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Ill Will and Grace

The U.S. EPA is investigating why its officials ignored evidence for 18 years that W. R. Grace and Co. used vermiculite ore tainted with asbestos in its building products. An EPA study in 1982, during the Reagan administration, found high levels of asbestos in the company’s vermiculite, contrary to claims made by Grace, but the […]

Dams All in Distress

Since the precedent-setting breaching of the Edwards Dam in Maine last year, several other dams in New England have been removed or breached to help protect fish, and officials are considering the same fate for hundreds more. Unlike the huge dams in the West owned by the feds, the New England dams tend to be […]

Enviros worldwide call for release of two Mexican activists

Forty-five of the world’s most prominent environmentalists have called for the immediate release of Mexican colleagues Rodolfo Montiel Flores and Teodoro Cabrera Garcia, who have been jailed and tortured after blocking logging operations by the multinational Boise Cascade in the southern state of Guerrero. Rodolfo Montiel Flores. Urging that the “tragic stories” of murdered environmental […]

The Ice, Man, Goeth

The Greenland ice sheet — which contains almost 10 percent of all the frozen water on the planet — is melting at a rate of approximately 12 cubic miles per year, according to research by NASA scientists published in the journal Science. If melting continues at this rate, it could cause a measurable rise in […]

Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?

Two months after India became the second nation in the world with a population greater than 1 billion, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other government leaders will meet tomorrow to develop a strategy for slowing the nation’s population growth. Since the birth of India’s symbolic billionth baby on May 11, another 3.5 million […]

Cod's Wallop

In one of the toughest judicial actions taken under the Endangered Species Act in the last decade, a federal judge yesterday banned trawl-net fishing for pollock, cod, and other bottom fish in large ocean areas off Alaska, citing a need to protect endangered Steller sea lions. The sea lions forage for the same fish chased […]

Sticking It to 'em

Willamette Industries, Inc., a major U.S. plywood manufacturer, agreed yesterday to a $93.2 million settlement with the feds, the largest figure ever in a case involving air pollution from factories. The adhesives used to glue together sheets of plywood give off volatile organic compounds that contribute to smog, and EPA Administrator Carol Browner said the […]

Eights and Pains

As leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized nations meet for three days in Okinawa, Japan, environmentalists are hoping to focus attention on green issues. Activists are calling on the nations — in particular, Canada, Japan, and the U.S. — to end logging subsidies that destroy forests and waste government money. A report released […]

M'mm M'mm Good

A coalition of U.S. consumer and enviro groups kicked off a big campaign yesterday to pressure major food companies to abandon the use of genetically modified (GM) crops. Its first targets will be the Campbell Soup Co. and Kellogg’s. The activists hope to encourage tens of thousands of consumers to call directly on companies to […]

Nick of Time

Singers Bonnie Raitt and Don Henley and actor James Garner yesterday donated the final cash needed to temporarily block logging in a stand of ancient redwoods in northern California known as the “hole in the Headwaters.” The Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection Information Center filed suit in March to stop Pacific Lumber Co. from […]