hydro-power dam

neglected, trad seen as green power tho silt up, ~ salmon

poor ppl often displaced eg 3 gorges, but indig berta c and bolsonaro brazil amazon

===

an 3 25

While President Donald Trump has given his blessing to Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's effort to slash federal budgets and fire federal workers, the South African centibillionaire's initiative is now reportedly clashing with a key Trump administration policy.

Politico reported Friday that the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — which Musk unofficially leads — has made steep cuts to the Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), which manages waterways and dams in 17 states. Those cuts have resulted in the USBR's California office having to lay off employees who were tasked with carrying out Trump's plan to unleash the Golden State's water reserves.

During his first month in office, Trump issued two executive orders pertaining to California's water supply. One controversial order directed federal officials to tap into reservoirs to redirect water to help fight wildfires in Southern California, which was water that farmers in the San Joaquin Valley were counting on to keep their crops healthy during dry summer months. He also directed DOGE representatives to fire probationary-level employees, which amount to roughly 10% of the USBR's California workforce.

“We could have made the 10 percent cuts, if we’d been allowed to, much more easily, with far less impact to the mission,” one USBR employee told Politico. “Instead, it’s been this baseball bat that’s been taken to it, and the targets that they’ve hit are mission-critical.”

The cuts prompted 14 local water officials in California to write a letter to U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (which oversees the USBR) imploring the administration to reconsider its approach. The officials pointed out that it's not taxpayers that fund the USBR, but local farmers who pay for water deliveries.

"It is important to note that elimination of Reclamation staff will not further the goal of achieving significant cost savings to the American people," the officials wrote. Their points were echoed by Jim Peifer, who is the executive director of the Sacramento Regional Water Authority, in his own letter to Burgum.

"It is my assessment that the organization is already extremely lean on staffing, and further workforce cuts would jeopardize its mission and place the American people, who live in or near key federal water facilities such as dams, in danger," Peifer wrote.

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

===

Biden admin creates pathway with eco groups to shutter energy source serving millions of Americans

Legal agreement 'marks a new direction for the Pacific Northwest,' Biden's clean energy czar John Podesta said

By Thomas Catenacci Fox News

Published December 14, 2023

no lnx

the White House, in coordination with Native American tribes and environmental groups, announced actions Thursday that provide a pathway for breaching, or removing, four hydroelectric dams in Washington state to protect salmon.

As part of the announcement, the federal government entered into a legal agreement with the Pacific Northwest tribes and environmental organizations filed earlier in the day in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. Under that agreement, the tribes and eco groups — which had sued the federal government in an effort to forcibly breach the dams — agreed to stay the litigation through 2028.

"President Biden understands that the Columbia River System is the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, and for the first time under his direction, federal agencies are putting all hands on deck to support regional and Tribal efforts to restore wild salmon in the region," White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Brenda Mallory said in a statement.

Mallory said the agreement charts a new path to restore the river. Environmental activists, Democrats and tribes have argued that the four federally-managed dams, which are located on the lower Snake River winding through Idaho and Washington before feeding into the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean, have decimated salmon and steelhead populations by blocking natural migratory patterns.

HOUSE PANEL TO PROBE BIDEN ADMIN'S NEGOTIATIONS WITH ECO GROUPS TRYING TO TEAR DOWN KEY POWER SOURCE

Chair Brenda Mallory, Council on Environmental Quality, speaks at the Fight for Our Future: Rally for Climate, Care, Jobs & Justice in Lafayette Square near The White House on April 23, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Green New Deal Network)

"Today's historic agreement marks a new direction for the Pacific Northwest," added White House clean energy czar John Podesta. "Today, the Biden-Harris Administration and state and Tribal governments are agreeing to work together to protect salmon and other native fish, honor our obligations to Tribal nations, and recognize the important services the Columbia River System provides to the economy of the Pacific Northwest."

Democratic Govs. Tina Kotek of Oregon and Jay Inslee of Washington; several involved tribes, including the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla; and environmental groups like Earthjustice, which represented plaintiffs in the case, all applauded the agreement as an unprecedented path forward.

MAJOR US POWER SOURCE FACING EXTINCTION THANKS TO RED TAPE, SPARKING CALLS FOR REFORM

The agreement includes $1 billion for wild fish restoration and a plan to develop new clean energy power operated by tribes. And it further establishes the so-called Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative, which includes a "comprehensive new roadmap" for salmon recovery involving a call to replace the energy, transportation, irrigation and recreation services provided by the lower Snake River dams, so they can be breached, according to Earthjustice.

The initiative explicitly recommends that dams are breached within two fish generations, or approximately eight years. While there isn't an explicit plan to breach the dams — an action that the White House has acknowledged would require congressional approval — the agreement does include commitments to begin replacing the services provided by the dams.

President Biden previously pledged to work with proponents of breaching the four lower Snake River dams to "bring healthy and abundant salmon runs back." (Getty Images)

"Congress — and Congress alone — can authorize removal of the dams on the lower Snake River. Bureaucrats, activist litigation, nor this administration’s radical agenda will determine the fate of any of the Northwest’s federal dams," Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"This litigation effort was useless: It occurred behind closed doors, between two parties who wanted the same end result — to tear out our dams, and it completely excluded Idahoans who rely on the River System for its energy, transportation, agriculture and recreation benefits," he continued. "I will continue to fight any breaching efforts, and, at every turn, I will reject the Biden administration’s efforts to usurp Congressional authority."

BIDEN ADMIN PLAN TO RELEASE PREDATOR NEAR RURAL COMMUNITIES FACES WIDESPREAD OPPOSITION: 'A HUGE THREAT'

Risch, other Republican lawmakers, power industry groups and agriculture groups have all loudly objected to any plan involving the breaching of the dams, pointing to their clean energy output and vital services providing passage for barges traveling along the river.

The dams were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers primarily to ensure the Snake River was passable for such barge transportation. However, since then, the main benefit has been their reliable clean energy output. They still provide about 8% of the state's electricity, enough to serve millions of residents, and have a large total capacity of 3,000 megawatts.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam is shown in the Columbia River system in Washington state. (Marli Miller/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Removing the dams would also likely chip away at U.S. climate goals since their energy production would likely need to be replaced by fossil fuel alternatives. According to federal data, replacing hydropower generated by the dams with natural gas generation would increase carbon emissions by up to 2.6 million metric tons per year, the equivalent of 421,000 passenger cars.

In addition to the impacts on energy and climate ambitions, removing the four Snake River dams would harm agriculture exports. Aided by the dams, barges traveling along the Columbia River system carry about 60% of Washington's annual wheat exports and a staggering 40% of the nation's total wheat production.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"Instead of working with all interests, the U.S. Government chose for months to hold secret negotiations and refused to share any details with us, let alone allow our participation," the executive directors of Northwest RiverPartners, the Public Power Council and the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, which collectively represent power utilities, ports, agriculture companies and other businesses dependent on the dams, said last month.

"It is not surprising, then, that this proposal turns its back on over three million electricity customers as well as the farming, transportation, navigation and economic needs of the region," they continued. "By purposely excluding our respective organizations from the negotiations, literally millions of Northwest residents were deprived of fair representation in this process."

That statement came after lawmakers, led by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., wrote to President Biden, calling for him to reject any agreement involving the breaching of dams. The letter included a leaked mediation document that paved the way for Thursday's announcement.

Thomas Catenacci is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

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mrogers091

14 December, 2023

I live in this region. To be clear, these dams account for 8% of the electricity in our state and almost all the electricity in the counties on the rivers. There is no proposed replacement for that lost electricity other than vague references to alternative energy. The majority of people in this ar...

171

harless

14 December, 2023

If you're still voting for them you're still part of the problem.

135

6 replies

broaton

14 December, 2023

You answered the question to your on problem, are you going to fix it or not?

3 replies

Show 30 more replies

iNVA40

14 December, 2023

I grew up in the northwest. Reduced fish run numbers are more likely caused by protecting marine mammals who have learned to hang out near fish ladders to feast on salmon and steelhead. Dems would never believe that, however.

169

mrogers091

14 December, 2023

I live in the affected region. The cause has been studied. It's mainly due to over fishing in international waters by the Russians and Chinese (mostly) and changing ocean conditions. Neither of which will be helped by removing the dams. Salmon runs are also down to historically low levels on the Ku...

5 replies

LaKorvo

14 December, 2023

Yes. I live about a mile from the Ballard Locks fish ladder in Seattle. During salmon runs, you can go watch the sea lions frolic amongst the fish as they gorge themselves.

3 replies

Show 12 more replies

superk55

14 December, 2023

I remember how great things were in 2020 before the pandemic. The economy was booming, unemployment was low, and our country was respected on the global stage. I miss those days when the focus was on building a strong economy and creating jobs for Americans. It's sad to see how things have changed...

221

derangedliberals623

14 December, 2023

Just think all of that came to an end because millions of uneducated people could not handle mean tweets and criticism.

141

9 replies

CHITTYB

14 December, 2023

That is what happens when Constitution hating pagans are in the White House.

3 replies

Show 7 more replies

everythingisfine562

14 December, 2023

It's not about saving the earth from climate change, it's about bringing America to it knees to allow an outside country to conquer us.

If it's about the fish ladders being too steep, they could build a new fish ladder that are not as steep.

Guess they don't want water storage (lakes behind the dams...See more

215

FIVE-0

14 December, 2023

Wait until the wheat grown in the region can’t be shipped. WA is the 5th largest producer of wheat in the nation and Idaho is there too.

5 replies

Dm1217

14 December, 2023

It’s actually about bringing the US to its knees so it can institute TheGreat Reset, also known as Naziism Round 2.

100

3 replies

Show 7 more replies

2315nyy

14 December, 2023

Why does it feel we are going backwards in our development with this administration in charge of things? We are doing away with hydroelectricity, gas powered vehicles, gas stoves, etc. We are going to be heating homes with wood stoves, cooking over fires and going to work in conestoga wagons at thi...

116

ktuncia545

14 December, 2023

Nope, they are outlawing gas chainsaws as of the 1st of the year and will work on extending the ban on wood stoves after that since most areas with any kind of city have already banned them. We will also not be traveling by wagon as horses are a source of "green house gases" and it's inhumane to us...

4 replies

bidenwasbought

14 December, 2023

because almost all progressive policies are really regressive

2 replies

Show 5 more replies

xsnowflakes

14 December, 2023

So they actually have a non-polluting carbon neutral energy source that supplies millions of people and they are going to cut that off at the same time they are demanding a huge influx of electric vehicles.

Gee what could go wrong.

IFlyJetsSir450

14 December, 2023

they will have you charging your electrics by peddling , and speaking of peddling how is Hunter making money these days ?

2 replies

Bibbles

14 December, 2023

that natives could help out if they actually abided by catch and possession limits for salmon. but natives dont have to do that. They take whatever they want.

Washington should be forced to build replacement electrical systems. Rather than buy from other states.

venturagirl

14 December, 2023

And what about the electricity Washington state sells downstream? That takes power away from other states.

1 reply

bandman56

14 December, 2023

While I agree with your sentiment, you can't buy if noone is selling.

hallowgabus

14 December, 2023

Just one little part of the larger impact of breaching the four Snake River Dams.

"WHEAT ON THE COLUMBIA SNAKE RIVER SYSTEM

The Columbia/Snake River System is the nation’s single largest wheat export gateway, transporting over 60% of all U.S. wheat to markets overseas. Eleven states export through ou...

harleyrider123

14 December, 2023

Joe Biden will drive the trucks like he did in the olden days.

ohheck137

14 December, 2023

And we'll have to tell California that we can no longer sell power to them.

justinthyme1786

14 December, 2023

The dams aren't the problem. Sea lions have been allowed to surge due to their protected status. Another problem is the explosive growth of people in the northwest. I live next to the Puyallup River and could likely cross it on the shoulders of fishermen without getting wet. It never used to be tha...

bigtony621

14 December, 2023

Caves for living and rocks for hunting will be highly sought after Biden’s done. Can’t use oil, coal or water for power, and the animal rights activists are after wind turbines for killing birds. I don’t see any outcome except a bad end

121

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/republican-corruption-and-carelessness-led-to-devastation-in-michigan-does-trump-even-care

Trump spent another week feuding with a Democratic governor, this time as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer dealt with historic levels of rainfall which led to the collapse of a pair of privately-owned dams in the state. Instead of momentarily pausing his politics of petty revenge, Trump made matters worse, as is his wont.

The president diverted already strained resources for a campaign stop in Michigan that doubled as a political stunt, advertising his personal refusal to wear a mask, even in settings where everyone else is required to. Trump’s antagonistic rhetoric towards a state that is facing multiple life-or-death crises at the same time was widely criticized. But what he did more quietly did this week reveals just how vulnerable his deregulatory actions have left America.

In a move strikingly reminiscent of the Ukraine scandal, Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to threaten to withhold federal funding from Michigan, even as floodwaters from the two breached dams forced thousands of residents of the city of Midland to flee their homes. Trump apparent goal was to coerce Michigan officials not to send vote-by-mail applications to the state’s 7.7 million registered voters vote-by-mail. As usual, the president was unclear about exactly what funding he had in mind. Hours later he sent another tweet claiming that his administration had already activated military and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) response teams but said Gov. Whitmer “must now ‘set you free’ to help.” Whitmer said at a news briefing on Tuesday that she had already contacted federal officials for help and activated the National Guard. Once again, nobody really knows what Trump was talking about.

Nevertheless, the salient point here is that the president of the United States, after witnessing the flooding of an entire region amid a major public health crisis rages on was to suggest, in public, that the government and people of Michigan owed him something in exchange for federal aid. Trump then traveled to a Ford plant in Michigan on Thursday and offered this explanation for the failure of the privately-owned dams: “Perhaps there was a mistake."

like many disasters, the beginnings of the Michigan dam failures are far removed in time from the actual even, but this event can hardly be described as a mistake. All indications are that this week’s historic flooding was caused by years of neglect and mismanagement of a public good that was co-opted for private profit. It doesn’t help that the headquarters of **Dow Chemical, including a Superfund site with known cancer-causing chemicals, is directly downstream of all this floodwater.

The owner of the breached dams, Lee Mueller, who heads a company called Boyce Hydro, has been cited numerous times in recent years. State regulators had even revoked one of the company’s four dam operating license in 2018 over an inability to handle a major flood. At least two of Boyce Hydro’s dams were identified as being “high hazard,” meaning that according to the National Dam Safety Program and FEMA, loss of life would likely result if they failed or were incorrectly operated.

The potential failure of the Edenville Dam, wrote federal regulators, “would pose a very substantial risk to life and property, and Boyce has repeatedly failed to comply with the orders of the Regional Engineer and other Commission staff or to work with Commission staff to resolve these instances of noncompliance, notwithstanding being given many opportunities to do so.” The dam was flagged as unable to handle heavy rainfall as long ago as the 1990s. But Mueller, a Trump supporter who publicly backed the president against impeachment in a Reuters article last year, didn’t want to pay to repair them. After years of delay, Boyce Hydro finally agreed to sell the dams to a task force of residents from four neighboring counties who hoped to implement overdue repairs. This is yet another example of the wealthy privatizing their profits and socializing the losses.

The Army Corps of Engineers says more than half of the nation’s 91,458 dams are privately owned, and according to E&E News, a majority of them are more than 50 years old. Jokes about Trump’s always-impending and never-arriving “Infrastructure Week” have long gone stale, but it’s worth remembering that increased infrastructure spending, like the kind needed to upgrade the nation’s aging water infrastructure, was one of Trump’s biggest campaign promises.

“We have a great plan and we are going to rebuild our infrastructure,” Trump _{said}_on Fox Business Network in an August 2016 appearance. He further claimed that the numbers Hillary Clinton was proposing ($275 billion) was “a fraction of what we’re talking about, we need much more money than that to rebuild our infrastructure. Well, I would say at least double her numbers and you’re going to really need more than that. We have bridges that are falling down.”

After taking office with Republican control of both chambers of Congress, Trump increased his theoretical ask to $1 billion. While Trump did sign a 2018 water infrastructure bill, that legislation, which passed the Senate 99-1, was a bipartisan reauthorization of $6 billion in federal funding for state-level projects and must be renewed every two years. In contrast, Trump signed an executive order rolling back Obama-era environmental standards that required the federal government to account for climate change in infrastructure projects, and also directed agencies to loosen water regulations in California.

Like Trump, the owner of Boyce Hydro tried to blame environmental regulations as the cause of his negligence. The company complained that the state had threatened it with litigation because lower water levels were killing freshwater mussels. “The state agencies clearly care more about mussels living in the impoundment than they do about the people living downstream of the dams,” Mueller said in a statement.

But even as some Republicans are reportedly lobbying for Trump to revisit his pledge to invest in infrastructure — pandemic relief funding provides “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give a facelift to the country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN — the president awarded the largest federal building contract of his entire term in office this week. It was for his border wall. The Washington Post reports that the $1.3 billion deal to build just 42 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border was awarded to a company that has only one other border contract, and is currently under investigation by the Defense Department inspector general:

The company that won the contract, Fisher Sand and Gravel, has been repeatedly lauded by the president in White House meetings with border officials and military commanders, the result of a long and personalized marketing pitch to Trump and ardent supporters of his barrier project.

After its initial bids for border contracts were passed over, the company and its CEO, Tommy Fisher, cut a direct path to the president by praising him on cable news, donating to his Republican allies and cultivating ties to former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, GOP Senate candidate Kris Kobach and other conservative figures in Trump’s orbit.

This is what happens when conservatives decide to utilize an infrastructure budget to subsidize profitable businesses. It rained a lot in Michigan this week, but the private corporation in charge of the dam let this devastating flood happen as a direct result of its neglect and cost-cutting. And that’s without considering the downstream effects of the Dow Chemical plant, which is likely to make the danger and death from this flood much worse. Republicans, of course, will pretend to be mystified.

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amazonwatch 1219

We have been holding back industrial development and resource extraction in the Amazon all decade: from stopping the Tapajos mega-dam on the last free-flowing Amazon River tributary in Brazil, to backing Sarayaku's precedent-setting legal victory when the Inter-American Court ruled that Ecuador had violated their rights by allowing oil drilling on their land, to winning the historic $9.5 billion judgement against Chevron for deliberately polluting the Ecuadorian Amazon, to standing with the U’wa people of Colombia who successfully dismantled the Magallanes gas project on their sacred lands.

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mekong delta will be heavily dammed, #1 cause of displacement/migration

https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-november-11-2019/

also Laos; mall thai most instagrammed selfies in planet, outdoor AC?!

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https://www.ecowatch.com/hydropower-dam-projects-2470634759.html

tool

https://www.ecowatch.com/leaked-documents-bolsonaro-amazon-rainforest-2639991444.html

no lnx vid?

Leaked Documents Show Brazil’s Bolsonaro Has Grave Plans for Amazon Rainforest

openDemocracy Aug. 23, 2019 02:01PM EST POLITICS

Wildfires have raging through the Amazon rainforest for weeks.

Pixabay

By Manuella Libardi

Leaked documents show that Jair Bolsonaro's government intends to use the Brazilian president's hate speech to isolate minorities living in the Amazon region.The PowerPoint slides, which democraciaAbierta has seen, also reveal plans to implement predatory projects that could have a devastating environmental impact.

The Bolsonaro government has as one of its priorities to strategically occupy the Amazon region to prevent the implementation of multilateral conservation projects for the rainforest, specifically the so-called "Triple A" project.

"Development projects must be implemented on the Amazon basin to integrate it into the rest of the national territory in order to fight off international pressure for the implementation of the so-called 'Triple A' project. To do this, it is necessary to build theTrombetas River hydroelectric plant, the Óbidos bridge over the Amazon River, and the implementation of the BR-163 highway to the border with Suriname," one of slides read.

One of the slides from the presentation.

democraciaAbierta

In February, ministers Gustavo Bebianno (Secretary General of the Presidency), Ricardo Salles (Environment) and Damares Alves (Women, Family and Human Rights) had planned travel to Tiriós (Pará) to speak with local leaders about the construction of a bridge over the Amazon River in the city of Óbidos, a hydroelectric plant in Oriximiná, and the expansion of the BR-163 highway to the Suriname border. But this meeting was canceled.

A second meeting among government officials, also in February, used a PowerPoint presentation that details the projects announced by the Bolsonaro government for the region. The presentation, which was leaked to democraciaAbierta, argues that a strong government presence in the Amazon region is important to prevent any conservation projects from taking roots.

The slides are clear. Before any predatory plan is implemented, the strategy begins with rhetoric. Bolsonaro's hate speech already shows that the plan is working. The Amazon is on fire. It's been burning for weeks and not even those who live in Brazil were fully aware. Thanks to the efforts of local communities with the help of social networks, the reality is finally going viral.

The online reaction is far from being sensationalist. This year alone, Brazil had 72,000 fire outbreaks, half of which are in the Amazon. The National Institute for Space Research reported that its satellite data showed an 84% increase on the same period in 2018.

Attacking non-governmental organizations is part of the Bolsonaro government's strategy. According to another of the PowerPoint's slide, the country is currently facing a globalist campaign that "relativizes the National Sovereignty in the Amazon Basin," using a combination of international pressure and also what the government called "psychological oppression" both externally and internally.

This campaign mobilizes environmental and Indigenous rights organizations, as well as the media, to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on Brazilian institutions. The conspiracy also encourages minorities — mainly Indigenous and Quilombola (residents of settlements founded by people of African origin who escaped slavery) — to act with the support of public institutions at the federal, state and municipal levels. The result of this movement, they say in the presentation, restricts "the government's freedom of action."

So it is unsurprising that Bolsonaro's response to the fires comes in the form of an attack on NGOs. On Wednesday, August 21, Bolsonaro said he believed non-governmental organizations could be behind the fires as a tactic "to draw attention against me, against the government of Brazil."

Bolsonaro did not cite names of NGOs and, when asked if he has evidence to support the allegations, he said there were no written records of the suspicions. According to the president, NGOs may be retaliating against his government's budget cuts. His government cut 40 percent of international transfers to NGOs, he added.

Part of the government's strategy of circumventing this globalist campaign is to depreciate the relevance and voices of minorities that live in the region, transforming them into enemies. One of the tactics cited in the document is to redefine the paradigms of indigenism, quilombolism and environmentalism through the lenses of liberalism and conservatism, based on realist theories. Those are, according to a slide, "the new hopes for the Homeland: Brazil above everything!"

http://www.alternet.org/environment/hydropower-industry-wants-roll-back-environmental-protections

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http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/04/nu-river-china-dam/

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