Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International Conspiracy

In the late 1980s, the Evan Mecham Eco-Terrorist International Conspiracy (EMETIC), an Arizona-based offshoot of the radical environmentalist group Earth First!, engaged in acts of ecoterrorism against nuclear power plants. The group was eventually infiltrated and dismantled by the FBI.

EMETIC (named, sarcastically, after the conservative Republican governor of Arizona, Evan Mecham) first emerged in November 1987, when the ski lifts at the Fairfield Snow Bowl Ski and Summer Resort in Flagstaff, Arizona, were sabotaged. EMETIC claimed responsibility and called for a halt to further development of the resort, which was located on lands sacred to the Navajo and Hopi in the San Francisco Peaks. In 1988, members of the group attacked the Snow Bowl Resort again. That same year, EMETIC also sabotaged 29 power lines leading to a uranium mine (also located on land sacred to Indians) near the Grand Canyon, causing a “significant interruption of power,” according to FBI reports.

No arrests were made until May 29, 1989, when two EMETIC members, Mark Davis and Marc Baker, were apprehended while using a propane torch to cut down a utility-line pole from an electrical substation in Wenden, Arizona. More than 50 armed FBI agents wearing bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles, and traveling in helicopters, on horseback, and on foot, participated in the capture. Another EMETIC member, Margaret Millet, fled the scene but was apprehended in Prescott the next day. When authorities took Dave Foreman, the cofounder of Earth First!, into custody at his home in Tucson, EMETIC was all but finished.

EMETIC was infiltrated in 1988 by an FBI mole named Michael Fain, who posed as a mentally disturbed Vietnam Veteran and self-proclaimed “redneck for wilderness.” In an 18-month, $2-million operation, Fain collected more than 1,000 hours of audiotape, which helped convict EMETIC members by proving that the May 29 attack was a test run for a series of attacks on nuclear facilities in California, Arizona, and Colorado. EMETIC planned to cause severe physical and economic damage to the companies.

The grand jury indicted Davis, Baker, and Millet on counts of conspiracy, destruction of property that affected interstate commerce, destruction of an energy facility, and destruction of government property. Foreman faced charges of conspiracy for instructing EMETIC members and funding their actions. The prosecution called the group's actions ecoterrorism; the defense responded with allegations of government misconduct, coercion, and entrapment, with the intent to discredit the environmental movement. In September 1991, Davis, Baker, and Millet were all sentenced to prison, with terms ranging from one to six years. Another EMETIC member, Ilse Apslund, was sentenced to one year. Foreman pled guilty to conspiracy, but his five-year sentence was deferred.

Throughout the investigation, the FBI considered EMETIC to be a “small vanguard” of individuals committing illegal acts in the name of the environment. The audiotapes show Foreman and Earth First! were the FBI's key targets. Despite EMETIC's small membership and short lifespan, the group earned a substantial reputation and was named “mother of all ecoterrorists” by Ron Arnold, the father of the “Wise Use” movement and an opponent of environmentalists.

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