Lately it seems that those who question Big Oil (Alberta tar sands and the XL Pipeline) or Big Coal (mountaintop removal mining) are labeled environmental extremists or radical environmentalists.  The notion that “business as usual” for the fossil fuel industry, in the face of global warming and environmental damage, is acceptable is positively frightening. I consider the energy corporations and the legislators and the regulators who do their bidding to be the true extremists. How very odd that it’s the alleged “conservatives” that promote these destructive activities. What ever happened to the conservation in conservative?

The XL Pipeline is a case in point. Big Oil is pushing for this highly questionable project, to get the petroleum to the Gulf Coast for refining and shipment to…wait for it… CHINA! So much for energy independence at home! Whose interests are being protected here? Certainly not the US taxpayer’s.  Yet those of us who question the wisdom of this venture are reviled as extreme. What’s wrong with this picture? A recent Op Ed by Ken Midkiff, in the Columbia Missouri Tribune, http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/feb/03/who-are-the-real-radicals-here/ captures this conundrum very succinctly.

In the case of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, I find myself explaining over and over again that the organization does not promote the removal of all livestock or ATVs from our public lands, and we never have, which we are sometimes accused of in local press. Our positions are clearly stated on our website, but those that complain about us apparently don’t bother to check it out. What we do support is that land management agencies, especially the U S Forest Service and BLM ,  actually adhere to the mandates given them by congress itself, to protect our natural resources so that future generations may have the benefit of them. Too often, powerful economic and political interests hold sway over management decisions and the land gets “managed” to suit their bottom line.  In the end the land, waters and the biological communities they support (including US!) wind up getting the shaft.

When we Broads show up at public meetings and politely point out that the agencies’ actions may not be in compliance with their own rules and regulations we’re reviled by some as radical meddlers who are funded by huge corporations, an accusation that certainly makes me chuckle. Yet the corporations that are now funding many candidates for public office, right down to the county level, are the ones who stand to profit from mining uranium on the rim of the Grand Canyon, strip mining tar sands on the Tavaputs Plateau in Utah or continuing to run cattle on marginal arid lands to get the tax write-off. None of these things is in the public interest, but it’s our public lands and wildlife that are suffering. That seems pretty extreme to me.

The Boulder Weekly interviewed ED Ronni Egan for their story on the anti-environment vote record of the Republicans in the 112th Congress.

by Elizabeth Miller

Though Congress this year may be better known as the session that failed to accomplish anything, a report commissioned by three ranking members of the House shows this year’s collection of Representatives has cast more anti-environment votes than any other in history. The total averages out to one anti-environmental vote for every day in session in 2011. The votes were split by party, with 94 percent of Republicans voting anti-environment and 86 percent of Democrats voting pro-environment.

“The House Republican assault on the environment has been reckless and relentless,” says Rep.

Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in a press release. “In bill after bill, for one industry after another, the House has been voting to roll back environmental laws and endanger public health.”

According to the report, which was commissioned by Representatives Waxman, Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.), “the House has voted 191 times to undermine protection of the environment.” Those votes have included blocking actions to prevent air pollution, disarming the Environmental Protection Agency when it comes to enforcing water pollution standards and Clean Air Act protections, addressing climate change, designating wilderness lands, allowing oil and gas development off the coasts of states opposed to offshore drilling and slashing funding — by 80 percent — for the Department of Energy to support renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“These votes are just a preview of coming attractions if the fossil fuel industries get their way and place more Republicans in Congress and the White House,” Markey says in a press release. “With that kind of cast, anti-environmental blockbusters will be the norm, sending more mercury into our kids, more air pollution into our lungs, and more carbon pollution into our atmosphere.”

“We have so many natural resource-type situations here, so we find ourselves in Colorado getting hit by these votes all kinds of different ways,” says Veronica Egan, executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, a Durango-based environmental advocacy group founded in 1989 to make the case that seniors still enjoy wilderness areas. “I think probably the primary way is that there have been votes … to reject scientific findings, in other words to compromise the role of science in decision-making. And right up there with that is votes to block action on carbon pollution on climate change and planning for adaptation to climate change.”

Many of these measures were tacked onto other bills, and in a Congress that’s spent more time spinning its wheels than moving forward on anything, a lot of them didn’t pass.

“One of the things that we’ve been so painfully aware of in the environmental business is that we thought, of course, in 2008, ‘Oh boy, the Bush administration is gone and we’re going to see some progress,’ and we’ve been sorely disappointed along those lines,” Egan says.

The lack of strong environmental leadership has led to constant attacks on environmental legislation, even bills with decades of evidence to show they work, like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act. Clean Air Act protections were hardest hit with 77 votes that undermined health-based standards and blocked EPA regulation of mercury and other toxic emissions from power plants, incinerators, industrial boilers, cement plants and mining operations.

Since it was signed into law in 1970, the Clean Air Act has reduced air pollution by more than 70 percent, according to the recently commissioned report. The EPA estimated in another report titled “Empirical Evidence Regarding the Effects of the Clean Air Act on Jobs and Economic Growth” that the law has saved more than 160,000 jobs in just the last year, and prevented another 13 million lost workdays and 3.2 million lost school days due to illness or disease caused or exacerbated by air pollution. The act has been heralded as an investment with better returns than Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway over the past 40 years by the National Resources Defense Council.

“Americans rely on our government to protect their families from the dangerous effects of pollution that can poison our air, water and environment,” says Berman in his press release. “This report puts Americans on notice: We must continue to fight efforts to erode the laws that protect our health and wellbeing.”

The Durango Magazine chose Ronni as its La Plata Local for its 2011/2012 edition. We’re very pleased.

Durango Magazine Winter/Spring 2011/2012.

Title: Broadband Leader Boot Camp 2012
Location: Kelly Place Bed and Breakfast, Cortez, Colorado near the Four Corners (AZ/CO/NM/UT)
Description: We’re seeking leader-types who are interested in leading a Broadband to attend our fourth annual Broadband Leader Boot Camp – March 22-26, 2012, near Cortez, Colorado. Interested members may nominate themselves for Boot Camp 2012 by submitting an application at http://greatoldbroads.org/get-involved/broadbands/boot-camp-ap.

Leaders will be trained in grassroots organization, communication, lobbying skills, wilderness history, documentation of on-the-ground abuses, and Broads positions on issues such as grazing, off-road vehicles, and oil, gas, and mineral development. The training will run for three full days and four evenings over a working weekend.

We will train up to 15 new leaders from across the country to organize local Broads.  This training, including meals and lodging, is offered to those committed to leading a Broadband at no charge.  Participants will be responsible for travel to Cortez, attending the full Boot Camp training, and developing a one-year plan for their Broadband.

In the heart of the archeologically-rich Four Corners area, Kelly Place is adjacent to the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument and near Mesa Verde National Park, Hovenweep National Monument, and the Yucca House National Monument.

Contact our Broadband Coordinator, Elsa Jagniecki if you have any questions.

Broadband Leader Boot Camp Application

From our 2011 Boot Camp:

“Thank you for the intellectually stimulating and labor intensive Boot Camp program you put together. We all came away buzzing.” – Valoree Dowell, Salt Lake City/Wasatch Front Broadband

 ”Hey, thanks for the great time at Pack Creek Ranch. My head is swimming! But my heart is full, knowing that many wonderful women will be busting some moves to save wild places!” – Holly Rankin, Four Corners Broadband

Start Date: 2012-03-22 – 4 pm
End Date: 2012-03-26 – 2 pm

Title: Wild for Wilderness On-Line Auction
Location: On-Line
Link out: Click here
Description: Our annual Wild for Wilderness On-Line Auction goes live for a little more than two weeks each year just in time for holiday shopping and vacation planning for the next year. It typically runs from early Monday morning of the last week in October through late Sunday night of the second week in November. Donations accepted all year long at
Start Date: 2012-10-29
End Date: 2012-11-11

Broads cut its teeth on grazing issues in the west. We are currently advocating for policy that allows grazing permit holders to voluntarily retire their permits.  Read Felicity Barringer’s NY Times story that describes a complaint that the BLM ignores the environmental impacts of livestock grazing on arid lands.

The Impact of Grazing? Don’t Ask – NYTimes.com

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Millions of cattle graze on public lands all over the West and have done so for more than a century. But a new complaint filed by an environmental group charges that despite Clinton-era moves to examine and diminish the impact of grazing in the arid West, Interior Department employees have blocked the use of federal data on the impact in regional scientific studies. <more>

H.R. 1581 is a proposal by Republican lawmakers  that would release millions of acres of protected public lands to the vagaries of local management (read exploitation?), potentially opening them to timber harvests, oil and gas development, motorized recreation and other uses. These are inventoried roadless areas and wilderness study areas that are the last remaining undeveloped public lands in the country.

My question is, are we that desperate for raw materials and unbridled motorized access that we can’t afford to spare the last few percent of our land mass from human conquest. Can we not share any wild, untrammeled space with our fellow earthlings? Once we’ve ransacked it all, how will we explain to our grandchildren that there are no more wolves or whooping cranes? Or that salmon used to run so thick in our rivers that you could walk across on their backs but now all we have is farm-raised tilapia?

It is probably possible for humans to live on a planet without elk or eagles or elephants, but would we want to? The time has finally come to recognize that our species is quickly outstripping the earth’s capacity to feed us and absorb our wastes, and the sooner we start talking plain talk about this the sooner we can take the soon-to-be draconian steps to stop the  process.

H. R. 1581 is one of many outrageous bills coming out of the House that needs to be defeated.

Launches: June 8, 2012
Location: Dinosaur National Monument, CO & UT
Meet at: Vernal, UT
Cost: $895 ($295 is deductible as a charitable contribution to Broads)

On the Yampa with Holiday Expeditions.

Join Holiday Expeditions and Broads for this 4-day rafting trip down the Yampa River.  The Yampa is WILD. It’s the last undammed river in the Colorado River system. Through the years the Yampa has defied many attempts to dam its free flow, several by congress, and the most formidable in 1965 by Mother Nature. Just after dinner on June 10th, a flash flood carried tons of rock down Warm Springs draw blocking the river channel. Within twenty-four hours the Yampa took aim and breached the dam, leaving in its wake Warm Springs Rapid, rated among the 10 biggest drops in the country.

Every May and June this river rises to the occasion and CRANKS with plenty of full-bodied waves from the first day to the last. Like many wild things the Yampa also has a serene side…miles of white tiger-striped walls that drop 2000 feet sheer to the water, side-canyon waterfalls, Ancestral Puebloan rock art, and whispering caves. We will spend 46 miles of this 71-mile trip on the Yampa and then merge with the Green River at Echo Park for the balance through Whirlpool Canyon and Split Mountain Gorge. If you feel the need for something rare, something wild and free…the Yampa is waiting.

To sign up for this amazing, Broad adventure, contact Holiday Expeditions – 800-624-6323

Holiday Expeditions guest comments about Yampa River Rafting:

Calm spot on the Yampa.

“The Yampa was the perfect trip with other young adults the same age as our sons.  The guides were as much as the fun hiking as rafting.   Loved the Native American and early-settlers sites.  I have been telling all our friends and family they have to go.  My 14-year-old son never missed his cell phone or TV and said it was his best adventure ever!” – Chris Green, OH

“We loved our trip, even wish it had been longer.  I will never forget it and loved our guides!  Also, I really appreciate the sustainable approach Holiday has to their operations, the pigs eating the food waste is a great thing, and eating the local melons on the trip was cool.  Keep it up and continue to do more, it will pay off in the end!” -  The Heidingers, UT

“Wanted to say THANK YOU for the most fantastic trip I have ever taken!  I was admittedly apprehensive about 5 days camping and rafting down the Yampa River with my 15-year-old son, but it could not have turned out any better! My son was made to feel right at home with everyone.  Wonderful guests, guides and an amazing adventure!” -  Lisa Harman, NC

To sign up for this amazing, Broad adventure, contact Holiday Expeditions – 800-624-6323

Video about the Yampa

>>Associate Director Rose Chilcoat<<

On the one hand, President Obama designated September as National Wilderness Month; a time to celebrate our nation’s system of wild protected public lands that Congress has laboriously reviewed and designated per guidance and requirements of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which had overwhelming bi-partisan support. The United States was the first country in the world to take such protective action. This system of wilderness is a treasure that belongs to all Americans, now and in the future.

On the other hand, we have Republican members of Congress whose actions are threatening the future of more than 43 million acres of public land with the introduction of the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011 (H.R. 1581). The wild lands included in this bill have been identified by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service as having wilderness characteristics. Many have strong citizen and local government support for protection as designated wilderness; they simply are awaiting Congress’ careful consideration and action to include them in the National Wilderness System.

The Wilderness Act clearly defines wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled”, (free and unconstrained), “by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” It is “…undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions …”

Wilderness is this generation’s gift to future generations. It is one piece of the ecological puzzle to save our country from ever-expanding development and resource destruction. It provides important refuge and corridors for wildlife. It protects biological diversity. It is an economic driver to nearby rural communities. It is quiet in a world of near constant noise. It is a remnant of the wild natural beauty that our forefathers (and mothers) experienced. It is freedom from the demands and constraints of civilization. It is available to everyone who wants to experience it – young or old, fit or physically challenged. It provides solace or adventure. It is hope; spiritual; restorative.

Wilderness is rare. We can’t make more of it. We only have the power to choose to protect it or destroy it. It is the remaining untamed forests, swamps, tundra, deserts, mountain peaks and ocean shores. From an entire continent of “wilderness” that European settlers encountered, we have protected a mere 2.7 percent of the contiguous United States as wilderness.

Great Old Broads for Wilderness members, (who experienced lifetimes of loss of treasured wild places), encourage you to join in the celebration of National Wilderness Month.  Tell your representatives and senators that you value wild places. Find your nearest wilderness area (wilderness.net) or other wild place and get your family into the wild. Go for a hike, go for a paddle, drop a line in the water, work up a sweat or simply chill. Take a walk on the wild side. You’ll be glad you did!

RENO, Nev. — Never one to back down from a fight with the U.S. government, northern Nevada’s rural Elko County has been feuding with federal land managers for decades over environmental protections they say go too far.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise to lawyers for the government and the environmental groups they’ve been battling for 15 years that the county’s district attorney thinks it’s time to end a legal skirmish over protecting a threatened fish and controlling a national forest road.

Read the Huffington Post story by Scott Sonner