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Rally & Protest to Protect Sacred Places: Save Medicine Lake!!
San Jose, CA - Pit River Indian Tribe members and Indigenous and environmental justice supporters delivered an eviction notice to Calpine Corporation in downtown San Jose on Monday, January 29, 2007 demanding they drop their decades-long attempt to build polluting power plants in the Medicine Lake Highlands near Mount Shasta. Tribal members and supporters vowed to nonviolently defend Medicine Lake from any attempts to build power plants at this area that is profoundly sacred to area Native peoples.
San Jose, CA - Pit River Indian Tribe members and Indigenous and environmental justice supporters delivered an eviction notice to Calpine Corporation in downtown San Jose on Monday, January 29, 2007 demanding they drop their decades-long attempt to build polluting power plants in the Medicine Lake Highlands near Mount Shasta. Tribal members and supporters will vow to nonviolently defend Medicine Lake from any attempts to build power plants at this area that is profoundly sacred to area Native peoples.
The protest started with a 10 a.m. rally at Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park and at 12 noon we marched to Calpine Headquarters, 50 West San Fernando Street, San Jose for a rally.
The protest comes at a critical time in the long fight to protect the sacred Medicine Lake Highlands from environmental and spiritual degradation. In November 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision and indicated that the federal agencies neglected their fiduciary responsibilities to the Pit River Nation by violating the National Environmental Protection and the National Historic Preservation Acts and that the agencies never took the requisite "hard look" at whether the Highlands should be developed for energy at all. As a result, the court rejected the extension of leases that would have allowed Calpine to develop geothermal plants, and the district court is now directed to enter summary judgment in favor of Pit River consistent with this opinion. Tribal members and supporters demand that Calpine drop their plans once and for all and not appeal the court decision.
Sponsors of the event include Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, Seventh Generation Fund, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, International Indian Treaty Council, Indigenous Environmental Network, Citizens of the Pitt River Nation, Indian People Organizing for Change, Vallejo Inter-tribal Council, Native American Sisterhood Alliance of Mills College, Da'hu La'h As Sacred Sites Defense, Redding Rancheria Cultural Department.
The protest started with a 10 a.m. rally at Plaza de Cesar Chavez Park and at 12 noon we marched to Calpine Headquarters, 50 West San Fernando Street, San Jose for a rally.
The protest comes at a critical time in the long fight to protect the sacred Medicine Lake Highlands from environmental and spiritual degradation. In November 2006, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court decision and indicated that the federal agencies neglected their fiduciary responsibilities to the Pit River Nation by violating the National Environmental Protection and the National Historic Preservation Acts and that the agencies never took the requisite "hard look" at whether the Highlands should be developed for energy at all. As a result, the court rejected the extension of leases that would have allowed Calpine to develop geothermal plants, and the district court is now directed to enter summary judgment in favor of Pit River consistent with this opinion. Tribal members and supporters demand that Calpine drop their plans once and for all and not appeal the court decision.
Sponsors of the event include Advocates for the Protection of Sacred Sites, Seventh Generation Fund, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, International Indian Treaty Council, Indigenous Environmental Network, Citizens of the Pitt River Nation, Indian People Organizing for Change, Vallejo Inter-tribal Council, Native American Sisterhood Alliance of Mills College, Da'hu La'h As Sacred Sites Defense, Redding Rancheria Cultural Department.
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Jan 29, 2007 Protest Against Calpine's Plans To Build Geothermal Plants At Medicine Lake, CA, Held At Calpine Headquarters, San Jose, CA.
Posted to http://www.pagesincolor.com/media.html on 1-30-07
by John Thielking
Medicine Lake is a tiny lake in Northern CA, near Klamath Lake, which dwarfs Medicine Lake by comparison. A San Jose company, Calpine, has been making plans to drill boreholes near Medicine Lake to use an untested and unproven technology to extract geothermal energy to power one or more power plants at the lake. Local Indian tribes consider the lake to be the equivalent of a religious temple and do not want it disturbed by drilling. In addition, they point out that geothermal energy itself is not totally benign environmentally. Geothermal energy as envisioned by Calpine is not simply "capturing steam" or mining hot water from natural Gysers. An <a
href="http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Swc4bEmkleQJ:http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb5/tentative/0610/calpine/comments-save-medicine-lake-coalition.pdf+calpine+medicine+lake+pollution+problems+geothermal&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7">online document from the Save Medicine Lake Coalition suggests:
"The EGS process requires the use of large volumes of concentrated acid, spent acid and highly mineralized fluids which are produced during the acid injection and extraction to enhance fracturing. Accidental releases of the concentrated or spent acids, or the extracted geothermal fluids at the surface would easily and quickly percolate through the porous volcanic soil to the shallow water table below – the same water table that supplies Medicine Lake, the many springs and smaller lakes in the area and it’s also the source for water wells that supply drinking water to the campgrounds and local cabins."
It appears that Calpine may simply be a straw man example of how NOT to do geothermal power generation. They are going bankrupt. They are potentially polluting the environment. They are desicrating Indian land. All that is really needed to do EGS geothermal properly is to inject high pressure plain water into hot, dry rock, just about anywhere, and control sulfide emmissions. A typical EGS process is described
here.
But then there are people such as the DOE, who think it is perfectly ok to promote fracturing (to enhance energy extraction) by using an underground
nuke! Using acid (and under Indian land) is probably just one step below that and is not intended as a practical project. Its primary effect, intentional or not, is to give geothermal a bad name.
Geothermal is most often associated with mining of natural hot water or steam that produces gysers. Sometimes the
natural gysers go south or the land subsides as a result of the mining. As the above link describes, steam or water extraction is not pollution free. But injecting water or acid into dry rock is an unproven technology that at this rate may never see the light of day.
A recent court ruling has been decided in favor of the Indian Tribe. Calpine has only a few days to file an appeal. Hence the protest, urging Calpine to not appeal the decision.
Posted to http://www.pagesincolor.com/media.html on 1-30-07
by John Thielking
Medicine Lake is a tiny lake in Northern CA, near Klamath Lake, which dwarfs Medicine Lake by comparison. A San Jose company, Calpine, has been making plans to drill boreholes near Medicine Lake to use an untested and unproven technology to extract geothermal energy to power one or more power plants at the lake. Local Indian tribes consider the lake to be the equivalent of a religious temple and do not want it disturbed by drilling. In addition, they point out that geothermal energy itself is not totally benign environmentally. Geothermal energy as envisioned by Calpine is not simply "capturing steam" or mining hot water from natural Gysers. An <a
href="http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Swc4bEmkleQJ:http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/rwqcb5/tentative/0610/calpine/comments-save-medicine-lake-coalition.pdf+calpine+medicine+lake+pollution+problems+geothermal&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=7">online document from the Save Medicine Lake Coalition suggests:
"The EGS process requires the use of large volumes of concentrated acid, spent acid and highly mineralized fluids which are produced during the acid injection and extraction to enhance fracturing. Accidental releases of the concentrated or spent acids, or the extracted geothermal fluids at the surface would easily and quickly percolate through the porous volcanic soil to the shallow water table below – the same water table that supplies Medicine Lake, the many springs and smaller lakes in the area and it’s also the source for water wells that supply drinking water to the campgrounds and local cabins."
It appears that Calpine may simply be a straw man example of how NOT to do geothermal power generation. They are going bankrupt. They are potentially polluting the environment. They are desicrating Indian land. All that is really needed to do EGS geothermal properly is to inject high pressure plain water into hot, dry rock, just about anywhere, and control sulfide emmissions. A typical EGS process is described
here.
But then there are people such as the DOE, who think it is perfectly ok to promote fracturing (to enhance energy extraction) by using an underground
nuke! Using acid (and under Indian land) is probably just one step below that and is not intended as a practical project. Its primary effect, intentional or not, is to give geothermal a bad name.
Geothermal is most often associated with mining of natural hot water or steam that produces gysers. Sometimes the
natural gysers go south or the land subsides as a result of the mining. As the above link describes, steam or water extraction is not pollution free. But injecting water or acid into dry rock is an unproven technology that at this rate may never see the light of day.
A recent court ruling has been decided in favor of the Indian Tribe. Calpine has only a few days to file an appeal. Hence the protest, urging Calpine to not appeal the decision.
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http://www.pagesincolor.com/media.html
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