“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men, or greedy interests, skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
Theodore Roosevelt

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Attention all FRAC SAND GROUPS

From: Patricia J. Popple <sunnyday5@charter.net>
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 6:55 PM
Subject: Executive Order on water release on July 16, 2013---An ACTION Item for All Groups!


Attention all FRAC SAND GROUPS AND OTHER GROUPS AFFILIATED WITH OUR LOCAL EFFORTS IN WI, MN, IOWA, ILLINOIS, MICHIGAN, MISSOURI AND ELSEWHERE INCLUDING THE 34 STATES INVOLVED IN HYDRAULIC FRACTURING, THE GROUPS WORKING ON ENERGY ISSUES AS WELL AS  CLIMATE CHANGE.

I have been in communication with the Civil Society Institute (Jen and Grant) and have signed the pledge at the website. Your group might want to do so as well.  I received this letter on July 15 and ask you to be involved! Here is the Final Executive Order for the President. Here is the ACEA  press release. You can fill in the areas you would like to fill in according to your location of your group. Send on to the press along with the name of your organization and your contact person and the other data about your group. Add watersheds-the Chippewa, the Red Cedar, the Mississippi along with the others mentioned.  Have fun! Get out the publicity.  Pat Popple  The Frac Sand Sentinel and Concerned Chippewa Citizen Website ( http://www.ccc-wis.com/ )

Below is a letter from Jennifer Filiault, Civil Society Institute and 
Committee for an American Clean Energy Agenda
The Civil Society Institute invites you to join us in the release of an executive order that we will be urging President Obama to issue demanding information about the relationship between our water resources and energy infrastructure.
The Executive Order was released on July 16, at 1:00 p.m. EDT.  We hope your organization will join us in a collaborative effort to get this information widely distributed.  Attached are some helpful pieces for the release:
1.  The final executive order
2.  A fill-in-the-blank press release for your organization to use to send to local/regional media contacts (feel free to edit as makes sense for your group!)
3.  An op ed for your use to promote the effort locally (again, feel free to edit)
We have received great feedback from many of you about this strategy and are excited to work with you all to further push the importance of this issue within the public discourse.  Please let me know if your organization plans to participate in the release so we have a good sense of the distribution.



And WHY should there be an Executive order?
Due to our current approach to energy, America’s energy sector is barreling toward a train wreck where excessive cost, water scarcity, accelerated climate change, and human health converge to create one huge economic and ecological mess.
Rather than pursuing an “all-of-the-above energy strategy,” as embodied in the Clean Energy Standard, it’s more like we’re pursuing the “anything-but strategy” – anything but what makes financial, public health and climate sense.  What does make sense is a replacement strategy, systematically deploying (and improving along the way) our least risky resources - energy efficiency, renewables, storage, distributed power and demand response technologies – while greatly reducing reliance on or getting rid of high-risk options – coal, nuclear, and natural gas.   These low-risk options don’t blow up and threaten millions of people.  They don’t spew toxins and CO2 into the air.  They can be deployed without wasting tens of billions of dollars just to get their construction or installation off the ground.  Their costs are actually declining.  They are reliable.  And very importantly, they do not guzzle enormous amounts of our ever-dwindling water resources.
The unifying theme here is water.  Access to enough clean water is emerging as a critical national security issue, both domestically and abroad.  Just take a look at Department of Defense, NASA or U.S. Geological Survey documents.  We are squandering our most precious resource.  Current usage patterns are simply unsustainable, and the electric power sector is the biggest problem when it comes to water.  Thermoelectric plants (coal, nuclear, combined-cycle natural gas) and agriculture are our biggest users.  The difference is that we have to grow food, but we don’t have to continue to rely exclusively on water-intensive, central-station electric generating power plants anymore.  In fact, over time they can be replaced by least-risky options mentioned above.
The coming water availability crisis is why the Civil Society Institute and its grassroots allies – The American Clean Energy Agenda – are proposing that President Obama take immediate, decisive action through his executive powers to make water policy the top priority of energy policy for the United States.  We know enough to act (waiting for perfect information would be next to insanity at this juncture) but we also need to understand the use patterns and nature of our national water budget.
Through executive order, Mr. Obama could accelerate the completion of the on-going work of the U.S. Geological Survey in collecting water use and availability data, engage the public in a meaningful dialogue with respect to the nature of the looming water crisis and solutions to those problems, and begin the process of eliminating water-intensive coal, nuclear and natural gas power plants in what the USGS has identified as our most threatened watersheds. 
To that end, CSI and its allies have crafted and sent to the President for his consideration a draft executive order that establishes, among other things, technologically-based sustainability criteria for our electric grid and due diligence within the federal government of reaching them.  It is also meant to jumpstart an informed public discussion of the water issues we’re facing and the best ways to address them. 
We can no longer sweep the emerging water crisis under the rug and pretend that business as usual can continue without severe economic and human consequences for Americans.  This speculative exploitation and use of coal, nuclear, natural gas and oil resources will no longer work in a warming world with constrained water resources.  We must begin to plan for a transition to a truly sustainable electric grid with an eye toward preserving our precious water resources.
Mr. President, the ball’s in your court.  What are you going to do?

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks!
Jen

--
Jennifer Filiault
Civil Society Institute
Committee for an American Clean Energy Agenda
617-243-3514


And from Alex and the Committee for an American Clean Energy Agenda:


In addition to the traditional media push around the Executive Order Press Release today, we'd really appreciate your support on social media sites as well.  Below are links for retweets and the Facebook post for likes/sharing:

Civil Society Institute:

Hastings:

Thanks for your support!
All the best,
Alex



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