist."

 

Issued this Friday, August 17, 2007, the order mandates that federal land managers to

1. "Manage wildlife and wildlife habitats on public lands in a manner that expands and enhances hunting opportunities, including through the use of hunting in wildlife management";
2. Defer to "private property rights and State management authority over wildlife resources" and
3. Foster "productive populations of game species and appropriate opportunities for the public to hunt those species."

"The President seems to be saying you can never have too many deer and that public lands should be run as a salad bar for trophy animals," Ruch added. "It would have made more sense to have Dick Cheney sign this executive order instead."

The edict does provide that any actions should be "consistent with agency missions." Further, it stipulates that the directive "does not create any right...or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States [or] its departments..."

 

"This may amount to no more than meaningless pandering to the 'hook and bullet' vote but, if vigorously implemented, has the potential to change what happens on the ground," Ruch concluded, noting that most federal lands except national parks already allow hunting. "There appears to be no shortage of hunting opportunities; perhaps the reason for the decline in hunting licenses lies elsewhere."

 

The action enshrines an entity called the Sporting Conservation Council, created by outgoing Interior Secretary Gale Norton in 2006, to help develop "a comprehensive Recreational Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Plan [setting] forth a 10 year agenda for fulfilling" the goals of the Executive Order.

 

New BLM Chief Excludes Public from Environmental Decisions

Washington DC, August 15, 2007 (ENS) - A decision by the new director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) means that potentially harmful projects involving oil and gas exploration, logging and grazing on public lands are no longer subject to a key federal law that protects natural resources, says the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

 

NRDC experts say the decision sidesteps the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) a law that gives the public a voice in decisions about federal projects in the communities where they live and work.

 

The decision declares that whole categories of projects do not result in any significant environmental impacts, thereby exempting them from environmental review.

 

"This is the Bush administration—though its new BLM director—silencing public input and turning the stewardship of the government into a rubber stamp for industry," said NRDC's Bobby McEnaney.

 

"This decision will cause irreparable damage to the great wildlands of the American West," McEnaney said, "and it leaves the American people totally out of the conversation about what to do with land held in the public trust."

 

Last week, Bush appointee James Caswell was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the new director of the Bureau of Land Management.

 

"I passionately believe in multiple-use management and conservation of our public resources with a commitment to balance, cooperation, collaboration and sharing," Caswell testified before the Senate.

 

"In my view, achievement of this commitment requires scientific information, and listening to, learning about, and collaborating with the owners of our public lands—the American people," he said.

 

But Caswell's first act as director negates more than 30 years of public involvement in preventing serious damage to publicly owned resources, says the NRDC.

 

The National Environmental Policy Act requires that federal projects be reviewed for potential environmental impacts, and the public must be allowed to comment.

 

The law allows federal agencies to "categorically exclude" small specific projects from environmental review by declaring in advance that they do not result in any harm.

 

Categorical exclusions have been applied in the past to activities like Christmas tree cutting and mushroom picking.

Caswell has decided that, "Certain routine actions in the BLM's forestry, grazing, oil and gas, and recreation programs are now among those that do not require an EA [environmental assessment] or EIS [environmental impact statement].

 

"Procedural requirements under all federal laws relating to environmental protection—including the Endangered Species Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Clean Water Act and others—still apply to these activities," his decision states.

 

The NRDC says Caswell's decision clears the way for 60,000 pound "thumper trucks" in search of oil and gas to crash through sensitive areas, creating tire tracks deeper than many streams and destroying crucial wildlife habitat, without environmental review or opportunity for public comment.

 

NRDC advocates are now considering pursuing legal and/or legislative action to restore the environmental protections excluded from NEPA by this decision.

 

Who Gives a Hoot?
by Gina LaRocco

 

The draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl is the product of inappropriate and excessive interference from political appointees who have no background in owl management.

 

Only the timber industry stands to benefit from the Bush/Cheney administration's “recovery plan.”

 

The northern spotted owl is in big trouble. The Bush/Cheney administration’s disingenuous draft “recovery plan” threatens to undermine years of progress in protecting these owls and the old growth forests they need to survive. Tell officials to go back to the drawing board and develop an effective science-based recovery plan that protects northern spotted owls—not just timber companies.

From the current draft plan, it is clear that:

1. The Bush/Cheney administration and the timber industry are in cahoots to weaken habitat protections and increase logging in the public forests where these owls live.
2. The draft “recovery plan” as it stands now will destroy old growth forest networks—the backbone of an effective conservation strategy for the northern spotted owl and many other species that depend on these forests to survive.
3. The Bush/Cheney administration continues to put politics before science. Old growth forests once dominated the Pacific Northwest, but decades of logging have left them drastically reduced and forced endangered northern spotted owls out of vital habitat.

Dwindling by almost 4% per year, the northern spotted owl is at risk of declining to the point that the species would need to be "uplisted" from threatened to endangered. Some scientists believe there may be as few as 3,000 pairs left.

 

In early 2006, the US Fish & Wildlife Service created the Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Team, a broad coalition of scientists and other experts from state and federal agencies and local stakeholder groups, to develop a recovery plan for these beleaguered birds.

 

But in what amounted to top-level political interference, a Washington DC “oversight committee,” consisting of high-ranking officials from the Bush/Cheney administration rejected the science-based plan put forth by the Recovery Team in favor of a plan that put timber interests first.

 

Let officials know that we won’t stand for political interference when it comes to endangered species and habitat recovery.
The so-called oversight committee ordered the recovery team to stop work on development of their conservation approach and develop a second approach that would allow federal agencies to decide where to place chunks of owl habitat ad hoc and without accountability in order to maximize timber profits.

 

The “recovery plan” that emerged would set back nearly 20 years of progress for both the northern spotted owl and the old growth forests they depend on for survival.

 

Science should govern wildlife management, not greed and politics. Urge officials at the Fish & Wildlife Service to withdraw the politicized draft recovery plan and reconvene the Recovery Team to draft a new plan based on real science.

 

Coastal Commission Undermining New Coastal Plan
for Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area

Under the leadership of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles County is drafting an exceptionally protective Local Coastal Plan to govern future development in the unincorporated Santa Monica Mountains within five miles of the coast between Topanga Beach and Leo Carrillo.

 

The Santa Monica Mountains Local Coastal Plan proposes to designate two-thirds of the 80 square mile area as “significant watershed” with a minimum permitted density of one house per 20 to 40 acres and no development on ridgelines.

 

To protect both riparian habitats and water quality at heavily-used beaches along Santa Monica Bay the Plan designates all riparian woodlands as “Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas (ESHA)” and requires future development be set back at least 100’ from the outer edge of these riparian woodlands.

 

Unfortunately, this LCP will have to be certified by a Coastal Commission that, thanks to appointees by Governor Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Nunez, now has a very pro-development majority. Two months ago the Commission deliberately rejected its long-standing 100’ riparian setback policy and approved a large horse facility in the flood plain of Stokes Creek, which drains directly into the main public use area of King Gillette Ranch Park (formerly Soka), which is slated to become the main visitor use area for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

 

The Board of Supervisors will hold a public hearing on the Santa Monica Mountains LCP on Tuesday, October 23rd, at 9:00 am at the Hall of Administration, 500 West Temple Street. The vote is expected to be very close, Angeles Chapter members are urged to attend.

 

For information on how you can help, contact the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force at (310) 559-3126.

Useful Information
Sierra Club Legislative Hotline: (202) 675-2394 Sierra Club National: www.sierraclub.org (415) 977-5500 Sacramento Legislative Office: www.sierraclub.com      (916) 557-1100; fax (916) 557-9669 Rough and Tumble, Environmental News in Sacramento      — www.rtumble.com Desert Report Web Page — www.desertreport.org   SIERRA CLUB LINKS Sierra Club World Wide Web: http://www.sierraclub.org Angeles Chapter site: http://angeles.sierraclub.org Sierra Club California: http://www.sierraclub.org/ca/ Sierra Club Vote Watch Website:    http://www.sierraclub.org/votewatch/ National Clubhouse activist resource site:    http://clubhouse.sierraclub.org/ E-MAIL LISTS. There are four important discussion lists for Angeles environmental activists: *Angeles Chapter Cons Listserve    angeles-conservation@lists.sierraclub.org *Angeles Chapter Conservation Committee Newsletter    (Angeles Cons-News) *Angeles-Alerts Listserve    angeles-alerts@lists.sierraclub.org *California/Nevada Listserve    calif-activists@lists.sierraclub.org    (moderated list for announcements) *California/Nevada Listserve    calif-activists-forum@lists.sierraclub.org    (unmoderated discussion list) *Subscribe to California Activists:    calif-activists-request@lists.sierraclub.org *Subscribe to California Activists Forum:    calif-activists-request@lists.sierraclub.org For either list, send your name, email address, Sierra Club membership number, your position in the Club. Subscription is processed by one of the list owners, usually the same day. Subscribe to the listserve: send an email to listsserve@lists.sierraclub.org with the message "subscribe angeles-conservation" or "subscribe calif-activists"  or "subscribe angeles-alerts" Note: it's "listserv," not "listserve". To leave a list: send an e-mail to listserv@lists.sierraclub.org. In the text of your message (not the subject line), write: "signoff calif-activists" or "signoff angeles-conservation" or "signoff angeles-alerts"	ACTION DIRECTORY White House Comment Line: (202) 456-1111 White House Fax Line: (202) 456-2461 President George W Bush: president@whitehouse.gov Vice President Dick Cheney: vice-president@whitehouse.gov White House: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC 20500 US Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 To contact your senators:    Senate Office Bldg, Washington DC 20510    http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm To contact your representative:     House Office Bldg, Washington DC 20515     http://www.house.gov/writerep California Capitol Switchboard: (916) 322-9900 Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger: (916) 445-2841     fax (916) 445-4633;    governor@governor.ca.gov    State Capitol Bldg, Sacramento CA 95814 Need help contacting your US representatives or    finding out about legislation? US House of Representatives: http://www.house.gov/ US Senate: http://www.senate.gov/ Calif State Assembly: http://www.assembly.ca.gov/ Calif State Senate: http://www.sen.ca.gov/ Calif State: http://www.ca.gov/state/portal/myca_homepage.jsp California Legislative Information: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/ California Secretary of State voter information: http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections.htm The California/Nevada Directory (RedBook) is available online. It also includes the Handbook of Sierra Club California Bylaws and Standing Rules (GreenBook). Contact Lori Ives (lori.ives@angeles.sierraclub.org) for the online address and password. Send your membership number, your position in the Club, and your reason for needing the information. The paper edition ($25) is available on special order. Contact Lori for information. The Angeles Chapter's web site is http://www.angeles.sierraclub.org/
This Electronic Conservation Newsletter is emailed automatically, free by listserv, to all activists who hold any of the following positions in the Angeles Chapter or its entities: Executive Committee Member; Entity Chair or Conservation Chair, Political, and Newsletter Editor, Conservation Subcommittee or Task Force Chair. Also, many activists throughout the Chapter and state receive it free by email. Distribution is approximately 350 by email, 45 by postal copy. If you no longer hold the Club office with the automatic pull and wish to continue to receive it, email ivesico@earthlink.net. If we do not have your email address — please let us know. If you wish (and tell us), it will be tagged "private" and not printed or given out. The Newsletter is available on the Chapter website at http://angeles.sierraclub.org/home.html Paper postal copy is available for those who are technically challenged or simply don't want to be bothered. To receive The Newsletter by first class mail, send a donation of $25 (payable Angeles Chapter, Sierra Club) to (almost) cover costs to Conservation Newsletter, 112 Harvard Ave PMB 297, Claremont CA 91711.

Angeles Chapter Conservation
Management Committee Chair/Policy/Grants: Bonnie Sharpe Vice Chair/Outreach: Marcia Hanscom Newsletter Editor: Robin Ives At Large: Carmelo Alvarez, Jay Matchett, Lynne Plambeck, Virgil Shields, Rosemarie White Not Voting: Cons Coord: Jennifer Robinson Publisher/Webmaster/Circ: Lori Ives (909) 621-7148		Grants Committee Bonnie Sharpe/Ch Judy Anderson Marcia Hanscom Robin Ives Jay Matchett Virgil Shields Rudy Vietmeier
The Chapter Conservation Committees Motions should be submitted in advance, together with objective background material and supporting and opposing arguments, both to the Chapter Committee Chair and the Orange County Committee Chair and Newsletter Editor (Robin Ives), for distribution with the agenda. Other motions will be postponed for action at a later meeting unless the motion is submitted in writing and unless the Committee votes (by a two-thirds majority) an exception to the ordinary procedure. Motions needing further action by the Angeles Chapter ExComm or some higher level of the Sierra Club should start out: "The Angeles Chapter Conservation Committee recommends that the Sierra Club..."
Angeles Chapter 3435 Wilshire Blvd Ste 320 Los Angeles CA 90010-1904 Conference call access: (866) 501-6174 Conference Code: 1000400# Draft Agenda: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Rochelle Becker will meet with us to discuss the initiative for nuclear safety repeals and proposals to send nuclear wastes through Southern California to the Nevada storage site. (See the previous article on Rochelle.)           Next meeting October 17		Orange County David Perlman/Chair — http://angeles.sierraclub.org/ocosc/ LOCATION: Inn at the Park, 10 Marquette, Irvine. Take the 405 to Culver and go west towards the beach. Follow Culver past Michelson and University and turn right on Harvard. Take Harvard to Marquette and turn right. It's on the corner of Harvard and Marquette on the right hand side. Preliminary Agenda: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 No agenda received by press time.           Next meeting October 16

 

Conservation Committees Calendar
If you have an upcoming meeting or event to be listed in this calendar:
In Los Angeles County, contact Lori Ives (ives@ivesico.net)
In Orange County, contact Dave Perlman (dperlmansr@cox.net)