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Carolyn Raffensperger, Science and Environmental Health Network

Carolyn Raffensperger is executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, based in Ames, Iowa, which advocates the wise application of science to efforts to protect the environment and public health. Monday, 3 Feb 2003 AMES, Iowa Like most of you, my weekend was full of the Columbia shuttle disaster. It raised questions central […]

Don’t Cry, Wolf

The gray wolf, once nearly wiped out in the Lower 48 states, is flourishing in the northern Rocky Mountains thanks to a federal recovery effort that got underway in 1995 with the reintroduction of 14 Canadian wolves into Yellowstone National Park. Now there are nearly 700 wolves in 41 packs in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, […]

Blood Sugar Sex Toxic

Americans have lower levels of lead in their bodies than they did a decade ago, but there’s plenty of contamination from other toxic chemicals to worry about. In the broadest study of its kind, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers tested blood and urine samples from more than 2,000 Americans, […]

Where Raindrops Fall Like Lemon Drops

Lakes and streams in New England have been slow to recover from the ill effects of acid rain, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. EPA. The regional reduction in acid rain lagged 10 percent behind the national rate of 40 percent in the 1990s; more worrisome, the number of “acidic systems” in […]

School’s Out

A coalition of Montana mining, timber, and construction lobbyists yesterday called on the state legislature to cut funding for the University of Montana’s environmental studies department, calling it “insidious” and a threat to the state economy. Speaking to the state’s Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education, Ellen Engstedt of the Montana Wood Products Association said, “We […]

Board Stiffs

In what may be the most significant regulatory backdown in state history, the Oregon Board of Forestry yesterday sharply reduced its obligation to review private timber sales on landslide-prone land. In the past, the state forester was required to approve all such logging and could be held liable if an approved project later resulted in […]

Rick Johnson, Idaho Conservation League

Rick Johnson is executive director of the Idaho Conservation League. After working for ICL in the mid-1980s, he spent eight years in Seattle, working with the Sierra Club to protect the Northwest’s ancient forests, often as a “frequent-flyer lobbyist” in Washington, D.C. He returned to Idaho in 1995. Monday, 27 Jan 2003 BOISE, Idaho On […]

Liquid Assets

Saudi Arabia is home to the world’s largest oil reserves, but it’s desperately short on another, equally precious resource: water. There isn’t a river or lake to be found anywhere in the nation, and the only renewable water sources are shallow aquifers refilled by infrequent rains. A growing population, a fondness for showy swimming pools […]

Hit Below the Belt

The heavily industrial Midwest has long been afflicted with some of the worst air and water pollution in the country — but now that distinction has been handed off to the Sun Belt, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The report tracked toxic releases from large industrial plants […]

Kiki Hubbard, Center for Food Safety

Kiki Hubbard is an intern at the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit organization that addresses the impacts of our current industrial food-production system on human health, animal welfare, and the environment. Wednesday, 22 Jan 2003 WASHINGTON, D.C. I begin the day by getting lost in Arches National Monument. As I end a chapter in […]