http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/us/01water.html?th&emc=th.

Take a look back at what bad policy did to our clean water. As a result, Michigan has failed to protect its water through the Great Lakes Compact, the MDEQ, or the Clean Water Act.

January 2008, During the presidential campaign I quoted in a blog, “The Bush Administration has sought to limit Clean Water Act protections through direct attacks on the law, by misinterpreting Supreme Court decisions, and through a series of ‘No Protection’ instructions to the federal and state bureaucrats.” At that time “the EPA was accepting public comments on a policy that would determine which rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands were fully protected.” The word “navigable” was under scrutiny; the Act under attack.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/01/while-the-campaign-diverts-our-attention-the-environment-takes-a-hit/.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2155/t/203/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=22196.

June, 2008, The Bush Administration really stretched the terms of the Clean Water Act in regard to permits. Transferring contaminated water from one spot to another no longer required a permit. According to Earthjustice, “The rule [was] intended to effectively overrule a 2006 federal court decision which declared the practice of unpermitted pollution pumping to be illegal.”

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/in-latest-anti-clean-water-action-bush-administration-gives-polluters-ok-to-pump-wastewater-into-drinking-water-supplies.html.

September, 2008, Michigan’s senate managed to keep 25% of our surface groundwater from being protected by the Great Lakes Compact and public domain. It isn’t considered “navigable” water either. In that blog, spokesman for the MDEQ Robert McCann said, “[The MDEQ] must slash its wetland inspection, and pollution spill response programs. Many will be on the honor system when it comes to withdrawing water and dumping pollution.” Uh oh. I wrote, “The decision to keep surface water out of public domain caters completely to industry and special interest groups not citizen’s interests. Now it’s all come back to kick us in the pants. We find we’ve lost our say in our own backyards for 25% of surface water that may become a problem for us, and nobody will come if you call about the other 75% that’s supposed to be protected either.” Don’t look to the Feds for help.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2008/09/deq-wont-be-checking-on-wetlands-or-pollution-spills-due-to-cuts/.

http://www.mlive.com/news/kzgazette/index.ssf?/base/news-30/1221576618242910.xml&coll=7.

April, 2009, Michigan does not have 100% permitting authority for placement of fill, dredging, constructing, operating, or maintaining use or development in a wetland, or draining surface water from a wetland either. It leaves 17% of Michigan’s wetlands at risk for illegal use. Between money restrictions and Michigan’s inability to control all water, the governor is mulling around the idea of letting the Feds have authority over Michigan’s wetlands. There are obviously big gaping holes as to what legislation or agency is watching our water. It certainly isn’t the Feds. Uh oh again.

http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/2009/04/michigan-may-relinquish-control-of-wetlands-to-federal-authority/.

September, 2009, An article on MLive’s website about a NY Times investigation reported, “Michigan companies have violated the Clean Water Act more than 2,000 times in the last five years.” McCann of the MDEQ responded that “the violations in the state were exaggerated by old data from the feds.” But were they? McCann went on to say, “It is important to note that states take their enforcement responsibilities seriously and, in fact, conduct most of the environmental enforcement in the nation.” Uh oh a 3rd time. You heard what he said before about cutting inspections, not investigating pollution spills, and industry basically on the honor system. Was he serious? He knows the state doesn’t have 100% permitting authority either, although because of Bush, permits are no longer needed for some serious polluting.

http://www.mlive.com/mudpuppy/index.ssf/2009/09/new_york_times_investigation_s.html.

March, 2010, So here we are just a little over 2 years since the Bush Administration opened up a can of worms relative to the Clean Water Act, and the abuses to our clean water by industry is in the thousands. We’ve been kicked in the pants all right and lied to. McCann contradicted himself so many times speaking for the MDEQ, he’s no longer credible. There are so many loopholes leaving Michigan’s water unprotected it is indeed a serious situation. And the overwhelming evidence that self-regulation by industry ultimately infringes on our well being is obvious.

If the wording in the Clean Water Act needs to change then start ranting to your congress people to pass on to the House the “Clean Water Restoration Act” already approved by a Senate Committee. The Clean Water Restoration Act addresses removal of the word “navigable” and “restor[es] regulators’ authority over all waters that were regulated before the Supreme Court decisions.” This legislation is moving slowly because of industry lobbyists and the fact that we’re being lied to about our water and therefore block change for our own good. It’s not going to mandate every puddle in our backyard but ultimately protect our drinking water!

http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-s787/show.

http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/06/17/clean-water-restoration-act-gains-detractors/.

Enjoy this translated 1855 letter to President Pierce by the Indian Chief Seattle again. It’s a premonition of American that’s on target.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers’ graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insects wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand, the clatter only seems to insult the ears. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with the pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath the beasts, the trees, the man. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.

It matters little where we pass the rest of our days; they are not many. A few more hours, a few more winters, and none of the children of the great tribes that once lived on this earth, or that roamed in small bands in the woods, will be left to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful and hopeful as yours.

The whites, too, shall pass perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in our own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival? We might understand if we knew what was that the white man dreams, what he describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns into their minds, so they will wish for tomorrow. But we are savages. The white man’s dreams are hidden from us.

We need documentaries for the gorillas, tigers, elephants, horses, wolves…if that’s what it takes to protect the wildlife in our world. The makers of “The Cove” literally ran a covert operation complete with camouflage in order to make the documentary because they were under constant threat. Kudos to the filmmakers for their courage!

This morning the NYT ran an article that says Taiji is on the defense and it doesn’t state that the town plans to quit the dolphin hunts bantering about local foods and tradition, which is a non-argument in this case. Feeding the public dolphin tainted with large amounts of mercury should be restricted anyway.

Read it: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/mar2010/2010-03-08-01.html.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/with-the-cove-victorious-at-oscars-japanese-village-defends-itself/.

Keep the pressure on. Watch the trailer.

THE ESSAY by Ginger Kathrens is posted on the Cloud Foundation’s website.

The Death of the Calico Colt January 2010

He was wild and free, roaming the vast expanses of the rugged Calico Mountains with his mother and father and the other members of his family. This would be his first winter, a time when life slowed down for all the wild ones—the elegant pronghorn he watched on the distant horizon, the tiny pygmy rabbits that foraged in the sage brush undergrowth and darted into their dens when he tried to touch them, the fat sage grouse that were some of his favorites. When he was just days old, he heard their strange, booming sounds and saw the males strutting and displaying for a mate. When he wandered toward them, it was his father who gently guided him home. His mother softly nickered to him. She smelled of sweet sage and invited him to nurse.

Then, one day while his mother and father and the others in his family were quietly foraging, conserving their energy in the growing cold, he saw his father jerk his head up. Ears forward, the stallion watched and listened and the colt did too, mimicking his father. The colt could hear a rumbling drone. In the distance, he could see something flying toward them. It was even bigger than the majestic golden eagles that soared over his home. It came closer and closer, dropping low over the sage. The drone grew into an ear-shattering roar. His family began to run and he followed, galloping beside his mother where he would be safe. Mile after mile the menacing, giant bird chased them. His legs ached and he wanted to rest, but he could not leave his mother. He kept running, struggling to keep up. Fear gripped the Calico colt.

Then he saw a horse in front of his father and it too began to run. Safety must be ahead. His family followed the stranger and suddenly they were trapped inside walls of steel. His father tried to jump over the wall but it was too high. There were two legged animals running at them with long sticks and something white that fluttered madly. Suddenly, he was separated from his mother when a two-legged moved between them, striking out at him with the frightening stick and the fluttering bag. He was driven into another corral. When he whinnied for his mother, she answered. He raced around the corral calling for her, but found his feet were too sore to run anymore and he stopped. He could hear his father calling and he knew the proud stallion had been separated too. The colt answered him. He could see his mother through the bars of his cage and this gave him strength and hope.

Days passed. It was cold and there was no place to get out of the wind. In his home, his mother would have led the band below a rocky outcrop that blocked the wind. The colt began to fear he would never again smell the sweet sage of her breath or taste the warm milk she offered to him. His feet, so sore, became worse. Shooting pains darted through his whole body when he tried to walk so he moved as little as possible, hobbling a few steps to eat the plants the two-leggeds had thrown on the ground for them. One frigid morning, the two leggeds came and drove him into a truck with others that were his age. The pain was constant now and when the truck moved out, he stayed on his feet but the pain riveted him with every jolt and bump. He called for his mother, but there was no answer. Would he ever see his parents again?

Hours passed and the truck moved onto smoother ground and it turned into a place where he could hear the calls of his kind. He whinnied as loud as he could, but the answering voices were unfamiliar. The two-leggeds drove the colt from the truck into a bigger cage and he struggled to keep up with the other foals. Some of them were limping too. His eyes scanned the horizon, looking for something familiar but the flat horizon looked nothing like the land of his birth. Days went by and he spent hours laying in the dirt, the pain growing. He could feel something happening to his feet. His once strong, dark hooves were beginning to separate from the bone designed to hold them fast. He laid flat and closed his eyes, imagining the home and family he feared he would never see again. The two leggeds walked toward him. He wanted to jump up and dash away but he could not. Over the next few days he grew too tired to move at all. The wind howled and as it began to snow, he closed his eyes for the last time and dreamed of his family. Then two leggeds came again and killed the Calico Colt.

In death, the lively spirit of the Calico Colt was released to roam free once more. He has returned home to his family and the land of his dreams. He is not just a statistic. Neither he nor what he symbolizes will ever be forgotten.

(Ginger Kathrens is a filmmaker, author, and founder of The Cloud Foundation, dedicated to preserving our mustangs on public lands. The Foundation is calling for a stop to the roundups that are robbing public lands of our legendary, native wild equids—the very embodiment of freedom for many Americans. The Calico colt is only one of many who have died as a result of the ongoing roundups this year alone. Find out what
you can do at www.thecloudfoundation.org.

The helicopters of the BLM literally ran the hooves off this little colt exposing nothing but bone. Taxpayers paid for this action! I couldn’t sleep last night for having read this and have already contacted everyone screaming about the injustice and am signing petitions wherever I can find them. One of the petitions from Front Range Equine Rescue calling for an investigation of these murders by Senators Jeff Bingaman, Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and Representative Nick Rahall, Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee was too far too kind and civil. I signed the petitions, but I also wrote a hateful letter to the BLM because they don’t deserve decorum after what they’ve done. They deserve to be treated as criminals. Congress knows perfectly well what’s up with this issue because they are scrambling to get the ROAM, Restore Our American Mustangs ACT through and signed, while we still have horses left.

Everyone involved in this BLM movement to rid America of horses so cattle can take over the land should be dismissed. I just did a blog whereby the Center for Biological Diversity named and commented on Earth’s life support systems of which one of them was LAND USE. It stated, “Half the world’s tropical rainforests are gone and large areas of grasslands once open to wildlife are now fenced in for livestock ranching. According to Rockström, the expansion of agriculture is the major driver behind loss of ecosystem services and threatens to both exacerbate climate change and damage the freshwater cycle.” Cattle is the culprit for overgrazing. Where’s the science at the BLM that allows fencing across our plains for cattle in extreme numbers?

The BLM has been heinously inhumane and are operating under the guise of their own brand of science. The claim that these horses are overgrazing the plains when the cattle outnumber them 200 to 1 is the biggest crock, and absolute lie I’ve heard yet! A dimwit can see what’s overgrazing our plains and the Rancher’s and Cattlemen Association should be held equally accountable as the BLM for these actions since it’s pretty clear from whom the BLM gets their direction.

After reading the essay yourself and understanding the villitude of the BLM’s crimes please call, write, or email the following for an investigation of the BLM immediately and to stop all roundups in the interim.

Senator Jeff Bingaman: http://bingaman.senate.gov/contact/.

Representative Nick Rahall: http://www.rahall.house.gov/.

Contact Senator’s Levin and Stabenow to quickly pass S1579, the ROAM Act to protect what remains of our stately equine heritage, and back any investigation of the BLM relative to our horses.

http://levin.senate.gov/contact/.
http://stabenow.senate.gov/email.cfm.

Goto: http://www.frontrangeequinerescue.org/ and sign the petition for an investigation of the BLM. The horses need a voice!

The team of “28 luminaries from environmental and earth-systems science” was hosted by Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden, and included Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, NASA climate scientist James Hansen, Gaia researcher and ‘tipping point’ specialist Tim Lenton, and the German chancellor’s chief climate adviser Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.”

The nine areas of concern are:

Acid oceans
Ozone Depletion
Fresh water
Biodiversity
Nitrogen and Phosphorus Cycles
Land use
Climate change
Aerosol loading
Chemical pollution

It was an interesting assessment and a lot of info for every concern. The article stated that Rockstrom stresses “the boundaries are ‘rough, first estimates only, surrounded by large uncertainties and knowledge gaps’. They also interact with one another in complex and poorly understood ways. But he says the concept of boundaries is an advance on the usual approach taken by environmentalists, who simply aim to minimise all human impacts on the planet. Instead, he says, boundaries give us some breathing space. They define a “safe space for human development”.

Take time to read how almost 7 billion people are affecting the earth and goals we need to accomplish in order for us to sustain ourselves alongside all other living things.

http://www.newscientist.com/special/ocean-to-ozone-earths-nine-life-support-systems.

Citizens of France are furious over the state of the seawalls. Sound familiar? Looks familiar with miles of water-covered land from the aerial view in the AP video.

Read the story:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_DEADLY_STORM?SITE=TNKNN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Watch the AP video with aerial views:

http://video.ap.org/?f=TNKNN&pid=S8Dh1XrCPWAAge1F6SpAF2_1i2WbtGD8

The official alert of the flood:

http://www.gdacs.org/reports.asp?eventType=FL&ID=2010_23&country=France&location=&system=
asgard&alertlevel=Green&glide_no=

Know this, when an earthquake goes from a 7.0 magnitude to 9.0 magnitude the strength increases 1000 times! So at 8.8 magnitude, this quake is 6, 7, and 8 hundred times stronger than the Haitian earthquake.

It should take at least 14 hours for waves to hit Hawaii and warning signals have gone off there. The west coast of California will experience and increase in height and surge of waves also up to the Oregon coast, but no tsunami. Robinson Crusoe and the Easter Islands are already feeling tsunami waves. Those islands are about 400 miles off the coast of Chile.

Check Twitter for the quickest info coming out of Chile.
Read about it: http://www.hawaii247.org/2010/02/26/earthquake-rocks-chile-tsunami-advisories-for-chile-peru-and-ecuador/.

And taxpayers are paying for it. Per a HSUS, (Humane Society of the U.S.) article, “We have got to get off the current treadmill of spending millions of tax dollars rounding up wild horses and caring for them in captivity, and instead make wider use of fertility control as a humane population management tool.” Caring for them is a big understatement.

http://www.humanesociety.org/news/press_releases/2009/07/hsus
_applauds_house_vote_to_save_wild_horses_071709.html.

http://www.change.org/actions/view/a_unified_call_for_an_immediate
_moratorium_on_wild_horse_burro_roundups.

http://wildhorsewarriors.blogspot.com/2010/02/public-lands-cows-vs-rats.html.

The Bush/Cheney Administration in the interest of corporate America undid the 1971 Act that calls for humane practices toward our wild horse populations. So the BLM chases them to exhaustion by helicopters, corrals them in overcrowded conditions with little food and water, then loads them in rail cars meant for cattle and sends them to slaughter. The horses are unbalanced in the cattle cars, fall over and are injured.

Read the original 1971 law that protected these horses:

It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands

Further on in the Act, the BLM is allowed to determine whether or not there are excess animals threatening the ecology. By excess it’s meant “wild free-roaming horses or burros (1) which have been removed from an area by the Secretary pursuant to application law or, (2) which must be removed from an area in order to preserve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance and multiple-use relationship in that area.”

It doesn’t take an Einstein to see the travesty here.

When the BLM decides there are excess horses, the BLM is allowed to remove those animals in following order and priority, “The Secretary shall order old, sick, or lame animals to be destroyed in the most humane manner possible.”

This loophole is being overworked. According the Animal Welfare Institute, “92.3 percent of horses arriving at slaughter plants in this country in recent years were deemed to be in “good” condition, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Guidelines for Handling and Transporting Equines to Slaughter. The horse slaughter industry makes a greater profit off of healthy horses and therefore purposely seeks out such animals.

Another argument, much like that used for the slaughter of the Yellowstone wolves is states rights vs. federal. But, “Horse Slaughter is a Federally Regulated Industry.”

http://www.awionline.org
/ht/d/sp/i/12919/pid/12919.

The HSUS article also stated, “Last summer, in response to self-inflicted financial problems and mismanagement, the BLM announced that it would consider killing 30,000 healthy wild horses and burros in federal holding centers across the United States rather than implementing common sense, cost-saving management methods.”

Fortunately for our horses members of Congress evidently see the skewed logic and injustice by the BLM because HR 1018, ROAM, (Restore Our American Mustangs), has already passed the House. In addition to prioritizing on-the-range management over roundups, H.R. 1018 prevents the commercial sale and slaughter of wild horses, as well as the wholesale killing of healthy wild horses. And the ROAM Senate Bill S1579 is currently making its way through the Senate. It reinforces the protection of America’s wild horses/burros as was intended by the first Act in 1971.

But every 5 minutes a U.S. horse is slaughtered for consumption while S1579 moves to become law, and more healthy, beautiful wild horses are rounded up by an exhausting run with helicopters, corralled and neglected.
http://www.awionline.org/ht/d/sp/i/11222/pid/11222.

Call or email your senators to pass S1579 quickly. We’re fighting for another American icon that represents the spirit of America.

Watch the following video of a horse that looks much like the black stallion “Freedom,” who was captured during one of the Calico roundups and managed to jump a 6 ft. fence in a small area, then bust through a barbed wire fence. That’s the “spirit of freedom.” Freedom reminds be of the black Alpha Female wolf #527, that was shot in Yellowstone. Both animals were leery of humans.

I’m leery of humans too anymore, especially those that represent corporate America taking over our public land and causing American icons like the wolf, the mustang, and the bear to disappear. Humans like this remind me of the corporate machine in the movie Avatar that embraces the idea to overcome with little empathy and no remorse. It’s not a pretty picture, and it’s getting worse. Our civilized society is anything but.

Chief Seattle must have been a very wise man because his words from a hundred years ago still pertain to what is happening to America’s wildlife right now, “…What happens to the beasts, happens to the man.” The U.S. has corralled people against their will more than once its history.

.

Just thought I’d pass this info along. You can recycle phones, MP3’s, laptops, cameras, etc. They shouldn’t go in a landfill. There is an online appraisal so you know what you’re getting for your recyclables. I just bought my husband a new cell phone and will try this out; I know I have an obsolete camera lying around…

Link for the Crutchfield recycle page:http://crutchfield.cexchange.com/online/home/index.rails