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Once More Out of the Breach
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said this week that it would recommend against breaching four hydroelectric dams on the lower Snake River in Washington state to help restore salmon populations. The agency’s stance on salmon restoration, which is shared by the White House, is that it would be less disruptive to communities in eastern […]
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Cod Peace
Concerned that some fish populations are bottoming out, the European Commission has proposed deep new cuts in fishing quotas. For example, cod catches in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden would be reduced by 60 percent; haddock catches in the Irish Sea by 52 percent; and sole in the North Sea by 25 percent. […]
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The Dredge Great-Scott Decision
U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said yesterday that her agency would order General Electric to spend almost $500 million to dredge PCBs from the upper Hudson River. In doing so, Whitman disregarded a multi-million-dollar P.R. campaign by the giant company claiming that dredging would not improve the river’s health. Enviros, who had feared that […]
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Tree? No Thanks, I'm Trying to Cut Back
Indonesia said this week that it would tighten its forestry laws to rein in illegal logging. Under the new rules, companies will lose their licenses to log in 2003 unless they can prove they are managing forests sustainably. Enviros cheered the change, though it remains to be seen just how the theory will translate into […]
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Free-range Checking
The Sante Fe group Forest Guardians is hoping to raise $1 million to boot cattle from thousands of state-owned acres in Arizona and New Mexico. In late November, the group won a case before Arizona’s Supreme Court that ended a state policy of allowing only ranchers to lease state school trust land, which includes about […]
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Take That Back
Maryland yesterday became the first state to lose the authority to enforce federal clean air laws. The loss is the result of the state’s failure to act on a U.S. EPA order to create more public participation in the industrial permit application process. Under Maryland law, only the owners of property abutting an industrial polluter […]
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Pulling Back the Rains
A single rainstorm can whisk 10,000 tons of dirt and grit and millions of pounds of toxics and nutrient pollution into the Chesapeake Bay. Officials from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia are unveiling plans today to rein in rain-related pollution problems, in the first major restoration effort they’ve announced since pledging well […]
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Salt and the Earth
Road salt is set to become the latest addition to Canada’s list of extremely toxic substances. Environment Minister David Anderson is recommending the addition based on research showing that the tons of salt used to de-ice the country’s highways each winter are polluting groundwater and killing vegetation. Environmentalists lauded the move, which is expected to […]
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Esso S.O.S.
Activists are targeting 300 Esso gas stations in the U.K. tomorrow for boycotts, urging drivers to fill up their tanks elsewhere because Esso’s parent company, the oil giant ExxonMobil, opposes the Kyoto treaty on climate change. Groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are helping to lead the StopEsso campaign, which has the support […]
