Request a 10 year moratorium on wild horse roundups for science

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Tibetan prayer flag depicting Windhorse

Tibetan prayer flag depicting the Windhorse

Dear Friends of American wild horses,

In 2009 while I was working with Ginger at the Cloud Foundation, Cheryl Crow asked Obama to stop the roundups. Crow even went to the White House with Ginger’s Cloud DVD and a pitch to stop the roundups. She also spoke with Sec. Salazar on the phone. There was tons of national and international media buzz about Sheryl Crow asking to ‘Stop the Roundups’. Sadly it didn’t work to stop any roundups 🙁

Let’s join together and all ask for a 10 year moratorium on roundups for scientific studies (population, migration, etc.) I believe the National Academy of Sciences said more scientific studies were needed.

How can any member of Congress avoid looking like a sell-out and fool if there isn’t any scientific research proving there is an overpopulation of wild horses–compared to livestock–to justify mega-millions spent on roundups and warehousing?

Let’s push for Congress to use science to govern policy. Can we all get behind science and a 10 year moratorium on roundups? Then, we could have a chance to save America’s wild horses and burros.

The Internet is in our favor to spread the truth to voters. Just let the Senators’ and Representatives’ opponents know what they have been doing . . . 2014 is an election year!

Elections for the United States Senate will be held on November 4, 2014, with 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate being contested in regular elections whose winners will serve six-year terms from January 3, 2015 to January 3, 2021. Additionally, special elections may be held to fill vacancies that occur during the 113th United States Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2014

The 2014 United States House of Representatives elections will be held on November 4, 2014. Elections will be held for all 435 seats, representing the 50 U.S. states. Elections will also be held for the non-voting delegates from the District of Columbia and four of the five U.S. territories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2014

All my best wishes,
Anne

Anne Novak
Executive Director of Protect Mustangs
www.ProtectMustangs.org

Email the team at Protect Mustangs: Contact at ProtectMustangs.org

 

Lawsuit Filed to Halt Massive Las Vegas Water Grab

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Water for wildlife in Nevada including wild horses (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Water for wildlife in Nevada including wild horses (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Pipeline Would Dry Up Springs and Wetlands, Hurt Fish, Sage Grouse, Pronghorn and Other Species

LAS VEGAS— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in U.S. district court today to halt a right-of-way needed for the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s long-proposed pipeline (commonly known as the “Groundwater Development Project”). If allowed to proceed, the pipeline would siphon more than 27.3 billion gallons of groundwater each year from the desert of eastern Nevada and pump it more than 260 miles to the Las Vegas Valley. The controversial $15.5 billion project would have profound effects on people, wildlife and Nevada’s natural heritage.

“Enough is enough,” said Rob Mrowka, a Nevada-based senior scientist with the Center. “Despite hundreds of pages detailing the unthinkable harm that would be caused by this project, tens of thousands of people signing petitions against it, and setbacks in state district and supreme courts, the Southern Nevada Water Authority and BLM have closed their ears to reason, logic and plain common sense. They need to drop this disastrous water grab.”

The Groundwater Development Project would, by the authority’s own admission, dry up or “adversely affect” more than 5,500 acres of meadows, more than 200 springs, 33 miles of trout streams, and 130,600 acres of sagebrush habitat for sage grouse, mule deer, elk and pronghorn as water tables plunge by 200 feet.

The greater sage grouse is an upland bird species, iconic and completely dependent on sagebrush habitat for its existence; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found the bird to warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act in 2010. Its numbers have plummeted by more than 50 percent in recent decades due to fragmentation and loss of habitat (more of which would occur with the Southern Nevada groundwater pumping project). The Fish and Wildlife Service must make a decision on listing the bird for protections under the Endangered Species Act by 2015 under a settlement agreement with the Center.

At least 25 species of Great Basin springsnails would also be pushed toward extinction, and 14 species of desert fish would be hurt, including the Moapa dace and White River springfish. Frogs and toads would fare little better, with four species severely threatened by the dewatering.

In the lawsuit the Center argues that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management violated the National Environmental Policy Act and Federal Land Policy and Management Act in approving the groundwater development project.

“These laws exist because Americans care about their public lands,” said Mrowka. “Congress passed these laws to make sure our public lands are managed on the basis of multiple-use, to protect irreplaceable cultural and natural resources for current and future generations. They exist so that the needs of future generations of Americans can be taken into account — not just short-term economic growth and greed.”

The suit asserts the agencies failed to analyze impacts from permanently and irreversibly impairing the water springs, groundwater wetlands and wildlife habitat in the project area; failed to consider climate change; failed to adequately disclose how the project would comply with requirements of the Clean Water Act; and failed to comply with the Resource Management Plan in effect for the area.

Also raised in the lawsuit is the fact that the Water Authority has no rights to water to put into the proposed pipeline. On Dec. 10, 2013, the 7th Judicial District Court of Nevada issued a decision — which had been sought by the Center and allies in the Great Basin Water Network — that stripped the Authority of 83,988 acre-feet per year of groundwater due to severe deficiencies in the analysis that supported the original award of rights. The judge called the water-grab plan “likely the largest interbasin transfer of water in U.S. history.”

The Center has asked the court to order the BLM to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement that addresses the flawed analysis, as well as to enjoin the agency from implementing any part of the project until it can be judged to be in full compliance with the law.

Background
On Dec. 19, 2013, the Center notified the BLM that due to the decision by the district court, the agency must withdraw its “record of decision” for the groundwater development project and reevaluate the proposed project and its purpose and need. Under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, an applicant for a right-of-way for a pipeline must have a valid existing right established under state law, which the Authority in this case does not. The BLM has not responded to the Center’s letter.

The Center has actively opposed this water grab since 2006. In 2010 and 2011 it filed hundreds of formal protests with the Nevada state engineer opposing the award of water rights to the Water Authority; it was these rights that were stripped by the state district court.

The Center is a member of the Great Basin Water Network, formed in 2004, a broad coalition of government agencies, American Indian tribes, organizations and individuals opposed to this groundwater development project of whose board Rob Mrowka is a member. The Water Network will also file suit against the pipeline right-of-way, as may other individual entities in the Network.

The groundwater development project is projected to cost over $15.5 billion when financing costs are included. The Network is not opposed to water for southern Nevada but instead of a short-term pipeline proposes water be gained from increased indoor and outdoor conservation, reasonable limits to growth, re-evaluating how the Colorado River is managed and used, and long-term solar-powered desalinization of Pacific Ocean water.

The Center is represented by Marc Fink, staff attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, and local counsel, Julie Cavanaugh-Bill of Elko, Nevada.  

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 675,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Forest Service seeks contactor to take Sheldon wild horses

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Public Land and Desert Sky (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Public Land and Desert Sky (Photo © Anne Novak, all rights reserved.)

Reference number: F14PS00185
Issue date: 02/05/2014
Response due: 03/19/2014 05:00 PM PT

The USFWS is actively seeking qualified Contractors to receive, care for, and find long-term homes for up to 500 feral wild horses and/or burros per year. Contractors may receive horses for placement each year for up to four years. Horses will be captured and removed by the USFWS from the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, Denio, NV (Humboldt County). Award will be made to multiple Contractors. Pricing will be based on a per-animal fixed price. Interested contractors must be registered in SAM (System for Award Management) at http://www.sam.gov and complete Online Representations and Certifications (ORCA) at http://www.bpn.gov. This solicitation will be posted to http://www.fedconnect.net on 02/18/14. All technical questions are to be directed to John Kasbohm at (541) 947-3315 and contractual questions to Shannon Blackburn at (503) 872-2825. PROJECT INFORMATION: The successful contractor(s) shall perform scope of work as specified in the Statement of Work.

Set Aside: N/A
NAICS: 813312-Environment, Conservation and Wildlife Organizations
PSC / FSC: F019-NATURAL RESOURCES/CONSERVATION- OTHER WILDLIFE MAN

Contracting office:

FWS, DIVISION OF CONTRACTING AND GE
EASTSIDE FEDERAL COMPLEX
911 NE 11TH AVENUE
PORTLAND, OR 97232-4181

Contact: SHANNON BLACKBURN
Phone:
Fax:
Email: shannon_blackburn@fws.gov

https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/PublicPages/PublicSearch/Public_Opportunities

Fracking’s Terrifying Water Usage Trends Spell Disaster

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PM frack_map

Almost half (47%) of all U.S. wells are being developed in regions with high to extremely high water stress. This means that more than 80 percent of the annual available water is already allocated to municipal, industrial and agricultural users in these regions. (Source: Ceres)

 

New study shows that fracking boom is happening in places that can least afford to lose precious water supplies

– Jon Queally, staff writer

The irony of fracking: It destroys the natural resource it needs most. The tragedy for those living nearby fracking operations: That natural resource is the fresh—and increasingly scarce—water supply on which they, too, depend.

And not only does fracking—or hydraulic fracturing—demand enormous amounts of fresh water no matter where it takes places, a troubling new study released Wednesday found that a majority of places where the controversial drilling technique is most prevalent are the same regions where less and less water is available.

Overlay the regions where most of the fracking is being done in North American with the places experiencing the most troubling and persistent water resource problems and the resulting picture becomes an alarm bell as politicians and the fossil fuel industry continue to push fracking expansion as the savior for the U.S. and Canada’s energy woes.

According to the report, Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers (pdf), produced by the non-profit Ceres investor network, much of the oil and gas fracking activity in both the U.S. and Canada is happening in “arid, water stressed regions, creating significant long-term water sourcing risks” that will strongly and negatively impact the local ecosystem, communities, and people living nearby.

“Hydraulic fracturing is increasing competitive pressures for water in some of the country’s most water-stressed and drought-ridden regions,” said Ceres President Mindy Lubber, in announcing Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers. “Barring stiffer water-use regulations and improved on-the-ground practices, the industry’s water needs in many regions are on a collision course with other water users, especially agriculture and municipal water use.”

Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the California-based Post Carbon Institute and author of a recent book on the “false promise” of the fracking industry, says the irony of the study’s findings “would be delicious if it weren’t so terrifying.”

“Nationally,” according to Heinberg, “only about 50 percent of fracking wastewater is recycled. Billions of gallons of freshwater are still taken from rivers, streams, and wells annually for this purpose, and—after being irremediably polluted—this water usually ends up being injected into deep disposal wells. That means it is no longer available to the hydrological cycle that sustains all terrestrial life.”

Click here to look at Ceres’ interactive map on fracking and water use.

The study drew on industry data detailing water usage from from 39,294 oil and gas wells from January 2011 through May 2013 and compared that information with “water stress indicator maps” developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI).

What it found:

Over 55 percent of the wells hydraulically fractured were in areas experiencing drought and 36 percent overlay regions with significant groundwater depletion – key among those, California which is in the midst of a historic drought and Texas, which has the highest concentration of shale energy development and hydraulic fracturing activity in the U.S.

Specifically:

In Texas, which includes the rapidly developing Eagle Ford and Permian Basin shale plays, more than half (52 percent) of the wells were in high or extreme high water stress areas. In Colorado and California, 97 and 96 percent of the wells, respectively, were in regions with high or extremely high water stress. Nearly comparable trends were also shown in New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Among hundreds of hydraulic fracturing companies whose water use was evaluated, those with the highest exposure to water sourcing risk are Anadarako (APC), Encana (ECA), Pioneer (PXD) and Apache (APA). Most of the wells being developed by each of these companies are in regions of high or extreme water stress. The top three service providers, Halliburton, (HAL) Schlumberger (SLB) and Baker Hughes (BHI), handled about half of the water used for hydraulic fracturing nationally and also face water sourcing risks.

Although water use for hydraulic fracturing is often less than two percent of state water demands, the impacts can be large at the local level, sometimes exceeding the water used by all of the residents in a county.

“It’s a wake-up call,” Professor James Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine, told the Guardian. “We understand as a country that we need more energy but it is time to have a conversation about what impacts there are, and do our best to try to minimise any damage.”

The irony of the latest findings, explained Heinberg in an email to Common Dreams, is based on the fact that “much of the fracking boom is centered in the western United States—Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and California—which just happens to be drying up, likely as a result of climate change. And that climate change, in turn, is happening because we’re burning fossil fuels like oil and natural gas.”

Heinberg observed that the Ceres report is largely written from the standpoint of the oil and gas companies—using much of their data—and directed at those who may be invested or would like to invest in the continuation or proliferation of the industry. However, he indicated, detailing the increasing difficulties the industry and its investors are likely to experience in sourcing water for their operations is still valuable for those opposed to fracking.

“In California, where I live,” he said, “we’re experiencing a 500-year drought. The grape-wine industry here in Sonoma County is facing disaster. Farmers in the Central Valley are weighing whether to plant at all this year. The fact that California’s Democratic governor [Jerry Brown] wants to spend what little water we have on fracking—which will only make our climate problems worse—makes the report frighteningly relevant.”

_____________________________________

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Published on Wednesday, February 5, 2014 by Common Dreams

Comments needed by February 10th against removing wild horses to frack northeastern Nevada

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Note from the team at Protect Mustangs:

The Antelope Valley, Maverick Medicine and Goshute herd management areas (HMAs) will be ruined if 73 parcels proposed for lease, totaling approximately 125,000 acres, are taken away from native wild horses.The proposed action will push wild horses off their legal range. BLM will chase them with helicopters–removing them forever from their families and ripping away their freedom.

Follow the instructions in the BLM press release below to email your individual comments to BLM by midnight February 10th.

Request BLM halt the lease sale of areas within the wild horse HMAs slated for oil and gas development. Mention it will cause water, air and soil pollution and increase global warming, lower the water table as well as hurt wild horse territory.

Request a moratorium on roundups for scientific research on wild horse population dynamics and to ensure wild horses will be protected and preserved in freedom.

Use your own words to make your comments count. According to BLM, click and send comments don’t count beyond being one form comment. Email your comments today. Short and sweet is fine as long as you use your own words.

Some residents in northeastern Nevada have forgotten they have been blessed to use public land at subsidy pricing for generations. Now we are witnessing a worrisome trend with the Nevada Farm Bureau and the Nevada Association of Counties wanting to push America’s wild horses and burros off public land to control the water, forage and industrialization. They appear to be requesting BLM kill wild horses in holding to make room for more roundup victims.

It’s time for science to guide policy and for cooperative agreements to foster healthy rangeland and prevent native species wipe outs.

Thank you for sending your comments in today to protect the American public’s wild horses!

Photo credit: dgrinbergs / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Photo credit: dgrinbergs / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

 

 

BLM Press Release:ELKO, Nev. – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Elko District is making available for public review an Environmental Assessment (EA) for parcels of public land nominated for lease within the Elko District in the 2014 Competitive Oil & Gas Lease Sale. These parcels have the potential for future oil and gas exploration and development. The 30-day public review period concludes Feb. 10, 2014.The BLM received nominations for 214 parcels of public land to offer for leasing, totaling more than 435,880 acres. The BLM deferred several of the nominated parcels to protect sage grouse habitat. Other parcels were removed because of cultural and Native American concerns. A detailed listing of deferred parcels is available in the EA and online. The remaining 73 parcels (125,220 acres) have been analyzed for potential impacts in the EA, in accordance with the Oil & Gas Leasing Reform mandated in 2010. Lease stipulations identified in the Elko (1987) and Wells (1985) Resource Management Plans are attached to all parcels to help protect resources. The EA is available for public review at: http://www.blm.gov/rv5c.The Competitive Oil and Gas Lease Sale will be conducted on June 24, 2014. Additional information about the sale is available at http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/prog/energy.html.If you have issues or concerns or need more information, contact Allen Mariluch, Project Lead at the BLM Elko District, at (775) 753-0200 or email at amariluc@blm.gov.
The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s mission is to manage and conserve the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations under our mandate of multiple-use and sustained yield. In Fiscal Year 2013, the BLM generated $4.7 billion in receipts from public lands.
–BLM–

The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America

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Craig Downer

Esteemed wildlife biologist and Protect Mustangs’ Advisory Board member, Craig Downer, has published a paper offering Reserve Design strategy for wild horses and burros.

From the American Journal of Life Sciences:

Since the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, debate has raged over whether horses and burros are restored North American natives. Fossil, genetic and archeological evidence supports these species as native. Also, objective evaluations of their respective ecological niches and the mutual symbioses of post-gastric digesting, semi-nomadic equids support wild horses and burros as restorers of certain extensive North American ecosystems. A Reserve Design strategy is proposed to establish naturally self-stabilizing equine populations that are allowed to harmoniously adapt over generations within their bounded and complete habitats. These populations should meet rigid standards for viability based on IUCN SSC assessments (2,500 individuals). Basic requirements are described for successful Reserve Design including viable habitat as well as specific regions of North America where this could be implemented.

Read more here.

Craig C. Downer, The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America, American Journal of Life Sciences. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2014, pp. 5-23. doi: 10.11648/j.ajls.20140201.12

BLM announces 12 million in budget for helicopter roundups. Share the petition to stop cruel roundups!

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Protect Mustangs.org (Photo © Cat Kindsfather)

Protect Mustangs.org (Photo © Cat Kindsfather)

 

Watch what a roundup looks like:

Please sign and share the petition to defund the roundups: http://www.change.org/petitions/defund-and-stop-the-wild-horse-burro-roundups

It reads:

According to a press release from National Academy of Sciences released June 5, 2013, “The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) current practice of removing free-ranging horses from public lands promotes a high population growth rate, and maintaining them in long-term holding facilities is both economically unsustainable and incongruent with public expectations, says a new report by the National Research Council.” 

The NAS report states there is “no evidence” of overpopulation. Only tobacco science and spin backs up BLM’s population claim to justify roundups and fertility control/sterilizations.

We request an immediate moratorium on roundups for scientific population studies.

Wild horses are a returned-native species to America. Rounding up federally protected wild horses and burros has been documented as cruel. Warehousing them for decades is fiscally irresponsible. Clearing mustangs and burros off public land–for industrialization, fracking, grazing and the water grab–goes against the 1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act put in place to protect the living legends of the American West. They must never go to slaughter.

We request you defund and stop the roundups immediatly.

There is no accurate census and the BLM figures do not add up. We request population studies for each herd management area (HMA) and each herd area (HA) because we are gravely concerned there are less than 18,000 wild horses and burros in the 10 western states combined. More roundups or fertility control/sterilizations will wipe them out because the majority are no longer genticaly viable herds.

Wild horses are not overpopulating despite spin from the forces that want to perform heinous sterilizations in the field. Humane fertility control could be looked at as an option only after scientific population studies have been conducted for each HMA and each HA. Right now it’s premature.

Field observers have noticed a worrisome decline in wild horse and burro population since the BLM’s rampant roundups from 2009 to this day.

Kindly allow returned-native wild horses and the burros to reverse desertification, reduce the fuel for wildfires and create biodiversity on public land–while living with their families in freedom.

Public comments requested for BLM Pine Nut Land Health Project under the National Historic Preservation Act

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From a BLM press release dated February 4, 2014

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Carson City District, Sierra Front Field Office is requesting public comments under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) for the proposed Pine Nut Land Health Project (Project) in Douglas, Lyon and Carson City Counties, Nevada. The draft Programmatic Agreement (PA) is available for review, and the public is invited to provide written comments through March 5, 2014. 

 

The Project involves vegetation treatments that would be implemented over a 10 to 15 year period on public lands in the Pine Nut Mountains. When a project is phased over multiple years, a PA is often used to outline the steps BLM will take to comply with NHPA, including identification of historic properties and avoiding or resolving adverse effects that could be caused by the project. 

 

Information including the draft PA, maps, and descriptions of treatment areas and methodsare available on the Project website at: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/carson_city_field/blm_information/nepa.html.

Before including your address, phone number, e-mail address, or other personal identifying information in your comment, you should be aware that your entire comment – including your personal identifying information – may be made publicly available at any time.  While you can ask us in your comment to withhold your personal identifying information from public review, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so.

For more information, contact: Rachel Crews, Archaeologist, 5665 Morgan Mill Rd, Carson City, Nevada 89701 or email: rcrews@blm.gov, 775-885-6152. Comments can also be faxed to: 775-885-6147, Attn: Rachel Crews.

The BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land, the most of any Federal agency. This land, known as the National System of Public Lands, is primarily located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The BLM also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. The BLM’s mission is to manage and conserve the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations under our mandate of multiple-use and sustained yield. In Fiscal Year 2013, the BLM generated $4.7 billion in receipts from public lands.

 

       -BLM-