NEIGHBORS WOULD JUST AS SOON NOT HAVE CONTAMINATED WASTE WATER DUMPED DOWN THE BLOCK

It seems that in Fort Worth, Texas a couple of neighborhood activists concerned about dangerous driving conditions on a local street stumbled upon a much bigger problem...and they're trying to do something about it.

It seems that one of those big old corporations that come a'knockin want to dump millions of gallons of water used by the fracturing or “fracing” process required to free up natural gas down an injection well they want to build in the neighborhood. Although the company, of course, downplays the dangers, the locals have reached a far different conclusion about what's good for them and their neighbors.

The question is will the powers that be listen?

It seems that a couple of months back with little fanfare Chesapeake Energy got a permit from the state Railroad Commission to operate an injection well near East First Street and Oakland Boulevard in Fort Worth.

Little fanfare...the Pegasus News Blog reports, "Injection wells are the issue flying under the radar at City Hall right now. There is a lot of backroom movement of this, but the public is generally shut out of the process. We depend on the newspaper to shine the light into the dark corners of public policy and help us find our way."

But the paper may be in bed with Chesapeake. Another blog The Caravan of Dreams says it isn't just "may be in bed." They report,

"the Startlegram signed a gas lease with Chesapeake Energy. 'Publisher Wes Turner said the newspaper signed a lease on nearly 40 acres just south of Interstate 20 at Hemphill Street, site of its printing and distribution center. Turner declined to disclose the terms but said the company got 'an outstanding deal.' The company owns a number of other sites around Tarrant County, including its offices downtown and in Arlington. None are leased, but 'we will lease the mineral rights under all' those locations as the opportunity arises, Turner said.' How much is that worth? Who knows, but if you assume a signing bonus of $10,000/acre -- not an unrealistic amount -- that's $400,000."

Conflict of interest? You tell me.

Personally, I wouldn't be depending on the Star-Telegram, "... to shine the light into the dark corners of public policy and help us find our way."

Chesapeake says the injection well is good for everyone including the environment. In fact, in the Green Living section the Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently there appeared a full-page ad from Chesapeake Energy. “Go Green by Turning Blue. We All Win,” the ad reads. “Chesapeake understands the need to make the drilling process equally friendly. That’s why we all go above and beyond to treat essential green space and groundwater resources with the utmost of care. The environment wins. Texas wins. Our children win. Together, we all win.”

Do we really all win? Let's take another look see.

Again what's the deal with injection wells.

Oil and gas companies truck production waste from their drilling operation to injection wells for disposal. Using high pressure, operators push the waste deep underground into certain rock formations, such as sandstone. Cement casings line the path on the way down so that the waste material in theory doesn't leak into "production zones," places where other wells are trying to pull up oil, gas - or maybe drinking water.

About those non leaking casings. Well, it seems that the cement casing can melt on contact with many of the highly poisonous chemicals that drilling companies inject through them and what doesn't melt could easily get cracked and broken in unstable formations. This has been the case with other injection wells in the state.

Environmentalists also point to the damage caused by the accidents. Waste water has been spilled on the ground in Parker County Texas and has bubbled out of the ground in Wise County. Last summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chastised the Texas Railroad Commission for its handling of a leaky saltwater well in Panola County, near the Louisiana border.

There have been explosions involving the tanker trucks unloading the waste water, too.

But they are safe, the company keeps saying.

Uh huh.

Two injection wells began operating in Panola County, near the Louisiana border area in the late 1980s. In 1996, residents complained to the state that their water tasted bad and left stains.

Six years later, in 2002, the Railroad Commission confirmed that the water was contaminated. It seems that their water contained barium, toluene, benzene and other dangerous chemicals. Yum, Yum.

Gas company executives say a multitude of other ideas of what to do with the waste are impractical and too expensive.

Keep an eye on this one to see who wins.

The following is from the Fort Worth Weekly.

Hot Water
Eastside activists join a growing line of folks worried about gas-drilling waste products.
By PETER GORMAN

The two neighborhood activists were worried that high-speed truck traffic and spilled sand from a gas well were creating dangerous conditions along East First Street, between the Trinity River bottoms and Oakland Boulevard. “There were at least three accidents between July and September of this year, where cars just fishtailed off the road,” Mike Phipps, treasurer of the West Meadowbrook Neighborhood Association, said.

But when his partner, Ed Sakerka, went down to take pictures of the crashes and road conditions, to show the city that something needed to be done, he found an even bigger problem looming for that Eastside area.

“Ed was down there one day talking to someone who worked for Chesapeake, and the guy said ‘If you don’t like the amount of traffic here now, wait ’til all the trucks start coming through when they get the injection well finished.’” Phipps recounted.

It was the first either man had heard of an injection well planned for the Chesapeake drilling site at the old Arc Park softball field north of I-30. And what they found out has made them even more concerned about the price their part of Fort Worth may be paying for what once seemed like “free” Barnett Shale income.

Injection wells are the drilling industry’s preferred solution to the major problem of what to do with the millions of gallons of water used by the fracturing or “frac-ing” process required to free up natural gas from the Barnett Shale formation underlying much of North Texas. After the water — infused with sand and chemicals — is forced at high pressure into the shale and the gas is extracted, the leftover water is extremely salty, contaminated with carcinogens and radioactivity from naturally occurring materials, and even flammable because of traces of hydrocarbons. Drillers say recycling is too expensive, and they generally get rid of it by putting it back into the ground. But the injection sites are rarely on the same property as production wells, so companies wind up hauling the water away in heavy trucks that add even more to the street damage and dangers caused by traffic around well sites.

Fort Worth is suspicious of injection wells — so suspicious that they were banned until the city council decided in June 2006 to allow some to be drilled. Two permits were requested almost immediately, one for a shallow injection well on the North Side, which was denied, and one from Dale Energy for its site on East First Street.

The Dale request was for a deep injection well that would release wastewater into the Ellenberger Sand Formation that begins about 9,000 feet below the surface. That permit was granted and was transferred to Chesapeake Energy when that company bought up many of Dale Energy’s assets. But the council, alarmed at the shallow-well request, put a moratorium until April 2008 on any further permits, to allow safety issues to be studied.

Jim Popp, an investigator who worked with the oil and gas industry for more than 40 years, said local governments are right to be leery of injection wells — that in fact, they should be even more strictly regulated. He told Fort Worth Weekly that the wells and the liquid disposed in them are considerably more dangerous than the public has been told.

“You’ve got to understand that the terms ‘wastewater’ and ‘salt water’ are just wrong for what’s really being injected into those wells,” he said. “What you’ve got is a toxic waste dump. Plain and simple, that’s what they are.” Major spills are commonplace, he said, and can poison the air and groundwater. Tanker trucks unloading the contaminated water have blown up, and so have storage tanks at injection well sites, he said.

Even though the East First Street injection well isn’t operating yet, it’s already causing major friction between the city and gas company. Chesapeake wants to truck wastewater there from its leases all over the East Side. City officials say that goes against the logic of the ordinance.

“The city’s understanding is that the only waste that can be injected into that well is waste that comes from the wells on that immediate property,” Brian Boerner, director of the city’s Environmental Management Department, said. “We wrote the ordinance to get [wastewater] trucks off the street, not to take waste from other areas and have it trucked in to the well. But Chesapeake’s point of view is that it can take waste from any of their leases and inject it there. Which could mean more truck traffic, not less, and that’s the opposite of what we set out to accomplish.”

A Chesapeake spokesperson told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the difference of opinion is merely a “gentlemen’s disagreement.” But privately, the company is telling people that this issue is so important that they may consider suing if the city doesn’t change its stance. Their stake in the debate is obvious: With 190 wells operating in Tarrant County alone and more being drilled daily, a disposal mechanism is critical.

A Chesapeake spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the company is considering legal action against the city.

David Lunsford, who supervises gas well inspections for the city, said the issue probably will have to be resolved by the city council, but he doesn’t expect it to happen soon. “It could take several months,” he said.

What the council finally decides will have a long-term impact. Gas developers told the council in late summer that they will need at least 15 injection disposal wells within the city limits in the next couple of years to handle all the wastewater that will be generated. For now, the waste is being trucked to commercial disposal wells in Somervell, Wise, and Parker counties. Unlike the East First Street well, which the gas company and the city agree can take waste only from Chesapeake drilling sites, commercial wells take waste from any gas or oil drilling operation that will pay the fee of about a dollar per barrel.

“Some of the wells in Erath are permitted to take 25,000 barrels of waste a day,” Popp said. “That’s great for the operator, but what about the people who live nearby? That’s more than 250 water tanker trucks a day coming and going. In Wise, where I live, the figure is 5,000 barrels a day, but that’s still 50 trucks hauling toxic waste through the neighborhood every day.

Chesapeake’s disposal well, by comparison, is allowed to take 25,000 barrels a day — about equal to the waste from 125 wells, many times more capacity than would be needed by the wells on the East First Street property alone.

And while drillers and commercial disposal companies claim that disposal wells are dug so deep and constructed so well that there is virtually no chance of aquifers being contaminated, Popp says that’s hogwash. “When the tanker delivers the waste, it isn’t injected directly into the well,” he said. “It’s transferred from the trucks to a tank and then later injected into the well. And there is a tremendous amount of spillage. Where they want to put a well near my place it’s a little above me, and that spillage is going to roll down like rainwater and pollute my stock tanks and poison the air around here.”

He noted that even if a well is properly constructed and the operator is legitimate, hazards abound. Disposal injection wells have backed up and contaminated drinking water supplies in many places in Texas, he said.

In a deadly incident just outside of San Antonio in 2003, two tanker trucks unloading wastewater at an injection site exploded when the running engine of one of them sparked a fire in the gas still mixed with the waste. Three people were killed. Afterward, the Federal Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board classified gas-well wastewater as a flammable material. In several other instances, storage tanks at injection well facilities have exploded when struck by lightning.

Part of the problem is that disposal sites, like most other aspects of the oil and gas industry in Texas, are largely self-policing, according to Ramona Nye, a spokesperson for the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas wells.

Boerner, the environmental director, said Fort Worth has addressed the problem of explosions by requiring that all wastewater storage tanks be made from non-sparking material — “fiberglass or materials like it.”

However, one of Popp’s associates, who asked that his name not be used because of gas companies’ threats to sue him, scoffed at the notion that fiberglass or even steel tanks with lightning arresters would provide much protection.

“We had that storage tank over in Cresson in Johnson County get hit by lightning last March 29, and neighbors said it burned for six hours. And that was fiberglass,” he said. “So somebody pulled the wool over Fort Worth’s eyes if they think they’re protecting the populace with that move. And lightning rods? Well, lightning jumps. And if it jumps to a steel tank, that tank is going to go. That’s just reality.”

Popp and others sympathize with the problems facing Fort Worth and its citizens, but they’re tired of seeing gas-well waste being trucked to their counties from all over North Texas.

Popp insists that there are better solutions than disposal wells. “The gas and oil companies can desalinate the water and reuse it. They can separate out the toxic waste and dispose of it responsibly. It will cost them money, but that’s too bad,” he said. “They shouldn’t be allowed to stuff their pockets at the expense of our environment.”

Chesapeake envisions a series of underground pipelines that would transfer wastewater directly from their gas wells to their disposal sites. But Texas laws that give oil and gas companies the right to use eminent domain for transmission pipelines have no similar rights for water pipes, much less pipes carrying flammable or otherwise hazardous liquid.

“Chesapeake is working to acquire the right of way for transmission pipelines, and in the leases they’re also asking homeowners and others for the right to lay water lines at the same time,” Boerner said. “But they’ve got some big holes in their plans, so they’re still going to have to use a lot of trucks to get that water where they want it.”

“However you look at it, the issue is quality of life,” Phipps said. “And unless we can get those companies and those truck drivers to realize that this is a neighborhood and not a job site, we’re going to remain at odds.”

DINO-RIOT IN CHINA

Here is a protest story like none I've run into before.

Armed with only tractors and farm tools, Chinese peasants recently attacked police who had come to seize dinosaur bones the farmers had found.

To be honest, I'm no so sure how recent this took place, but does it really matter?

After the big dinosaur bones were discovered in March 2006 by the peasants, the government told the farmers to hand over any rare and valuable fossils they had already hidden away.

Irate residents responded by forming a "dinosaur fossil protection team" that took money donations and organized a patrol against officials who tried to enter the village in this poor, often restless farm region.

"If government staff were discovered approaching the village, they would let off two blasts as a signal to swiftly call all the residents to the village entrance," the report said.

National Geographic reports the rebellion also set in motion the first court test of a 2006 Chinese law banning "unauthorized" excavation, possession, sale, and export of dinosaur fossils. Seven defendants—peasants from Shaping village in central Henan Province—are accused of forcibly resisting government orders to hand over a cache of hundred-million-year-old dinosaur bones they discovered.

Offenders like these dino-criminals are subject to lengthy prison terms or, in serious cases, the death penalty.

The death penalty for digging up bones. Whoa, hold on their comrades. Seems a bit much to me.

Many paleontologists worldwide probably are sympathetic to the Chinese government. They argue fossil sites that have survived for hundreds of millions of years are threatened by weathering,the enthusiasm of tourists, and smugglers like those the Chinese peasants feed into.

Richard Lane, a program officer at the National Science Foundation near Washington DC says that important dinosaur egg sites are being wiped out by Chinese peasants who hoe out eggs and sell them, encouraged by traders who smuggle the fossils out to collectors in the West.

But the death penalty for trying to make a living?

And, of course, there is more to the real story then dinosaur eggs. The Shaping villagers who staged the high-risk protests to protect their horde of dinosaur fossils are likely part of a trend toward increased resistance to state laws perceived as unjust. Like here in the USA the common people have little chance when up against their government...unless...perhcance they band together.

The following was taken from Environmental Graffiti.

Chinese Villagers Battle Police Over Hoard of Fossils

Chinese peasants fought a pitched battle against police, using their tractors and farm equipment as weapons, over a cache of dinosaur fossils the villagers were intending to sell on the black market.

China is the site of several of the world’s most productive fossil sites, and the fossils are often seen as a key to riches for the poor villagers who find them. Seven residents of Shaping village in China’s Henan Province were arrested after the police attack and immediately charged with obstructing justice. The group may also be the first to be tried under a 2006 Chinese law on illegal excavation and sale of fossils. The seven are accused of organizing a “Dinosaur Protection Squad” to prevent government seizure of the fossils.

Shaping is a hotbed of fossil discovery. Many of the residents have actually donated found fossils to scientists, but there is a significant portion hell-bent on escaping poverty through the ancient bones. China offered no compensation to the Shaping residents for the dinosaur bones they were holding, a fact which angered many of the villagers. The black market in dinosaur fossils is both thriving and profitable. Last year a rare fossilized dino egg nest, reportedly found in China and smuggled out of the country, sold at auction in L.A. for over $420,000.

This is not even the first time Shaping villagers have garnered international attention for a fossil based business. Last year, scientists determined that a “dragon bone” health tonic the villagers were making was in fact composed of ground up fossils. A kilo of the “dragon bones” went for a whopping 50 cents per kilo, or less than 25 cents a pound. The traditional medicine has been common for centuries in China, and is used in treating such illnesses as bone fractures, dizziness, and cramps. So far, the scientific evidence is still missing on the effectiveness of dinosaur based homeopathic bone fracture/cramp/dizziness cures.

Famous Chinese palaeontologist Xu Xing, who discovered the winged microraptor gui dinosaur, had much to say on the subject. Xu, who works out of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, said that many of the farmers in the area of his discovery have done some amateur excavations of their own. He said: “If all of the peasants who have engaged in unapproved dinosaur excavations were caught, tried and jailed, China would not have enough prisons to hold them all.” Xu believes the best course of action would be for the government to offer rewards for people who turn in fossils, rather than merely punishing those who don’t.

The Chinese government recovered the majority of the fossils in question.

SCHOOL BOARD BACKS DOWN

This is just to update the story just from yesterday (just one down) about the teachers in Washington State whose jobs had been threatened by their participation in an anti-war protest.

The following is from the Seattle Times.

Protesting teacher back at Tukwila school
By Emily Heffter

Anti-war protesters say school officials backed away, because of public pressure, from plans to discipline the teacher and five other teachers who were involved with the walkout. Outraged students and community members packed the Tukwila School Board meeting room Tuesday night to support the teachers, whom the district had threatened with termination if they discussed the walkout.

But district leaders say the teachers were never really in trouble. They said they put the social-studies teacher, Brett Rogers, on leave just to investigate. He resumed work Wednesday because a portion of the investigation was completed, said School Board member Patti Maltsberger.

Of the teachers involved, Rogers is the only one who left school. He couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.

"We don't consider it discipline at all," said district spokeswoman Jan Lande.

Students all over the country participated in a nationwide student protest Nov. 16 by walking out of classes. Among them were about 125 students at Foster High School, who walked out at 9:15 a.m., rallied around the flagpole, marched to the Interstate 5 overpass and past the Tukwila City Hall, then returned to school in time for lunch.

Maltsberger said the debate over the six teachers — dubbed the "Tukwila Six" by supporters — is fueled by misinformation. War protesters are accusing the district of curbing free speech, she said, but it's really about student safety.

"They have the right to their free speech," she said of the teachers. "What's not right is when they leave a classroom without permission, unattended."

A Nov. 20 memo sent to the teachers said the district was investigating "reports of possible misconduct relating to you in connection with the student walkout and demonstration." It said the matter "could have disciplinary consequences" and warned them that talking about the issue with anyone but their union representatives "could lead to independent disciplinary action, including termination of your employment."

Washington Education Association spokesman Rich Wood confirmed that the Tukwila teachers union is representing the six teachers.

Nathan Bowling, a Tacoma teacher who helped organize Tuesday night's demonstration, said the students — not Rogers — came up with the idea to stage a walkout. Rogers, he said, taught them a "life lesson" by supporting them.

TEACHERS THREATENED FOR ANTI-WAR PROTEST

Students in Tukwila, Washington are supporting a group of their teachers in trouble with the school district for taking part in an anti-war protest. The Foster High School students gathered outside a Tukwila School Board meeting Tuesday night and rallied to the defense of the teachers who are under investigation by the Board. Others, including many parents, protested inside the meeting as well (see picture).

""Why are we being punished, why are we being silenced?" asked one student reports KING5 News.

Roughly 125 Foster High students walked out of class earlier this month joining the teachers to protest the war, part of a state-wide effort. Student made signs, gathered at the flag pole out front of the school, marched to an I-5 overpass and the Tukwila City Hall for a civic and peaceful assembly.

Socialist Alternative reports one teacher was put on administrative leave on Monday, November 19th. On Tuesday, November 20th, at least five more were delivered memos notifying them that the Tukwila school district was “investigating reports of possible misconduct relating to you in connection with the student walk-out.” These teachers were further notified that they were not to discuss “this matter with any District students or staff” under threat of being terminated.

The husband of one of the teachers who received the threatening letters is an Iraq veteran. He went to Foster High School on November 16th and spoke to the students from first-hand experience about the truth of the Iraq War that the government and corporate media are actively hiding from the American people, and he walked out with the students.

Foster High School, located just south of Seattle, is part of the Tukwila school district and has a demographic particularly targeted by military recruiters. More than 70% of the student body in the district is low-income and eligible for the free and reduced-cost school meals.

The following is from KIRO TV somewhere in Washington state.

School Board Investigating Teachers In Protest

TUKWILA, Wash. -- The Tukwila School Board said they are investigating six teachers who walked out of the classroom about two weeks ago, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

The teachers and dozens of students left Tukwila’s Foster High School to attend a protest against the Iraq war.

Protesters flooded a school board meeting Tuesday night to support a teacher who was placed on administrative leave because of his actions.

Many students spoke to the school board, pointing to a diverse, well-organized protest.

Only one man spoke in favor of the teacher being placed on administrative leave.

“We have rules and regulations we have to follow. If you’re a teacher, you’re here to teach. He should be fired,” the man said.

School administrators said that rules must be followed and they have to investigate because the teachers left during school hours.

“I am not in a position to say if what they did is correct or not, but I will have to take action appropriately if we do find there were inappropriate things that happened which were in violation of their contract,” said school board president Mary Fertakis.

The district’s two attorneys are leading the investigation. There is no word on how long it will take or if students will face disciplinary action.

UNITED KINGDOM: VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

In the United Kingdom the 'End Violence Against Women' campaign today published its report concerning the provision of support services for female victims of violence. The report, called 'Map of Gaps: The Postcode Lottery of Violence Against Women Support Services', shows:

• A third of local authorities across the UK have no specialised Violence Against Women (VAW) support service.
• Most women in the UK have no access to a Rape Crisis Centre and fewer than one quarter of local authorities have any sexual violence service at all.
• A very small proportion of the UK is covered by existing Sexual Assault Referral Centres.
• Fewer than one in ten of local authorities have specialised services for BME women which would address forced marriage, female genital mutilation and crimes in the name of honour, as well as other forms of violence.
• Almost one third of local authorities have no domestic violence services.
• Fewer than one in ten local authorities have services for women in prostitution.

The Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) said Scotland was leading the way in services for female victims of violence. Women in the rest of the UK faced a "postcode lottery" of support services.

Northern Ireland lags behind the rest of the UK in providing support for women who are the victims of violence.

End Violence Against Women says: "The stark fact is that every year, 3 million women in the UK suffer rape, trafficking, harassment, forced marriage, domestic violence or some other form of gender-based violence."

The following is from the Belfast Telegraph.

Abused women here 'offered less support'
By Deborah McAleese

Violently abused women in Ulster have less access to support services than anywhere else in the UK, a new report has claimed.

In Northern Ireland there is no funded, specialised support services for rape victims, no access to specialist domestic violence courts and no support services for women seeking to escape prostitution, trafficking and sexual exploitation, the shock report has revealed.

The findings have now sparked urgent calls for the Government to provide proper services for women who have experienced violence.

The report, published by the End Violence Against Women Coalition - which is made up of several organisations including Amnesty International and Women's Aid - examines the provision of services for women who have experienced violence across the UK.

Called the Map of Gaps, the report has revealed, through a series of facts, figures and maps, that women in the province who have experienced violence, have the least provision of comprehensive services.

It highlights the fact that there are no funded specialised support services for rape victims anywhere in Northern Ireland.

The report also shows how Northern Ireland is one part of the UK where women have no access to specialist domestic violence courts and that there is almost a total absence of programmes which seek to address the behaviour of men who are violent to women in the region.

In addition, it reveals that Northern Ireland is the only region in the UK where there are no support services for women seeking to escape prostitution, trafficking and sexual exploitation.

"The situation here contrasts most strongly with that in Scotland which has recently seen an increase in the provision of services for rape survivors," said Patricia Campbell of Amnesty International Northern Ireland.

She added: "The reason is simple.

"The Scottish Government is developing a strategic approach to addressing violence against women and has allocated ring-fenced funding for services.

"Women in Northern Ireland deserve nothing less. We owe it to every woman to allow her to feel safe, secure and respected. That's why we are asking our Government here to provide more support services. This deserves serious attention and funding and we will be seeking to meet with politicians here to make sure that we press the case for what is a lifeline for far too many women."

The report also highlights how one woman in every 10 across the UK experiences violence each year.

Eileen Murphy, director of Women's Aid, Newry, Mourne and South Armagh, said she welcomes the fact that the report breaks the 'silence on violence', and said that it "exposes a situation of which we have long been aware" .

"When women who approach us for help reveal that the abuse which they have suffered has included rape, the total lack of counselling and support services available for them anywhere in Northern Ireland means that we are forced to refer them to Dundalk for help. This is totally unacceptable," she added.

Marie Brown, director of Foyle Women's Aid, said: "It is vital that women across Northern Ireland have access to these services. Currently women in the North West have to travel to Belfast for basic forensic services.


"This can involve a nine-hour period of travelling and waiting to be seen. This discriminates against women who don't live in Belfast."

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CONTINUES ITS WAR ON WEST HARLEM

It should come as no surprise that the views neighborhood residents, community activists, students, small business people, and others were shunned by the New York City Planning Commission as it approved plans by Columbia University to expand into a west Harlem neighborhood. The commission’s vote is the second to last step in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a mandatory public review process

The Commission historically caves in to corporate and big business interests. Big time universities get the same breaks because they are big businesses, too. Money talks, and the people get shafted. That's the name of the game.

Mayor Bloomberg who can't figure out if he is a democrat, a republican or an independent (but knows for sure he is a rich guy) embraced Columbia University's push to expand its Harlem campus, even before the city's land-use process to evaluate the controversial plan haD begun. Since most of the members of the Planning Commission were appointed by him, well, you get the idea.

Columbia has been purchasing properties from 100th Street to 168th Street, concentrating on a mainly industrial zone in West Harlem from 125th to 133rd Streets. The property, if all goes according to plan, will provide a setting for a new 17-acre campus.

The purchases are part of a broader effort to "expand significantly over the next decade," as University President Lee Bollinger said in his inaugural address last year. Bollinger has described it as a necessary step to perpetuate the quality of a great but space-constrained university.

Isn't that nice.

Studies indicate that up to 5,000 local residents OF Manhattanville and nearby neighborhoods are in danger of either direct or indirect displacement.

The New York Independent in a brutal indictment of the plan wrote:

"For local residents, Columbia’s expansion comes with the sting of irony. Having emptied out a large portion of Manhattanville, the university is now asking New York to find the area “blighted,” so that it can use eminent domain, a state government power, in order to force remaining holdouts to sell and demolish the area for “public benefit,” as university President Lee Bollinger put it in a March interview on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show.” This “public benefit” comes in the form of urban renewal. Bollinger says the new campus is about building the future. Columbia estimates that its new facility will generate 7,086 permanent jobs on site, though the vast majority of those would not be available to the average person currently living in West Harlem, where 32 percent of residents hold less than a high school education."

Protesters blasted city officials after hearing of the commissions decision.

Cynthia Doty, a coalition activist who described the details of the expansion, has a less then favorable view of the plan. "They're just gobbling up everything they can," she said.

“We will stop the bulldozers and we will stop Columbia University and they will never build this plan that City Planning claims they will build,” said Tom DeMott of the Coalition to Preserve Community.

“This is an assault not only against West Harlem, but the greater community of Harlem,” said Nellie Hester Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council." She called the expansion nothing less then, "...a plan to dismantle and restructure Harlem. You are driving blacks, Latinos and working-class whites out of Harlem."

Small businesses will be destroyed in the expansion as well. But then small business people aren't held in much higher esteem then working and poor people by big business types and their lackeys anyway.

As pointed out in the article in the New York Independent:

"In Manhattanville, this kind of story has become old news. Since the late 1990s, Columbia has amassed about 70 percent of the property it seeks, vacating many of the buildings. As the university has grown, West Harlem’s manufacturing and service shops have fallen by the wayside. In the 1990s, West Harlem’s industrial sector added 403 jobs to the workforce. "

But between 2000 and 2002, when Columbia picked up the bulk of its Manhattanville property, this same industry suffered a sharp loss of 372 jobs, according to a study commissioned by Community Board 9 (CB9), which represents West Harlem."

The Neighborhood Retail Alliance which represents small business issued a statement after the Commission vote which read in part:

"The Commission, whose majority is controlled by the mayor, faithfully did what it was told to do-and did so without any recognition of the potential negative impact that expansion would have on existing businesses or residents..."

...and don't forget all of the wonderful landscaping that Commissioner Burden has included-not really comprehending the irony of providing landscaping for an area that will witness the displacement of people from their homes and businesses from their locations. You know, you may be forced out, but think of all the pretty trees that will take your place. "

Many students at the university have spoken in opposition to the planned expansion. A number of them went on a hunger strike.

The group the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification marched issues this statement more than a month ago:

"As students of Columbia University, we find it impossible to stand aside as our university actively ignores and evades the rights of the West Harlem community. Instead of engaging the community in respectful and open negotiation, Columbia has pursued an expansion plan of disruption and displacement. We believe that the community has a right to affordable housing, living wage jobs, and a prominent voice in any development plan for its neighborhood. We believe that Columbia's plan must recognize the rights of all people regardless of their economic background or race."

The commission's action did not settle the question of whether the laws of eminent domain would be invoked to take property owned by resistant land owners.

That will likely be left to the state's Empire State Development Corp.

I might point out in passing that according to Stop Columbia.org Columbia has already given $300,000 to the Empire State Development Corp (ESDC) as part of its effort to pursue the implementation of eminent domain. Documents attesting to these facts were uncovered by Columbia Spectator reporters. The Columbia Administration has repeatedly claimed that eminent domain was a matter for the state, which Columbia had no control over, and that it was only a distant, unlikely option in any case. Last summer Columbia said it would not ask the Empire State Development Corporation to use its power of eminent domain to evict anybody living in the new "campus' footprint."

Who do you trust?

What do you think will happen to people who don't want to leave?

The following is from Newsday.

Columbia gets approval for West Harlem expansion
BY DAVID FREEDLANDER

Columbia University's controversial plan to expand into west Harlem got the go-ahead yesterday during a raucous meeting before a crowd of hostile protesters.

The City Planning Commission approved Columbia's construction of an arts, business and science campus on 17 acres in Manhattanville that the university maintains it needs to stay competitive, but some community groups insist will drive out longtime, lower-income residents and businesses.

Although the university has acquired most of the properties in the project's footprint, it hasn't ruled out using eminent domain to acquire the rest.

"[The plan] represents a vision for the future of Manhattanville that meets the shared objectives of addressing the needs of an institution of major importance to the city while building on the strengths of the neighborhood and providing for new investment, jobs and public open space," said Planning Commission Chairwoman Amanda Burden.

Ten of the 12 commissioners voted to approve Columbia's plan, with one abstention.

The protesters represented a cross-section of preservationists, affordable housing advocates and neighborhood activists, who accused Columbia and the commissioners of, among other things, trying to drive the working class out of the city, abusing eminent domain and building science labs to experiment on human as guinea pigs.

"The record of this commission is that their allegiance is only to other wealthy people," said architectural historian Michael Henry Adams, who harangued the commissioners with chants of "rich, rich, rich" throughout much of the meeting. "I guess the rest of us can just go to hell and die."

The meeting was delayed several minutes when protesters refused to move from the aisles of the meeting room despite warnings from the police. The protesters chanted "Harlem not for sale," and sang 1960s-style protest songs.

Plan supporters blamed a few agenda-driven malcontents for stirring up the neighborhood.

"Change is always difficult," said the Rev. Reginald Williams of the Manhattanville Coalition, a group that supports Columbia's plan. "They are trying to play on people's fears. It's the record versus the rhetoric."

The plan now goes to the City Council, which will hold hearings early next month, and is expected to approve the plans with some modifications.

Opponents of the plan vowed to press ahead.

"We will not be moved because we do not have any place to go," said Nellie Hester Bailey of the Harlem Tenants Council. "A mosaic of this city is represented in west Harlem. We cannot lose that."

IT'S GETTING STRANGE OUT THERE

Now comes (as they say in court) an interesting story (to which my attention was drawn by the conservative blog "The Stiletto"). The story revolves around a proposal in Boston where police with parental consent will search bedrooms of kids to look for firearms. The story also involves the fourth amendment and the second amendment and the ACLU seemingly fighting to protect some people's right to firearms because of their concern over search and seizure.

It strikes me as funny...the notion of the ACLU fighting under whatever circumstances for the right of kids to keep and bear arms.

Whatever.

I mean, I'm the last guy who wants to give the police increased powers to search us, but this attempt by the city of Boston to disarm "youngsters" and to cut down on crime doesn't really do that.

Still in these days of the Patriot Act and all I worry about people becoming complacent to increasing police powers. I mean if we accept this why not do the same thing with drugs...or whatever?

The blogger Red Pills described the proposal thusly, "The police of a section of Boston are endeavoring to do an end run around the Constitution. This is occurring in Boston, Massachusetts, site of America’s greatest tea party. How far we have fallen."

Under this program, if the parents of the kids who live with them in their home or apartment consent to allow the cops to search the kids room for guns, the the cops come in and do it. Of course, cops have always had the right to search with consent. That hasn't change.

The cops say if they find any guns they'll confiscate them but they "promise" not to charge anyone with anything...unless the gun is connected to "a shooting, homicide, or other crime..." If ballistics analysis reveals that the gun has been used in a homicide or shooting, an investigation will determine who was responsible for the crime say the cops.

Police claim if they happen upon a small amount of drugs they won't prosecute. Of course, what's small and what will they do? They say they'll keep it confidential. And when was the last time you trusted your local police to keep their promises?

Now I admit if I were a kid I'd be pissed about my parents letting the cops search my room. And I wouldn't buy the whole "we'll keep it confidential" thing.

But then I don't live in a neighborhood where gunshots are common and kids (and others) are getting killed. I don't live in a neighborhood run by gangs. I didn't grow up in a time when we parents didn't know their kids has an arsenal in their room.

The cops in fact say they're just trying to help out embattled parents. “We have conversations with single mothers who express frustration in dealing with teenagers who are uncontrollable,” said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. “In a community policing context, knocking on a door and asking . . . if they would allow us to check their kids’ rooms for firearms may give them an out.”

The Boston Globe reports that The Safe Homes project is based upon a police-community collaboration in St. Louis during the mid-1990s. That program, it says, resulted in the recovery of 510 guns from juveniles over an 18-month period. St. Louis police officers received voluntary consent to search homes from 98 percent of the parents approached and recovered at least one gun in 50 percent of their searches.

St. Louis police reassured skeptics by letting them observe searches, said Robert Heimberger, a retired St. Louis police sergeant who was part of the program.

Support for that initiative decreased after the police chief who spearheaded the effort left the force and clergy leaders failed to follow up with their promised support to parents.

I wonder what the NRA thinks about all this?

I can tell you I checked out one rabid (and I'm trying to be nice with that description) pro-gun site called Free Republic. Those commenting on the proposal were overwhelmingly against it. Many spent their time venting very thinly veiled racist comments about the parents. You can imagine.

ACLU and right wing gun yoyos all on the same side. It enough to make me crazy.

What do y'a think...a step toward fascism as several left sites I looked at said...or a way to cut back on gun violence?

Whatever you think, rest assured more and more plans like this will be popping up and if you don't like them then you'd better start thinking of other ways to curb violent crime and gang activity that you do (and today, not "after the revolution").

A whale of a lot of folks out there are sick of all the gunfire. They want something done.

The following is from the Boston Globe.

Police, activists battle over city antigun effort

Civil liberties activists fanned out through Dorchester and Roxbury yesterday, warning people that a police proposal to ask residents to let their houses be searched for guns could violate constitutional rights.

But Robin Jeffreys, who regularly hears gunshots outside her Geneva Avenue home, in Dorchester said she would not hesitate to let police in without a warrant.

"I understand people are worried about being violated and their privacy," she said, as she stood on Geneva Avenue waiting for the bus with her 9-year-old son, Tyreece. "But when it comes down to it, anybody would give up anything to save a life, to save your child, or another child."

As the American Civil Liberties Union passed out fliers yesterday decrying the "Safe Homes" initiative, police prepared to launch a campaign to reassure residents about the program. In the coming weeks, they plan to pass out brochures explaining the proposal and to hold community meetings to persuade residents that the program is a well-intentioned attempt to remove guns from the street.

Police will focus the effort in four neighborhoods - Egleston Square, Franklin Hill and Franklin Field, Geneva Avenue and Bowdoin Street, and Grove Hall - that have been plagued by shootings.

Some Boston parents said they will need little convincing to buy into the police proposal.

"There are a lot of shootings out there, and it involves kids," said Carmen Thompson, 23, as she shopped for diapers for her 5-month-old son at a pharmacy on Bowdoin Street in Dorchester. "I feel as if the police need to do something. I think it's a great idea. I think it's about time."

The program, which Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis unveiled last week to several community leaders, will let police go to houses where they believe teenagers have hidden guns, ask the parent or legal guardian to sign a form giving them permission to search the child's room, and take the weapon away. If the gun is not connected to a shooting, homicide, or other crime, police said they will not prosecute the child.

But the proposal has set off a debate about whether police are circumventing the constitutional right against unreasonable search and seizure and sparked fears that parents may be so desperate to get a gun out of the house that they will allow police in without considering the child may be arrested if the weapon is linked to a crime.

ACLU members walked through the neighborhoods police plan to target, passing out fliers that read, "Know Your Rights."

"We just want to make people understand that they have a right to not give consent," said Carol Rose, executive director of the Massachusetts ACLU, in a telephone interview. "When you waive your rights and invite the police to search your home, you're waiving the rights of everyone in the household."

Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police lieutenant who now teaches criminology at Boston University says, "I just have a queasy feeling anytime the police try to do an end run around the Constitution. The police have restrictions on their authority and ability to conduct searches. The Constitution was written with a very specific intent, and that was to keep the law out of private homes unless there is a written document signed by a judge and based on probable cause. Here, you don’t have that.”

Police Commissioner Davis said police do not intend to use the program to make arrests, but to help parents.

"I don't want people to be frightened by this program," he said. "This is an attempt to help families that may be in crisis around the issue of gang activity. We intend to do a significant amount of outreach and follow-up in support of the families. . . . I find it odd that the ACLU would be so averse to a program that doesn't focus on prosecution. It's only focused on making a house safe."

Davis said the Constitution does not forbid officers from asking for access into a home or a homeowner from granting it.

Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard Law professor, said that police do not have a right to "conduct random, warrantless, general searches."

"This is a decision that, if approved, the community will come to regret it," he said.

Last night, police officials gathered at the William Monroe Trotter Elementary School in Grove Hall to discuss the program with a small group of residents.

During a calm, hourlong discussion, residents asked several questions, including what kind of guarantees police could make against prosecution and whether officers who found drugs during the search would report the discovery to public housing authorities, who might decide to evict the family. Police said the discovery of small amounts of drugs would most likely remain confidential.

Deputy Superintendent Gary French told the audience the department wants to form an advisory council made up of residents in the neighborhoods police will focus on. Community leaders have suggested that religious or neighborhood activists accompany police on the searches so residents feel less intimidated, he said.

"We're trying to be as informative and as transparent about this program as we possibly can be," he said.

One young woman asked whether tips would remain confidential. French said they would.

Rose said she also is concerned that the program, which will rely primarily on tips from the community, will create hostility in neighborhoods if people suspect that a neighbor tipped off police about a gun in their house.

But Thompson said she has more pressing concerns than her neighbor's opinion.

"If it gets guns off the street, if it cuts down the sirens at night, if it keeps peace in the city, yes," she said, "I will definitely say something."

VILLAGERS SHUT DOWN OIL FACILITY IN ECUADOR

Ecuador's national oil company Petroecuador has said that it incurred the loss of some 5,000 barrels of oil output because of a weekend protest that disrupted operations at a key production facility, Spanish news agency EFE reported Tuesday.

The protest began Sunday in Dayuma, a town in the Amazon province of Orellana where villagers blocaded a bridge to all traffic.

At about the same time others forced their way into the Auca Sur station and electric plant demanding that operators shut down the entire power oil system.

By the early hours of Monday, another group of protesters reached the Auca 61D well and used dynamite to disable a hydraulic pump, effectively shutting down the installation, Petroecuador said.

According to El Mercurio the villagers are demanding The strikers new paved roads in the area, electrical service, a plan by the oil company to improve the local environment and jobs.

In March this year, a blockade by protesters in the Amazon region forced the company to cut oil exports by 36,000 barrels per day for about a week.

The following is from the Houston Chronicle.

Protesters Take Ecuador Oil Field

QUITO, Ecuador — Villagers took over an oil field run by state oil company Petroecuador to demand jobs, electricity and paved roads, the company reported.

Daily production at the Auca Sur field in Ecuador's eastern jungle dropped by some 5,000 barrels to about 171,000 barrels as a result of Monday's protest, Petroecuador said in a statement.

The protesters reportedly cut communication lines at Auca Sur and four other fields, and threw a stick of dynamite at one of the pumps, but there were no reports of injuries.

The statement did not say how many protesters were involved or give other details, and it was not clear whether the field was still occupied. The villagers could not be reached for comment.

Ecuador is South America's fifth-largest oil producer with a daily production of about a half-million barrels of crude.

GREENPEACE PROTESTS "RAIN FOREST FUEL" IN FINLAND

Police put a stop to a demonstration against Neste Oil by Greenpeace activists at sea off Porvoo, Finland Sunday. A total of 33 activists from different countries were detained in the operation.

Lauri Myllyvirta, leader of the Greenpeace operation, told the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat on Sunday evening that those who were detained had reported that police had used pepper spray against them at sea and in the dark. Matti Liimatainen of Finnish Greenpeace called the use of the spray dangerous and unnecessary. He said that the boats were already returning to shore at the time.

The police say all of those arrested have now been released.

Greenpeace has launched a worldwide campaign against the use of palm oil as a raw material for bio-diesel, which is marketed as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuel.

Greenpeace calls the oil a "rain forest fuel", and says that the production of its raw material, palm oil, increases greenhouse gas emissions, rather than reducing them.

"The production of palm oil is one of the greatest causes of deforestation in Southeast Asia. Neste Oil says that it imports the oil from Malaysia, but the company that they use plans to expand to Indonesia, where 80 per cent of deforestation stems from the production of palm oil," says Harri Lammi of the Finnish section of Greenpeace.

Indonesia, the biggest producer of the oil, releases 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases or 4 percent of the world total a year by burning its peatlands to grow palms, says John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace U.K.

Greenpeace says that widespread use of palm oil advances the destruction of rain forests in Southeast Asia as increasing amounts of forest are cleared away to make room for oil palm plantations.

Following earlier protests by Greenpeace, the Swedish filling station chain OKQ8 announced that it would cancel its plans to market biodiesel fuel produced by Neste Oil. The move is seen as a serious blow to Neste, which hopes to become the world's leading producer of second generation biodiesel fuel.

Neste Oil is an independent Finnish oil refining and marketing company producing mainly traffic fuels and other petroleum products.

The following is from News Room Finland.

Finnish police end Greenpeace palm oil protest

Finnish police detained in excess of 30 Greenpeace activists in Porvoo on Sunday.

Greenpeace had organised a protest near Neste Oil's Porvoo refinery, some 50km east of Helsinki, timed to coincide with the arrival of a tanker carrying about 10,000 tonnes of palm oil.

Police said those held included Danes, Finns, Germans and Swedes.

"The police and the Coast Guard intervened in the proceedings of the protest," said Juha Aromaa, a spokesman for the environmental organisation.

"Firstly, the police removed the fuel tanks from three of our boats on land. Then the Coast Guard towed one of our boats ashore. At that stage there were still two Greenpeace boats waiting to meet the palm oil shipment."

Greenpeace called off the protest once it learned that the majority of the activists had been taken to a police station. The police later took the remainder of the activists into custody.

Greenpeace said its fleet of six boats had not been deployed to obstruct the manoeuvring of the tanker.

The action against Neste is part of a global Greenpeace campaign aimed at stopping the destruction of southeast Asian rainforests.

Greenpeace wants Neste, the biggest producer of palm oil-based diesel fuel in the world, to stop using the raw material.

Greenpeace and other environmental organisations say the clearing of southeast Asian rainforest and peatland to make way for palm plantations served to accelerate climate change.

Neste says palm oil has great potential in reducing greenhouse gas emissions provided that cultivation is subject to due regulation, adding it was the first oil company to have joined the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

IT AIN'T ME BABE...THAT'S COMING FOR YOUR LAND

Utah is a beautiful state. I wouldn't want to live there myself, but it is a pretty place to pass through as I once did on the bus.

However, its citizens are no more protected against the intrusion of government than anyone else in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

But it isn't the hated feds, the bogeyman of everything Western, its the famous local government that is treating it's citizens like surfs in the small community of Eagle Mountain.

Eagle Mountain is located north and west of Provo and bills itself as "Utah's New Frontier."

Well, some of the new frontier's residents are not thrilled with the news that a huge, high tension power line pole is going to built right in their front yard...literally. Neighbors who don't get the pole do get the joy of living under the electric lines...always a bit of a shocking experience.

And if they don't like it, they can lump it. That's what their government told them.

Oh sure, the city has offered financial compensation which the local residents point out is ridiculously low...and anyway they just don't want the power lines period.

Did I mention that the city has assured the land owners that they will have full access to the land under the lines...land which they, the residents, bought and paid for? Oh, but they can't plant any trees there or build anything. But, hey, they can lie on their backs and look up at the lines to their hearts content.

One Eagle Mountain resident summed up the feelings of many with a letter to the local paper:

"Welcome to Amerika...you have no right to your land...the government can take what it wants. The ruling on imminent domain was sustained in the Bush supreme court."

I remember when it was just us 60s radicals who called it "Amerika." Who would have thought average citizens in Utah would find the epitaph appealing?

Just in case you think I'm being biased in favor of the feds. Far from it. I don't trust anyone much with power...state, local, federal, democrats, republicans, power companies, or Ron Paul.

Hell, back east in Virginia folks are concerned transmission lines up to 150 feet tall could scar the Shenandoah Valley’s famous view of rolling farmland and mountains.

The federal government, they say, is taking away Virginia’s right to decide where and how electric transmission lines are built in Rockingham, Page and Shenandoah counties.

At issue, they say, is a decision by the U.S. Department of Energy that includes the Valley as part of a “transmission corridor.” The decision would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the power to approve utility companies’ request to build transmission lines, even if the state denies their applications.

“It’s a significant expansion of federal power and an infringement on our prerogatives as a state,” said Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg.

Of course, Virginia legislatures will crow about their efforts to protect homeowners from the Supreme's intrusion on their rights during last year's assembly.

Tell it to the judge, as they say...or at least the people of Northern Virginia.

Dominion Virginia Power this year decided to build its new high-voltage transmission line along the path of existing electric cables in Northern Virginia's outer suburbs bypassing pristine land where opposition to the company's plans has been fiercest.

Sounds nice?

Piedmont Environmental Council spokesman Robert W. Lazaro Jr. says not so fast. Running the new line along an existing right of way does not protect nearby homeowners from transmission lines that he expects to be significantly taller than existing ones.

He also wondered whether the existing path was wide enough to accommodate the new line or additional private property would have to be acquired.

"The fact is the state has a failed energy policy," Lazaro said. "Dominion is a huge player in the politics of this state and is able to run roughshod over consumers and responsible legislators."

Environmentalists and residents near the proposed path of the line have waged a multimillion-dollar campaign against the company and persuaded lawmakers to introduce legislation to block the line from their property.

However, the Washington Post reports Dominion's lobbyists have beaten back those bills...in Virginia...where legislation has passed to protect residents from such. Huh?

It's simple. Homeowners' rights mean little when determined corporate interests with lots of cash on hand target the land under their homes for private development.

Oh by the way, the effort has already begun to lobby the Virginia General Assembly to repeal the protections against eminent domain abuse that was enacted during the 2007 session. Redevelopment and housing authorities, the utility lobby, the real estate lobby and other corporate interests are placing immense pressure (or should we say passing around lots of bucks) on elected officials in Richmond to make eminent domain abuse easier.

It's interesting to note that the very people most vocal with their warnings about those treacherous commies who say "private property is theft" are, in fact, those most active in the stealing of private property.

The following is from the Daily Herald (Provo, Utah).

Eagle Mtn. residents protest power line plan
Caleb Warnock - DAILY HERALD

Shivering as she stands in a sub-freezing breeze in her front yard, thick tears fall down Karen O'Donnell's face as she talks of Eagle Mountain's plan to put a high-voltage power pole in her front yard.

"It's killing us," she said, weeping uncontrollably. "We are prisoners. This does not feel like America."

Karen and her husband, Kim, purchased their 5.5-acre home on rural Lake Mountain Road four years ago. They run an animal rescue sanctuary and had to delay an interview with the Daily Herald on Friday to make an emergency trip to Riverton to rescue two emus. Raising them for meat, the owner lost interest and stopped feeding the birds, one of which was suffering a bleeding eye infection. Having already cut one emu up to feed to the family dog, the others were headed for the same fate.

Over the years the couple have taken in more than 100 horses, chickens, goats, turkeys, pigs and other unwanted animals. The couple were expanding with a large pond in the front yard, and they had the necessary fence partially up when they discovered the city was taking a 75-foot easement across their front yard and placing a 60 to 90-foot power pole near their front window.

"Everything we have worked for is destroyed," Kim O'Donnell said, noting the couple were planning to cash in the equity in their property at some point and trade up for more land and a larger rescue operation in a more rural area.

The couple say they will be too afraid to use a metal water spigot that stands about a dozen feet from where the couple says city documents show the power pole will be placed. And they will not put their animals under the power lines because of health concerns.

Though discussion about the power line has been going on since spring, it was not until last week that the city gave the O'Donnells and three of their neighbors maps showing where the power poles would be placed and where the easement across their front lawns would run.

The city has offered the O'Donnells $16,000 as compensation, an amount they call ridiculously low.

"The city would prefer to discuss this matter with you directly and avoid filing a condemnation action," wrote the city attorney in the letter. "However, the city must begin construction on this project immediately in order to complete the project by summer 2008. Therefore, if you fail to respond to this letter, or if the city has not been able to reach an agreement to purchase the easement from you before Friday, Dec. 7, 2007, the city will be forced to file a condemnation action and obtain an order of immediate occupation for the easement required for the project."

Giving only two weeks to consider the offer and their options is not fair, the couple said.

"It will destroy the value of our home," said Kim O'Donnell. "Who would consider buying this home with a 90-foot power pole in the front yard? I know I wouldn't. I'd drive right by. No one is ever going to buy this home."

Greg Jeppson has been offered $6,380 for the easement across the front of his home. Like all the homeowners interviewed for this story, Jeppson said the city must either leave the residents alone, or pay them enough to compensate for the loss of value to their homes.

Jeppson said he was stunned by the city's offer. His all-brick home, built four years ago on a 5.5 acre lot, is worth almost $600,000, he said. The city would need pay at least $85,000 to cover the damage the power pole would do to the value.

"Despite the property owners' concerns, the city has determined that the preferred alignment is still the best alternative," said the city attorney in a letter to affected homeowners.

The O'Donnells, Jeppsons and others spoke out against the city's plan at a recent council meeting.

Reached by cell phone on Friday, Councilwoman and Mayor-elect Heather Jackson said that though Kinghorn's letter may demand agreement by Dec. 7, the city is still considering its alternatives and could still choose another route for the power line.

The power line had to be moved to the front yard of the O'Donnells and other neighbors because it would have been too costly to purchase the two homes across the street, Jackson said. The proposed path of the power line follows an existing high-voltage line behind the homes of two neighbors across the street, but veers to pass through the front yards of the O'Donnells and others because the two homes are in the way.

"We have to be very careful how we spend taxpayer money," Jackson said.

All residents interviewed said the only fair thing to do is buy the homes across the street, one of which is for sale, and keep the power line in its intended path.

Michelle Clark moved into the home across the street from the O'Donnells last January. She said the high-voltage line in their backyard often shocks them, especially if they touch something metal. She said she only found out about the planned power line a few days ago from the O'Donnells and that no one from the city has contacted her even though the pole would be feet from her home and would sandwich her home between two high-voltage lines.

"I would not want to live here if that is case," she said. She said she has no idea how to protest the city's proposal.

Jackson said she did not know whether any one from the city had attempted to contact the Clarks or the owners of the second home next door.

James and Marcie Taylor, neighbors of the O'Donnells and Jeppsons, said the city has offered them $910 for an easement across their land. All the families will meet with city officials and a state mediator on Thursday. The Jeppsons and Taylors are seeking independent appraisals.

The city has told them the 138kV power line cannot be buried because it would be hazardous, the Taylors said. They are angry that the city is refusing to purchase the homes across the street and keep the power line over there, they said. They have also asked the city to put the line a distance behind their home on Bureau of Land Management property, but city documents say the residents prefer the power lines in their front yards.

Residents and their neighbors say the city is trying to rush the project through during the holidays.

"It's too close to our homes," James Taylor said. "There is no reimbursement for the depreciation of our property values, and there is no consideration for our health or safety."

All homeowners interviewed said they are concerned with research and anecdotal evidence linking exposure to high-voltage power lines to cancer and other health problems.

The Taylors said they believe the city's mind is made up and the city's letter proves officials will ride rough-shod over their concerns in order to get the power line built so that thousands of new homes can be built in the southern end of the city.

Adam Ferre, public works coordinator for the city, said residents will have "100 percent access" to the ground below the power line, though they would not be allowed to build any structure or plant large trees. He said the lines are expected to be approximately 75 feet above the ground.

Finding a new home for the power lines may be impossible because the city is on a deadline and "the environmental study for the entire corridor done by a third party took about six months or so and cost a lot of money," said Ferre.



• North County writer Donna Milakovic contributed to this story.

PROTESTING FASCISTS AT OXFORD

They're gathering at Oxford tonight to protest the appearance of a holocaust denier and a British fascist at a forum sponsored by the Oxford Union.

Despite the widespread outrage, the Oxford Union debating society went ahead on Monday with plans for an evening debate featuring David Irving, a British author jailed in Austria in 2005 for denying the Holocaust, and Nick Griffin, leader of the fascist British National Party, acquitted by a British court last year of stirring racial hatred.

Protesters planning to demonstrate against the debate include several university societies such as the Student Union, Unite Against Fascism, as well as a rare alliance between the Muslim and Jewish societies. Other groups involved in the protest include Oxford & District Trades Council, Oxford University Labour Club, Oxfordshire UNISON Health, and Oxford Brookes University Unison branch.

"This is not about freedom of speech, it's about providing a free platform to disseminate fear in the British community of Jews, Asians, and black people," Denis MacShane, a Labour MP and former minister, who pulled out of an Oxford debate because of the invitation told the Christian Science Monitor.

Oxford colleges e-mailed their students warning them to stay in their rooms, and many colleges were planning to lock their doors this evening, amid fears that there could be a counter-demonstration by far-right activists which could turn violent.

A call to action from Unite Against Fascism reads in part:

"The Oxford Union should not be providing a platform for fascist British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin and Holocaust denier David Irving in the Free Speech Forum. There is a world of difference between defending free speech and choosing to provide a platform for fascists."

Far from being the champions of free speech history shows that when fascists rise to power they destroy freedom of speech, democracy, human rights and they have murdered millions of people and attempted to annihilate entire communities. Wherever fascists have a presence, violence and intimidation increases."

Fascism threatens the safety of Black, Jewish, Muslim, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of Oxford including students and academics. Wherever fascists are active or have a presence, racist attacks and other hate crimes increase."

The following is from the Oxford Mail

Protesters gather at Oxford Union

Protesters have begun to gather outside the Oxford Union where historian David Irving and BNP leader Nick Griffin will speak later tonight.

Both are due to take part in the Union's free speech forum, but it has sparked controversy over whether the pair should be given a platform.

Around ten coachloads of anti-facist protesters from around the country are due to arrive at 7pm.

But many have already gathered outside the Union, in St Michael's Street, ahead of the controversial debate.

Representatives from Unison were joined by campaigners from Unite, as well as Jewish and Muslim groups.

Weyman Bennett, of Unite Against Fascism, said: "It's up to the good people here to stand together against fascism and say we don't want in this or any country."

Student rabbi and Oxford Union member David Mitchell said: "It's utterly horrendous. I can't believe Oxford Union is giving creditability to these people and I will be resigning my membership in the morning."

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the Commons earlier today it was up to the debating society to make its own decision about allowing Mr Irving and Mr Griffin to attend the freedom of speech event.

Ms Smith, an Oxford graduate, said in Home Office Questions: "I thoroughly deplore the sentiments, the expressed views and the actions of both of the gentlemen due to be speaking at the Oxford Union society this evening."

She said there was legislation which she hoped would be used if they "overstepped the mark".

Conservative frontbencher Julian Lewis, MP for New Forest East, resigned his life membership of the Oxford Union in protest at the decision to invite the pair to speak.

OD OFF FOR THE WEEK

The Oread Daily will now take a well deserved rest. See you next week. In the meantime have fun or die.

"Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.”
----Uncle Joe Stalin

GUN FREE ZONES VERSUS DRUG FREE ZONES

Richmond, California, a city plagued by violent crime, is acting to post Gun Free Zone signs around its 30 schools.

The Richmond City Council voted unanimously to work with schools to post the signs in an effort to discourage shootings in the areas.

"The actual sign, the visual signage will make the individual who is in possession of a weapon think twice," said Ken Nelson, a member of Richmond’s NAACP.

I'm sorry but I ain't buying it.

Gun Free Zones have got to be one of the most ridiculous ideas ever put out there by gun control (or anti-crime) activists. I mean really folks, can you picture someone heading out to commit a gun crime seeing such a sign and deciding to take their gun home and look for something else to do.

Virginia Tech was a gun free zone.

It is a violation of federal law to bring guns within 1,000 feet of schools. That's helped...not.

Now I'm not a right wing nut who thinks everyone should be packing heat every minute of every day, but I really don't think signs are the answer to gun crime.

The truth of the matter is its hard to find outspoken supporters of gun free zones (so maybe this post is unnecessary), but if you look around the Internet you certainly find the right hitting the left over the head with them. It fact that's almost all you find...that and examples of gun crimes in gun free zones.

Now, let's move on to those "drug free zones." They don't make any more sense to me then "gun free zones." But you know what I found interesting when I googled "drug free zones," it seems unlike when you google "gun free zones" the right doesn't seem at all riled about this. No gazillion right wing sites lambasting the idea. No ridiculing anyone. No right wingers wailing with examples of kids doing drugs in drug free zones.

Odd don't you think?

Whatever...

The following editorial opinion is from the Contra Costa Times (California).

'Gun-free zone' signs
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 10/23/2007 03:01:26 AM PDT

You can't blame Richmond (California) for grasping at anything that seems like it might help curb crime. After all, the violence in certain neighborhoods is out of control. Despite crime summits, Tent City protests and much hand-wringing on the part of elected officials and community leaders, street killings continue unchecked.

The most frightening thing is that police can't even discern a pattern other than violent youths are taking to the streets with guns to settle grudges.

Yet we find the City Council's vote last week to spend $35,000 to put up "gun-free zone" signs around the schools a ridiculous waste of money.

The program's misguided supporters -- including the Richmond NAACP -- somehow believe that erecting signs will remind people of an existing state law that imposes stiffer criminal penalties for possessing or firing guns within 1,000 feet of a school and that being privy to this information will be a deterrent to the gun-toting youths responsible for much of the city's violence.

Having "gun-free zone" signs around the city's 30 public schools certainly can't hurt. But we agree with former City Council candidate Corky Boozé that the City Council could have found a better use for $35,000. It isn't a huge amount of money, but it's still $35,000.

Wouldn't that money be better spent on programs that offer training and substance abuse treatment for parolees and other violent people in Richmond?

Would a "gun-free zone" sign have deterred the thugs who killed a 4-year-old woman in a drive-by shooting last week across from Lincoln Elementary School or given pause to the hoodlums who decided to shoot it out outside Nystrom Elementary last year, sending bullets flying through classrooms and whizzing across the playground during recess? We highly doubt it.

The sign ordinance is an empty gesture that does little meaningful to address street violence. Richmond can put up "gun-free zone" signs all over the city. But it's naive to think that would make the streets any safer.

NORTHERN ALBERTA HAS A GLOWING FUTURE...MAYBE NOT

I doubt that you know anyone who lives in northern Alberta. I mean, how many people are up there.

Well, however many there may be it turns out that a bunch of them are not interested in a proposed nuclear power plant in their neck of the woods.

Energy Alberta Corporation has chosen Peace River as the site for the plant.

Northern Albertans caravaned to the provincial legislature today to express their distaste for a nuclear neighborhood.

Trudi Keillor’s house in the Peace River Country is on an unassuming spit of land, vacant save for wildlife, water and weeds. The fact that its status might someday change scares the hell out of her.

“We do not want this. We don’t want it for the rest of Alberta or for Canada,” Keillor said, as she joined other Peace Country residents outside the legislature today, protesting a company’s plan to build a nuclear power plant. “I live six miles west of the proposed site. And this is all happening behind the scenes. Nothing is being done to keep residents informed.”

“It was all done hush-hush, and people were very upset when they found out. And a lot of the municipal councillors did not get voted back in that were involved in that. The people have not been consulted. Keller told the Sun.”

The Edmonton Sun reports Energy Alberta Corporation (EAC), which is owned by Calgary liquor magnate Wayne Henuset, has the only license from the Atomic Energy Company of Canada to built a reactor in Alberta. It sees 10 to 15 years of hearings, license applications and approvals before that can happen.

But the process is already moving too quickly for residents to keep up, said Keillor, and given that the company has met numerous times with government to push the deal already, they’re not taking EAC’s word on the issue.

The presence of drilling rigs on property designated for Alberta's first nuclear power plant has not helped quell residents fears that events are moving faster then expected. Amongst those who was outraged when the drilling rigs appeared was John Plett.

Plett, who lives in the county where the plant is proposed to be built, told the Edmonton Journal Albertans should first be allowed to vote on whether or not nuclear power can establish itself in the province.

While some polls have shown a thin majority of Albertans favor the building of the plant, they also show support is higherst the farther away from the site you get. People living in the small towns around the site are the least enamored with the idea. Further, the overall results showed the storage of nuclear waste was a huge concern with nearly nine in 10 Albertans, while the possibility of an accident was a worry with seven in 10 Albertans, the poll found.

Aboriginal leaders in Alberta also have told the company that plans to build the nuclear power plant that they don't like the idea either.

One such leader, Driftpile First Nation Chief Rose Laboucan says she totally rejects the idea of a nuclear plant. Laboucan says she has lived next door to toxic waste before, a reference to the province's waste treatment facility at Swan Hills.

Mark Winfield of the Pembina Institute warned about the dangers the plant presents to the area. "There are all sorts of different ways in which material can leave the plant under both normal operating conditions, accident conditions or the possibility of a security incident."

The plant has its supporters.

Energy Alberta Corporation recently flew Whitecourt Mayor Trevor Thain and a number of councillors from the area to the East Coast to tour a reactor. The trip seems to win over the mayor who now says he is feeling comfortable about the possibility of a nuclear reactor in his backyard.

The proposed site by the way is near the border with British Columbia (B.C.) and the province's New Democratic Party (NDP) leader says B.C. should say loud and clear that the province is opposed to a proposed nuclear power plant in the Peace River.

Carole James says she was surprised and shocked at news that the Alberta government may proceed with a $6.2 billion nuclear plant near northeastern B.C.

She says B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell must voice British Columbia‘s opposition to nuclear energy.

James notes there has been no consultation with people in B.C., despite the proposed project‘s close proximity to the provincial border.

James says the issue is one of basic safety and one people in B.C. have been clear about over and over again.

James says until B.C. residents are consulted, nothing should happen with the nuclear proposal.

NDP environment critic Dave Eggen pointed out the project was originally slated to be built further south, near Whitecourt.

"I found it interesting that once the people of Whitecourt started to learn a little bit about the scope of the plan and asked for more time and information, this company packed up and went to another place," he said.

Apparently not everyone in town were as "comfortable" as the mayor, eh?

The following is from CBC News.

Nuclear protest convoy dumps on Alberta reactor

A group of protesters drove almost 500 kilometres from northern Alberta to deposit fake leaky barrels of radioactive waste on the steps of the legislature in a demonstration Monday against a proposal for the province's first nuclear power plant.

However, the eye-catching convoy ran into a roadblock at the legislature's security gates when guards refused to let the fake barrels through. Despite the setback and the morning chill, about 150 people stayed for a rally, with many holding large protest signs.

The demonstrators, arriving in Edmonton from northern communities including Peace River, Valleyview and Slave Lake, oppose plans for a nuclear reactor to be built on private land near Lac Cardinal, about 30 kilometres from Peace River.

Calgary-based Energy Alberta Corp. embarked on the long licensing process in August. Pending approvals, the $6-billion project is slated to produce 2,200 megawatts of electricity when it opens in 2017.

Organizers of Monday's rally said they want to raise awareness about the dirty and dangerous impact of nuclear energy and to ask Premier Ed Stelmach to keep Alberta nuclear-free.

The group will present an anti-nuclear petition signed by 1,300 people in northern Alberta to the energy and environment ministers as well as the MLA for the Peace River region.

We have over 1,300 signatures, which is quite significant considering this is a sparsely populated, rural area and a lot of the signatures are concentrated in the 20or 30 kilometres right around the proposed site," said Brenda Brochu of the Peace River Environmental Society.

"So we hope this will cause the politicians to sit up and take notice and to start consulting with Albertans on energy policy instead of just rubber-stamping every economic development project that comes along."

Brochu says the proposed site is on a fault line that has a history of earthquakes, and she hopes the provincial government rejects the request to build the plant.

Trudi Keillor, who lives in Grimshaw, the town closest to the proposed reactor, is uneasy with an option for the plant to use reprocessed fuel from other countries.

"So do we really want that? We become the nuclear dumping ground for other countries," Keillor told CBC News.

DANIEL ORTEGA IS MURDERING WOMEN OR BAN ABORTION AND WOMEN DIE

Remember when we used to like Daniel Ortega. Well, if you are a right to lifer, you really like him now.

Danny boy is the power behind one of the world's cruelest anti-abortion laws. You asked how such a thing might have happened to a guy we used to think was, at least, progressive. The Guardian newspaper gives us one answer.

It says in the run-up to last November's election, Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo spearheaded a campaign for a blanket abortion ban. Ortega, desperate to regain power, mobilised the Sandinistas behind the cardinal's campaign and helped get the ban through the parliament just days before the poll. The former revolutionary, now reinvented as a devout Catholic, was rewarded with the presidency.

With that parliamentary vote Nicaragua last year became one of 35 countries that ban all abortions, even to save the life of the mother, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. The ban has been strictly followed, leaving the country torn between a strong tradition of women’s rights and a growing religious conservatism. Abortion rights groups have stormed Congress in recent weeks demanding change, but President Daniel Ortega, the alleged former leftist revolutionary and a Roman Catholic, has refused to oppose the church-supported ban.

The absolute ban on abortion in Nicaragua drew cries of outrage from some 30 local medical bodies, Central American human rights organisations, foreign diplomats, the World Health Organisation, the Pan-American Health Organisation and other United Nations agencies.

Danny wasn't moved.

Far from it. In fact this September Ortega whipped Sandinista assembly deputies into voting with rightwing parties 66-3 to uphold the ban.

Nicaragua’s blanket ban on abortion, which criminalizes life-saving medical treatment, has had a devastating impact on women’s health and lives.

In fact, its killing them (One women who died of an abortion is mourned by her family in the picture above).

According to IPS nearly 90 women have died in Nicaragua as a direct or indirect result of the repeal(Women's rights organisations say those documented deaths are the tip of the iceberg. The Pan-American Health Organisation estimates one woman per day suffers from an ectopic pregnancy, and that every two days a woman suffers a miscarriage from a molar pregnancy. That adds up to hundreds of obstetric emergencies per year).

Ana María Pizarro, the head of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Sí Mujer, and Latin American coordinator of the 28th September Campaign for the Decriminalisation of Therapeutic Abortion, told IPS that the reform of the abortion law has driven up the number of fatalities reported in Nicaragua.

Studies by Sí Mujer indicate numerous young pregnant women died from lack of care in health centres where personnel were afraid of the penalties of up to eight years in jail and loss of their medical licence for doctors who carry out or assist in abortions, even when the action is taken to save the expectant mother’s life.

"In practice what is happening is a government death penalty imposed on women," said Pizarro, a gynaecologist.

Women who undergo abortions, whether self-induced or performed with their consent, also face prison terms of one to two years, says the controversial criminal code, which was approved by PLC and FSLN votes.

Patricia Orozco, coordinator of the Feminist Movement fighting for the reinstatement of therapeutic abortions says public protests of the draconian law have been met with police violence.

"Apart from having our right to life undermined, we have been attacked in the streets when we protest -- they have sent the police after us, have beaten us and have harassed us with legal charges of disturbing the peace," she complained.

The legal strategy to overturn the ban is to ask the supreme court to declare the law unconstitutional . No one expects that to happen. However, that would clear the way for a campaign involving the UN and international courts of human rights.

For the Nicaraguan rich, a problematic pregnancy need not be a death sentence, of course. They can fly to Miami or bribe a discreet private clinic in Managua. But in a wretchedly poor country like Nicaragua most young women do not have money. (For those of you to young to remember, it used to be a similar situation here).

The Guardian reported that during September's assembly debate a clear line of demarcation was easy to see. It was a boisterous affair with dozens of girls and women in the public gallery chanting in protest. Separated by just a sheet of glass, the two sides were a study in contrasts. One comprised mostly elderly men in suits, some of whom opened their speeches by saying "I am a Catholic". The other comprised mostly young women in jeans and T-shirts. "Shame, shame, shame on you all," shouted one teenager. "Daniel Ortega is a rapist," shouted another, a reference to allegations the politician raped his stepdaughter.

The challenges, however, to the fight to overturn this deadly law are complicated by the conservative Catholic nature of the country...especially in rural areas.

I might add that as noted above Nicaragua is not alone. And the results of abortion bans are always the same.

Latin America, a region with some of the strictest abortion laws in the world, also has the world's highest rate of unsafe abortion: the World Health Organization estimates 3.8 million illegal abortions are performed every year in Latin America and the Caribbean, causing 4,000 deaths.

In El Salvador where a law very similar to the one in Nicaragua is in effect women live in fear. Women coming in to clinics with uterine lacerations indicating an unsafe abortion are required to be reported to the police. Several women have been charged with homicide.

An estimated 2,000 Brazilian women die every year due to complications from illegal abortions.

Abortion in Argentina is strictly limited by law. As of 2007, the Argentine Penal Code establishes severe sanctions for those who cause abortion, either willingly or not, and for women who consent to it, and special punishments for physicians and other healthcare agents. The result, abortion complications are the first cause of maternal death in that nation.

Give a thought to the US Supreme Court. I know many of you consider voting a waste to time, but what if...

The following is from Human Rights Watch.

Abortion Ban Killing Women
By Lance Lattig and Angela Heimburger

Managua - A year after elections in Nicaragua returned Daniel Ortega to power, scores of pregnant women have died, many as a consequence of a new law that prohibits doctors from providing lifesaving treatment.

In the run-up to the hotly contested elections last November, Sandinistas in the National Assembly helped to overturn a legal provision that had permitted lifesaving abortions since 1893. Nicaragua thus joined the handful of countries in which abortion is a crime punishable by prison for both a woman and her doctor - even in cases of rape, incest or when a woman's life is at risk.

During the past year, the new law has had a devastating impact on women in Nicaragua.

* Pregnant women suffering from illnesses such as kidney failure have died because they were not allowed to interrupt their pregnancies to treat their conditions.

* A poor, single mother died of a heart attack after doctors refused to treat her severe hemorrhaging because the fetus was still alive. Neither the fetus nor the woman survived, and her 3-year-old son now lives with his indigent grandmother in precarious conditions.

Human-rights organizations have come under fire for addressing the issue of abortion, but many critics have simply missed the point. The issue isn't abortion per se but the human-rights violations that occur when access to safe and legal abortion is restricted. Freedom of religion is a basic right, but the Nicaraguan government should not use religious doctrine as a pretext for violating women's fundamental rights to life and health.

Untreated Ectopic Pregnancy

In many other countries, even Catholic hospitals perform therapeutic abortions necessary to save a woman's life. Although Nicaragua's health ministry issued protocols on emergency obstetric care, it has since failed to follow up by clarifying what other procedures could be considered therapeutic abortion.

Even according to the government's own figures, maternal mortality has shot up by 100percent in the past year. One woman died in April from an untreated ectopic pregnancy - that is, when a fertilized egg is implanted outside the uterus and has no chance of survival. Normally, doctors around the world intervene as soon as the ectopic pregnancy is detected. But Nicaraguan doctors are now reluctant to act out of fear that their interventions might be considered criminal.

Another reason women are dying in Nicaragua is that they are afraid to seek medical help. Women seeking abortions fear mistreatment and discrimination by medical personnel, as well as the threat of prosecution by the authorities. Human Rights Watch interviewed several women who were able to obtain safe but illegal abortions. None of them was able to obtain the procedure in the public sector, however, despite the medically certified risks to their health posed by their pregnancies.

Here, traffic intersections feature giant posters of Ortega with the slogan, "Arise ye poor of the world!" Under Ortega's government, however, the sad irony is that richer, better-informed women can fly to Miami or seek a costly and illegal abortion in Managua, while poor women often die preventable deaths after they are rejected from public health services or denied emergency obstetric care.

Ortega has made many promises to end the misery of the disenfranchised in Nicaragua. A good place to start would be to guarantee the state's obligation to ensure the health and lives of Nicaraguan women. The Sandinista government should inform women about their right to procure emergency obstetric care in the public-health sector and remind doctors of their obligation to treat them.

Nicaragua has a long history of struggle for social justice. But the total ban on abortion denies equality and protection to women in the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of Nicaraguan society.