Horse News

Signs of Hope for the West’s Wild Horses?

Source: By Kerry Drake as published at WyomingNews.com

“The BLM has failed in its mission 100 percent, on purpose,”

Ken Salazar may not have totally destroyed the Wild Horse and Burro Management Program while he was head of the Interior Department, but he made an already terrible situation far worse.

Now advocates for the animals hope a change at the top leads to some positive changes in a program they believe has been a disaster since it was created by Congress in 1971.

Cloud and family after release from BLM capture in 2009 ~ photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation

Cloud and family after release from BLM capture in 2009 ~ photo by Terry Fitch of Wild Horse Freedom Federation

Ginger Kathrens, a filmmaker who has spent the past 19 years documenting the activities of the Pryor Mountain wild horse herd in Wyoming and Montana, said Salazar was a rancher who viewed the animals as pests and implemented policies that treated them as such.

He left office dodging questions about the sale of 1,700 wild horses to one of his Colorado neighbors, who had them slaughtered. The matter is still under investigation.

Under Salazar, the program’s budget more than doubled while most of its efforts failed miserably. The agency now spends 60 percent of the program budget on expenses related to the more than 50,000 horses it rounded up.

The rest is spent “managing” the remaining 38,000 wild horses left roaming the West. But as a damning report issued in June by the National Academy of Sciences noted, that estimate is nothing but a guess.

Kathrens, who lives on a ranch in Westcliffe, Colo., said BLM has just wanted to see wild horses gone, literally managed to extinction. Jeannine Stallings, a long-time animal advocate in Cheyenne, agrees.

“The BLM has failed in its mission 100 percent, on purpose,” Stallings charged.

Stallings, 83, has watched the agency for years. When I interviewed her about the wild horse program in 1987, she said the agency had ignored its studies “because they didn’t get the results they wanted.”

Wearing a yellow T-shirt that proclaims, “Americans Don’t Eat Horses,” Stallings said while she voted for Barack Obama twice and considers him a good president, “He certainly hasn’t been a friend to wild horses.”

Why should anything be different now?

Kathrens said that Sally Jewell, the new secretary of Interior appointed by Obama, doesn’t have the personal animosity toward wild horses that Salazar had.

“She brings with her a love of the wild and open spaces,” she explained. “If she appoints people to key positions who agree with her … things could change.”

Time will tell if Jewell is able to n or even wants to n change the program’s direction, but in the meantime, the lives of thousands of wild horses are at risk here and in nine other Western states.

“In Wyoming, we have a tragedy in the making,” Kathrens said, referring to BLM’s plan to “zero out” the Rock Springs herd on private land.

That will mean taking all of the horses off public land as well. The animals would be rounded up and moved to Salt Wells and Adobe Town in the Red Desert, where forage is scarce.

The Rock Springs herd has become a great tourist attraction, she noted, but under BLM’s plan, people would no longer have access to see the horses.

Kathrens has likely done more than anyone else to raise the public’s awareness of the multitude of problems facing America’s wild horses. She has produced three films for PBS’s “Nature” series, focusing on the Pryor Mountain herd and in particular the life of Cloud, a wild pale palomino stallion.

Stallings said Cloud has been rounded up several times up by BLM but always freed.

“They could never take Cloud off the range,” she said. “They know the public just wouldn’t stand for it.”

The nonprofit Cloud Foundation started by Kathrens is dedicated to preventing the extinction of Cloud’s herd through education, media events and public involvement. It is also dedicated to protecting other wild horse herds on public lands, especially isolated herds with unique characteristics and historical significance.

For years, BLM has defended its management program and maintained that the roundups are necessary. But some former BLM officials are now decrying what the agency is doing.

What should happen to the 50,000 wild horses being kept in pens by the feds? Kathrens said the obvious solution is to “take some of the 24 million acres of public land where the herds have been ‘zeroed out’ and put them back on the range.”

Her fear, though, is that the agency will surreptitiously get rid of the animals by selling them to be slaughtered when the public isn’t paying attention.

Stallings shares her concern.

“The fact is that BLM is winning and we’re losing,” she said. “Things have always been bad, but it’s much worse today, and it’s going to take a national outcry (for things to improve). I just hope it doesn’t end in a horrendous, final tragedy.”

Thanks to Stallings, Kathrens and other animal advocates’ abilities to stir up the public, wild horses have not disappeared from the range yet.

But they’ve been right about these issues for decades and are still largely ignored by the federal government. It’s time someone in charge seriously listens to them, and I hope Jewell is the one who does.

Veteran Wyoming journalist Kerry Drake is the editor-in-chief of The Casper Citizen, a nonprofit, online community newspaper.

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29 replies »

  1. Interesting article with one thing I have to wonder at; What Investigation of Tom Davis is the writer referring to? There was a little local one that was basically to satisfy those in Colorado who have been outraged by Davis’s connection to BLM and hauling our wild horses to undisclosed places by the hundreds… and there was one alluded to by BLM but they are not good at policing themselves and are not supposed to.

    If Tom Davis is to be investigated then must be on a federal level as he and BLM broke a federal law. Hauling wild horses to slaughter. Federal Marshals and FBI are the ones to look at him. FBI will not disclose investigations. Federal Marshals have more or less been aimed at us rather than aimed at law breakers.

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    • Well said, Mar. I think this author did a fine job hitting most of the key points. I was delightfully surprised to see a news article finally get the facts straight, but the fact that the BLM acts consistently above the law was barely mentioned, and rarely is. Unless we advocates can power up one collective and massive front and convince all of Congress to do the same, the BLM will continue to steamroll over the public with nary a care. Me talking to my Congressmembers and you talking to yours just isn’t cutting it. We need a steamroller of our own.

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      • Raul Grijalva is going to visit Palomino Valley Center outside Reno this next week!! He has been trying to communicate with BLM about the wild horses just as we have and along with us for years so now he hi going there. I am so proud of this man.

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  2. I so agree Robynne…and Mar your comment is excellent.

    The BLM is the “Gestapo” of our public lands and Wild Horses.

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  3. Loved seeing this article, about time… I have said it before but will say it again, our public lands all nature, all vegetation, and of course ALL the HORSES will be gone in the future, our lands will be barren if this Government keep going down this very deep dark slope, I can picture it just like the movies, nothing but mining, fracking, oil, on sick barren wasteland… THAT is what our children’s future and theirs
    will be, Oh boy someone needs to wake up and smell the roses, if you will>>>> SICK and very SAD….

    Like

  4. AUGUST 7

    http://www.indianz.com/News/2013/010744.asp
    Cabinet secretaries to visit Wind River Reservation in Wyoming WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 2013

    Two Cabinet secretaries will visit the Wind River Reservation tomorrow during their trip to Wyoming.

    Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are speaking at the 4th annual Wyoming Native American Education Conference at Central Wyoming College in Riverton at 1pm. Riverton is a border town to the reservation.

    Media Advisory: Secretary Jewell, Education Secretary Duncan to Visit Wyoming, Spotlight Education, Tribal Issues (DOI 8/7)

    AUGUST 8

    http://www.indianz.com/News/2013/010744.asp

    NPR: EPA set to allow fracking waste on Wind River Reservation
    THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2013

    The Environmental Protection Agency is closing the comment period on permits that would allow companies to dump fracking waste on the Wind River Reservation, Eastern Shoshone Tribe and the Northern Arapaho Tribe:
    The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to let oil companies continue to dump polluted wastewater on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. This includes chemicals that companies add to the wells during hydraulic fracturing, an engineering practice that makes wells produce more oil.

    An discovered that the EPA was allowing oil companies to send so much of this contaminated water onto dry land that it was creating raging streams. At the time, there was a controversy within the agency over whether to keep allowing this practice, according to documents NPR obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

    On Friday, the EPA will close the public comment period on for several oil fields on the reservations. The proposed permits include some additional restrictions, but would allow companies to continue releasing the water.

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    • There is a place south of this reservation called The Wedding Of the Waters, Thermopolis, Wyoming, and it is a most wonderful hot springs and place for our veterans to go for treatments. I am saddened to hear of this. Fracking is a destructive and toxic method which is more than just expensive to do but add to that expense the water and land and flora and fauna it destroys and the price is far too high. If Germany is shutting down some of its fossil fuel electrical plants because solar, in one of the cloudier countries of Europe, has been so successful, then they have done something very right. Why are we not doing the same!? We have a beautiful nation to preserve and protect. We need to make changes that favor life and natural abundance. We are lost because of greed and stupidity and deceit.

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  5. Click to access nboa_minutes111206.pdf

    Nevada Board of Agriculture

    Boyd Spratling:
    Financial strategy on getting slaughter house
    going because that is when the river is going to meet the road
    is when they slaughter the first horse. Think looking at
    putting facilities on Indian reservations which takes
    legislature and everybody out of the equation.

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    • What a splendid example of a human being is Boyd Spratling…

      Every time I hear his meanderings as it regards free-roaming wild equines, I wanna punch something.

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      • Well, Spratling is also a dumbs**t.

        Obviously this moronic, equine hating, land sucking troll doesn’t understand Federal food laws and/or interstate transportation regs OR Native Peoples realities. Blow hard IDIOT!

        The majority of folks think the Native Peoples can do whatever they want on “their” lands and “their” people…..that is just not true. Ask them.

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  6. Thank you for your article. The round up and sale of our wild horses is a national disgrace and will cast a very dark shadow on the future of our country. I wrote Steve Daines ( Montana representative ) regarding this and he simply told me that because other cultures eat horses it does not make it wrong. He completely missed the entire point. We live in the USA and we do not need to support the feeding other cultures with our wild horses. Thank you again for your well written article.

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    • Tell Rep Daines that a product from the US that is not raised, medicated, regulated and slaughtered as a food source domestically or internationally doesn’t make our equines food for cultures that eat equine flesh. Also, it jeopardizes our food production reputation just as much as mad cow, poultry dipped in bleach and swine propagating certain contaminants.

      Tell Mr Daines he obviously doesn’t understand food production and US agricultural economies when he (Congress and USDA and the President) allows contaminated, adulterated food products (regardless of slaughter location) to flow from this country….NO MATTER WHO EATS THE FINAL PRODUCT.

      Seriously. Tell him that. And tell him to stop eating the cow manure from Farm Bureau and NCBA. Tell him to go to US Meat Export Federation (USMEF) and check out where the US equine fits in their government supported international marketing campaigns.

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  7. Re: rtfitchauthor.com/2013/08/31/signs-of-hope-for-the-wests-wild-horses: Excellent article that exposes the gross hypocrisy of our public officials when they say they are obeying the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act. I would like to point out that in terms of absolute acreages, Wyoming zeroed out more acres already than any other state, nearly 6 million acres! Next to Wyoming is Nevada, which has zeroed out just slightly less than Wyoming. Then comes California in third place, that has zeroed out ca. 4 and a half million acres. If Wyoming goes ahead with zeroing out 40% of the acreages that still have wild horses, this will be utterly damnable! I travelled through Wyoming on Memorial Day Weekend this year and say how the Interstate museum on Wyoming and the I-80 route had an exhibit from the state tauting its wild horses as a great tourist attraction. Another big show that disguises the hypocrisy of the political regime here. I also went into Adobe Town, and saw some of the few colorful wild horse bands, amid many energy extraction platforms. I was followed by one of the trucks of these companies, as though I were the misfit rather than they. How twisted can you get. Please consider reading my book The Wild Horse Conspiracy (available on amazon or through me) as I go into considerable depth on this and related issues, and enlightenment is the best and only lasting way to bring justice back to life here.

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  8. I know that this has nothing to do with the horses-but I fear fracking is our next rocky flats in 1992 rocky flats closed its doors-if you do not remember rocky flats it produced nuclear weapons grade plutonium-at the time we were told it would never ever be inhabitable-the link I added is for a question in 2012 about a home in Superior,CO. Superior is a few miles away from rocky flats-this year they broke ground on a housing development smack dab along the fences at rocky flats-now I know that the people buying their have no idea what they are in for and neither does our government-nor does the government care-in years to come when people forget about fracking and dumping they will put people in these areas too. Contaminated and uninhabitable just words to get around as far as this government is concerned-I can see government cares little for our land or it’s people or even the animals-http://leroymoore.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/should-we-live-near-rocky-flats-a-question-from-out-of-the-blue/

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    • Geri:

      Fracking (and other extractive operations for profit) has everything to do with our wild equines and slaughter of both wild and domestic equines, bison, wolves, coyotes……..and the list goes on.

      Like

  9. Thanks for the great article, RT. It really is about educating the public with the hope to right the wrong, for the future of our wild horses, before it’s too late. Ginger Kathren’s PBS Series has been one of many ideas, along with Craig Downer’s book, “The Wild Horse Conspiracy”, to enlighten the public with facts, versus fiction. The work and dedication, by so many has also been extremely important for such a noble cause.

    Like

  10. RUBY PIPELINE

    The Mustang Conspiracy: British Petroleum and The Ruby Pipeline
    PART 2
    http://www.abovetopsecret.com/mustangconspiracy/part2.html

    In Part two of our hard hitting ATSNews Special Report: “SEX, DRUGS, MUSTANGS, CORRUPTION and BP TOO”, ATSnews’ Mark Allin (AKA: Springer) and 17 time Emmy Award Winner, KLAS 8 News Now (Las Vegas, NV) Investigative Reporter, George Knapp discuss the unbelievable corruption, sex and drug parties and payola schemes that transpired between the MMS and several Big Oil Companies. The Inspector General of the U.S. investigated the “Culture of Substance Abuse and Corruption” that ran rampant through the Denver Office of the MMS and several big oil companies from 2002 through 2006. The U.S. Taxpayer was bilked out of hundreds of millions of dollars, the environment was utterly neglected, the affected areas populations were at great risk (and still are), all for the betterment of a handful of Big Oil Companies’ bottom lines.

    You may be surprised to learn that revenues generated by Royalties paid to the U.S. Government, in return for exploiting the oil reserves under public lands, is the second only to TAXES in total gross income for the U.S. Government. That’s a double edged statement. On the one hand, it becomes obvious why government is so happy to allow things like “self regulation” to companies like BP, in spite of their abysmal record. On the other hand, it begs the questions “Why do these appointed (NOT elected) officials sell these royalties for only pennies on the dollar compared to their fair market value? Why do they totally disregard the laws of the land and allow these companies to do whatever they want to increase profits and control costs by avoiding, or totally ignoring, health, environment and safety regulations?”

    Why?

    Because our public servants are, literally, IN BED with these companies.
    Finally, part two also discusses the alleged, “real reason” for the very recent Mustang round ups off the horse’s legal land. The 675 mile long Ruby Natural Gas Pipeline that runs right through the Calico Herd’s protected lands. After hearing about this pipeline, ATSNews’ Mark Allin started doing some good old fashioned investigative reporting of his own to see just who was behind this pipeline, who would benefit from it most. What he discovered is disturbing but not surprising. The same Corporate Raiders who have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars, created environmental disasters all over the U.S. (and many other parts of the world) because they just turn their nose up at safety regulations, best practices, and common sense are ALL involved with the Ruby Pipeline.

    The same bunch of villains who have plundered our public lands for decades, destroyed lives through their negligence and horrid lack of concern for anything but huge profits are now destroying yet another piece of Americana, the Wild Mustangs of the Great Southwest. Watch part two and find out who these corporate thugs are and hear Mark’s plea to the ATS Community to help us expose the rest of this story!

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  11. RUBY PIPELINE

    BLM Seeks Comments on Draft Supplemental EIS for the Ruby Pipeline Project

    Reno, Nev.— The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is seeking public comments on the Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (Draft SEIS) for the Ruby Pipeline Project. The Draft SEIS has a limited scope that includes updated information on the historical extent of sagebrush steppe habitat, and present and reasonably foreseeable future actions that could impact sagebrush steppe habitat. The Draft SEIS also contains an updated cumulative effects analysis based on this information, including indirect impacts on sagebrush steppe obligate species. The BLM’s decision whether to reissue the ROW Grant and require additional mitigation will be based on this analysis.

    The Draft SEIS is in response to a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Decision that found the Ruby Pipeline Final Environmental Impact Statement did not provide sufficient quantified or detailed data about the cumulative loss of sagebrush steppe vegetation and habitat. The pipeline has been constructed and is currently operational. It includes an approximately 678-mile long, 42-inch diameter interstate natural gas pipeline that crosses 368 miles of federal land beginning near Opal, Wyoming, extends through northern Utah and northern Nevada, and terminates near Malin, Oregon.

    The comment period begins July 5 and ends August 19. Written comments received during this 45-day period will be considered during the development of a final SEIS. The Draft SEIS may be viewed at: http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/info/nepa/ruby_pipeline_project.html.
    Copies of the Draft SEIS are also available for review at the following locations:
    • BLM Kemmerer Field Office, 312 Hwy 189 N, Kemmerer, WY, 83101;
    • BLM Salt Lake Field Office, 2370 South 2300 West, Salt Lake City, UT, 84119;
    • BLM Elko District Office, 3900 E. Idaho Street, Elko, NV, 89801;
    • BLM Winnemucca District Office, 5100 E. Winnemucca Blvd, Winnemucca, NV, 89445;
    • BLM Lakeview District Office, 1301 S. G St., Lakeview, OR, 97630;
    • BLM Klamath Falls Resource Area Office, 2795 Anderson Ave., Ste. 25, Klamath Falls, OR, 97603;
    • BLM Surprise Field Office, 602 Cressler St., Cedarville, CA, 96104

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  12. RUBY PIPELINE

    http://www.greendogcampaigns.com/mustangnews.html
    San Francisco, CA (January 8, 2010)

    “Advocacy PR and Political Strategists Anne Novak, of CreativePR.net (San Francisco) and Lise Stampfli of GreenDog Campaigns (San Rafael) have broken the story of the smoking gun—The Ruby Pipeline—allegedly behind the massive wild horse roundups, on behalf of their pro bono client, The Cloud Foundation.”

    “Previously, Novak’s research led her to Cindy MacDonald’s post on her blog American Herds in November 2009. The post contained information from Ruby Pipeline and BLM documents that revealed Ruby’s desire for fewer horses on the range and a willingness of BLM managers’ willingness to facilitate Ruby’s plans with a wild herd removal. When Novak and Stampfli conferred on these findings they realized that under normal circumstances Ruby would be responsible for mitigating any adverse effects on horse population by development of the pipeline, Because horses wander freely between herd management areas, Novak and Stampfli agreed this could be an expensive proposition for Ruby. Early removal of the horses would save Ruby time and money.”

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  13. As always Louie C – your information is right on. I guess according to NPR – the Indians are still being treated as unimportant by the government – like they were for hundreds of years. And Spratling (somehow cant dignify him as Dr or Mr) certainly sounds like a self-important ass (and I don’t mean the equine kind) He cant be allowed to continue to do this to OUR horses & burros. Somehow – we all have to make enough noise to change this.

    Like

    • The U.S. government is now wreaking havoc on one of our most honored relatives, the horse. The genocide that nearly wiped out America’s indigenous people now seems to have come full circle. It’s a modern day “Trail of Tears” for America’s horses and burros which are being zeroed out from their native lands in effort to eradicate them.

      The capture, removal, imprisonment and execution of these horses represents a forced assimalation and the destruction of our spiritual and cultural way of life.

      Paleontological evidence shows that wild horses and burros are not “feral” (as we have been told by the BLM, the USDA, the BIA and others). Horses evolved on the North American continent over 50,000,000 years ago and they are as much a part of the land as we are.
      Wild horses and burros are not an “invasive and destructive species” (as we have been told by the BLM, the USDA, the BIA and others), Wild horses and burros when allowed to roam as nature intended, act as gardeners to the rangelands. Their droppings help to replenish the soils, their digestive system produces a perfect fertilizer and they pass along seeds that build up plant life. They compliment the rangelands and wildlife in many ways.

      The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forestry and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have been pressuring tribal people to support the unnecessary and cruel eradication of our horses from their native lands. America’s wild equines in truth are disappearing from the landscape at alarming rates and should be protected rather than exploited for the sale of their meat, or to make room for foreign lands sales and leasing or for livestock grazing.

      We say no to the removal of horses from our lands;
      We say no to the devastation caused to our lands by the slaughtering of horses;
      We say no to the introduction of toxic and lethal substances to the human food chain;
      We say no to horse slaughter and the appointment of horse meat inspections on our lands;
      We say no to the torturous suffering caused to equines by their removal and slaughter.

      I am of Native descent and represent indigenous people, and I speak out in support for a ban on horse slaughter in the U.S., against horse round ups and for protecting wild horses and burros on native and public lands. I urge policymakers to swiftly act toward passing a federal ban on horse slaughter in the U.S. as well as shipping horses to other countries to be slaughtered for human consumption.

      American Indians oppose horse slaughter and their removal from the wild
      http://www.change.org
      The U.S. government is now wreaking havoc on one of our most honored relatives, the horse. The genocide that

      Like

  14. http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/2013/07/09/don’t-drink-the-fracking-fluids!/

    DON’T DRINK THE FRACKING FLUIDS!
    Toxic Well Flowback Pumped for Consumption by Wildlife and Livestock
    Posted on Jul 09, 2013

    Washington, DC — Millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals from oil and gas drilling rigs are pumped for consumption by wildlife and livestock with formal approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to public comments filed today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Contrary to its own regulations, EPA is issuing permits for surface application of drilling wastewater without even identifying the chemicals in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) fluids, let alone setting effluent limits for the contaminants contained within them.

    EPA has just posted proposed new water discharge permits for the nearly dozen oil fields on or abutting the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming (EPA has Clean Water Act jurisdiction on tribal lands). Besides not even listing the array of toxic chemicals being discharged, the proposed permits have monitoring requirements so weak that water can be tested long after fracking events or maintenance flushing. In addition, the permits lack any provisions to protect the health of wildlife or livestock.

    “Under the less than watchful eye of EPA, fracking flowback is dumped into rivers, lakes and reservoirs,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing out that in both the current and the new proposed permits EPA ignores its own rules requiring that it list “the type and quantity of wastes, fluids, or pollutants which are proposed to be or are being treated, stored, disposed of, injected, emitted, or discharged.” “Gushers of putrid, grayish water encrusted with chemical crystals flood through Wind River into nearby streams.”
    Surface disposal of water produced by oil and gas drilling is forbidden in the Eastern U.S. but allowed in the arid West for purposes of “agricultural or wildlife propagation,” in the words of the governing federal regulation. Thus, the “produced water,” as it is called, must be “of good enough quality to be used for wildlife or livestock watering or other agricultural uses.”

    In the last decade, fracking fluids often consisting of powerfully toxic chemicals have been included in this surface discharge. The exact mixture used by individual operators is treated as a trade secret. But one recent analysis identified 632 chemicals now used in shale-gas production. More than 75% of them affect the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems; 40-50% impact the kidneys and the nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems; 37% act on the hormone system; and 25% are linked with cancer or mutations.
    “Amid all the controversy on this topic, there is one point of agreement: drinking fracking fluids is not a good idea,” added Ruch, pointing to cases where cattle drinking creek water contaminated with fracking fluids died or failed to produce calves the following year. “The more than 30-year old ‘produced water’ exception was intended for naturally occurring fluids and muds from within the geologic formations, not this new generation of powerful chemicals introduced downhole.”

    PEER is asking the EPA to rewrite the permits to regulate all the chemicals being discharged and to determine whether the produced water is potable for wildlife and livestock. The public comments period on the proposed Wind Reservation permits closes on July 26, 2013.

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  15. This is the first few sentences of an 11 page report:

    Click to access 7_10_13_Wind_River_Permit_Comments.pdf

    RE: Comments on Wind River Reservation Pollution Discharge Permits

    On behalf of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), I am submitting these comments on the following proposed permits and their statements of basis:

    • Eagle Oil and Gas Company – Sheldon Dome Facility; NPDES Permit No. WY-0020338;
    • Phoenix Production Company – Sheldon Dome Field; NPDES Permit No. WY-002495;
    • Phoenix Production Company – Rolff Lake Unit; NPDES Permit No. WY-0024945;
    • WESCO Operating, Inc. – Sheldon Dome Field; NPDES Permit. No. WY-0025607; and
    • WESCO Operating, Inc. – Tensleep #1 (also known as Winkleman Dome); NPDES Permit No. WY-0025232

    In summary, these proposed permits are drafted in a manner that is not compliant with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements; they are incomplete and do not address an array of effluents which will be discharged. In addition, the permits put wildlife and livestock which drink the produced water at risk. Finally, the monitoring requirements proposed in these permits are impermissibly lax.
    For reasons detailed below, PEER urges that the proposed permits should be rejected.

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  16. http://www.daily-times.com/four_corners-news/ci_24041878/shiprock-chapter-looks-alternative-horse-roundups
    Shiprock Chapter looks for alternative to horse roundups
    Meeting on Monday will discuss other ways to address the problem
    By Noel Lyn Smith The Daily Times
    Updated: 09/07/2013 07:21:20 PM MDT

    After reading reports about how roundups are being conducted by the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture, Shiprock will withdraw from the roundups scheduled this month for the Northern Agency, said Duane “Chili” Yazzie, the chapter’s president.

    Like

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