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Bye Bye Birdies

More than 25 years after DDT was banned, newer, more powerful pesticides continue to kill birds and fish, threatening the survival of a number of species, according to a study released yesterday by California enviros. The study calls on California and the feds to ban three pesticides — diazinon, a popular household garden pesticide, and […]

Razers Have the Edge

In a major victory for Italian environmentalists, a huge hotel built 30 years ago on a rocky cliff overlooking the Mediterranean is being demolished. Parliament passed a special law to raze the Fuenti hotel, which has never been opened to visitors and has been dubbed Italy’s worst “eco-monster” by a leading conservation group. Hundreds of […]

Look for the Onion Label

As controversy over genetically modified crops mounts, a federal task force will report by the end of July on whether genetically engineered foods should be labeled so consumers know what they’re getting. The biotech industry complains that such labeling would be expensive and unnecessary. Meanwhile, a National Academy of Sciences panel is conducting a review […]

The Jury's In

Property rights advocates had cause to celebrate yesterday as the Supreme Court ruled that landowners who sue local governments over their land use regulations can be entitled to a jury trial. The case concerned a California developer whose plans to build a residential complex were rejected by the City of Monterey, which said the beachfront […]

Prairie, the New Home Companion

Across the Midwest, the preservation and restoration of prairie lands are all the rage. In Kansas, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, one of the newest national parks, is gearing up for thousands of hiking tourists this summer, and a push is on to create another tall-grass prairie national park in Iowa. In Illinois, prairie boosters […]

Toxicistan

The U.S. plans to spend as much as $6 million to help Uzbekistan dismantle and clean up one of the former Soviet Union’s biggest chemical weapons testing labs. Only after Uzbekistan gained its independence in 1991 did Uzbek officials learn of the severe pollution that resulted from the Soviet Union’s use of the region as […]

Salton Wounds Not So Bad

The Salton Sea in inland southern California, long thought to be virtually dead, is in better environmental health than expected, according to a preliminary report released last week. Common wisdom holds that the sea is being poisoned by pesticide runoff from surrounding farmland, but though the researchers expected to find elevated levels of pesticides, herbicides, […]

Elise Richer, Urban Institute

Elise Richer plays center halfback for the Flanders Football Club and does social policy research for the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. Monday, 24 May 1999 WASHINGTON, D.C. Defining a neighborhood is difficult. Residents living physically near each other often conceptualize their neighborhoods completely differently, depending on the local paths and people which populate their […]

Enviros Mobil-ize to Put the Nix on Exxon

Enviro groups plan to oppose the proposed merger of Mobil and Exxon at the companies’ annual meetings this week out of fears that Mobil’s more conciliatory stance on climate change will be x-ed out if Exxon gets regulatory clearance to buy Mobil for $75 billion. Mobil was initially critical of the Kyoto climate change treaty, […]

Dam Yangtze!

The official newspaper of China’s communist party has acknowledged that serious environmental problems, engineering difficulties, and corruption plague construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The editorial in the People’s Daily, published today, marks the first time the influential newspaper has been permitted to note problems with the dam project, which if completed as planned would […]