Mendocino County Today: May 1, 2014

• IRS Busts Ukiah Restaurateurs
• Whither Mendo Green?
• Police Calls
• Anthem for Doomed Youth
• Medical Alcohol
• Unintentional Satire
• Spring
• Escape from Alcatraz
• Military Buildup in Asia
• Committee Passes Anti-Frack Bill
• DIY Mini Dome Home

THE OWNERS of two Ukiah restaurants, Ruen Tong Thai Cuisine and Walter Café, were arrested Wednesday morning and arraigned in federal court on tax fraud charges, according to an announcement from the Northern District of California office of U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag.

Yaowapha Ritdet and Steve Walter were arraigned in court on five counts of filing false tax returns, and Ritdet also faces two counts of willfully failing to report a foreign bank account, according to Haag and Special Agent in Charge José M. Martinez of the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation division.

According to the indictment, unsealed Wednesday, Ritdet and Walter lived in Ukiah and owned Ruen Tong Thai Cuisine and Walter Café. For the tax years 2007 through 2011, Ritdet and Walter are alleged to have willfully signed individual income tax returns which they did not believe to be true and correct, according to Haag's office, and which failed to disclose rental income, foreign bank accounts and gross receipts or sales and income from their business activities.

The indictment also alleges that from 2009 through 2010, Ritdet maintained a passbook savings account at Kasikorn Bank, Public Company Limited, a bank in Thailand.

In 2009 and 2010, Ritdet allegedly failed to file a Foreign Bank Account Report disclosing her financial interest in the passbook savings account, which was worth more than $10,000 during the calendar years 2008 and 2009.

Ritdet, 53, and Walter, 52, were indicted April 15, and were arrested Wednesday morning and appeared in court before U. S. Magistrate Court Judge Nandor J. Vadas in Eureka. Their next court appearance is May 7 at 9:30 a.m. before U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco.

The maximum penalty for each count of failing to file an FBAR is five years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The maximum penalty for filing a false tax return is three years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Moore is prosecuting the case, which was opened because of an investigation by the IRS.

WE'VE WRITTEN to the National Greens and the State Greens to find out what happened to the Mendocino County Greens. No reply. We know the answer anyway. There aren't any. Greens, as an organized political entity. The Mendo Greens have always been an extension of Northcoast Democrats, although the Green Party, at the national level, puts up smart people who really are good on the issues. Mendo puts up candidates who don't seem to even know what the issues are.

HERE IN “PROGRESSIVE” CENTRAL? We finally get a progressive candidate for Congress, Norman Solomon, and he can't even pull ten percent of the vote against the corporate Democrat, Huffman.

EVEN WHEN The One True Green, Richard Johnson, still walked among us, a pygmy among midgets, at election time, Johnson inevitably wound up with the conservative liberals who make up the Democratic Party of Mendocino County.

5TH DISTRICT SUPERVISOR Dan Hamburg is registered Green but is a mainstream Clinton-Obama kind of dude most at home with $45-a-plate Demo fundraisers at Coast spas. You will never, ever see a working person — a logger, a UPS driver, a vineyard worker — with this crew. They all either have the better government jobs or they run vague non-profits, and they precisely replicate the secure demographic typical of the state and national party. Which is why more than half eligible Americans don't vote, and which is why there's no mass Fight Back since the scattered but useful Occupy Movement.

IT'S ALWAYS PUZZLED me how the above Mendo-mentioned can delude themselves into thinking that the Democratic Party is the way forward, or is in any essential economic policy at all different from Republicans. How could a rational person, except maybe for their wives, work up any enthusiasm for, say, Wes Chesbro, Mike Thompson, Jared Huffman, Mike McGuire, and now this dentist guy from Healdsburg? I don't get it. It does not seem intellectually or emotionally possible.

OF COURSE ingratiating oneself with this caponized crew makes sense if you're after a cush local public job, and a couple of them can be fun when they're drunk, but politically? They're the enemies of all hope.

THE DEMOCRATS of Mendocino County have really nice teeth, as do all their candidates. I mention it because they've selected a Healdsburg dentist as their next Assemblyman. I love dentists! As a profession, dentists have a very high incidence of mental illness, right up there with harpists. Every dentist I've known has been at least ten degrees off. They get you in the chair with all kinds of cotton and green goop in your mouth so you can't talk back and here it comes. “I've read your paper, Mr. Anderson, and you have the right to say whatever you want, but I think George W. Bush did a helluva job.” That isn't an insane opinion per se, but it's not one that would go unchallenged if you could talk back. But a Democrat dentist like candidate Wood, doesn't have to be a Republican because his party, in its essentials, is Republican Lite.

WHERE WERE WE? Although Hamburg is a registered Green, he's a big gun with the Democrats; he was elected to Congress as a Democrat. And, obviously, he's a Democrat who, like the rest of them, will tromp to the polls for Hillary, a Republican. And they'll all vote for the Healdsburg dentist, the anointed Assemblyman for the Northcoast. (All candidates for higher office are selected by the existing officeholders supported by a handful of active Marin, Mendo, and SoCo Democrats — middle of the road extremists. Their support base is heavy on doctors and lawyers, the winery and vineyard gangs, government bureaucrats, the panjandrums of the non-profits, and white collar unionists more or less represented by SEIU and the effete teacher's apparatuses.)

JUST THE OTHER DAY, I got a flier from Jim Wood for Assembly. His flier was almost identical to the one I got from Mike McGuire for State Senate. Like McGuire, Wood is depicted in action as A WARM, WONDERFUL HUMAN BEING. He's picking up trash by a stream; he's holding an apple as he chats with a Senior Citizen; he's grinning at a wholesome-looking couple at a farmer's market; and he's walking a dog. By gumbo, Jim's the man for me!

NO, HE ISN'T. I always vote for the third party candidate, never for a person who stoops to big color glossies of himself in yuppo contexts. Or any context at all that has nothing to do with the American reality. Which is: A clear majority of Americans are struggling, and the reason they're struggling is because the interchangeable political parties have been bought up by the oligarchs. The everyday citizen is represented by exactly no one. And the Democrats of the Northcoast aim to keep it that way.

POLICE CALLS AS OF THURSDAY MORNING

DINE-AND-DASH -- A caller at Denny's on Pomeroy Avenue reported at 4:39 a.m. April 24 that a man and woman walked away from their bill. Police didn't find them.

STUDENTS WITH POT -- A caller at the Accelerated Achievement Academy on North State Street reported at 8:43 a.m. April 24 that a student had marijuana. Police arrested a female student on suspicion of possessing marijuana while younger than 18 and on a school campus, cited and released her.

THREATS REPORTED -- A caller in the 300 block of Walnut Street reported at 11 a.m. April 24 that someone threatened him/her over the phone and online. Officers determined there were no threats, and that the two had an argument over the phone and on Facebook.

FRAUD -- A caller in the 1100 block of North State Street reported at 11:50 a.m. April 24 receiving a counterfeit $100 bill.

THREATS -- A caller at a restaurant in the 100 block of West Standley Street reported that a man had threatened to strangle him when he refused to let the man use his cell phone. Police didn't find the man.

BAR PATRON DIDN'T PAY -- A caller at the Forest Club on North State Street reported at 2:36 p.m. April 24 that a patron had ordered and didn't pay. No prosecution was desired.

DINER REFUSED TO PAY -- A caller at Ukiah Garden Cafe on South State Street reported at 4:23 p.m. April 24 that a man had ordered and refused to pay. He left on request, and the business did not desire prosecution.

SHOPLIFTING -- Officers responded at 4:51 p.m. April 24 to Walmart on Airport Park Boulevard and arrested a 24-year-old woman for shoplifting, cited and released her.

THEFT FROM VEHICLE -- A caller in the 1000 block of North State Street reported at 6:59 p.m. April 24 that a passenger window was broken on her vehicle and that property was missing from the car, including her wallet and identification.

SON ATTACKED -- A caller in the 700 block of Village Circle reported at 7:28 p.m. April 24 that her 13-year-old son was attacked by an unknown man on his way home from school, at about 3:40 p.m.

MAN BROKE GLASS -- A caller at Taco Loco on South Orchard Avenue reported at 7:49 p.m. April 24 that a man came inside and started breaking glass, then left pushing his bike south on Orchard Avenue. Police arrested a Ukiah man for vandalism.

MAN ROLLING IN STREET -- A caller at Ford Street and Sidnie Court reported at 10:35 p.m. April 24 that a man was rolling in the street and yelling, then walked near the Orchard Street apartments on Sidnie. Police arrested a Ukiah man on warrants.

The following were compiled from reports prepared by the Ukiah Police Department regarding calls handled by the Fort Bragg Police Department.

RV DUMPING SEWAGE -- A caller in the 800 block of South Main Street reported at 12:29 p.m. April 24 that a man in an RV was dumping sewage on the sidewalk and appeared to be under the influence. Police arrested a 44-year-old man for trespassing and cited him. City public works employees cleaned up the spill.

PEOPLE THROWING ROCKS -- A caller at South Lincoln and Chestnut streets reported at 9:06 p.m. April 24 that people were throwing rocks at passing cars. The California Highway Patrol and state Department of Parks and Recreation checked the area and didn't find them.

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs--

The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

 

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

-  Wilfred Owen

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Don't you drink? I notice you speak slightingly of the bottle. I have drunk since I was 15 and few things have given me more pleasure. When you work hard all day with your head and know you must work again the next day what else can change your ideas and make them run on a different plane like whisky? When you are cold and wet what else can warm you? Before an attack who can say anything that gives you the momentary well-being that rum does? The only time it isn't good for you is when you write or when you fight. You have to do that cold. But it always helps my shooting. Modern life, too, is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief.

— Hemingway

DEPARTMENT OF UNINTENTIONAL SATIRE

Ruth Valenzuela & DUPF Founder Kenny Jowers Named Democrats Of The Year!

by Ruth Valenzuela & Kenny Jowers

Ruth Valenzuela of Ukiah and Kenny Jowers from Manchester are the 2014 Democrats of the Year (DOTY). They will be honored together at receptions from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, at the Little River Inn and on Thursday, May 15, at Parducci Winery in Ukiah.

Valenzuela will be honored for her dedication to the community and conscientious work on behalf of Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro, and Jowers as the founder and dynamo from Democrats United for Progress on the south coast.

Local and state politicos including State Board of Equalization member and candidate for State Controller candidate Betty Yee and other candidates will be on hand to pay tribute to the honorees, who exemplify leadership and are both former restaurateurs.

Valenzuela, a Chicago native, moved to Mendocino County more than a decade ago. She owned a successful burrito café and catering business in Willits and in 2005, while a student at Mendocino College she segued into public service. “I was encouraged by my political science instructor to apply for an internship in Assemblywoman Patty Berg's office,” says Valenzuela. She began right away and took to the work effortlessly.

Valenzuela was quickly recognized as a talented and skilled staffer and within three months she was hired as the office assistant. When the Field Representative position opened, she was promoted.

In 2008 Berg was termed out and couldn't run again. Assemblyman Chesbro was elected and asked Valenzuela to stay on as part of his team. She was promoted to Principal Field Representative in late 2012.

In addition to her plethora of casework regarding a variety of state issues from the DMV to health care and housing to law enforcement, she includes many other activities in her busy schedule. She is a graduate of Leadership Mendocino, Class 16. She was a valued member of the Lightning Jam Volunteer Firefighter Fundraiser steering committee, which raised $57,000 for local fire departments after the 2008 forest fires. She is currently a member of the Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council, the Women's Political Caucus of Mendocino County, and the Mendocino County Democrats.

Valenzuela lives off the grid on a beautiful property on Orr Springs Road, where she loves to read, bike ride, and hang out with her husband Max and their bevy of beloved canines.

Kenny Jowers who also lives on a rural property with a throng of farm animals began his illustrious political life in Mendocino County in 2003 by joining the Mendocino Democratic Central Committee.

Long before coming to Mendocino, the South Carolina native was involved in inequality issues. “My political activism grew out of all of the economic and racial disparities around me growing up in the South,” says Jowers. “Then when the AIDS crisis hit, I joined that fight by serving on the board of a local AIDS service organization and advocated for funding for AIDS research. My brother died of AIDS as did most of my best friends.”

In addition to working hard for gender equality, Jowers harnessed his innate drive and entrepreneurial spirit. “I knew early on that I always wanted to be self-employed. I wanted to be my own boss,” says Jowers, who owned and sold two restaurants in South Carolina and a successful cleaning business in Atlanta before moving to the Mendocino.

Right after moving to Manchester, Jowers' partner Robert Larsen, got a job as a pharmacist in Fort Bragg. Jowers learned the health club in Gualala was for sale and he has been its proprietor, renaming it the Physical Gym, since 2003. The couple built a beautiful country house near Manchester and spend a lot of time tending their farm, which is home to more than a hundred chickens, eleven peacocks (one with a six-foot long tail), four Toulouse geese, ducks, turkeys, Guinea hens, and two extraordinary orchid greenhouses.

Within the first year, Jowers was actively coordinating a Democratic club, drawing members from Irish Beach to Timber Cover [sic]. The Democrats United for Progress (DUFP) [sic] is not just a political organization. This club is about “education and information” according to Jowers. The members have cooked at fundraisers for the senior center. They put on candidate forums for school board elections, a town hall on global warming and another on the Affordable Care Act. On July 19 the DUFP will put on a town hall on the economic impacts of the new Point Arena/Stornetta Coastal National Monument.

The indefatigable Jowers is also working to reestablish the north Mendocino coast Democratic club. For list of upcoming events and contact information for potential members, the DUFP website is www.Dems4Progress.org.

The proceeds from the annual Democrat of The Year fundraiser help pay for endorsement mailers and campaign offices in Mendocino County. Each reception is $45 per person. For reservations and more information about the DOTY receptions visit www.mendodems.org or call 485-0702.

SPRING

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among

This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed

About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

— D.H. Lawrence

MY OWN ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ

by Jim Gibbons

I was only on Alcatraz Island once and it wasn’t off a tour boat and it wasn’t to compete in the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon. And no, in case my grandchildren are reading this, I didn’t do time there when it was a prison from 1933 to 1963, or play a prisoner in the ’79 movie with Clint Eastwood or the 1962 movie, “Birdman of Alcatraz,” with Burt Lancaster, which was mostly filmed at Leavenworth Prison in Kansas, probably because Alcatraz was still a prison. My trip happened back in the late spring of ’71 when the American Indians were occupying The Rock, as they liked to call it.

In November of 1969 three boats took members of twenty tribes from all over the country to occupy Alcatraz, reclaiming it as “Indian land and demanding fairness and respect for Indian Peoples.” The spokesman for the Indians was a Mohawk from New York named Richard Oakes, who offered the U.S. Government “$24 in glass beads and red cloth.” Oakes said, “We hold The Rock,” and that became the movement’s motto. Unfortunately, a few months later his 12-year-old daughter fell from a three-story structure in the prison and died. He left the Island shortly after, as did many others during the 18-month occupation.

Grace Thorpe, daughter of Jim Thorpe, the first Native American to win Olympic gold (1912), was one of the occupiers who helped convince celebs like Jane Fonda, Antony Quinn, Marlon Brando, Jonathan Winters, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Dick Gregory to visit the Island to show their support. Creedance Clearwater Revival gave $15,000 for a boat they named Clearwater for more reliable transport.

But by the spring of ’71 most occupiers were gone and many that were left wanted off, too. There had been numerous power struggles among the various tribes almost from the beginning, and the fact that they lasted a year and a half seemed victory enough, although Uncle Sam said, if I may paraphrase, Sorry Injuns, but Alcatraz is not yours to reclaim, so beat it!

I knew the protest had waned over the months, as most original occupiers were students who went back to school or those with jobs and a real life had to get back to their routines, leaving the remaining hippies and drug addicts and homeless drunks on the Island. But they needed supplies, and they needed a boat. I don’t know what happened to the Creedance, I never saw it in Sausalito. I’d occasionally see a few Indians hanging out at the Gates looking for someone to take them out to the Island, and a few sympathetic locals did, but mostly just to get them out of the neighborhood.

Then one day a friend asked me if I’d like to make $100. A hundred bucks back then was good money. I had been working part-time at the local bookstore for $2 an hour, so $100 to me was the equivalent of 50 hours of work! Hell yeah, was probably my reply, and he told me the U.S. government had cut off all electrical power and phone service to the Island, so the remaining occupiers on Alcatraz had cut and stripped the prison of copper wire, which had gone up to $1 a pound, and they needed a boat to bring it to shore. Jack had a tugboat called the No.1 and he knew I had just purchased a 30-foot steel lifeboat from a guy who claimed he had an epileptic seizure on the boat and refused to spend another night aboard. He just wanted to get the hell out of there, and I happened to be the first person he saw when coming to shore, so he sold it to me cheap, right on the spot, then tossed his back pack on his shoulder and split. I never saw him again.

The fact that what we planned to do was a federal crime didn’t really occur to me, or if it did, it didn’t bother me. What could happen? So within a few days Jack fired up his ancient one-cylinder diesel engine (chug-a-chug-a-chug) and we towed my lifeboat out to the Island. As we approached the dock we saw a few dozen Indians that had gathered to help load the wire onto my lifeboat. The wire was cut into 8-10 foot lengths, coiled with an overhand knot to make for easy handling, and piled near the dock.

Jack and I watched as they loaded the wire, but pretty soon I could see that there was more wire than seemed safe to take, as the gunnels were already within a few feet from the waterline. Just then I heard Jack behind me talking loudly to someone. I turned around and looked into the No.1 to see eight or nine Indians down in the hold, and they wouldn’t come out. They wanted to get to shore in a bad way.

Then we noticed the others were still loading the remaining wire, and Jack looked at me and said, “It’s time to go.” He fired up the diesel and I undid the lines and pushed off, then jumped on board. It didn’t seem like the No.1 could pull this load, but Jack was cool, and went full-throttle as soon as we were out in the clear, chuckling at his tug’s slow response to inch forward, fighting the current, the wind, and the weighted lifeboat. Besides us and the stowaways, we had a few more last-minute invited passengers. I remember asking him if he had any lifejackets and he held up two fingers and pointed down in the hold where two of the stowaways were now wearing lifejackets.

About half-way to Sausalito we noticed a Coast Guard vessel like one I’d never seen, going incredibly fast with all but the keel out of the water! It wasn’t your typical Coast Guard cutter, but an experimental jet-boat of some kind, and I never saw another one like it. This, of course, made us both a little nervous, worried that they might decide to check us out, but no, they had better things to do. We eventually made it back to Waldo Point, pulling in as close to the Ark parking lot as possible.

As soon as we got to shore all the Indians piled out and headed to the Bait Shop for food and drink, and since the truck that was supposed to be waiting to haul the copper to recycling had not yet arrived, to make a few phone calls. So as we watch them walk away, Jack looks at me with his wry smile and kicks a few of the wire bundles overboard. So now the white man is once again ripping off the American Indian, and this time I’m guilty by association.

Over the next hour, while waiting for the truck, observing the Indians put away a good amount of booze, and watching the waterline drop, as the tide was now going out, I noticed some wire poking above the surface just off the stern, visible to anyone looking hard enough. It was about that time the truck showed up and the wire was loaded. Luckily the extra wire went unnoticed and Jack went to get our money, while I felt relieved that we didn’t start another Indian uprising.

“ALL ABOUT MONEY” returns to KZYX on Friday, May 2 at 9am with a special edition show about the recent increased military presence in Asia. Joseph Gerson of the American Friends Service Committee is our guest along with several members of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance), the umbrella organization of various social movements in the Philippines.

We hope to do a follow-up show with Admiral Bill Owens, USN (retired), former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Even as President Obama is cutting other parts of the defense budget, he is signing a new defense pact with the Philippines, perhaps with an eye toward reopening old bases with new leases. Clearly, this is a move to contain China's influence in the region. And clearly, this will mean billions of dollars more in defense spending.

As a side issue, Anti-China sentiments have been on the rise in the Philippines, which is engaged with Beijing over disputed atolls in the oil- and gas-rich South China Sea, with both countries claiming Scarborough Shoal and Second Thomas Shoal as their own. Many billions of dollars in oil and gas are at stake.

The Philippines has accused Beijing of becoming increasingly aggressive in staking its claims to the sea, and has called on the US for greater military as well as diplomatic support.

FRACKING MORATORIUM BILL PASSES SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE

by Dan Bacher

A bill imposing a moratorium on fracking and acidizing for oil extraction in California passed through the Senate Environmental Quality Committee today by a 4 to 2 vote.

Senators Mark Leno, Jerry Hill, Loni Hancock and Fran Pavley voted for Senate Bill 1132, while Senators Ted Gaines and Jean Fuller voted against it. Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson was absent.

Authored by Senators Holly Mitchell and Mark Leno, SB 1132 would require the Natural Resources Agency to facilitate an “independent scientific study” on well stimulation treatments (fracking and acidizing) and their hazards and risks to natural resources and public, occupational, and environmental health and safety by January 1, 2015.

The legislation also:

• Requires the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) to adopt rules and regulations for well stimulation treatments by January 1, 2015, in consultation with the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), CalRecycle, and any local air and regional water quality control boards and

• Requires DOGGR to complete a statewide environmental impact report (EIR) by July 1, 2015.

The bill allows operators to continue well stimulation practices while DOGGR completes its regulations, providing that the well owner complies with interim requirements.

A standing room only of fracking opponents, ranging from representatives of labor unions to environmental groups, packed the room.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, and other opponents of the bill claimed that the environment is already protected by the passage of Senate Bill 4 last year.

“Senate Bill 4 put in the framework to make sure there is a balance between environmental protection and energy production in California,” said Reheis-Boyd. “California now has the most comprehensive regulations regarding hyraulic fracturing in the nation.”

She added that the state was the third largest consumer of oil and gas in the world, exceeded only by China and the United States – and that it needs to step up its domestic oil production to become less dependent on foreign oil arriving by tanker ships.

“I’m thrilled that the oil industry accepts Senate Bill 4, which covers all methods of oil extraction,” said Senator Holly Mitchell. However, Mitchell said that additional independent studies of the risk of fracking and acidization to human health are needed, prompting her and Leno to author Senate Bill 1132.

In response to some oil industry claims that this bill would conflict with Senate Bill 4, she emphasized, “Nothing in the intent or language of SB 1132 would derail SB 4.”

After the bill passed the Committee, representatives of Californians Against Fracking, United Native Americans and the Center for Biological Diversity commented on today’s victory.

“It’s exciting that Senate Bill 1132 passed through the Committee today,” said David Braun of Californians Against Fracking. “It’s another step in the right direction.”

He added that people need to keep pressure on their Legislators to make sure the bill is approved when it goes though its next hurdle, the Appropriations Committee. On April 8, the Senate Natural Resources Committee approved the bill.

According to Braun, the industry's own data indicates that 5 to 6% of the casings for fracked wells fail in the first year of operation - and 50 percent fail over a 30-year period.

“It’s great that the bill is moving forward,” said Hillary Aidun, Anti-Fracking Organizer for the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s important that so much attention has been brought to the science that demonstrates that fracking is a threat to health and the environment.”

Quanah Parker Brightman, Executive Director of United Native Americans, said, “I came here to the bring the voice of California and indigenous nations to the hearing.”

“I call on all tribal nations to use their sovereign immunity to pass resolutions banning fracking on indigenous lands and also to reach out to their Congressmen, Senators and other elected officials to ban fracking locally,” he noted.

Fracking has resulted in contamination of ground water and surface water supplies wherever the oil industry has used this environmentally destructive oil extraction method in the United States.

“Water is one of the four sacred elements. No matters what race or color you are, we’re all part of the human race. We have to defend Mother Earth – we don’t have another planet to go to,” he concluded.

More photos at: Man Builds His Dream Mini-Home in Only Six Weeks for $9000