Fracking the West
Are you interested in issues involving water, energy, climate and our public lands? High Country News is a brilliant, bi-weekly magazine that the RACC board of directors reads and can highly recommend to you. They recently published an article entitled, The fractured terrain of oil and gas opposition: in one of the West’s biggest arguments, the battle lines are complicated and opaque. This article spells out who all the players are in fracking world. You are bound to recognize the fracking issues that could potentially affect our region. You can link to this High Country News article here.
Thank you to everyone who donated to RACC at the information table at our recent community meeting! While this covered the cost of the delicious pizza we served, we are still in need of important operating funds for the following:
- Insurance. The proactive stance of RACC requires that we protect ourselves with insurance. The estimated annual cost for this is around $1000.
- Abiquiu News sponsorship. This costs RACC $250 per year and is an important way for us to share information about the Rio Chama Watershed as well as support this important community online news source.
- Website maintenance. Annual cost is $500.
- Media. The cost of paper and printing for educational publications, like the chapbook Thinking Like the Rio Chama Watershed, is $250 or more per year.
- Hiring expert consultants on the geology/hydrology of the watershed. We estimate the cost of this would be close to $2000. This is a wish list item and would enable us to interact with the BLM and other agencies more effectively on your behalf.
We have a functioning donate button on our website and invite you to invest any amount you can afford. You are investing in your watershed’s future! We need your help in order to continue to fulfill RACC’s mission. Thank you!
There is a growing protest movement called Keep It In The Ground. Protests are happening across the country at oil and gas lease sale events, where the federal government sells public lands for oil and gas development for as little as $2.50 an acre. The public lands at a recent lease sale in Utah were referred to as “a lot of scenery going to waste” by the auctioneer. In protest, the author Terry Tempest Williams bought parcels using her credit card, claiming that she was fueling the growing movement to keep these potentially earth destroying resources in the ground where they belonged.
