Saturday, August 17, 2013

Tildren Injection, Northwest Equine Veterinary Association

Tildren Injection

Tildren® is a drug that has been one of the main breakthroughs in the treatment of navicular disease in horses.
It has been available in Europe for many years to treat navicular disease, bone spavin (hock arthritis) and other selected boney conditions and has recently become available in the United States to veterinarians who obtain special permission for it’s use. Tildren® has the benefit of being a systemic therapy which can be used to treat multiple sites of osteoarthritis at once instead of the traditional individual intra-articular therapy.
There are many different treatment protocols being utilized with Tildren® but most involve placement of an intravenous catheter and administration of a large amount of the drug as an intravenous drip for about an hour. Generally in 2-4 weeks the benefits are beginning to be realized and the effect lasts for approximately six months but in some cases for much longer. Horses may remain sound longer by giving monthly boosters.
Details on Tildren®’s mode of Action
Tiludronic acid belongs to the bisphosphonate therapeutic class, a class of products with activity on bone metabolism. The main pharmacological property of TILDREN lnjection is to reduce bone resorption by inhibiting the activity of osteoclasts.
TILDREN lnjection acts as a regulator of bone remodelling in all situations involving excessive bone resorption. This regulator effect is not associated with a negative effect on bone formation or bone mineralisation at the recommended therapeutic dosage.
Areas of reduced bone density are a pathological change common to most cases of Navicular Disease and Bone Spavin and are due to inappropriate resorption of bone ("osteolysis"). In double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials for both conditions, TILDREN treatment produced clear improvement as demonstrated by long-term reduction in lameness and progressive resumption of sporting activity.
In another double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial into the treatment of back pain associated with bony lesions of the vertebral column, TILDREN treatment induced a clear improvement in back flexibility, however further research is required to add this indication as a registered claim. Other studies have shown that TILDREN treatment can prevent the bone loss which usually occurs during inactivity in horses, as shown by measurements of bone density in spelling horses.
TILDREN lnjection has also demonstrated anti-arthritic properties in a model of poly-arthritis in rats.  In vitro data identified inhibiting effects on the secretion of enzymes which degrade cartilage matrix.
Indications
Treatment of lameness associated with bone and cartilage changes such as those observed in Navicular Disease and Bone Spavin.

Navicular Disease and Treatments... Oct. 11, 2011 by Heather Smith Thomas

Navicular Disease and Treatments

By Heather Smith Thomas
EC October, 2011
In earlier years, a diagnosis of navicular disease was often considered career-ending for a horse. Chronic lameness was typical, in spite of therapeutic shoeing, medication, etc. and sometimes the only option to enable the horse to travel sound was neurectomy—so he would no longer feel pain in the foot. Success rate for neurectomy is only about 50% however, because the nerves may regrow, and this procedure is not without risk.
Today we realize that what was earlier called navicular disease (with the horse showing pain in the rear part of the foot, often positive to hoof testers over the navicular area and going sound after a posterior digital nerve block) includes a host of different problems within the foot, some of which are unrelated to the navicular bone and/or its bursa. The term navicular syndrome is now used instead unless the condition actually affects the bone and bursa specifically.
Mike Pownall, DVM (veterinarian/farrier, McKee-Pownall Equine Services, Rockwood, Ontario) says the biggest difference today in diagnosing and treating heel pain, compared to 10 or 20 years ago, is the advent of MRI. This diagnostic technique enables us to know what is actually going on with the foot.
“It gives us an accurate diagnosis, and more accurate and effective treatment options, and also gives us a prognosis. Without using MRI, a person is usually trying to deal with the condition with shoeing, shockwave treatment, injecting the bursa or coffin joint, or resting the horse,” he says. You are just shooting in the dark as to what might be the best treatment for that particular horse.
Joe Bracamonte, DVM, DVSc, Diplomate ACVS (Assistant Professor, Large Animal Surgery, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan) says our way of looking at horses with navicular disease has changed. “Radiography, for a long time, served as the gold standard for looking at horses with lameness localized to the foot. Radiographs provided excellent evaluation of bony structures but minimal information on soft tissue structures. We can’t assess very much soft tissue injury with radiography,” he explains.
“With MRI we can visualize so much more—not just the navicular bone. We can also identify lesions involving the deep digital flexor tendon. This is a common finding in horses that present with caudal heel pain, that cannot be assessed with plain radiographs,” says Bracamonte.
Other diagnostic methods that may be more helpful than radiographs include contrast CT scans, if a person doesn’t have access to MRI. Bone scan (nuclear scintigraphy) may also be helpful in some situations. “With accurate diagnosis we are able to help more horses with proper treatment and provide owners with a more realistic prognosis,” he says.
NEW TREATMENTS
“We are also having good luck now using a drug called Tildren for treating navicular disease,” says Pownall. “This drug is licensed in Europe for treating women with osteoporosis. Veterinarians started using it for horses with navicular disease. This drug is very effective in treating navicular cases that involve the bone,” says Pownall.
When the bone is traumatized it begins to remodel. “If you can slow down that process, this can head off severe changes, and also helps with pain regulation. Thus this new drug is very helpful. It’s available now in both the U.S. and Canada via an emergency drug release,” he says. If your veterinarian thinks this drug might help a specific horse, it can be obtained for use in that particular horse.
Tildren (tiludronic acid or tiludronate) is a biphosphate that has been shown to inhibit bone resorption and slows down bone turnover. This drug is usually given to the horse via a large intravenous dose (usually with a catheter and IV drip for about an hour) and has a beneficial effect on any sites in the body affected by osteoarthritis, including the navicular bone. It affects bone metabolism and reduces bone resorption by inhibiting the activity of osteoclasts. Benefits (including relief of pain) can usually be seen within 2 to 4 weeks and the effects generally last about 6 months or longer. Some horses are given monthly booster doses to prolong the beneficial effects of this drug.
“Another thing that’s helpful in dealing with these horses, when we can use MRI to see what’s going on in the foot, is that we are having better luck treating the navicular bursa as opposed to treating the coffin joint. Injecting the bursa is tricky. It helps to use digital x-ray so you can see instantly if the needle placement is correct, but with the better diagnosis we can treat the bursa this way if needed, and have a better success rate,” explains Pownall.
“Regarding some of the medications that can be injected into the navicular bursa, we’ve typically used some type of cortisone and hyaluronic acid, but now I think veterinarians are using newer treatments more often such as stem cells and IRAP (interleuken receptor antagonist protein) which are both showing a lot of promise in treating this area. Research in treatment is still in its infancy, so we don’t have a lot of evidence yet, but I think as time goes on we will get a better idea of the efficacy of various treatments and medications,” he says.
Bracamonte says that back in the 1990s a lot of people were using isoxsuprine for navicular disease but most veterinarians no longer use this. “Tildren is looking more promising,” he says.
“I still think the hallmark of treating any kind of navicular area of pain is excellent trimming and shoeing,” says Pownall. “You can do all the modern treatments in the world, but if the foot is out of balance or shod improperly you are going one step forward and two steps backward in trying to resolve the problem.” If the foot is not balanced there will be stress on areas that shouldn’t be undergoing extra stress and strain.
Thus it helps to have a good farrier working with the veterinarian on a navicular case. A team effort is crucial with many types of foot lameness. “If you don’t have that team working together to help the horse, you are missing the benefit that both the farrier and the veterinarian can provide,” he says.
ANOTHER POTENTIAL TREATMENT OPTION
Dr. Carl Kirker-Head (Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine) has been working on several research studies involving navicular disease. “The treatments for classic navicular disease, which shows clinically as lameness caused by pain emanating from the bone, bursa and/or adjacent deep digital flexor tendon, have had only limited success. Historically, we were trying corrective farriery, blood thinners, blood vessel dilators, etc. The end stage treatment has often been neurectomy, cutting the nerves to that area, which has also met with poor success. In our experience, about half of the horses receiving neurectomy have regrowth of the nerve within 2 years, and re-sensitization—which means they start to feel the pain again,” he says.
“There have been a couple of studies looking at horses with navicular disease, identifying the fact that the pressure of the fluid inside the navicular bone (intraosseous pressure) is elevated above normal in affected horses. In our study, we looked at this and made a correlation with human bone diseases, some of which also result in increased intraosseous pressure. In several of the human conditions, the standard of care has been to drill decompression channels into the affected bone—to essentially relieve the pain by reducing the pressure within the bone and possibly to facilitate a more balanced remodeling of the bone,” says Kirker-Head
This core decompression is currently used for treating human patients with osteonecrosis (bone death due to poor blood supply to that area). The procedure has had moderately good success in human patients. Kirker-Head simply took that concept and applied it to the horse to see if it might be a way to ease a horse’s pain by relieving the abnormally high fluid pressure within the navicular bone, and to see if it might help stimulate new bone growth in a way that would be more favorable to the bone.
In horses with navicular disease, one feature is that the constant extra pressure on the navicular bone from the deep digital flexor tendon (which is often due to poor conformation) results in abnormal remodeling of the navicular bone. As part of that process, the bone begins to degenerate and fill with fluid creating pain from the increased pressure. Kirker-Head decided to try the decompression drilling to see if it might ease the pain, first doing the procedure experimentally on normal, healthy horses.
“Here at Tufts the research has been done by myself and my associate, Dr. Florien Jenner, who was my research fellow at the time. We designed a minimally invasive surgical procedure that would allow us to access the navicular bone safely and repeatedly. We drilled three decompression channels into the bone from the back of the pastern. Thus we were able to get down into the bone safely without having to approach the bone through the hoof capsule,” he explains.
“We had good visualization of the proximal (top) border of the navicular bone, within the coffin joint, using fluoroscopic visualization which is like an x-ray video. We created the three decompression channels into the bone,” he says. This was done with six healthy horses that had no sign of any problems to make sure this procedure could be performed successfully and repeatedly without complications.
“We then monitored those horses post-operatively for 12 weeks to make sure there were no adverse complications. We were able to show that we could perform the surgery and that drilling the holes did provide a reduced spike in pressure in a stress test—in which we injected a small volume of fluid into the navicular bone—to simulate the elevated pressure you might encounter in horses with actual navicular disease,” he says.
“We were able to substantially reduce the pressure spike,” says Kirker-Head. The next logical step was to try this on navicular horses.
“We have not done very many yet. At this point, between myself and a colleague in the UK (Dr. Andy Bathe), we have only done five horses. So far, this procedure has provided improvement in soundness in the trial horses, but not necessarily lasting improvement. In one of the five horses, we had a return of clinical lameness several months later. So at this point we are just collecting more cases,” he says. Kirker-Head hopes to try this procedure in more horses and evaluate the results.
It’s increasingly difficult to find horses with actual navicular disease, however. “With the advent of MRI, we now realize that many of what we thought were classical navicular disease cases are actually not, and their lameness issues are more complicated. So we have to be quite selective and make sure that horses having the surgery are 1) in the earlier stages of the disease process and 2) are not showing pain because of other conditions within the hoof,” he says.
If navicular horses can be treated with core decompression drilling in the early phases of this degenerative disease, they might have more chance to respond positively and become sound again. “We hope to treat horses within the first 6-12 months of this disease,” he explains.
The blanket term “navicular syndrome” covers a lot of issues within the foot, and many of these cases result in complications that would not respond to simply drilling the bone. “But we have now done enough of these surgeries that we are comfortable with our ability to get there and do it, and we have shown that we can do it without endangering the horse. So now we just need to get a clinical series to show how the short-term and long-term outcome plays out,” says Kirker-Head.
“This will be an ongoing study and we encourage people who are interested in enrolling their horses to contact me,” he says. Horse owners can participate in this program and possibly help their own horse in the process.
Anyone who has a horse that has been diagnosed in early stages of navicular disease can get in touch with him by e-mail at carl.kirker-head@tufts.edu
ABOUT TILDREN RESEARCH
A study was done in 2003, in France, evaluating use of Tildren in horses with navicular disease. “This was a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial,” says Bracamonte.
The objective of this study was to determine if the bone remodeling changes in navicular disease could be corrected with this drug. Two different doses of tiludronate were evaluated. Horses with navicular disease were split into two groups—recent and chronic cases—and then followed over 6 months after receiving the drug. Some of the horses were given 0.5 mg/kg and the others were given 1 mg/kg. The drug was administered daily for 10 days via IV injections.
The horses receiving the higher dose showed the most improvement and returned to normal levels of activity within two to six months after the treatment. Horses with recent onset of navicular disease showed the best improvement. The lower dose of the drug failed to significantly improve the condition.
“We are finally able to get Tildren in Canada and the U.S. Success in treatment depends partly on how severe the pathology is; it’s always better to catch it early before there are significant changes in the bone. Horses that have recent onset of clinical signs are the best candidates for this treatment,” says Bracamonte.
At this point it’s still an “emergency release” drug and can only be used on a case-by-case basis with the veterinarian requesting its use. “We are now working on licensing so we can offer it to our clients,” he says.
“Some veterinarians are using Tildren in regional limb perfusions. This is the same way we treat horses with joint infections, using antibiotics,” he says. A tourniquet is used temporarily on the affected limb—to help make sure the drug stays in that area awhile—to deliver high levels of the antibiotic into the affected area.
“Giving a drug systemically doesn’t get enough of it into the joint. The dose we’d have to give, to have high enough concentration at the site of infection, would be bad for the horse’s health and might damage the kidneys,” he explains.
“So we isolate the area of the problem, apply a tourniquet (to restrict blood in and out of that area), and with a catheter we inject a certain volume of antibiotic to deliver a high concentration to that area. We only leave the tourniquet on for about 30 minutes.” This procedure is now being used for administering Tildren. It is normally given IV, but some people are trying it via regional limb perfusion and feel it gives even better results.

Tildren, The Magical Product against Lameness?!! Sat. Jan. 10, 2009.. repost, 2013

Tildren, the Magical Product against Lameness?!

 
Sat, 01/10/2009 - 00:00
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Hindlegs in the piaffe
Photo © Astrid Appels
Veterinary News
by Erin Richards - Republished by permission of The Chronicle of the Horse. Visit www.chronofhorse.com to subscribe.
The signs are familiar and common yet never easy to watch: short, stubby strides, marked soreness, the head-bobbing lameness. When those kinds of symptoms are caused by navicular syndrome, treatment options have been depressingly slim.

But in the early part of this century, veterinarians with well-connected European colleagues heard whisperings about, or actually obtained, a new drug that appeared to work wonders at restoring soundness in horses with bone-related lamenesses.

From grand prix jumpers with slight changes in their legs to backyard pleasure horses stricken by navicular, a drug called Tildren appeared to slow the bone deconstruction process.

Today, Tildren has become a one-dose ticket to recovery or prevention for many horses. The problem? In the six years since people started hearing about the medicine, the U.S. Federal Drug Administration has yet to approve Tildren for use in this country.

That may change soon, however, if the results of an intense, nationwide study currently underway and being funded by the drug’s founder, Ceva Sante Animale in France, go according to expectations. FDA approval of the drug would open up access to Tildren for veterinarians and likely decrease the price of the medicine, making the drug available to a greater number of horses and owners.

Perhaps because of its international origins, Tildren still isn’t well known. In France, Ceva is a leading science and research company that has introduced new drugs and therapies for everything from cows and poultry to dogs and swine and horses.

But to obtain Ceva’s Tildren in the United States, licensed veterinarians are required by law to fill out separate applications for each horse they think qualifies for the medicine, a process that can take six to eight weeks from the time a veterinarian diagnoses a horse’s condition to when he or she has Tildren ready to administer.

An Intravenous Intervention

Upon arrival, the drug maintains its mystique. At Homestead Equine Hospital in Pacific, Mo., veterinarian Mark Cassells remembered being a bit perplexed when he ordered Tildren for the first time. The package was a little blue box that, when unwrapped, revealed rows of little bottles and vials and a bunch of French or German directions on how to administer it.

“None of the instructions are in English,” said Cassells, who started ordering Tildren for his clients a few years ago after hearing about the drug at a conference. “There are 20 vials inside, 10 that contain the drug in a powder form and 10 that contain the dilutant,” Cassells said. “You mix up one vial of powder and one vial of dilutant every day to administer intravenously, or you can mix up the entire thing and administer it in a one-time intravenous dose.”

Most veterinarians prefer the one-time intravenous dose. Instead of oral medicine, which gets absorbed more slowly or not at all because it goes through the digestion system, intravenous Tildren soaks into a horse’s bones like water seeping into a sponge.

Controlling The Damage

This is where Tildren goes to work. In a horse with navicular or any other chronic bone condition—ringbone, for instance, or osteoarthritis of the hock—Tildren inhibits bone deconstruction by shutting down what are known as osteoclasts. Osteoclasts, like hungry termites, digest bone, and Tildren impedes their progress.

More scientifically, Tildren is a class of substances known as bisphosphonates, which inhibit osteoclast action and the resorption of bone.

In healthy horses, bone is constantly being remodeled. This is how animals get stronger; when the skeletal structure is stressed through training, it responds by making new bone tissue. Osteoclasts in a healthy horse eat away old bone to make room for the new and denser bone, which is formed with the help of osteoblasts. But typically, osteoblasts work much more slowly than the nibbling osteoclasts.

This is especially important in horses with navicular syndrome and other chronic bone conditions, where the bone breakdown process may exceed the bone rebuilding process, explained veterinarian Rick Mitchell, of Fairfield Equine Associates in Newtown, Conn.

“By reducing bone breakdown and further degeneration, the thought is that the drug reduces pain,” Mitchell explained. “Before Tildren, we didn’t have anything that could do this.”

Tildren already exists in an oral form that is approved for human use. Known generically as “tiludronate” or  “tiludronate disodium,” the substance is typically obtained under the brand name Skelid, and it’s used to slow the weakening of bone that occurs in a condition called Paget’s disease. Currently, it’s also being tested for treating osteoporosis.

As for horses, the best ammunition veterinarians and owners had against chronic bone conditions before Tildren weren’t substances that directly targeted the bone at all. Drugs such as isoxsuprine and pentoxifiline are thought to primarily increase circulation in the afflicted areas, though as Mitchell noted, nobody has rigorously proved isoxsuprine’s efficacy in randomized and controlled studies.

Tildren hasn’t replaced those drugs, but it has offered a significantly different way of attacking the root problem of many chronic bone conditions: bone breakdown.

In one small study Mitchell and his colleagues conducted several years ago, the administration of Tildren, combined with corrective shoeing in horses that showed signs of navicular, had about an 80 percent soundness success rate after six months.

The study was fairly small, but Mitchell and other researchers were careful to make sure the cause of lameness was navicular and not some other factor. In every case, the administration of Tildren helped more horses after six months than horses that were administered other types of therapies without Tildren, for instance, corrective shoeing with bute and banamine treatment.

It’s still possible, said Mitchell, that it was simply their selection of cases that produced the positive results and not the drug itself. But, the results they got in that study matched the results obtained by Jean-Marie Denoix, a veterinarian in France, one of the earliest researchers to test the drug and one of the most well-known experts in the field.

“I think we have good information that Tildren works, but we don’t have solid proof yet,” Mitchell said. “What we do know is that if it works as well as we think it does, then the earlier a horse with bony changes gets treated with it, the better.”

More Rigorous Study

The most rigorous and widespread Tildren study to date is currently being carried out in about nine locations across the United States. Mitchell’s clinic is one of the test sites, as is the Wisconsin Equine Clinic and Hospital in Oconomowoc, about 35 minutes west of Milwaukee.

Ceva is paying for the study, with the explicit goal of proving efficacy and getting an FDA permit to treat navicular bone disease with the drug.

At Wisconsin Equine, veterinarian Doug Langer has so far had 23 horses that have been accepted into the study. He expected the 200 horses needed across the country to be accepted before the end of 2008.

The only problem, he said, is that only a small percentage of horses they test actually qualify to be a part of the study—between 20 and 25 percent. With more thorough imaging, Langer said they sometimes discover that potential test subjects have more going on inside their  bodies than just changes to the navicular bone.

For control purposes, the horses accepted must only show changes to their navicular bone and no other ligament, tendon or bone injuries.

“I don’t think the company paying for the study expected they would have to be paying for so many MRIs,” Langer said.

Once the test subjects are identified, the horses either receive Tildren or an intravenous placebo. The veterinarians then follow the test subjects for two months and document any changes.

If, at the end of the two months, it turns out that the horse received the placebo, then the owner is allowed to have their horse receive the real drug, if they so choose.

On the East Coast, Mitchell said that getting horses into the study has been a bit slow because some owners don’t want to disrupt their show schedule; others are leery of being involved in a study where for two months their horse may only be receiving a placebo.

“The other problem is that sometimes it’s hard for us, too, to identify just navicular bone edema,” Mitchell said. “There’s a potential for owners to not get the drug, and that makes some of them reluctant to participate.”

But the point of a rigorous study, Mitchell said, is to prove efficacy. Once you can prove efficacy and safety, everything else tends to fall in line and the drug will be made available in the United States.

In Wisconsin, Langer said his experiences with the drug so far have been, “quite remarkable.”

“Back in May, I had a horse with navicular that was [grade] three out of five lame,” Langer said. “Severe navicular. It wasn’t even a candidate for nerving. It was given one treatment of Tildren, and I didn’t evaluate it again until four months later. At that time, it was completely sound.”

Langer added: “If we can help even half of the horses with that kind of affliction, then it’s a step in the right direction.”

Not Perfect

Tildren is not a cure-all, and there are still some drawbacks. The drug targets bone and, specifically, the processes that affect bone degeneration. So that means it won’t ease any lamenesses caused by tendon, ligament or muscle injuries. Also, it’s not intended for use on horses that are still growing, or mares that are pregnant or lactating.

Occasionally, some horses get a bit colicky after the administration of the IV fluid with the Tildren solution. Also, Tildren cannot be used while a horse is in competition as there are some withdrawal times.

Then there’s the issue of price. At $1,000 to $1,100 per dose (one time or 10 intravenous shots over 10 days), Tildren isn’t a cheap medication. However, that price is likely to decrease once the FDA approves the drug and it becomes warehoused in the United States.

To keep extra doses of Tildren on hand right now, many veterinarians are compelled to engage in a bit of sleight of hand with the FDA, usually by re-submitting the names of horses who have already received the drug to keep new doses coming over from Europe. This keeps the veterinarians from having to go through the laborious process of filling out all new paperwork for a new horse that needs the drug and making the owner wait six weeks or so until the medicine comes through in that horse’s name.

Some veterinarians combine Tildren with additional therapies such as shockwave therapy to get the best results.

Kathy Frame, from Oconomowoc, Wisc., said that her 16-year-old grand prix show jumper had a bit of a hitch in his hind end, which she treated with Tildren and then shockwave therapy. Frame said the horse was never lame, he just seemed a bit off.

“We won a grand prix the week I did the shockwave, so it’s a little hard to tell if it was the Tildren I did before or the other therapy,” Frame said.

Kyle Dewar, also from Oconomowoc (and engaged to Frame), said he once used Tildren on one of his older horses. The horse had ringbone, Dewer said, and he administered Tildren after getting the drug from a friend in Europe.

“It eased his arthritic changes,” Dewer said of his older jumper.

Now, Dewar said, he uses it on some warmbloods that he imports from Europe.

“If I notice a little something on an X-ray in Europe, I know I could use some Tildren on it,” Dewar said. “They may have an enlarged vascular channel in their foot or slight navicular changes, and Tildren seems to improve the bone density and clear those right up.”

As a rule, people won’t see immediate effects from Tildren. It takes time to work, and the maximum benefit will be seen in about two months.

“By no means is this a magic cure,” said Langer at Wisconsin Equine, “but it has helped a lot of horses.”
Source: The Chronicle of the Horse
Related Links
Laminitis: A Serious Threat to your Horse with the Potential to Cripple and Kill
Horses for Courses: Anna Johnson Reflects on Physiotherapy for Horse and Human

Friday, August 16, 2013

Top Honors for Inyo's State Fair Exhibit, Aug. 16, 2013 By Darcy Ellis, Inyo Register

Top honors for Inyo’s State Fair exhibit

Copyright © 2013 The Inyo Register | 1180 N Main St Ste 108 | Bishop, CA, 72104 | (760) 873-3535

Letter to the Editor: Manzanar Committee Opposes LADWP's Solar Ranch Plans.. By News Staff Sierra Wave Aug. 16, 2013

Letter to the editor: Manzanar Committee opposes LADWP Solar Ranch

 Looking east from the visitor’s center at Manzanar National Historic Site. The floor of the Owens Valley, along with the Inyo Mountains in the background, are visible. But this view could be destroyed by a massive solar energy generating station, proposed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. National Park Service Photo
Looking east from the visitor’s center at Manzanar National Historic Site. The floor of the Owens Valley, along with the Inyo Mountains in the background, are visible. But this view could be destroyed by a massive solar energy generating station, proposed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. National Park Service Photo
Manzanar Committee Denounces LADWP Proposal To Build 1,200-Acre Solar Farm Near Manzanar
LOS ANGELES — On August 16, the Manzanar Committee announced its opposition to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s (LADWP) proposed 1,200-acre Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch, which would be constructed east of the Owens River, but in a direct line of sight with the Manzanar National Historic Site, which lies to the immediate west.
The proposed site would generate electricity that would be delivered to LADWP customers in Los Angeles. But generating that energy would result in the destruction of Manzanar’s historic solid waste dump, which has not undergone an archeological study. Equally important, the site’s approximately one million solar panels, along with buildings, large equipment, transformers, a substation, transmission lines, and much more, would destroy a significant portion of the historic landscape surrounding Manzanar National Historic Site.
“The importance of maintaining and enhancing the physical characteristics of the Manzanar National Historic Site cannot be downplayed or overlooked,” said Manzanar Committee Co- Chair Bruce Embrey. “One of the most powerful parts of Manzanar is the unobstructed view, and that many of the structures, gardens and other features of the World War II American concentration camp have not been bulldozed over or destroyed by ‘development.’
“Some of the best and most memorable parts of Manzanar have always been seeing the remnants of the camp set in contrast to the natural landscape of the area,” added Embrey. “The continued restoration of the gardens, the apple orchard, and other crucial archaeological aspects, including Manzanar’s World War II-era solid waste dump, which undoubtedly contains historically significant artifacts—none of that should be compromised for commercial exploitation.”
Embrey noted that while LADWP has supported the Manzanar Pilgrimage for many years, this proposal is yet another blot on their poor record regarding the site.
“LADWP has a long and checkered history regarding the establishment of the Manzanar National Historic Site,” Embrey stressed. “They have offered support over the years to the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage, led for decades by Sue Kunitomi Embrey. But the relationship between LADWP and the Manzanar Committee has been marked by serious and fundamental disagreements along the way.”
“LADWP opposed efforts to establish a National Historic Site at Manzanar, arguing instead for a local memorial park,” added Embrey. “Even as late as 1991, they continued their efforts, under then-General Manager Michael Gage, to prevent the establishment of a National Historic Site under the auspices of the National Park Service.”
As a response to an LADWP-supported bill in Congress that would have established a locally administered memorial at Manzanar, rather than a National Historic Site, in an October 5, 1991 letter to the editor, Sue Kunitomi Embrey, one of the founders of the Manzanar Pilgrimage and the Manzanar Committee, wrote in the Los Angeles Times:
“The DWP proposal is highly inappropriate and totally unacceptable to the Manzanar Committee for many reasons, the important one being that Manzanar has national significance, and local jurisdiction does not give Manzanar the integrity and national recognition it deserves.”
More than twenty years later, LADWP’s insensitivity and disregard for Manzanar, not to mention the people who were unjustly incarcerated there, and their families, continues.
“The very idea that any land in or around the Manzanar National Historic Site could be used for a massive generating facility would not harm the ongoing efforts to preserve and understand the tragedy of justice that occurred there is simply beyond insensitive, and it’s not just insensitive to the Japanese American community, the survivors of America’s concentration camps and their families,” Embrey lamented. “That gross insensitivity extends to the efforts of the National Park Service, and others who have worked so hard to bring this brief, but essential, part of American History to light.”
“George Santayana said, “those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it,” Embrey added. “This is true for our nation, and for the LADWP. Their proposed solar farm will severely harm efforts to remember our past.”
“The long-term, negative impact on the Manzanar National Historic Site cannot be understated. We call on the Inyo County Board of Supervisors, as well as the LADWP, to revisit the proposal and find another, more suitable location for the proposed solar generating station.
The Manzanar Committee is dedicated to educating and raising public awareness about the incarceration and violation of civil rights of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II and to the continuing struggle of all peoples when Constitutional rights are in danger. A non-profit organization that has sponsored the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage since 1969, along with other educational programs, the Manzanar Committee has also played a key role in the establishment and continued development of the Manzanar National Historic Site. For more information, send e-mail to info@manzanarcommittee.org, call (323) 662-5102, or check their blog at http://blog.manzanarcommittee.org.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

County Contiues to extend support to Alabama Hills Designation... Aug. 13, 2013 By Inyo Register Mike Gervais...

County continues to extend support to Alabama Hills designation

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