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Operation Butterfly Storm
The Group of 100, a leading Mexican environmental organization, yesterday called on the nation’s army to defend the winter refuge of monarch butterflies against heavily armed illegal loggers. Locals living near the butterfly refuge in western Michoacan state have reported that 100 trucks loaded with lumber leave the refuge each night. An audit published in […]
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I Just Can't Help It — I Looove to Pollute!
A Tampa man portrayed by prosecutors as an incorrigible polluter was sentenced yesterday to 13 years in the slammer, the longest sentence ever given out in a federal environmental crimes case. Gary Benkovitz, 62, owner of a company that cleans and resells 55-gallon drums, has been convicted of deliberately releasing more than 4 million gallons […]
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Wind-ing Up for the Pitch
The world’s most efficient wind turbine went to work today in Norfolk, Britain. The 220-foot turbine is thought to be the tallest in Europe and is 50 percent more powerful than the next largest turbine in the U.K. It will supply energy to the national grid, generating enough power for about half the local population […]
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I'll Drink to That
The Clinton administration is proposing a new regulation that would require states to write individual clean-up plans for every body of water that is too dirty for fishing and swimming, currently about 20,000 rivers, bays, and lakes, or 40 percent of water bodies in the U.S. The proposed regulation from the EPA, which would enforce […]
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Spotting Leopards
Scientists are using unattended cameras to record evidence of rich wildlife diversity in the Cambodian jungle, which until recently had been off-limits to scientists during three decades of civil war. This effort — the first of 10 planned by the Cambodian Wildlife Protection Office working with the World Wildlife Fund and Wildlife Conservation Society — […]
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Of Homer and the Trojans
The owners of the defunct Trojan nuclear power plant in Oregon, which many locals believe was the inspiration for the accident-prone nuclear plant on “The Simpsons,” want to make the area into a state park. Portland General Electric is offering the land for free, hoping to show that a decommissioned nuclear plant can be safe. […]
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Is This Guy a Double Dip?
A scientist who was directing a closely watched study on genetically engineered crops at the high-profile National Academy of Sciences abandoned his post last month for a job in the biotech industry, giving weight to fears of environmental scientists that the final report will be biased toward the industry’s point of view. The study, intended […]
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Dog Gone It!
Several conservation groups have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to consider listing as endangered the black-tailed prairie dog, a keystone prairie species. Prairie dog populations have declined by 99 percent, and their habitat has shrunk to less than 1 percent of its historic size, reduced by farming, development, and decades of government-funded eradication […]
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Jakarta for the Hoarse
Many of Southeast Asia’s biggest cities — including Manila, Bangkok, and Jakarta — are beset with trash troubles, lacking the funds to replace their antiquated waste disposal systems. Landfills have reached towering heights, and trash is piling up in rivers, bays, and alleys. In Manila, some 30 percent of the city’s trash ends up in […]
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The King and Ay-Ay-Ay
To the dismay of Maine Gov. Angus King (I), two sport-fishing groups filed suit against the feds yesterday for failing to adequately protect Atlantic salmon in Maine rivers. The Atlantic Salmon Federation and Trout Unlimited want the fish added to the endangered species list. Earlier in the decade, the federal government declared the fish a […]
