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Keep the Pedal From the Metal

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is barring off-road enthusiasts from one of their favorite playgrounds in Utah — but this time, it’s to safeguard their own health, not that of the environment. At Manning Canyon, a recreation area near Salt Lake City, the soil is contaminated with arsenic, lead, mercury, and other heavy metals […]

Presto Change-o

Frogs are changing genders — and it ain’t just to Halloween getup. The most popular weed-killer in the U.S. is causing sex changes in frogs, according to a summary of a new study published today in Nature. The study, led by Tyrone Hayes, a biologist with the University of California at Berkeley, contains the first […]

Sites for Sore Eyes

High-priority toxic waste clean-ups at seven sites in the U.S. will be left incomplete this year due to Superfund shortages, according to a report by the U.S. EPA’s inspector general. The sites include two former wood-treatment facilities in Texas that are leaching chemicals into nearby water supplies, an abandoned copper mine in Vermont polluting a […]

Taps

Contaminants found in the tap water in California’s largest cities could pose risks to children, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems, according to a new study from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The findings in the report, “What’s on Tap,” were the result of a review of tap-water data from 19 cities in […]

Carolyn Stephens, endangered species management specialist

Carolyn Stephens is an endangered species management specialist for the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit. Monday, 28 Oct 2002 HALEAKALA, Hawaii As I step out of the government vehicle to start my day, a brisk wind hits me in the face. Armed with a plastic one-gallon milk container filled […]

This Wetland Is My Wetland

California is on the verge of unveiling two of the biggest wetland-rehabilitation projects in the history of the Western United States. By the end of the year, officials in Northern California will sign a $135 million agreement to buy and begin restoring salt ponds along the South San Francisco Bay from Cargill, Inc., whose salt-production […]

Schoolhouse Rocked

Graduate students holding teaching and research positions at Cornell University announced late last week that they would not join the United Auto Workers, bucking a growing trend toward grad student unionization. According to Allen MacKenzie, co-founder of At What Cost?, a student group opposed to unionizing, many students disliked the UAW’s political views, especially regarding […]

The Savaged Breast

After years of announcing that the war on cancer was being won in the U.S., the National Cancer Institute acknowledged this month that it had previously underestimated the incidence of the disease, and that new diagnoses of at least one variant, breast cancer, have been increasing at a rate of 0.6 percent per year nationwide. […]

And other words from readers

  Re: Old MacDonald Had an Idea Dear Editor: Elizabeth Sawin’s article on sustainable agriculture was excellent, but it left out a key piece of the efficiency equation. Today’s farmers not only compete against other farmers in the United States who are subject to U.S. policy, but against all farmers worldwide. Even without expanded definitions […]

Fight the Power

African Americans are more likely than white Americans to live near power plants and suffer negative health consequences as a result, according to a report released yesterday by civil and environmental rights activists. The report found that 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant, as opposed to 56 […]