Your Voices are Heard!
Issue 7 > October 2, 2008
Feature Story:
Your letters help prompt BLM environmental mine review at Buffalo Gulch
Your letters help prompt BLM environmental mine review at Buffalo Gulch
 Credit: Bull trout, Sierra Club |
A proposed cyanide leach gold mine in Idaho's Buffalo Gulch is now years away from operation, thanks in part to your letters.
Buffalo Gulch is important habitat for Westslope cutthroat trout, Pacific lamprey, threatened bull trout, Chinook salmon, and steelhead. It also is the source of springs used for drinking water.
Buffalo Gulch is listed as an impaired 303(d) stream under the Clean Water Act. This means that Idaho law and the Environmental Protection Agency forbid further degradation — which almost always occurs in association with mine proposals near water sources.
The company tried to steamroll this project through with no current review of mine impacts.
With the help of more than 3,600 comments the Bureau of Land Management received from EARTHWORKS e-activists, the timeline on the proposed mine has been delayed until at least 2010 while the proposed mine undergoes more rigorous review. It is now clear that the BLM will perform an Environmental Impact Statement (which provides more opportunity for public scrutiny of the proposal). In association with that review, the National Marine Fisheries Service or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will weigh in on the proposal's impacts on threatened species listed under the Endangered Species Act.
For more information, see Friends of the Clearwater and Idaho Conservation League.
EARTHWORKS' e-advocates make news speaking out against mining in Ghanaian forest reserves
More than 6,600 members of EARTHWORKS and our partner organizations around the world wrote letters to urge Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider permitting Newmont's Akyem gold mine in a protected forest reserve. The petition drew attention by the Accra, Ghana Public Agenda.
As it was sent to the Ghanaian government Ghana's Commission on Human Rights released a report documenting human rights abuses linked to mining.
Stay tuned as EARTHWORKS and our allies continue to monitor the Akyem proposal and other mines in Ghana.[Learn More]
Marcellus shale update: EARTHWORKS testifies against drilling in the NYC watershed
EARTHWORKS has already brought the natural gas exploration project in the Marcellus Shale to your attention, and now we have more to report. On Septewmber 10th, EARTHWORKS' Bruce Baziel was on hand in New York to testify at the hearings regarding this potential natural gas drilling area. Bruce suggested several ways of protecting New York City's drinking water from the known hazards of natural gas development. You can read the original Oil & Gas Accountability Project's report on the Marcellus Shale here and Bruce's testimony here.
You can also check out OGAP's Land Owners Guide online for more information about what happens when natural gas exploration is occuring in your area.
For more information, visit the Catskill Mountain Keepers.
Recycle your cell phone from home
Do you have old cell phones and PDAs in a desk drawer somewhere? Don't thrown them away, recycle them!
Throwing them away puts toxic metals into the environment, while recycling reduces the need for more mining.
If you use EARTHWORKS's recyclemycellphone.org website, you can even recycle your phone from home for free.
You can also set up a recycling program in your community to help benefit a local charity! [Learn More]