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Activists to protest oil exploration near Moab By
Jim Seitz Environmental activists in southern Utah are planning direct action against an oil exploration project that threatens southern Utah's canyon country. The "Veritas 3-D seismic exploration project" is one of many oil and gas projects initiated under the Bush administration's new energy policy. "This project is first evidence of what the president's energy policy looks like on the ground," said Laurel Hagen, an organizer with the Moab Action Network. Under the Veritas project, huge "thumper" trucks will crush wide corridors through 36 square miles of pinyon-juniper forest, delicate cryptobiotic soil and redrock canyons. The trucks will be flanked by ATVs and helicopters, all permitted to run 24 hours a day. The Moab Bureau of Land Management approved this project because they claimed they could find "no significant environmental impact." The BLM recently closed off the same area to private ATVs and bicycles due to their environmental impact. The BLM is in the process of approving at least six more oil wells and another oil exploration project in southern Utah. "We have created the Moab Action Network to spread the alarm and to organize protests against these projects," said Escalante activist Patrick Diehl. The group has held community meetings to get public help and input and also hosted an action camp over Labor Day Weekend on the project site. The camp included strategy planning sessions as well as workshops on nonviolent direct action, media training, and national wilderness politics. The Moab Action Network is preparing a network of "on-call" activists who can arrive on site as soon as the trucks start rolling. "We want to send a message to the Bush administration and his friends in the energy and mining industries that southern Utah will no longer be a national sacrifice area for nuclear waste, open pit mines, clear-cutting and drilling rigs," said Hagan. For maps of the project, pictures of the area and further information, see http://www.xmission.com/~kwalker/stop
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