THE DAILY BLADE: When Environmental Values Collide: Part III
There have been cases of so-called green technologies cancelling each other out and undermining economic development. Now, a green technology is being opposed on the grounds that it will cause “lasting cultural damage.” The Native American group La Cuna de Aztlan Sacred Sites Protection Circle filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop six “mammoth” solar projects approved by the Department of the Interior that the group’s founder, Alfredo Acosta Figueroa, says will threaten geoglyphs, Native American burial sites and ancient relics in the Southern California desert. Another local tribe, the Quechan, also filed a federal suit seeking a permanent injunction against a proposed Imperial County solar installation contending that sacred sites will be destroyed if it goes forward. The Los Angeles Times reports:
The projects targeted include BrightSource Energy's 3,600-acre solar facility in San Bernardino County's Ivanpah Valley, where work began in October, and Solar Millennium's proposed 5,900-acre solar thermal project eight miles west of Blythe, abutting the geoglyph-covered mesa.
The lawsuit, filed in December, accuses the Bureau of Land Management of fast-tracking the solar projects without the required environmental review and without consulting with Native American tribes that oversee the preservation of sites with religious and cultural significance. The federal agency disregarded its formal agreement to consult with La Cuna to protect sacred sites that may be affected by projects on bureau-controlled lands, Figueroa said.
Cory Briggs, lead attorney for the groups that filed the lawsuit, said the Obama administration raced to approve solar projects in California before the Dec. 31 deadline for economic-stimulus funding. The stimulus package offered generous subsidies for renewable energy projects approved before the deadline. …
Along with Figueroa's organization, the lawsuit was filed by the environmental group Californians for Renewable Energy and seven Native American individuals. The other bureau-approved projects being challenged are: the Imperial Valley Solar facility, the Calico Solar Project; the Chevron Energy Solutions solar facility in the Lucerne Valley, and the Genesis Solar Energy Project west of Blythe.
Environmentalists fret over the projects' potential effects on native species such as the desert tortoise and the flat-tailed horned lizard.
The kicker: Obama administration officials are accusing the tribes of lying about the age of the some of the geoglyphs, arguing that they are not 10,000 years old as Figueroa claims but only 20 years old. In other words, graffiti.
We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: Part XIX
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who came to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia on a student visa, was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction for (allegedly) planning a terrorist attack using explosive chemicals, reports The Associated Press:
The FBI says his possible targets included the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush. …
Federal prosecutors say he had been researching online how to construct an improvised explosive device using several chemicals as ingredients.
Federal authorities say Aldawsari's diary indicated the young man had been plotting an attack for years and obtained a scholarship so he could come directly to the United State to carry out jihad.
Aldawsari is expected to appear in federal court in Lubbock on Friday morning.
Update: The Washington Post reports that Aldawsari was “close to constructing a bomb” and his possible targets included former president Bush, three Americans who served at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, 12 reservoirs or dams in CO and CA and areas of NYC where a car bomb detonated during rush hour would inflict the greatest number of casualties:
Aldawsari came to the United States as a student in September 2008, but his plan all along was to kill Americans, according to journal entries cited in an FBI affidavit. …
Unlike a number of recent arrests of suspected terrorist plotters, however, authorities said that Aldawsari had managed to advance his plans and assemble some of the ingredients for a bomb before the FBI became aware of him. "He was meticulous and a serious threat," said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
Officials said that Aldawsari appeared to be acting alone and was not in touch with any terrorist organization overseas. But his journal entries stated that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden and wanted to create "an Islamic group under the banner" of al-Qaeda, according to the affidavit. …
Aldawsari first studied English as a second language at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He entered Texas Tech University in August 2009 to study chemical engineering, then transferred to business studies at South Plains College in Lubbock last month.
Aldawsari, whose education was funded by a Saudi corporation, wrote that he worked hard to excel in high school so he could get a scholarship to study in the United States. …
"And now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives, and continuous planning to target the infidel American, it is time for Jihad," Aldawsari wrote in his journal, the affidavit said.
If convicted of the charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, Aldawsari faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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