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The Bonus Collector
A man enviros love to hate, Charles Hurwitz, chair and CEO of Maxxam Inc., got a good deal richer last year when he finally acceded to a government buyout of the Headwaters stand of ancient redwoods in Northern California. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show that Hurwitz, whose company owns Pacific Lumber, was […]
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Zion Tamer
Zion National Park in Utah yesterday became the first national park in the lower 48 states to ban automobiles from its most popular area. The National Park Service launched a shuttle-bus system that requires most visitors to leave their vehicles at the park entrance; people are also encouraged to bicycle and walk in the park. […]
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Poor: Salt on Their Wounds
Minorities and low-income residents in the Indianapolis metropolitan area are at the most risk from toxic chemicals, according to a study released yesterday by the Indianapolis Urban League Environmental Coalition. A non-white Indianapolis resident is 26 percent more likely than the average resident to live within 550 yards of a company releasing toxic chemicals, and […]
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Good Clean Fun
Clothes-washing machines are going greener under an agreement unveiled yesterday between the U.S. government and major home appliance manufacturers. By 2007, Whirlpool, Maytag, General Electric, and other companies will make washing machines that use less water and 50 percent less energy than current models. More modest energy efficiency gains will be achieved by 2004. Manufacturers […]
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Putin on the Fritz
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday abolished the nation’s environmental protection agency, the State Committee on the Environment, ostensibly to help save money and cut bureaucracy. The agency’s functions will be turned over to the Ministry on Natural Resources, which oversees oil and gas development, logging, and mining. Putin has made it clear that he […]
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Court and Spark
The U.S. Supreme Court set the stage yesterday for a landmark environmental ruling by announcing its decision to hear a case that will determine whether the government went too far in 1997 in setting tough national clean-air standards. Last year, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., invalidated EPA standards that could have forced a […]
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Going Smog Wild
More than 132 million Americans live in areas that ought to receive a flunking grade for their dangerously high smog levels, according to an American Lung Association report released today. The report graded metropolitan areas based on the number of days they had unhealthy smog levels in 1996, 1997, and 1998, the most recent years […]
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They Otter Be Ashamed
Sea otters in Alaska’s Prince William Sound have experienced long-term negative effects from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In some areas polluted by the spill, otter densities are now about half what they were before the accident. Much of the apparent […]
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Up and Ad 'Em
The Sierra Club plans to spend about $250,000 over the next three weeks to air a TV ad that criticizes Texas Gov. George W. Bush’s environmental record. The ad, which will run in states that are key to the presidential election, features a pair of Texans complaining that their state is polluted and that Bush […]
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Fred Munson, Cascades Conservation Partnership
Fred Munson is the campaign director for the Cascades Conservation Partnership, an effort just being launched that aims to purchase 75,000 acres of forest to maintain and enhance a wildlife corridor between the north and central Cascade Mountains of Washington state. He just finished up a successful effort that raised $17 million to purchase and […]
