The Silent Killers in #IndianCountry: #Copper, #Lithium, #Uranium and #Plutonium

Judge finds plutonium plants in #NewMexico and #SouthCarolina violated environmental laws

By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews, Oct. 10, 2024

"The U.S. government's plan for increased plutonium production at #LosAlamos National Laboratory, in the heart of Pueblo lands in northern New Mexico, has been delayed by a federal judge.

"Continuing the U.S. legacy of poisoning Indian country with #radiation, this comes as the U.S. government is granting leases to foreign #mining companies targeting Native #sacred lands and communities.

" #CopperMining is targeting San CarlosApache's sacred #OakFlat; #Hualapai are suing the US Department of Interior to halt lithium mining at their sacred spring Ha'Kamwe'; and the U.S. government is promoting the ongoing digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site in northern Nevada for #lithium, in violation of all federal laws that protect Native religious and historic sites, the environment and endangered species.

"Uranium mining in the Grand Canyon threatens #Havasupai's aquifer, the haul route endangers everyone in the Four Corners region, and the uranium mill at White Mesa Ute in #Utah is poisoning #Utes.

"Interior Sec. #DebHaaland said in Farmington, N.M., that Los Alamos Labs would be the leader in the so-called ' #GreenEnergy transition' in the #FourCorners region.

"More than 500 radioactive #UraniumMill sites remain on the #NavajoNation that have not been cleaned up by the U.S. #EPA, which deceives the public by announcing plans and promises to clean up the #ColdWar sites.

"In the current federal lawsuit, a federal judge in South Carolina ruled that U.S. energy officials illegally neglected to study impacts to the #environment in efforts to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons in New Mexico and South Carolina.

"'South Carolina District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis sided with environmental, #AntiNuclear proliferation and community groups last week who sued the National Nuclear Security Administration ( #NNSA), which oversees the nuclear weapons stockpile as part of the U.S. Department of Energy [ #DOE],' reports Source New Mexico.

"The U.S. is investing billions into restarting the manufacture of #PlutoniumPits, the grapefruit-sized spheres developed for #nuclear weapons. The plutonium is produced from uranium.

"'The federal government halted its manufacturing program at the #RockyFlatsPlant in #Colorado in 1989 after an FBI raid due to safety concerns and #EnvironmentalCrimes,' Source New Mexico reports.

"The U.S. government's #AtomicBombTesting in #Nevada left a trail of cancer and death for #WesternShoshone. The documentary 'Downwind' reveals the truth.

"'This is a very serious issue and that's why I can't let it go. I can't move on. People say, 'oh, why don't you just let it go?' Because it's killing my family. It's killing my land. It's killing my people. And that will not stand. It's being done in secret. And killing Indians in secret will not stand,' said Ian Zabarte, Principal Man of the Western Bands of the #ShoshoneNation of Indians. Zabarte is featured in ' #Downwind' about radiation poisoning from U.S. #NuclearTests.

"Currently, foreign companies -- which receive the profits and find it easy to avoid clean up and responsibility for #environmental crimes and deaths from #cancer -- are receiving the mining leases from the U.S. government. The leases are granted by the U.S. Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and in the case of #UraniumMining in the #GrandCanyon, it is the USDA's Forestry Service. #Biden's attorneys have joined the lawsuit with #RioTinto to devastate #OakFlat.

"Australian and Canadian mining corporations are devastating Native lands and communities, poisoning the water and causing widespread cancer.
Rio Tinto, targeting Apaches #OakFlat, is an Australian company which destroyed 46,000 years of #Aboriginal sacred history in caves in #Australia.

"Another Australian mining company is targeting #Hualapai's sacred site. It is #Hawstone / #ArizonaLithium, in Perth, Australia.

" #EnergyFuels, now uranium mining in the Grand Canyon, and operating the uranium mill at #WhiteMesaUte, is a Canadian company. Another Canadian company is digging into the #Paiute Massacre Site. It is #LithiumAmericas.
#Hopi judge #DianeHumetewa granted a temporary restraining order to halt the lithium mining at #Hualapai's sacred spring."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-silent-killers-in-indian-country.html

#NoUraniumMining #CopperMining #LithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #NoWar #NoNukes #NuclearWeapons #RecycleCopper #RecycleLithium #WaterIsLife #NuclearWaste #DefendTheSacred #WhiteMesaMill #Ute #AtomicBomb #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #FirstNations #NativeAmericanNews #SuperfundSites #ToxicWaste #SaveOakFlat #OpenPitMining #Pollution #ReaderSupportedNews

This #imperial outlet is not available to nations on the periphery. When #workers & #environmental movements in the #South demand #justice, their ruling classes cannot offset those demands through external #exploitation.

#Politics #Democrats #Republicans #Liberals #Conservatives #Vote #Election #DemocraticParty #RepublicanParty #DonaldTrump #Trump #JDVance #Vance #JoeBiden #Biden #KamalaHarris #TimWalz #Democracy #US #USA #Musk #Fascism #Fascist #BernieSanders #AOC #FraudSquad #Progressive

Delighted to see Widdicombe’s (NCM Senior Curator) new conversation piece on the #environmental impacts of #technology systems like #AI and the #telegraph. It draws from our research at the School of #Cybernetics on the telegraph as an important historical system!

https://theconversation.com/from-the-telegraph-to-ai-our-communications-systems-have-always-had-hidden-environmental-costs-263811

Delighted to see Widdicombe’s (NCM Senior Curator) new conversation piece on the #environmental impacts of #technology systems like #AI and the #telegraph. It draws from our research at the School of #Cybernetics on the telegraph as an important historical system!

https://theconversation.com/from-the-telegraph-to-ai-our-communications-systems-have-always-had-hidden-environmental-costs-263811

The latest #STEM and #environmental newsletter for the Hunter region enviroBYTES is out. There are a record 75 events on this November including festivals: Sounds of #sustainability Sustainable Future Festival, Before the Tide Festival, and Sustainable Living Festival.
https://mailchi.mp/4a0ad707fb35/great-bicycle-recycle-4-sustainability-festivals-75-events
1/2

~750k #FederalWorkers are expected to be furloughed, & some fired by the #Trump admin. Many offices will be shuttered, perhaps permanently, as Trump vows to “do things that are irreversible, that are bad” as #retribution. His #deportation agenda is expected to run full speed ahead, while #education, #environmental & other #services sputter. The economic fallout is expected to ripple nationwide.

#Republicans #GOP #government #shutdown #OrchestratedShutdown #economy
https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-congress-trump-health-care-54b2a584657a0b619bc8326708a05604?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-10-01-Government+shutdown

Won't get as much attention as the #murder of someone I'd never heard off in #Utah, but this suspicious killing of Vian Ruma, a young #environmental #activist in #Indonesia deserves as much, if not more, global attention.

We're losing too many of our future in #Asia.

Via @mongabay

https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/death-of-activist-critical-of-geothermal-project-raises-alarm-in-indonesia/

How #Guatemala, #Mexico, and #Belize plan to protect 14 million acres of #Mayan#Forest

Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy.

By Sonia Pérez D. And María Verza, Aug. 21, 2025

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — "Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy.
The nature reserve announced last week and called the #GreatMayanJungleBioculturalCorridor would stretch across jungle areas of southern Mexico and northern parts of the two Central American nations, encompassing more than 14 million acres (5.7 million hectares). It would become the second largest reserve in the Americas, behind only the Amazon.
In interviews this week, the environment ministers of Mexico and Guatemala emphasized the need for security, while also expressing the intention of administrations in both countries to avoid destructive projects in the area.

" 'The first thing is that the security forces begin to have a presence,' because the region has been abandoned and left to organized crime, Guatemala Environment Minister Patricia Orantes said. 'This is not primarily an environmental battle. We’re talking about the Guatemalan state needing to retake control of its territory.'

"#Environmental groups have long said that the jungle on both sides of the Mexico-Guatemala border is dotted with clandestine landing strips for cocaine-laden planes, smugglers moving migrants north and illegal loggers.

"Mexico Environment Secretary Alicia Bárcena said that all three countries will need to boost their security presence in the reserve. 'We’re not going to protect the forest ourselves, the security secretary has to help, the army,' Bárcena said.

Communities as allies

"Just sending troops will likely be insufficient, as Mexico’s experience along another part of its southern border in Chiapas has shown. Organized crime has infiltrated economically-strapped communities with few options and it has been difficult to root them out.

"Guatemalan lawyer and environmental activist Rafael Maldonado said it will be vital 'to convert communities that are believed to participate in drug trafficking into allies of the park.'

"To do that, Orantes said the government must offer economic alternatives to those residents.

"One proposal from Mexico is the expansion of its '#PlantingLife' program, which offers landowners money to grow certain kinds of #trees either for #fruit or #timber. The program has a $2 billion budget, Bárcena said.

"But the program, which dates to ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has faced criticism. In 2021, the World Resources Institute reported that it had actually incentivized deforestation in Campeche state. Bárcena said the program is being adjusted to better meet environmental objectives.

"Mexican sustainability and climate action expert Juan Carlos Franco, who works in southern Mexico, said security is crucial and requires the government to act as 'guarantor.' But the work has to be carried out with civil society in the #LocalCommunities, including in places where locals have found ways to coexist with the illegal activity surrounding them, he said.

" 'Communities oriented toward the #biocultural management of the territory can overcome despite the crime, that’s the most revealing message,' he said.

No #megaprojects

"Another challenge will be holding governments over the long term to commitments to forgo big projects that promise economic development but threaten environmental damage, such as Mexico’s tourist rail operation, the Maya Train, which Belize is interested in extending to its territory.

"Orantes, the Guatemala minister, said that Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo would not allow megaprojects in the reserve because when access is opened in the forest it becomes difficult to control everything that follows.

"Arévalo recently declined to renew the contract of a #petroleum company that had been operating for 40 years in a Guatemalan reserve known as the #Maya Biosphere.

"Guatemala is making the largest land contribution to the reserve, encompassing 27 existing protected areas. Arévalo had already made clear that he would not run an extension of the Maya Train proposed by Mexico’s last president through protected areas.
In Mexico, Bárcena noted that the 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) train line, which started running in late 2023 and goes in a rough loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, lies outside the new reserve’s territory.

"She said her agency was working to alleviate some of the environmental impacts of the train line, in collaboration with companies operated by the Mexican Army, which built a large portion of the rail line and operates the train.

"To avoid destructive projects in the new reserve, the three governments agreed to create a council made up of environmental authorities, as well as an Indigenous advisory council, Bárcena said. Any proposed projects in the reserve would have to pass through them.

"Some Mexican activists, like Pedro Uc who lives in the Yucatan, remain skeptical of the government’s commitment to conservation considering the same political party that brought the Maya Train remains in power in Mexico. Others like Franco are willing to move ahead and keep the pressure on the three governments to maintain their commitments."

Read more:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/americas/how-guatemala-mexico-and-belize-plan-to-protect-14-million-acres-of-mayan-forest/article_20e22c99-d965-528f-90b6-20e93296c85f.html

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GyXR8

#SolarPunkSunday #ForestsAreLife #ProtectTheForest#PreserveNature#CentralAmerica

How #Guatemala, #Mexico, and #Belize plan to protect 14 million acres of #Mayan#Forest

Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy.

By Sonia Pérez D. And María Verza, Aug. 21, 2025

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — "Mexico, Guatemala and Belize have announced plans to create a huge reserve of tropical forest spanning across the three countries. Pushing out criminal gangs and protecting the land from ranchers, miners and loggers won’t be easy.
The nature reserve announced last week and called the #GreatMayanJungleBioculturalCorridor would stretch across jungle areas of southern Mexico and northern parts of the two Central American nations, encompassing more than 14 million acres (5.7 million hectares). It would become the second largest reserve in the Americas, behind only the Amazon.
In interviews this week, the environment ministers of Mexico and Guatemala emphasized the need for security, while also expressing the intention of administrations in both countries to avoid destructive projects in the area.

" 'The first thing is that the security forces begin to have a presence,' because the region has been abandoned and left to organized crime, Guatemala Environment Minister Patricia Orantes said. 'This is not primarily an environmental battle. We’re talking about the Guatemalan state needing to retake control of its territory.'

"#Environmental groups have long said that the jungle on both sides of the Mexico-Guatemala border is dotted with clandestine landing strips for cocaine-laden planes, smugglers moving migrants north and illegal loggers.

"Mexico Environment Secretary Alicia Bárcena said that all three countries will need to boost their security presence in the reserve. 'We’re not going to protect the forest ourselves, the security secretary has to help, the army,' Bárcena said.

Communities as allies

"Just sending troops will likely be insufficient, as Mexico’s experience along another part of its southern border in Chiapas has shown. Organized crime has infiltrated economically-strapped communities with few options and it has been difficult to root them out.

"Guatemalan lawyer and environmental activist Rafael Maldonado said it will be vital 'to convert communities that are believed to participate in drug trafficking into allies of the park.'

"To do that, Orantes said the government must offer economic alternatives to those residents.

"One proposal from Mexico is the expansion of its '#PlantingLife' program, which offers landowners money to grow certain kinds of #trees either for #fruit or #timber. The program has a $2 billion budget, Bárcena said.

"But the program, which dates to ex-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has faced criticism. In 2021, the World Resources Institute reported that it had actually incentivized deforestation in Campeche state. Bárcena said the program is being adjusted to better meet environmental objectives.

"Mexican sustainability and climate action expert Juan Carlos Franco, who works in southern Mexico, said security is crucial and requires the government to act as 'guarantor.' But the work has to be carried out with civil society in the #LocalCommunities, including in places where locals have found ways to coexist with the illegal activity surrounding them, he said.

" 'Communities oriented toward the #biocultural management of the territory can overcome despite the crime, that’s the most revealing message,' he said.

No #megaprojects

"Another challenge will be holding governments over the long term to commitments to forgo big projects that promise economic development but threaten environmental damage, such as Mexico’s tourist rail operation, the Maya Train, which Belize is interested in extending to its territory.

"Orantes, the Guatemala minister, said that Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo would not allow megaprojects in the reserve because when access is opened in the forest it becomes difficult to control everything that follows.

"Arévalo recently declined to renew the contract of a #petroleum company that had been operating for 40 years in a Guatemalan reserve known as the #Maya Biosphere.

"Guatemala is making the largest land contribution to the reserve, encompassing 27 existing protected areas. Arévalo had already made clear that he would not run an extension of the Maya Train proposed by Mexico’s last president through protected areas.
In Mexico, Bárcena noted that the 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) train line, which started running in late 2023 and goes in a rough loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, lies outside the new reserve’s territory.

"She said her agency was working to alleviate some of the environmental impacts of the train line, in collaboration with companies operated by the Mexican Army, which built a large portion of the rail line and operates the train.

"To avoid destructive projects in the new reserve, the three governments agreed to create a council made up of environmental authorities, as well as an Indigenous advisory council, Bárcena said. Any proposed projects in the reserve would have to pass through them.

"Some Mexican activists, like Pedro Uc who lives in the Yucatan, remain skeptical of the government’s commitment to conservation considering the same political party that brought the Maya Train remains in power in Mexico. Others like Franco are willing to move ahead and keep the pressure on the three governments to maintain their commitments."

Read more:
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/americas/how-guatemala-mexico-and-belize-plan-to-protect-14-million-acres-of-mayan-forest/article_20e22c99-d965-528f-90b6-20e93296c85f.html

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GyXR8

#SolarPunkSunday #ForestsAreLife #ProtectTheForest#PreserveNature#CentralAmerica