Uncategorized

Splurging General

Calling homeland security an environmental issue, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced yesterday that the Justice Department would crack down on companies that failed to protect their plants, pipelines, storage tanks, and transportation systems from terrorist attacks. The attorney general said the department would use civil and criminal lawsuits to enforce compliance with environmental and […]

PBDE Heebie-jeebies

Women in the San Francisco Bay Area have three to 10 times the amount of a dangerous persistent organic pollutant in their breast tissue as do either European or Japanese women, according to a study released yesterday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are flame retardants commonly used in foam, textiles, […]

Weapons of Mass Distruction

A coalition of activists in four states sued the federal government yesterday over the U.S. Army’s practice of incinerating chemical weapons. The coalition, led by the Kentucky-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, charges the Army with violating the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider less dangerous alternatives for disposing of the country’s chemical weapons […]

A conservation pioneer from Belize joins forces with the Nature Conservancy

Joy Grant was born in a house with no indoor plumbing in the tiny Central American country of Belize. That was 52 years ago. Last year, she accepted one of the top positions at the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy. For both parties, the marriage is a calculated gamble. Joy, oh, Joy. Photo: Deborah Knight. I spent […]

You Be Illin’

Almost 150 power plants, factories, and other businesses in Illinois are operating without federal clean-air permits, according to a statewide coalition of environmental and public-health organizations. Federal law required Illinois’ 733 worst polluters to pass emissions standards and receive appropriate permits by March 1998, but as of yesterday, four years after the deadline, only 80 […]

Skull and Bones

In a victory for environmentalists, public-safety advocates, and nuclear-watchdog organizations, the federal Atomic Safety and Licensing Board yesterday rejected plans for storing spent nuclear fuel in Skull Valley, Utah. The ruling was also a win for the state, which had lobbied against the proposed storage facility, slated to be built on the Skull Valley Goshute […]

Doo Process

Calling for more stringent regulations to control manure runoff from large-scale farms, three environmental organizations filed suit against the U.S. EPA on Friday. The current rules, which were approved last month and will be phased in by 2006, require concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, to obtain water-pollution permits every five years, have a waste-management […]

Taken to the Cleaners

Under pressure from environmental organizations, the Florida legislature yesterday modified a bill designed to protect dry cleaners from being sued for toxic contamination. The original bill would have prevented people who owned land adjacent to dry cleaners from suing over groundwater contamination; the modified version would retain that provision but grant exceptions to those who […]

Peter Illyn, Restoring Eden

Peter Illyn is executive director of Restoring Eden, a nonprofit working to make environmental stewardship a core Christian value. Monday, 10 Mar 2003 HAINES, Alaska I’m a Christian environmental evangelist! This definition is loaded with stereotypes, both positive and negative, but it best describes what I do — traveling around the country preaching in churches […]

Berry Good News

Organic advocates have long contended that food grown without pesticides is better for you than chemical-dependent crops. Now comes a new study that backs up the organics argument. Tests of pesticide-free strawberries, blackberries, and corn found that they contain up to 58 percent more polyphenolics, or health-boosting compounds, than conventional crops grown on neighboring plots. […]