Latest Articles

Round and Round They Go

Florida’s Top Environmental Regulator Takes Job With Company He Regulated Florida’s top environmental official, David Struhs, resigned Wednesday to take a job with International Paper, a company he did controversial favors for while in office. As head of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Struhs received mixed reviews from enviros, with some lauding his tough […]

EPA attempts to defuse MTBE issue in New Hampshire

Folks who paid close attention to the speeches of New Hampshire primary victor John Kerry in recent weeks would have noticed an emphasis on MTBE — a gasoline additive that makes fuel burn more efficiently and cleanly, but is suspected to be carcinogenic* and widely known to contaminate groundwater. To outsiders, this may have seemed […]

Next They’ll Get Rid of All the Stop Signs

Bush Admin. to Eliminate Pesticide Regulations It Doesn’t Obey The provision of the Endangered Species Act that requires the U.S. EPA to consult with two other federal agencies when licensing new pesticides will be formally abandoned, if the Bush administration has its way. Government officials concede that the provision — meant to involve the U.S. […]

Irrigation Irritation

Agricultural Water Efficiency May Do More Harm Than Good Using water more efficiently in farming may ultimately increase long-term water shortages, warn some water experts. Although efficiency efforts — such as lining irrigation ditches to prevent leaks and delivering water directly to roots rather than flooding fields — are touted as a solution to problems […]

Tempest in a Teapot

Government to Bury CO2 in Teapot Dome Oil Field The U.S. Department of Energy is planning to bury some 1.6 million tons of carbon dioxide a year underneath the Teapot Dome oil field in central Wyoming, in the largest carbon-sequestration test project ever undertaken. The process, which involves compressing CO2 into liquid form and injecting […]

Semper Filthy

Controversy Grows Over Contaminated Water on Marine Base In what could be one of the largest contaminated water cases in U.S. history, hundreds of lawsuits have been filed against the U.S. military over dirty water at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina Marine Corps base. In 1980, tests of drinking water wells at the base revealed […]

Walk Like an Egyptian

Egyptian Agro-Business Is Socially Conscious and Green to Boot In the arid Egyptian desert — an area not typically associated with socially progressive entrepreneurship — the Sekem Group is demonstrating how home-grown business can make both profit and positive change. Founded in 1977 by Ibrahim Abouleish, the agro-business has developed a wide range of products […]

A Dam Sham

Bush Officials Stand Atop Dam to Trumpet Salmon Funding Bush administration officials announced a $10 million increase in funding for restoration of endangered Northwest salmon on Monday, drawing election-year attention to recent increases in salmon numbers. Enviros expressed measured support for the rise in funding, but pointed out that higher salmon numbers were mostly attributable […]

Fetal Detraction

Air Quality One-Two Punch Hurts Fetuses The combined effects of air pollution and secondhand smoke can hurt fetal development, says a new study conducted in New York City by the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. While previous studies have addressed the effects of both factors in isolation, this study marks the first attempt to […]

20,000 Toxins Under the Sea

Ocean Mammals Getting Pummeled by Pollution New research indicates that human-made toxins have infiltrated deep and remote parts of the ocean. The Ocean Alliance, a Massachusetts-based research organization, has found troubling levels of DDT, PCBs, and other contaminants in the blubber of sperm whales. Scientists were surprised at their initial findings, as the deep-water whales […]