Oil and Gas Activity Returns to Santa Fe County - Rio Grande Chapter

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Pajarito Group News Pajarito Group Directory Meetings http://riogrande.sierraclub.org/pajarito/ mainpaj.asp Executive Committee Chair: Ilse Bleck ibleck@yahoo.com 662-2368 Vice-Chair: Jody Benson 662-4782 Secretary: Deirdre Witherell witherell@lanl.gov 661-8249 Treasurer: David Gemeinhart ddgem@losalamos.com 672-6267 Mat Johansen matjohansen@cybercrossings.com 662-9763 Michael DiRosa mdd@stanfordalumni.org 663-0648 Mark Jones jonesnm1@comcast.net 662-9443 There will be no general meeting in July or August. Wednesday, September 5, 7:00 p.m. • Upstairs Meeting Room, Mesa Public Library Tom Jervis, Tom Ribe: A New Advocacy Group for the Valles Caldera National Preserve: Caldera Action! The Valles Caldera Coalition, of which the Pajarito Group is a member, is morphing into a new, standalone nonprofit organization. A group of concerned citizens, including several members of the former coalition’s steering committee, has incorporated a new organization named Caldera Action! The Vision: Inspired by the majesty of the Valles Caldera, we envision the restoration and protection of its unique natural and cultural heritage so that present and future generations can experience the sense of wonder that comes from individual discovery in this ecologically and culturally significant landscape. The Mission: The new organization advocates for the restoration, protection, and appreciation of the Valles Caldera National Preserve for the longterm benefit of the public and the ecosystem. We promote extensive public participation in decisionmaking on the preserve as an essential means to this end. Come learn about upcoming activities, tours, workshops, and the state of public participation in and access to the Preserve. If you are interested in hearing news as the new Caldera Action! organization develops, send an email to info@vcc.org. Committee Chairs Conservation: Michael DiRosa mdd@stanfordalumni.org 663-0648 Energy, Transportation: Deirdre Witherell witherell@lanl.gov 661-8249 Grazing, National Forests, Wetlands, Wilderness: David Gemeinhart ddgem@losalamos.com 672-6267 Outings, Parks/Refuges: Ilse Bleck ibleck@yahoo.com 662-2368 Newsletter Editor, Publicity, Sprawl, Endangered Species/Wildlife: Jody Benson 662-4782 Environmental Education: Pauline Wilder xxmpxx@gmail.com 662-7768 Political: Mark Jones jonesmm1@comcast.net 662-9443 Membership: Gita Carey gitacarey@yahoo.com 661-9604 Membership Co-Chair: Diane Madrid rogregma@rogregma.cnc.net 672-1597 Programs, Genetic Engineering, Water, Marine: Mat Johansen matjohansen@cybercrossings.com 662-9763 Global Warming: Charles Keller alfanso@cybermesa.com 662-7915 Webmeister: Jennifer Macke jpmacke@comcast.net 695-9275 ExCom Election Nominating Committee The Nominating Committee for our Group Executive Committee elections has three members: Michael DiRosa, Mat Johansen, and Deirdre Witherell. If you would like to be a candidate, please contact one of them. See the directory for contact information. Third Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m., throughout the summer • The Sierra Club Trail Maintenance Group – As you will see from our article by Mark Jones (see below), we now have a monthly trail maintenance effort. Throughout the summer we will meet with Craig Martin, who will lead us to various areas to do maintenance for two hours. Most recently, this work has been done on the Perimeter Trail behind Pajarito School. Wear long pants and boots. Bring work gloves and water. Craig provides the tools. Contact Mark Jones Since the Cerro Grande fire in 2000, which destroyed many of the existing trails in the Los Alamos area, most of the trails have been rebuilt and many new connecting trails created. Thousands of volunteer hours have been required for this work. Many Sierra Club members have participated in this effort as individual volunteers, but this year the Pajarito Group decided to get involved in trail work as an organization. We have committed to working one evening a month during the summer on local trails. We think this is a good advertisement for the group, a chance to work together with fellow members, and a way of paying our share for the pleasure we get from using the trails. Los Alamos is fortunate to have a strong county trail-building and maintenance program headed by Craig Martin. Craig is choosing the locations for our work and providing tools and oversight to make sure our work is effective and safe. There is a lot of work to be done near trailhead parking, so we can get a fair amount done between 5:30 and dark. Our first outing on May 23 was a qualified success. Eleven of us completed three water-diversion dips before rising winds made Craig decide that for safety reasons (there are still dead trees that haven’t fallen near the trail), we should abandon our efforts. The main problem we deal with in trail maintenance is erosion of trails by storm runoff. We Outings Pajarito Group Trail Work (jonesmm1@comcast.net) for updates on times and locations. Saturday, July 21 • Leonardo Lakes, Sheepshead, Trampas Lakes Loop hike – Twelve-miles round trip, 3700-foot elevation gain, strenuous. Michael DiRosa (663-0648). Sunday, July 29 • Ponderosa Campground to Bandelier Visitors Center – Join us and beat the summer heat in an eight-mile, easy/moderate hike along the stream in cool Frijoles Canyon. Ilse Bleck (662-2368 after July 25). construct waterbars and graded dips to prevent water from running down the trails. We also place rocks in the runoff area downslope of the trail to slow the water and prevent creation of a new gully across the trail. Sometimes trail erosion is so deep that we need to re-route the trail around a section, and fill the abandoned section with rocks and branches to prevent further erosion and discourage hikers from continuing to use it. We get lots of practice in the use of McCleods (a long-handled tool that has on one side of the head a large rake with rounded tines, and on the other side a moderately sharp flat edge, like a wide hoe for scraping and moving dirt) and Pulaskis (which have an axe head on one side and a 4-inch-wide pick axe tip on the other). We also use shovel and pail for moving dirt and rocks. The occasional use of buck saws to remove sections of fallen trees from the trail gives us a great appreciation for just how hard forestry work was before chainsaws. A couple hours of work by a dozen volunteers can accomplish a significant amount. It leaves us tired but pleased with our progress, and very appreciative of the tremendous amount of work done by other volunteers on the many trails we enjoy hiking throughout the West. —Mark Jones Rio Grande Sierran July/August 2007
Taos Branch News Sentinels Celebrate River Cleanup Week On June 2, as part of National River Cleanup Week 2007, Sentinels-Rios de Taos co-sponsored a river cleanup day on the Rio Pueblo with Amigos Bravos, the Rio Pueblo de Taos Watershed Alliance, and the BLM. Volunteers from all four organizations picked up trash and recyclables from the recreation area by the Taos Junction bridge. On June 9, Water Sentinels co-sponsored with Centinel Bank and Amigos Bravos a cleanup of the Rio Fernando. More than 50 community volunteers, sporting Sierra Club T-shirts, came together to do a serious cleanup of the Rio Fernando. “This is the largest group of volunteers ever gathered in Taos for a river cleanup,” said Rachel Conn, Clean Water Circuit Rider for Amigos Bravos. The community volunteers removed a surprisingly large amount of trash from the river and its banks. “We ran out of garbage bags in the first hour and had to buy more,” said Jim White, organizer from Centinel Bank. Afterwards, the community volunteers were treated to a cookout lunch furnished by Centinel Bank. Steering Committee Eric Patterson, Taos contact and Director of Rios de Taos Water Sentinels • 776-2833, eepatt@gmail.com Anna Walters, email alert list • annaainsworth@kitcarson.net Norma McCallan, Northern Group contact • 471-0005, nmccallan@mindspring.com William Brown, The Climate Project • 758-8008, nmglobalwarming@yahoo.com, www.nmglobalwarming.org Global Warming Presentation The Village of Taos has signed on to the Cool Cities agenda, in response to a Sierra Club presentation to the Village Council. Leading the way on this is Mr. William M. Brown, resident of Ranchos de Taos. William M. (Bill) Brown was an earth scientist with the U.S. Department of the Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey for 36 years prior to retiring in 2003. Throughout his career, he served our nation as an earth sciences and industry expert, offering broad-reaching environmental expertise and contributions within U.S. and international governments. He participated in creating environmental and sustainability initiatives, leading to policy for federal, state, county, and local governments. Bill was one of 1,000 people worldwide selected by Al Gore and The Climate Project to learn and present the global warming story in 2007. Bill attended intensive training in Nashville, Tennessee, in early January 2007 with Al Gore and his expert team. His training focused on the history, content, architecture, and style of the story; presentation and communication skills; and a suite of solutions including individual, community, corporate, governmental, and international actions. Bill now offers Al Gore’s slideshow free of charge to all communities in New Mexico and the southern Rocky Mountains. He presents the most current version of the show as it is continuously updated with new information. He focuses on local and regional issues, and seeks ideas for solutions from his audiences. Bill presented his version of Al Gore’s slideshow for the organization Sustain Taos on April 25 at the Kit Carson meeting room. It is an outstanding presentation. Bill keeps the presentation current and up-to-date. It is totally non-partisan, extremely upbeat, and optimistic. He talks about things that we, as individuals and communities, can do right now to help alleviate global warming. He will give his presentation again on August 7 at 7:30 p.m., at the Fort Burgwin summer campus of SMU, just east of Ranchos de Taos. This presentation is suitable for a wide variety of groups from grade school to adults. It is very non-partisan, so it is especially suitable for community groups. See Bill’s contact information in the directory. —Eric Patterson River Analysis Begins in Taos County Sentinels-Rios de Taos received their final training in April and have started to obtain data relating to the health of Taos County rivers. Some problems have been found in sections of the Rio Hondo, the Rio Pueblo, and the Rio Fernando. We will be doing further analysis on all three streams in an effort to determine the sources of pollution. For more information, contact Sentinels Director Eric Patterson. Four Corners Branch News Potluck Gathering Elisa Bird for the Sustainable San Juan folks announces the 1st Annual Potluck Gathering for all our area groups to meet and share what we are doing. This is to bring all our area’s sustainable, environmental, and social justice groups together. It will be on Saturday, July 7, 5-7 p.m., at Minium Park – next to Safeway on Main Street in Historic Downtown Aztec. To make things simple, just bring a dish to share, something for you to drink, and silverware. If you want to grill meat, there is a outdoor grill you can use. At 7 p.m., we will introduce ourselves and someone will tell a little bit about their group. We are inviting all the sustainable groups: Sierra Club, San Juan Peace, San Juan Citizens Alliance, Oakhaven. Let us know if there is a group we need to invite – we certainly don’t want to leave anyone out! Email Elisa.Bird@nmcdnet.net. Steering Committee Art Jaquez, Co-Chair 326-5229, 360-0176 • artjaquez2@yahoo.com Nick Cullander, Co-Chair 334-0935 • ncullander@hotmail.com Gordon Glass, Air Quality, Outings 564-4460 • agglass@earthlink.net Desert Rock Update The draft Desert Rock EIS, released on May 22, strongly supports the Desert Rock Power Plant. As Ben Luce has noted, “...while it’s true that emissions are being reduced at some of the other plants in the region (BIA’s main excuse for supporting Desert Rock), this is happening because those plants were out of compliance with EPA standards to begin with, and their emissions have already severely damaged New Mexico as a result. It’s ludicrous to turn around and let another conventional coal plant be built just because the existing plants got caught red-handed and now have to clean up their act. This would be like justifying that one person be allowed to commit a crime because another just got caught!” We strongly recommend that everyone who can, attend one of the public input meetings. As of this writing, the revised dates are uncertain, but at least a large public outcry made the BIA add a number of meeting sites. The text of the draft EIS can be found on Sithe’s website (www.desertrockenergy .com), under “Project Documents/Presentations.” To stay tuned into alerts and upcoming events, and participate in some lively discussions, join the Four Corners listserv (sjcsierraclub@yahoo.groups .com), or contact one of our steering committee members. Support America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act We in the Four Corners are particularly interested in the further protection of Wild Utah. New Mexicans are in a particularly good position to influence the progress of this initiative. Senator Jeff Bingaman can encourage the first hearings on this bill. Please write Senator Bingaman urging him to become a co-sponsor of SB 1170 and ask him to help in scheduling a public hearing on the merits of this bill in 2007. The greater number of citizens from all over New Mexico who let Senator Bingaman know of their support for this effort, the better chance movement can begin on this longstanding goal. Gordon Glass is also willing to speak with public groups of all kinds regarding the lobbying efforts that he has participated in for the RRWA. Feel free to contact him at agglass@earthlink.net. —Gordon Glass July/August 2007 rio Grande Sierran
Page 1 and 2: Rio Grande Sierran News of the Rio
Page 3 and 4: Info for Activists & a Word from Yo
Page 5 and 6: Public Lands More Support Needed to
Page 7: Political U.S. Attorney Firing Scan
Page 11 and 12: Northern Group News Sat Sun July NO
Page 13 and 14: Southern Group News Outings Please
Page 15 and 16: Preservation Live Earth Concerts to

Oil and Gas Activity Returns to Santa Fe County - Rio Grande Chapter

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?