How the Feds Support Eco-Terrorism

Tate Fegley
Mises Wire

Both before and after September 11, 2001, the FBI has considered “eco-terrorism” one of its primary domestic terrorism concerns. The FBI defines “eco-terrorism” as “the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.”

It comes in several forms, but one of its primary tactics is “ecotage” or “monkey-wrenching” where radical environmental groups sabotage the property of companies whose activities they deem to be bad for the environment (such as the capital goods used in the logging industry).

But, some groups have discovered a tactic in which they are able to not only avoid punishment by federal law enforcement, but also enlist the feds as willing partners in their effort to destroy private property or deprive people of it.

One of the groups that has practiced this method to perfection is the Western Watersheds Project (WWP), which has the intention of abolishing all grazing on lands claimed by the federal government. As detailed by William Grigg, the WWP sends people to search for endangered species (including while trespassing on private lands) in order to sue the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to revoke grazing permits for ranchers using those lands, or to sue the ranchers themselves. The federal courts have been more than willing to indulge WWP in their efforts. In one case, the WWP sued an 85-year-old rancher named Verl Jones, claiming that irrigation of water on his own property harmed the bull trout. Despite not presenting any evidence to demonstrate this, the federal court required Jones to stop irrigating and to pay the WWP’s legal fees. After losing his ranch and being forced to sell off his assets in order to pay them, Jones soon passed away.

The legal actions of the WWP that have decreased grazing allotments have not only made life more difficult for ranchers, but have led to lands growing vegetation that has served as extra fuel for range fires. One such fire, the Soda Creek Fire, occurred last year and devastated nearly 300,000 acres. Ironically, the WWP, aided by the federal courts and the BLM, has helped to destroy much of the habitat of Sage Grouse and other federally protected species, as well as kill wild horses and cattle. Whereas other radical environmental groups intentionally avoid harming humans (at least physically) and animals, the joint efforts of the WWP and the federal government have led to the deaths of both. In this way, the feds have enabled radical environmentalists to be more dangerous than they would be on their own.

Of course, it isn’t uncommon for the US government to provide material aid and comfort to groups that itself has labeled as terrorist. Allies transform into national security threats, and vice-versa, depending on the times and what crises are needed by politicians to obtain more power. On the one hand, selling the threat of terrorism allows them to create legislation in order to prosecute people who have no intention of committing terrorist acts. Ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond, for example, were prosecuted under an anti-terrorism statute for lighting fires on their own land (to give themselves a buffer against fires that the BLM fails to prevent or contain) that minimally spread to remote federal lands. On the other hand, the feds have a clear incentive to exaggerate all environmental threats and promote themselves as savior, provided they are given the money and power to regulate nearly all human activity.

It should not surprise us that the federal government plays both sides of the fence in order to increase its own power. Although the FBI considers eco-terrorism — the use or threat of violence to violate property rights in the name of the environment — a top domestic terrorism threat, the purpose of another federal agency, the EPA, is to violate property rights in the name of the environment. Just as in foreign policy, whether a particular action is considered a terrorist act depends on the identity of the perpetrator. Bombing civilians is not terrorism, but collateral damage. Burning down someone’s house because it is on a wetland is terrorism; imposing excessive fines until they leave or forcibly preventing them from building it in the first place (when done by the EPA) is considered good policy.

Therefore, everyone should recognize that the federal government has little interest in protecting property rights or the environment (which are not mutually exclusive; protecting the former naturally protects the latter). Rather, whether it is aiding and abetting radical environmentalist groups to drive ranchers off their lands, or creating anti-terrorism laws to ostensibly target radical environmentalist groups, the feds will do whatever is necessary to increase their power.

Environmentalists pushed Bundy ranch standoff over endangered [sic] tortoises

A helicopter takes off from a staging area of BLM vehicles and other government vehicles off of Riverside Road near Bunkerville, Nevada over the weekend of April 12-13, 2014. (Reuters)

Michael Bastasch
Daily Caller

Some have speculated that the standoff between federal agents and Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy is the result of a secretive deal orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and political allies in the solar industry.

But the Bundy standoff is really the culmination of a long battle with environmentalists who want to keep federal lands off limits to economic activity. The primary vehicle used by government officials and environmentalists to advance this goal has been the desert tortoise, which was listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 1990.

The land Bundy’s family had used for cattle grazing since the late 1800s suddenly became off-limits. Bundy refused to give up his grazing rights and wound up in a prolonged court battle. The court ruled against Bundy in 1998 and ordered him to remove his cattle, or else the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) would do it for him.

The BLM even had a webpage detailing the problems they saw from Bundy’s “trespass cattle” that were grazing in desert tortoise habitat. The webpage, however, was deleted. So was the cached copy after the Bundy standoff became nationwide news.

A screenshot of the deleted page from the BLM’s website shows that environmental groups were some of the main forces aligned against Bundy’s trespass cattle. Environmentalists were pushing for the disputed federal lands to be used as “offsite mitigation” for the impact of solar development. Solar development in the area is heavily supported by Nevada environmental groups.

“Non-Governmental Organizations have expressed concern that the regional mitigation strategy for the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone utilizes Gold Butte as the location for offsite mitigation for impacts from solar development, and that those restoration activities are not durable with the presence of trespass cattle,” the BLM page says.

“The Center for Biological Diversity has demanded action to resolve trespass in designated critical desert tortoise habitat in several letters,” BLM page notes. “Western Watersheds has requested a verbal status update and later filed a Freedom of Information Act request.”

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Western Watersheds Project (WWP) have been actively pushing the government to impose heftier grazing fees on cattle ranchers for years, along with pressuring officials to close of huge areas of public lands to grazing and oil and gas development.

“While Cliven Bundy is an extreme example, WWP knows that this sense of entitlement and disregard for federal authority is not uncommon in public lands ranching,” WWP said in a statement. “Bundy’s cows are not the only livestock trampling fragile deserts, precious riparian areas, and imperiling native plants and animals. That is why WWP will continue working to end abusive public lands livestock grazing and to press for meaningful policy reform.”

“We’ve been working for the Mojave desert tortoise since 1997. Challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s grazing practices on arid public lands, we’ve helped protect millions of acres of fragile tortoise habitat,” CBD says on its website.

“It’s so blatant,” says Rob Mrowka, senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity said of Bundy’s trespass cattle in 2009. “Anyone can go out there anytime of the year and see cattle. BLM employees trying to protect sensitive plants and animals are very frustrated. It’s a problem that’s been going on and on.”

In April 2012, the BLM were preparing to remove Bundy’s cattle from federal lands, but mysteriously abandoned the operation — note that this was an election year. CBD filed an intent to sue against the BLM under the Endangered Species Act for failing to remove the Bundy’s trespass cattle that year.

CBD was also enraged when the BLM halted removing Bundy’s cattle this month during a fierce standoff between armed federal agents, Bundy supporters and militia members. The BLM returned the 400 cattle they had rounded up to Bundy, angering environmentalists.

“The BLM has both a statutory and sacred duty to manage our public lands in the public interest, to treat all users equally and fairly,” said Mrowka. “Instead it as allowing a freeloading rancher backed by armed thugs to seize hundreds of thousands of acres of the people’s land as their own fiefdom.”

“The BLM monumentally failed to remove the trespass cattle, collect fees, or protect the land for more than 20 years,” Mrowka added. “Now it backed down in the face of threats and posturing of armed so-called ‘sovereignists.’ This is absolutely pathetic and an insult to ranchers and others who hold permits and pay their required fees to use the public lands.”

The Bundy ranch is not out of the woods yet. CBD and other environmentalists have also promised to hold the BLM to its court-mandated orders to round up Bundy’s cattle.

“[I]t’s clear that the BLM has a legal duty to remove trespass cattle for the land entrusted to it by the American people,” Mrowka said. “It has a moral responsibility to not let armed thugs and threats of violence seize hundreds of thousands of acres of public land for their own. We intend to hold the BLM accountable to the American people, fair play, and to justice.”

Government approves two more big solar projects for the East Mojave

Stateline and Silverstate South projects near existing BrightSource plant.

By David Danelski
Riverside Press-Enterprise

The area around Primm, Nevada, is about to become even more of a hotspot for solar energy.

The Obama administration has endorsed two big projects near the existing Ivanpah solar plant that went online in January. One of the new developments would be in San Bernardino County; the other would be east of Interstate 15 in Nevada, near a smaller plant in operation since 2012.

The approvals, announced Wednesday, Feb. 19, renewed concerns among some environmentalists about the potential loss of wildlife habitat, in view of the dozens of desert tortoises displaced by the Ivanpah project and continuing concern about bird deaths at solar plants.

The Stateline and Silverstate South projects are proposed by Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc. If both are built, solar energy plants would cover about 13 square miles of public land in the Ivanpah Valley.

Jim Hughes, First Solar chief executive officer, said in a statement that the approval followed five years of collaboration with federal, state and local agencies and other groups.

The two new projects are expected to supply 550 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power about 170,000 homes, using photovoltaic panel technology.

“This milestone validates the environmentally responsible development of utility-scale photovoltaic projects on federally managed lands to achieve federal and state carbon-reduction objectives,” Hughes’ statement said.

The approvals opened old wounds with environmental groups that had opposed the 5.6-square-mile Ivanpah plant.

The developments destroy habitat of the desert tortoise and other wildlife and compromise views from nearby Mojave National Preserve, part of the national parks system, said David Lamfrom, the California desert program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association. Tortoises are protected as a species threatened with extinction.

The solar projects “disconnect two of the most important wildlife linkages in the Mojave,” Lamfrom said. “A swarm of development has amassed upon the Ivanpah Valley, and ill-sited planning continues near our national parks and precious desert landscapes such as the Soda Mountains, Silurian Valley and the Chuckwalla Valley.”

Two other groups — Western Watersheds Project and Defenders of Wildlife — also expressed dismay over the approvals, the Associated Press reported.

A Department of Interior statement said that both projects were reduced in size to lessen damage to desert tortoise habitat. The developer also must protect about 7,200 acres of desert tortoise habitat elsewhere and provide more than $7 million for desert tortoise study and protection efforts.

The Stateline project will cover 2.6 square miles on the California side of the border, near to the existing Ivanpah plant, which uses mirrors to focus energy onto boilers mounted on three, 460-foot towers to make electricity.

Silverstate South will use 3.8 square miles just east of Primm, on the Nevada side of the border and next to the existing Silverstate North, which occupies 600 acres.

World's biggest solar plant may pave way for smaller-scale renewable future

Vast desert solar farms helping to meet energy targets but environment and wildlife campaigners raise concerns

BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert. (Photograph: Isaac Brekken/Washington Post)

Lenny Bernstein
Washington Post / Guardian Weekly

Tower One glows so bright against the blue sky that even at mid-afternoon in the Mojave Desert it would be easy to conclude it is designed to illuminate the valley floor below.

In fact, hundreds of thousands of glittering mirrors, carefully arranged across a swath of desert, reflect sunlight on to the tower and two others like it, heating them to 538C and causing the glow. Water in pipes atop the towers turns to steam. The steam spins turbines to generate electricity.

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System will send that power across California, the Golden State, early this year, becoming the largest solar plant in the world to concentrate the sun's rays to produce electricity. Such utility-sized solar plants are beginning to appear across the US, with 232 under construction, in testing or granted permits, many in the south-west and California, says the Edison Electric Institute, which represents utilities. The scale of the largest plants is difficult to imagine in the eastern part of the country, where a relative lack of available open land and unobstructed sunlight have limited solar facilities to perhaps a tenth the size of the West's plants. In the west, ample sun, wide-open spaces, financial incentives, falling costs and state mandates have made big solar plants possible.

"Right now you're seeing the gold rush of renewable [energy] projects coming on line," said Fong Wan, senior vice-president for energy procurement at Pacific Gas and Electric, the big northern California utility that has bought about two-thirds of the electricity the Ivanpah plant will produce.

But even as the largest plants are helping utilities meet state requirements for renewable energy, the appetite for them may be waning, say experts. The next phase of solar development – especially in the east – may feature smaller projects located closer to cities. Environmental groups want regulators to look at sites such as landfills and industrial zones before allowing construction in largely undisturbed environments such as deserts.

"Part of the beauty is that solar is scalable, literally from the back of a cellphone all the way to a million panels in the desert," said Rhone Resch, president and chief executive officer of the Solar Energy Industries Association. "The market is still trying to determine what is the optimal size." The very largest plants, like BrightSource Energy's $2.5bn Ivanpah system and the Topaz Solar Farm, which will produce current with 9m photovoltaic panels, can generate as much electricity as a coal- or natural-gas-fired power plant.

But there is still a long way to go. In 2012, coal and natural gas plants produced 37 % and 30% of US electricity, respectively, according to the US Energy Information Administration, while wind generated 3.5% and solar just 0.1%.

And the road to big solar energy's development has been difficult. Lawsuits against the large plants accuse developers and the federal government of spoiling the fragile desert environment and the habitats of wildlife there. On 13 December, the California energy commission tentatively refused to permit another BrightSource project because of its concerns that super-heated plumes of air from the towers and mirrors might harm birds. A small number of singed dead birds have turned up at Ivanpah, according to media reports.

Ivanpah is a "concentrating solar" thermal plant. The better-known variety – like the flat solar panels on homes – convert sunlight directly into electricity via photovoltaic cells. The price of those panels has dropped so low that those plants are much cheaper to build than facilities that use the sun's heat to turn water to steam. Thermal plants like Ivanpah have advantages – they are more reliable – but their futures may depend on finding some way to store heat so power is available whenever needed.

"The benefit of a thermal solar plant like Ivanpah is it's not subject to the wild swings in production that a [photovoltaic] plant is," said Randy Hickok, senior vice-president of NRG Solar, which holds a majority stake in the project. Another major investor is Google.

Environmental groups, for their part, have sometimes found themselves in the awkward position of choosing between their dual goals of protecting desert species and promoting clean, renewable energy.

The powerful Sierra Club, for example, chose not to side with other, smaller groups that sued the interior department and its bureau of land management to block Ivanpah over the damage they said it would do to the threatened desert tortoise's habitat on federal land. The Sierra Club was not happy about Ivanpah's impact, but it took no position, said Bruce Nilles, director of its Beyond Coal campaign.

"I think they were very misguided," said Michael Connor, California director of the Western Watersheds Project, which lost a bid to halt Ivanpah in federal court but has appealed the decision. "It's all about 'we've got to do something, we've got to get something going here' .. instead of working out strategies [and] alternatives." Ivanpah is undergoing testing, its three 46-storey towers rising out of the vast desert like Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel in nearby Las Vegas did almost 70 years ago. Motorists regularly pull off interstate 15 at the California-Nevada border to get a better look at the arrays of mirrors on 1,416 hectares around the three towers, and to ask: what exactly is going on here?

The boom was set in motion in 2002, when California told its big electric utilities they would have to generate 20% of the state's electricity from renewable sources such as sun and wind by 2010. In 2011, the state toughened its "renewable portfolio standard" to 33% by 2020. (Thirty states, including Maryland, and the District of Columbia have adopted such requirements. Virginia is among a handful of states that have set "goals" for the use of renewable energy.)

Companies began proposing to build large plants, many of them on federal land in California's sparsely populated deserts. In 2008 they were aided by the eight-year extension of a federal investment tax credit available for renewable energy projects and later by energy department loan guarantees and incentives in the federal economic stimulus package. BrightSource received a $1.6bn loan guarantee that was critical to the project, according to Joseph Desmond, senior vice-president for marketing.

The result is the growth in solar power that is plainly visible in parts of the state as well as in Arizona, Nevada and elsewhere. Pacific Gas and Electric, for example, will provide about 11% of its power from solar by 2020, up from zero a decade earlier, Wan said.

In the early days of the rush, the Bureau of Land Management reviewed plant proposals on an ad hoc basis as developers brought them forward. That resulted in some siting decisions, including Ivanpah's, that environmentalists and conservationists have criticised. In 2012, the agency created 17 solar zones covering 115,000 hectares of federal land in six south-western states, an attempt to steer projects toward areas where environmental review showed the least damage would be done. There are now 19 zones and more than 121,000 hectares of federal land in the programme, according to BLM officials.

"We are in a lot better place," said the Sierra Club's Nilles. "There's a more orderly process in place."

At the Ivanpah plant, an initial survey showed that construction would displace only a small number of desert tortoises, but as work began it became clear that many more were living there. The company has spent $56m to build fences and raise tortoises in its "Head Start" pen, where 55 have been born in captivity and will be fitted with devices that allow biologists to follow them when they are returned to the desert. Though two hatchlings were lost to fire ants, Desmond said that the ancient species' survival rate is much higher under BrightSource's care than it is in the wild. Responded Connor: "That's like arguing it's OK to pave the desert over because we can move all the animals to a zoo."

To mitigate its impact, Ivanpah's owners spent $11.4m to purchase and manage 2,800 hectares of habitat for tortoises and other wildlife in other parts of the state.

There is little argument that the project has brought advanced technology to an area of rock and scrub that is home to a golf course, three casinos, some fast-food restaurants and a few stores. Computers guide 173,500 sets of paired mirrors, or "heliostats", so they can follow the sun for as long as possible each day and generate the maximum amount of heat on the boiler tubes. Eventually, Ivanpah will supply electricity to 140,000 homes.

Robotic devices, controlled by a single person, traverse the rows of heliostats, cleaning the mirrors every couple of months, usually at night, Desmond said. BrightSource, which created the machines, won't show them publicly.

The plant uses air to cool the water that flows through the boiler tubes. As a result, Desmond said, Ivanpah's annual water use is the same as just two holes of the nearby golf course.

This article appeared in Guardian Weekly, which incorporates material from the Washington Post

Technology reviving mine

Molycorp winds up in position of power

Scott Honan, environmental manager for Molycorp Minerals, talks about the Molycorp rare earth mine near Interstate 15 in Mountain Pass. (LaFonzo Carter)


Wesley G. Hughes
Redlands Daily Facts

MOUNTAIN PASS - No one was on their way to Vegas 1.3 billion years ago when a large, high-quality deposit of rare earths formed here.
Molten rock was pushing up through the Earth's mantle in eastern San Bernardino County and leaving a sizable deposit of the metals just poking its nose through the planet's surface.

Uranium hunters stumbled across it around 1950 - rare earths are often found in the company of heavier radioactive metals - and eventually it came under the ownership of Molycorp, a Colorado mining company.

Today, according to Molycorp CEO Mark A. Smith, "potential buyers are beating down the door to get those rare earths," which Molycorp stopped mining in 2002 because of environmental problems - and China could do it cheaper, anyway, he said.

Things change. China has virtually cut the world off from its supply of rare earths.

The Asian nation has the world's largest deposits, but Mountain Pass is No. 2, experts say, and Molycorp is back in the race.

Why should we care?

Rare earth metals - or oxides - are vital commodities for a range of products, from smart phones to smart bombs.

And the company's Mountain Pass Mine promises to make lots of money for Molycorp.

It's potential customers can breathe a sigh of relief now that there is another source of the elements. They are so relieved they have pushed Molycorp from a 52-week low of $12.10 on the New York Stock Exchange to a Jan. 5 high of $62.10. It has moderated a bit since the high and closed at $42.99 on Friday, down $3.55 on the day.

Molycorp is tearing down its old plant and building a $500-million operation about 15 miles from the Nevada border to mine and process the ores.

The company celebrated earlier this month with a groundbreaking and barbecue for the board of directors, top management and employees at the site. They are calling it Project Phoenix, Smith said.

But not everyone is happy with the operation.

A national environmental group, Western Watersheds project, criticized Molycorp's 8.6-mile proposed gas pipeline, which it says traverses protected desert tortoise habitat.

Western Watersheds filed a complaint Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, seeking to halt the Ivanpah Solar Project, which it says got an inferior examination in its Environmental Impact Statement to help it meet a deadline. That deadline has been extended a year to Dec. 31, and Western Watersheds wants a proper EIS done, which it predicts will halt the power project being built by BrightSource Energy.

"We want it to go away," said Michael Connor, California director for Western Watersheds.

He was unfamiliar with Molycorp's core project, but the pipeline was mentioned in the complaint his group filed.

Still, the Mountain Pass project is gaining interest from potential customers, cut off from China's rare earths but interested in what's in Molycorp's huge open-pit mines.

"We are getting attention - a lot of attention," Smith said on the day of the barbecue.

He expects the new plant to be operational by mid-2012.

SAFER MINING?

Jim Sims, Molycorp's director of public affairs, and Scott Homan, the company's environmental manager, explained to visitors at the mine how environmental problems that played a role in halting production back in 2002 have been eliminated by new technology.

Before Molycorp halted production, the company piped liquid residue - mostly salt water - to evaporation ponds in Ivanpah Dry Lake - a scant 10 miles from Mountain Pass.

During a process of putting rinse water through the 8-inch plastic pipeline, pressure got too great. The pipe burst in several places. A buildup of radioactive material inside the pipe led to contamination of the aquifer under the dry lake.

That raised a public outcry that included concerns from county regulators and environmentalists and the shutdown.

During earlier operations, Molycorp had been the biggest user of hydrochloric acid west of the Mississippi River, Sims said. The acid was used to separate the rare earths from the ore. In order to stop the acid's action after separation, Molycorp neutralized it with sodium hydroxide and the product of the combination became salt water.

But by using electricity with chemistry, a process known as electrolysis, to treat the salt water, Molycorp found they could change it back into its original hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide.

Voila! The chemicals could be re-used almost endlessly. No longer will 15 to 25 tanker trucks full of acid be arriving each day at Mountain Pass and no longer will the salt water be piped to Ivanpah Dry Lake for evaporation. Nor will it get the chance to build up radioactive scale inside the miles of drainpipe.

In addition, Molycorp will no longer buy the most expensive electric power Edison sells. It will generate its own. Another 8-inch pipeline is to be built to carry low-polluting natural gas, which will be used for power generation and to reduce the use of diesel at the mine.

For Molycorp, these moves have given immense benefits: The company has dramatically reduced its environmental impact and has led it to claim it has cut its costs to half those of the Chinese today. And Sims said that soon Chinese costs are likely to double because of environmental changes Chinese miners are being forced to make. More good news for Molycorp.

CONCERNS

All that could be jeopardized by Western Watershed's complaint.

Molycorp said repeatedly that it had "crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's" and it had no more hoops or hurdles for the project.

That said, the company faces a hearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, it was learned Friday. A Molycorp spokesman could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

And there's still environmental concerns over the tortoise and the pipeline.

When Connor - the California director of Western Watersheds - was told about some of Molycorp's efforts to be environmentally friendly,he said: "That doesn't help the tortoise."

BENEFITS FOR THE COUNTY

County officials are excited about the project.

They are predicting it will have long-time benefits for the county through new jobs, for business and for property and sales taxes.

Most of the 700 construction jobs for the new plant will come from near and far. Most of the 300 permanent jobs will most likely be filled by Las Vegas residents, because it is closer to Mountain Pass than population centers in California.

But First District Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, whose district includes Mountain Pass, called the project "great news. It's been a long time coming.

"I think we will put a lot of people to work. I just don't have the numbers. It's a major mining operation that will use a lot of trades and professions."

Mitzelfelt also predicted Molycorp will be buying supplies locally.

Sims, Molycorp's director of public affairs, confirmed that.

"Molycorp is trying as much as possible to buy equipment and supplies in San Bernardino County," he said.

SUCCESS?

Molycorp officials say that they don't know the full extent of the rare earth to be found at Mountain Pass. They won't know until they dig for it, they assert.

Since 1865, various minerals have been mined in the historic Clark Mining District, where Mountain Pass is located, according to the project's environmental review.

For 57 years, Molycorp and its predecessors have recovered bastnasite, which contains 14 rare earth elements.

Its initial use was as a concentrate called mischmetal, which was used as flints for cigarette lighters and in some metallurgical applications.

In the 1960s, the EIR continued, additional mineral recovery operations were added to allow separation and recovery of individual rare earth elements, including europium, a critical element for making color television.

At the time, Mountain Pass was the world's only commercial source of europium.

Subsequent rare earth elements were produced, and Molycorp plans to mine more, bringing to 10 of 14 rare earth elements that will be produced at what is now a 55-acre site, with plenty of room to expand.

The 55 acres is part of more than 2,000 owned by the company, which also has federal mining claims for the next 30 years on another 8,000 acres.

With a limited world supply of rare earths, Molycorp is in a good financial position, said Christopher Reed, chemistry professor at UC Riverside.

The marketplace - whether its for oil, gold or rare earth elements - is full of cut-throat players, Reed said.

As for Molycorp, he said, "Time is on their side. In the longrun, they really can't fail."

Feds to consider protections for Sonoran desert tortoise

A female Sonoran Desert tortoise at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. (File photo by A. E. Araiza/Arizona Daily Star 2008)

By Felicia Fonseca
The Associated Press
Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona -- The federal government has agreed to consider whether the Sonoran desert tortoise, a Southwest icon whose population has declined by half in the past 20 years, warrants protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Two environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the tortoise, found in southwest Arizona and northern Mexico, as a distinct population. The agency said Friday it would review the status of the tortoise and any threats to its habitat.

“We expect that the service’s detailed scientific review will show that listing is required to conserve these icons of the desert Southwest,” said Michael Connor of the Western Watersheds Project, which along with WildEarth Guardians filed the petition.

The tortoise is among 13 species and plants that environmentalists sought protection for with a series of petitions filed last fall as part of their “Western Ark” project.

Lawsuits followed in many of the cases for the species, whose ranges span more than a dozen states and stretch into Mexico and Canada. The latest was filed in Texas this week over six freshwater mussels found in the U.S. southeast.

Nicole Rosmarino of WildEarth Guardians said the group has received a number of positive findings as a result of the petitions and subsequent lawsuits. Those include federal wildlife officials’ decision to study the Jemez Mountain salamander, an elusive white-sided jackrabbit and the tortoise.

“With today’s finding, the tortoise has drawn even with the hare in the race to avoid extinction,” she said.

Since taking office, President Barack Obama has distanced himself from several Bush administration policies on the environment and vowed to help restore science at the Interior Department on issues including endangered species.

“We appreciate that, and we think that the Fish and Wildlife Service is doing a very good job of looking at the science, in really examining a whole suite of assaults that are facing this dwindling tortoise,” Rosmarino said.

Environmentalists estimate the tortoise’s population has fallen by 3.5 percent each year — a total of 51 percent — since 1987, but their exact number is unknown. The estimate is based on a sampling of tortoises in Arizona.

Wildlife officials said the environmentalists’ petition presented substantial information that might warrant listing the species as threatened or endangered. Threats include urban sprawl, off-road vehicle use and livestock grazing. The tortoises’ range includes 8.4 million acres of federal public land in Arizona. Livestock grazing is permitted on more than half that land.

The tortoise also is a popular pet, although Arizona Fish and Wildlife prohibits taking them from the desert or returning them because of concerns over the spread of disease or how it could affect genetics. Jeff Humphrey, a spokesman for the Arizona Fish and Wildlife Service, noted that during the 1950s and 60s, some gasoline stations gave away a desert tortoise with every fill-up. He said tens of thousands of desert tortoises call someone’s backyard home.

The Sonoran population lives mostly on rocky hillsides and take cover for much of the year. They are different from their flatland Mojave cousins found west of the Colorado River, which have been federally protected since 1989, Humphrey said.

Environmentalists, believing some of the Mojave population crossed the river at some point, petitioned the federal government to protect those found in the Black Mountains of northern Arizona as well.

A decision on the listing will follow a 12-month review. Since half of the range of the Sonoran tortoise is in Mexico, where the desert tortoise is listed as threatened, Humphrey said “we’re especially keen” to receiving information on their status there.

Range War In the West

There is a range war in the West. Why should you care? Because wherever you live in America sooner or later it will affect you.

By Patrick Dorinson
New West


There is a range war out West. And unless you live in Idaho or Nevada or any other Western state you probably have no idea what is happening or why you should care. But wherever you live in America you should care because sooner or later it will affect you.

This range war is between ranchers who have worked the land raising cattle and sheep for over a century and environmental outlaws whose stated goal is driving them off the very land they need to survive and prosper. Today’s weapon of choice is not a Colt .45 or a Winchester rifle, but something much more deadly—the lawsuit.

So what’s the issue?

There are more than a quarter of a billion acres of public lands in the West. For over century a system has been in place to allow livestock ranchers and resource entities controlled access to portions of public land.

Over the years there have been bitter disputes between ranchers and environmentalists over whether this practice should continue. For the ranchers this is about their very survival and the survival of the livestock industries that contribute so much to the economies of many Western states—1 ranch job creates 7 jobs to support the industry.

Recently, reasonable mainstream environmental and conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy have worked closely with the public lands stakeholders to find common ground that can address both the needs of the land while preserving a way of life essential to the West. Working together, ranchers and conservationists listened to each other and came up with plans to ensure the survival of both.

But some fringe environmentalists like the Western Watersheds Project (WWP) have no interest in compromise and consistently use and abuse our legal system to deny ranchers and other interests their rights to use public lands, especially for grazing.

WWP and its leader Jon Marvel, a transplanted Easterner that has designed huge homes for the rich and famous in Hailey, Idaho, continue to wage war against the ranching industry by pushing to let the land return to a pristine state with no cattle. I have news for Mr. Marvel, before the cattle came to the West, huge herds of elk and buffalo roamed the plains and valleys for centuries and I’ll bet they ate grass and tramped through streams.

WWP regularly sues the federal government, challenging rancher’s permits on technicalities and burying officials in a flood of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. It is estimated that just to fill the current requests it would take one person 6 years, working full time. This means that trained range managers and scientists who should be out working with the ranchers and other users of public lands are instead filling out paperwork. If you are a taxpayer you should be outraged.

I said earlier that even if you didn’t live in the West this would affect you in some way. Eventually the price of beef will rise as there will be fewer cattle merging into the food supply. And these activities might also put a severe crimp in the Obama administration’s desire to upgrade the electricity grid, build new pipelines to carry the West’s abundant natural gas to the rest of the nation, take advantage of the wind corridors that dot the West and build solar farms in the region’s deserts.

It’s already happening. Interior Secretary Salazar recently came to California to talk up building solar farms on public land near the Mojave Desert. But California Senator Dianne Feinstein is dead set against it, as are radical environmentalists. They’ve been complaining about lack of renewable energy for years and now that it might happen they suddenly develop a bad case of NIMBYism.

Why? Because these hypocrites don’t want any of that on public land either and you cannot achieve the president’s energy goals unless you use the West’s vast public lands.

Finally you should care because this type of bullying and intimidation is just plain wrong. And it’s hard to deal with folks whose goal is to drive ranchers out of business and destroy a way of life that has survived for over a hundred years despite the hardships inflicted by man and Mother Nature.

Patrick Dorinson is a communications strategist specializing in media relations, public affairs, political communications, crisis communications and government relations. During the Clinton Administration, he received Presidential appointments in communications to the General Services Administration, NASA and the Department of Energy. During California’s historic recall election of 2003, Dorinson served on press staff for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s campaign and transition teams. After the election he was tapped by Governor Schwarzenegger to be Deputy Secretary for Communications for the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. Mr. Dorinson graduated from the University of Oregon, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in History.

Judge halts cattle plan

A final ruling could increase grazing in tortoise habitat

Matt Wrye, Staff Writer
San Bernardino Sun

BARSTOW - To graze or not to graze? That's the issue a federal administrative judge confronted Monday when he halted a plan by the federal Bureau of Land Management to increase the number of cattle allowed to graze on thousands of acres near here.

The BLM wants to increase cattle-grazing to a former level on land recognized as critical habitat for the desert tortoise.

The land is located south of the 15 Freeway.

The plaintiffs - the Center for Biological Diversity and other California conservation groups - say the decision is a small victory.

But the lawsuit is still undecided, and bureau officials are confident they'll eventually prevail.

At issue is whether 130 more cows and a few horses should be allowed to graze on about 152,000 acres of private, state and federal land. The terms are part of the BLM's 10-year lease contract that was renewed in September with private ranchers and other lessees.

More than 100,000 acres in that land area is designated as the bureau's Desert Wildlife Management Area and lies within the California Desert Conservation Area.

The current allotment is 172 cows and a few horses. Only 25 head of cattle are grazing the land, according to Anthony Chavez, rangeland management specialist at the BLM's Barstow field office.

"This allotment is our biggest challenge because three quarters of the land is critical habitat for the desert tortoise," he said. "We have to strike a balance between all of this, and it's not an easy task."

The desert tortoise is listed as a threatened species with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Officials with the Center for Biological Diversity say more cows means less habitat for tortoises because cattle trample the underground burrows the reptiles live in.

"We have a number of concerns," said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the center. "There is direct competition for forage between cows and the desert tortoise. They're both herbivores and eat plants. They directly compete for food resources."

Both possibilities can ultimately end in death for desert tortoises, she said.

In 2000, the BLM settled a lawsuit with the center that temporarily reduced the cattle-grazing limit to 172 cows and a few horses until the lease was up for renewal.

The original cattle-grazing limit approved in the late 1980s was about 300 cows, Chavez said.

"(The center's) premise that we're increasing livestock use isn't exactly correct," Chavez said. "We're restoring measures ... prior to the settlement agreement. There is no real increase. Now the interim is over with and we're going back to our original permitted use."

The settlement ended with approval of the West Mojave Plan in 2006, which kept the temporary 172-cow cattle-grazing level the same, as long as forage was above 230 pounds per acre.

Another official on the plaintiffs' side a 130-cow increase is considerable, given that it's almost double the current amount allowed under the temporary settlement.

"If you impact the environment in the desert, it takes a long time for desert habitat to recover," said Michael Conner, California science director of the Western Watersheds Project.

"We're delighted that we got a stay," he added. "(The judge) looked at our appeal and decided that we have substantial evidence and are likely to prevail in a court case."

On the contrary, the BLM is "fairly confident" the judge will rule in its favor, Chavez said.

He noted a professional opinion sent to the BLM from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that says an increase in cattle grazing will not jeopardize desert tortoises or other critical habitat in the area.

Whatever the lawsuit's outcome, the BLM is prepared to implement the judge's orders, he said.

Judge prevents BLM from extending grazing rights

JASON SMITH
Victor Valley Daily Press

A federal judge issued a temporary order on Monday preventing the Bureau of Land Management from increasing the number of cattle a local ranch can graze on 136,000 acres, just north of Lucerne Valley.

Conservation groups sued the BLM over concerns that desert tortoises and other endangered species could lose their habitats due to the grazing cattle.

Under the current lease, the BLM is allowed to let the nearby Shield F Ranch graze up to 175 cows on public lands near the Ord Mountains. The area includes 117,000 acres of desert tortoise habitat. Shield F currently has about 25 cows on the land.

The BLM previously allowed up to 295 cows on the lands, but after a legal challenge in 2001, was ordered to reduce the maximum number allowed until the Western Mojave land-use plan was developed in 2006. The BLM now seeks to return to the pre-2001 allotment, but a consortium of four environmental groups appealed the plan.

Harvey C. Sweitzer, an administrative law judge with the Department of Interior’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, ruled that the effects of the lease extension on wildlife should be further explored before the 10-year lease is extended.

Sweitzer will further consider the matter in a hearing to be held in the coming months. The hearing has not yet been scheduled, said Luke Smart, an attorney adviser with the hearings office. He said that conservation groups and the BLM frequently disagree over the effects that cattle grazing has on the environment.

“These are kinds of issues that come up, and these are the types of issues the BLM, grazers and conservation groups wrestle with,” Smart said.

Michael Conner, California science director with the Western Watersheds Project, one of the conservation groups behind the lawsuit, said he was pleased with the decision. He said feels the land needs time to recover from the effects of past grazing.

“We’re very happy with this ruling because the judge is basically agreeing that our case has merit,” he said.

Conner said that grazing cattle can trample tortoises, tortoise eggs as well as burrows. He said other endangered species such as the big-horned sheep and Mojave monkey flower could also be at risk.

Anthony Chavez, a rangeland management specialist with the BLM, said he disagrees with the idea that the current herd of 25 cows on 154,000 acres is a burden on he environment. He said the terms of the new lease did not represent an increase in the number of cattle because the levels were allowed prior to 2001.

He said the agency has not yet decided how to proceed and will wait for the upcoming hearing.

Members of the Shield F Ranch did not respond to calls seeking comment.