Friday Homestead Dispatch

Lilliputian Lackadaisical Larvae

“Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners — and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know.’

All sorts of torturers, dictators, fanatics, and demagogues struggling for power by way of a few loudly shouted slogans also enjoy their jobs, and they too perform their duties with inventive fervor. Well, yes, but they ‘know.’ They know, and whatever they know is enough for them once and for all. They don’t want to find out about anything else, since that might diminish their arguments’ force. And any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life. In the most extreme cases, cases well known from ancient and modern history, it even poses a lethal threat to society.

This is why I value that little phrase ‘I don’t know’ so highly. It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended.”

—Wisława Szymborska, in her acceptance of the 1996 Nobel Prize.

1.
The fight is forever ongoing in the Santa Rita mountains, just south of Tucson down to Patagonia, with mining companies hungry for those resources, and the money, oh yes, the money. What was originally called the Rosemont Mine Project, which changed its name to Asarco, and now known as Hudbay, which took over speculative permitting and exploratory drilling in 2014, is still being fought tooth and nail by locals who want to preserve the ecosystem in one of Arizona’s most intact riparian areas.

The Arizona Luminaria reports that Mark Murphy, the geologist who wrote the hydrology report, is one of the leading experts in the Clean Water Act, which regulates how mining and other projects must address local impact on hydrology systems. Murphy estimated that the Santa Cruz River supports eighty-four species of mammals, fourteen fish species, and forty-one species of reptiles and amphibians, and provides habitat for millions of migrating and resident birds and waterfowl each year. In other words, blocking, draining, or polluting the tributaries that feed the Santa Cruz would affect an entire ecosystem. In the report, Murphy concludes that “the physical, chemical, and biological integrity” of the Santa Cruz River depends on the upstream “ephemeral tributaries.” The very streams the digging of the mine would irrecoverably threaten. 

The Tohono O’odham, Pascua Yaqui, and Hopi tribes are all challenging Hudbay in court, but we know how that often works out. The land these rivers and washes flow through shows signs of having been inhabited for as long as 10,000 years, and has long been a dwelling and gathering place, as well as a sacred site, for the Hohokam and Tohono O’odham people. Today, it is one of the last remaining habitats in the country for the jaguar, as well as multiple other endangered species. The famous Arizona Trail, on which hikers can walk from Mexico to Utah, passes directly through land that would become a half-mile deep scar into the earth.

In May of this year, House Natural Resources Ranking Member, and Tucsonan, Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) along with Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) introduced House and Senate versions of the Clean Energy Minerals Reform Act to modernize the nation’s severely antiquated Mining Law of 1872. The bills will address major environmental justice concerns, protect the environment, and ensure a fair return for the American people.

Grijalva said, Securing the minerals we need for our clean energy future cannot come at the cost of our environment, our health and safety, or tribal sovereignty. For more than a century and a half, the mining industry has operated under an outdated, free-for-all claims system that gives them carte blanche to pollute and destroy, while American taxpayers get stuck with the cleanup bill. It’s past time to reject this harmful status quo and move forward with commonsense reforms that protect Americans and ensure a more responsible, accountable mining industry. Heinrich followed up with We cannot go all in on a clean energy future with a 19th century mining policy on the books. This antiquated law has become a driving force behind centuries of legacy mining pollution that is leaking toxic heavy metals and acid mine drainage into streams and rivers all across the West. Unlike the way we manage other publicly-owned natural resources like coal and oil, we don't collect any royalties on hardrock minerals to return fair value to taxpayers. We also don't have a reclamation fee to help with cleanup work, and we lack a clear process to protect the public lands that aren’t appropriate for mineral development. It’s overdue we change that.

While Grijalva is fighting to update U.S. mining laws signed by President Ulysses Grant on 1872, with scant regulations, the Wild West-era statute has undergone little substantive change in the century and a half since. Unfortunately, outside of Patagonia, AZ, the Hermosa project is underway. Ironically, this project follows President Joe Biden’s 2022 determination of an increase in domestic mining of “critical” materials sufficient to create a large-scale battery supply chain and move the nation away from fossil fuels and foreign production lines. Manganese was singled out as critical. Congressional passage of the Inflation Reduction Act also called for increased domestic mining in the name of green energy. The company is South32, (https://www.south32.net/) an Australian spin-off from global mining giant, BHP Billiton. The program, FAST-41, was created in 2015 to streamline the federal permitting process.

Last week, the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA), along with support from the nonprofit advocates of Earthjustice and the Western Mining Action Project, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. Forest Service and the supervisor of the Coronado National Forest, where the mining activity is concentrated. Several of the region’s environmental organizations — and its most experienced litigators — joined as co-plaintiffs, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Tucson Audubon Society, and Earthworks. Hermosa project President Pat Risner suggested PARA’s ecological concerns were overstated. He said, “With a surface footprint of just 600 acres, the Hermosa project is a fraction of the size of most mining projects and keeps sustainability at the core of our approach. Hermosa has also had in place for more than a decade a robust biological monitoring program.” Right. Once the land is stripped, the ecosystem disappears…forever.

2.
One of MANY reasons to vote blue in 2024 (except for Sinema and Manchin) is, with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, we could realize a system of term limits and regular appointments for justices. The Brennan Center for Justice reports that Justices today stay on the bench more than a decade longer than they used to on average. Today, a 30-year-old has seen 10 new justices join the Court over their lifetime. Sixty years ago, a person of the same age would have seen twice as many. Justices themselves routinely time their retirements so that their replacement has a similar ideological orientation, further taking the direction of the Court out of the hands of the American public. All together, it’s a gobsmacking amount of power given to a small number of individuals to shape the law for decades.

What’s being proposed is a term limits system whereas justices would sit in active service for 18 years. At that point, they would automatically become “senior” justices, where they would hear cases on the lower federal courts, assist with judicial administration, and step in to hear Supreme Court cases when there is a recusal or unexpected vacancy. And two-thirds of Americans, including 57 percent of Republicans, support term limits for the justices. It’s one of the few big ideas that Americans actually agree on.

Check out the proposal here, published in June of this year. With 18-year active terms and regularized appointments, every president would have an equal imprint on the Court during a four-year term. Such a system would enhance the democratic link between the Court and the public, making the institution more reflective of changing public values while preserving judicial independence.

Tiny Tidbits of Goddamn!

1. Of all the unlikely people to speak out for progressive causes, Miss Texas, Averie Bishop has professed her liberal views on race, abortion, immigration, voting, same-sex marriage, school shootings and comprehensive sex education. Her platform—diversity and inclusion—represents much of what Texas has been outlawing and her perch and visibility to push back against the far-right policies supported by Texas’s White male leaders. Goddamn!

2. Oh, that wacky GOP. The Grand Old Party blundered a tweet on Tuesday using a graphic of the Liberian flag. Har. It’s since been removed but, according to Heather Cox Richardson, the everlovin’ Missouri Senator Josh “I’m Just Joshin’” Hawley chimed in on Twitter with “this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Historian Seth Cotlar noted that the quotation actually came from the April 1956 issue of a virulently antisemitic white nationalist magazine, The Virginian. Goddamn!

3. Conspiracy nut and Trump-appointed judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana announced a ruling this week that spreading medical disinformation far and wide is free speech. The New York Times reported It was a victory for Republicans who have often accused social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube of disproportionately taking down right-leaning content, sometimes in collaboration with government. Democrats say the platforms have failed to adequately police misinformation and hateful speech, leading to dangerous outcomes, including violence...“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” the judge said. “The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.” Goddamn!

I leave you today, thanks to a post by Christie Mondell, with a video from the Topeka punk band Abuse, c. 1980.

And now…

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