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Old Disgraceful
Yellowstone National Park’s aging sewage system is overwhelmed and dilapidated, a condition that on July 2 led to several thousand gallons of raw sewage spilling into a meadow in the park. Last year, raw sewage leaks contaminated Yellowstone Lake and a creek near the Old Faithful geyser. The park has some 3 million annual visitors […]
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Rising Tempura-tures
A Japanese nuclear reactor on the coast of the Sea of Japan was shut down yesterday because the facility leaked an estimated 20 tons of radioactive cooling water, one of the worst such leaks in the nation’s history. The reactor was manually shut down, and cooling facilities are being refilled to normal capacity. A spokesperson […]
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Allen Wrench in Pollution Monitoring
The administration of former Virginia Gov. George Allen (R) concealed information about river pollution and refused to release data on water contaminants to the U.S. EPA, according to a report released yesterday by state auditors. In 1994, the year Allen became governor, the state’s database on river pollution was erased from personal computers and backup […]
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Getting Turtles Out of the Soup
Philippine officials are pressing the nation’s congress to declare six islands on the Philippine-Malaysian sea border a wildlife sanctuary. The Turtle Islands contain some of the few remaining nesting grounds of endangered sea turtles in the world, but the creatures are increasingly threatened by coastal development, poaching, and illegal fishing methods like the use of […]
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Watt's Up?
NASA is exploring the possibility of building space-based solar power stations that would produce electricity for use on Earth. A “Sun Tower” design being considered might stretch 22 miles in length with solar collectors 100 to 200 meters in diameter. Each station might beam up to 1.2 billion watts of electricity to ground stations via […]
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Melissa Kirkby, student at Sterling College
Melissa Kirkby is a senior at Sterling College in Craftsbury Common, Vt., majoring in sustainable agriculture. Monday, 12 Jul 1999 Craftsbury Common, Vt. Last week, I wrote a letter to a friend describing the new culture, new landscape, new rhythm of life I have discovered in the six weeks since my move to Sterling College […]
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The Forest Is More than a Collection of Trees
About 40 years ago, a young Dartmouth biology professor named Herb Bormann took a tomato plant, gently pulled its roots apart into two bunches, and planted it in two pots, one clump of roots in each pot. He watered both pots until the plant got established. Then he watered only one pot. The tomato did […]
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Heard It through the Pipeline
An environmental disaster far worse than the Exxon Valdez spill could happen at any moment, according to six senior employees of Alyeska, which operates the 800-mile Alaskan oil pipeline. The six whistleblowers wrote to three U.S. reps and Sir John Browne, chief executive of BP Amoco, which owns 50 percent of Alyeska, providing evidence of […]
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Good Morning, Vietnam
Vietnam has quietly assumed a spot as the world’s third-largest coffee bean producer and exporter, behind Brazil and Columbia, but although success with the new crop has lifted many farmers out of poverty, it’s also taking a toll on the land. Forestland is being cleared for coffee production at such a quick pace that the […]
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News Flash: Biz Doesn't Like Regulations
The Clinton administration on Friday proposed regulations that would disqualify companies with inconsistent records on federal environmental, labor, and tax laws from winning government contracts. The regulations now face a 120-day public review period, and the business community is mounting a major effort to stop the rules from taking effect. Congressional Republicans are siding with […]
