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Bill Weir

25 Nov, 10 tweets, 3 min read

BREAKING: US Army Corps of Engineers denies a permit for Pebble Mine in Southwest Alaska, much to the delight of tribes, fishermen and nature lovers who have been fighting the massive Canadian-owned gold and copper project for decades.

cnn.com/2020/09/25/pol…

Alaska's USACE Commander Col. Damon Delarosa said #PebbleMine “does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines and concluded that the proposed project is contrary to the public interest.”

cnn.com/videos/travel/…

“Today Bristol Bay’s residents and fishermen celebrate the news. Tomorrow we get back to work, asking the EPA to reestablish protections for Bristol Bay under the Clean Water Act,” said Commercial Fishermen for Bristol Bay" Katherine Carscallen....

"We’ve learned the hard way over the last decade that Pebble is not truly dead until protections are finalized."

In '14, Obama's EPA used the Clean Water Act to protect Bristol Bay, but Andrew Wheeler dropped it hours after meeting with the recently-fired Pebble CEO

Pebble's parent vows to appeal the decision and calls the decision "politically motivated," pointing to a recent, favorable Environmental Impact Study.
“At a time when the US has declared a ‘national emergency’ due to its over-reliance on foreign producers for critical minerals

... it is unconscionable to determine that permitting and development of one of the greatest accumulations of
strategic and critical minerals ever discovered on American soil is ‘not in the public interest’." said Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen.

He's the one caught on tape...

...trying to lure what he thought were Chinese investors.

Now he's playing the national security and GREEN ENERGY card saying Biden needs copper to build "clean and renewable energy technologies, and a transition to a lower carbon future.”

But his plans...

...once included a 100-mile natural gas pipeline running alongside an active volcano with ore being trucked and ferried for over 80 miles through pristine habitat.

https://twitter.com/audubonsociety/status/1331706291992064001

Bird lovers love the news

https://twitter.com/audubonsociety/status/1331706291992064001

Here's my full write-up on the Army Corps choosing to protect precious salmon habitat over a half-trillion $$$ worth of buried treasure after the most costly Zoom-call fails in history.

cnn.com/2020/11/25/pol…

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More from @BillWeirCNN

Bill Weir

@BillWeirCNN

6 Nov

You know what it takes to get a ballot certified in most states?
-5% of all election machines are randomly audited to make sure the paper ballots match the tape.
-They double check the math at the local level.
-Then at the country level
-Then at the state level...

Each of these steps is observed by both parties and paper ballots are kept in a vault.

To steal just a few thousand of votes would require a conspiracy of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of librarians, Little League coaches, pastors, farmers and firemen. Your neighbors.

Here in Maricopa, teams of Dem and GOP observers sit together and examine each ballot unreadable by the machine.

A young GOP observer just had a minor medical emergency and after her Dem partner walked her to the ambulance in concern, she said "Guess I'm done for the night"...

Read 5 tweets

Bill Weir

@BillWeirCNN

4 Nov

With Biden up around 20K, Wisconsin Elect. Commish says only 300 ballots or so remain to be counted then they start the triple-checking canvassing process at local, county and state levels.

Lawyers on both sides tell us they doubt there will be a legal challenge. This guy agrees

Trump’s campaign manager Bill Stepien says “The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”

There is no "immediately." They can't legally request a recount until canvas is complete which could take until Nov 17 at latest.

...and thanks to Jill Stein, the Trump campaign would have to pay for the recount (which no one outside of the West Wing thinks will help them).

Read 5 tweets

Bill Weir

@BillWeirCNN

13 Aug

Never had the honor of meeting this man, but the more I learn, the more I admire.

His name is Konrad Steffen, son a Zurich tailor who fell in love with polar ice just as it began to disappear. On one research trip, an avalanche broke his leg and dislocated his jaw...

...but using an aluminum stake as a split and snowmobile for shelter, survived 24 hours.

He became one of the most beloved and respected glaciologists in the world, teaching at U. of Colorado but happiest in Greenland, working gloveless in -25° like an icy Indiana Jones.

He brought his findings before Congress, explaining how a piece of Antarctica the size of California could melt into the sea with such speed.

And each trip into the field became more dangerous as his famous Swiss Camp repeatedly came apart with the rest of the Arctic

Read 4 tweets

Bill Weir

@BillWeirCNN

19 Jun

A #Juneteenth shout-out to the memory of Matthew Henson.

Born to sharecroppers in Maryland and terrorized by the KKK, he attended a tribute to Lincoln at age 10 and heard a rousing call by Frederick Douglas to fight for education and equality.

At 12, he became a cabin boy and sailed the world with a captain who taught him to read and write.

Years later, while working in a Washington DC clothing store he mentioned his experience to a customer named Robert Peary, who invited him on his next adventure.

On a canal survey in Nicaragua, his seamanship and mettle was so impressive, Commander Peary made him first mate for 20 years of adventures in the Arctic.

He was the only member of the crew who bothered to learn the language, dog sled and survival skills of the Inuit...

Read 5 tweets

Bill Weir

@BillWeirCNN

31 May

Sometimes you have to climb down your own family tree to confront the kind of policing that is turning so many stomachs tonight.

That's me in a lovely christening gown and that is my Grandpa Frank between shifts as the leader of Milwaukee PD's notorious Tactical Squad in 1968.

As a kid I knew him as a scary-gruff-but-lovable, first-generation John Wayne. Hero cop with a wall full of commendations and President of the Eagles Club

As a grown-up reporter I learned that the The Eagles Club was whites-only and his stories and souvenirs had another side.

This was an ad taken out in the local alternative newspaper (which also printed the home addresses of hundreds of Milwaukee cops) after his violent crackdowns on protestors for "curfew violations."
Some of his men carried sawed-off pool cues as clubs.

Read 8 tweets

Bill Weir

@BillWeirCNN

13 Jun 19

This is a story about neighbors.

See that house?

Years ago, a family bought it for $60,000.

See the oil refinery next door?

It is owned by a Saudi Arabian company that made $111 billion profit last year, almost twice as much as Apple.

It is called Motiva, it is the largest refinery on the continent and it is just one piece of the Escher-meets-Aliens landscape of Port Arthur, TX.

This town has been turning petrochemicals into American wealth and power for generations...but all that burning comes with a cost.

This is a Chevron emissions event in 2018, one of tens of thousands that happen in Port Arthur over the course of a lifetime.

Valero is facing lawsuits for allegedly spewing 1.8M lbs of illegal pollution and locals tell me the air takes the paint off their cars...