More than 100 enviro groups yesterday petitioned the Clinton-Gore administration to temporarily prevent development on 160 million acres of roadless federal areas in the West managed by the Bureau of Land Management. They are asking the BLM to reinventory the land to determine how much should be protected as wilderness, contending that past BLM inventories and management plans were seriously flawed. "It is urgent that they act now because we're losing areas every day to off-road vehicle abuse, oil drilling, mining, and other destructive uses," said Scott Groene of the National BLM Wilderness Campaign.

Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday called on her opponent in the New York Senate race, New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R), to return a $100,000 soft-money donation from a company she called the "number-one polluter in America." The money was donated by the Renco Group, which owns a Utah company that federal officials have identified as the top toxic chemical dumper in the nation. Clinton campaigned on the theme of the environment throughout the day, meeting with green activists and pledging to fight for more money to clean up the Long Island Sound and investigate a rash of lobster deaths. …

In a significant ruling that means average citizens could more bear more responsibility for reducing water pollution, a federal judge has upheld the right of the U.S. EPA to set limits for river pollution caused by runoff from logging, agriculture, and urban areas. Farm and timber groups argued in a lawsuit that the EPA could only regulate industrial waste and sewage, pollution that comes from so-called point sources, like pipes. But the court ruled that the EPA has the authority to set limits for water pollution from nonpoint sources, such as runoff from pesticides and sediment from logging. The EPA …

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley (D) last week made an unusual deal with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create new habitats in the city for migratory birds. In exchange for a $100,000 grant, Chicago will restore marshes south of the city, develop wildlife gardens along the shore of Lake Michigan, and take such simple steps as building birdhouses. Chicago and New Orleans are the first cities to sign on to a USFWS pilot program that aims to create urban habitat for birds. The agency hopes to extend to the program to as many as a dozen other cities by …