Sands Of
Mauricette Atencio
Rising from the heart of the Tularosa Basin is one of the world's great natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert, creating the world's largest gypsum dunefield. White Sands National Park preserves a major portion of this unique dunefield, along with the plants and animals that live here.Read More
The hospitality industry is changing at a rapid pace. Building a successful hospitality organization means arming your team members with the best professional tools available. The world-renowned UNLV Harrah College of Hospitality is fulfilling this need by providing industry-relevant, non-degree-based courses and programs through its Sands Center for Professional Development. The Center offers:
The Sands Center holds open-enrollment programs that feature hospitality and gaming experts discussing timely industry-relevant topics, such as esports and sports betting, tribal gaming, customer loyalty, HR, etc. Speakers consist of senior level executives, representing all sectors of the hospitality and gaming industry. Please reach out to the Sands Center (sands...@unlv.edu or 702-895-4124) for more information on upcoming programs.
More and more organizations are taking advantage of our flexible, semi-customizable certificate programs to address their learning and development needs. And since our course are completely online, it is easy to learn anywhere, any time, and at your own pace. Courses cover a wide array of hospitality industry topics, including leadership, revenue management, cost control, and communications. Discover a program that is right for you by calling 702-895-4124.
Center report: In Harm's Way: How the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Have Ignored the Dangers of the Keystone XL Pipeline to Endangered Species
Keystone event pledge form
2013 Keystone XL factsheet
Keystone XL flier
"Say No to Keystone" sign
"Stand Up for Wildlife, Say No to Keystone" sign
"Tar Sands Kill, Pipelines Spill" sign
Polar bear mask (for protests)
And it is bad. In fact, oil from tar sands is one of the most destructive, carbon-intensive and toxic fuels on the planet. Producing it releases three times as much greenhouse gas pollution as conventional crude oil does. Tar sands oil comes from a solid mass that must be extracted via energy intensive steam injection or destructive strip mining, techniques that completely destroy ecosystems, put wildlife at risk, and defile large areas of land. Finally, when transported by pipeline or rail, it puts communities, wildlife and water supplies in danger of toxic spills that are nearly impossible to clean up.
In early 2014 we launched an aggressive, coordinated effort to stop reckless tar sands extraction both in the United States and Canada. Our efforts have targeted cross-border pipeline proposals like Keystone XL and Alberta Clipper, crude-by-rail expansions and burgeoning domestic tar sands projects.
Meanwhile, a Canadian oil company called U.S. Oil Sands is testing tar sands mining to extract the little-known tar sands deposits in eastern Utah, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is moving toward leasing public lands for tar sands development.
More tar sands development means not only deepening the climate crisis, but also putting air, water and wildlife ecosystems at the risk of industrial damage and deadly oil spills. We can't let that happen. That's why the Center is taking action now.
Today, more than six years after the application was filed, Keystone XL has yet to be built. The Center has been on the forefront of this fight, echoing the voices of citizens around the country and using legal challenges, peaceful protests and direct action to prevent the construction of what would be a catastrophic symbol of profits over people.
With a little help from Frostpaw the Polar Bear, the Center has followed President Obama all across the country, from Hawaii to Martha's Vineyard, pressuring him to reject the Keystone pipeline and making sure he never forgets what's at stake: the very survival of our planet and ourselves.
The Alberta Clipper pipeline was initially approved in 2009, and Enbridge seeks to significantly expand the amount of tar sands oil that will flow through it. But rather than wait for the ongoing environmental review and permitting processes, Enbridge has hatched an illegal scheme to immediately move forward with the proposed expansion of its pipeline plan.
Transporting oil by train has become a booming industry, to the detriment of communities and wildlife across the US. Crude-by-rail transport has increased 4,000 percent since 2008 and with it oil train derailments, spills and explosions have been on a steep rise. In 2013 oil-by-rail derailments spilled more oil (1.15 million gallons) than in the previous 40 years (1975?2012).
The Center is working to halt this immensely dangerous mode of transporting tar sands oil (often via the high-risk DOT-111 tank cars) through litigation targeted at the lack of safety regulations and out-of-date spill-response plans.
Efforts thus far have included mounting a lawsuit against the approval of an air permit for Global Partners at Albany, which would enable boiler facilities to heat tar sands transferred from trains to barges; suing the EPA and U.S. Coast Guard over their failure to update disaster response plans in light of intensified rail shipments; and pushing for more crucial information to help the public better understand the risks of these dangerous shipments. We've also filed suit against the largest crude-by-rail proposal in California, which would bring 2-mile-long oil trains to Bakersfield each day. We continue to protest numerous other crude-by-rail proposals in the works.
The country's first potential domestic tar sands operation is under development in Utah?s Uintah Basin and the greater Colorado Plateau. There are more than 30 billion barrels total of tar sands deposits in the Uintah Basin, which is also home to two highly imperiled wildflowers, Graham?s and White River penstemons. The Canadian oil company U.S. Oil Sands has started a test site at PR Springs in eastern Utah and, if tests are successful, it plans to expand the operation to cover more than 32,000 acres. At the same time, the Bureau of Land Management ?is considering issuing the first-ever tar sands lease on federal public land in Asphalt Ridge, Utah.
The Center also teamed up with local partners to organize the one-week Summer for Climate Justice Action Camp in PR Springs, Utah. Seventy-five students, young people and indigenous allies came together to learn first-hand about the threat of tar sands in Utah and practice skills for peaceful direct action.
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