Latest Articles

Mountain Mama’s Day

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday to stop allowing coal companies to deposit tons of dirt and rock from their mountaintop-removal mining operations into streams and valleys. U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II in Charleston, W.Va., also said a move by the Bush administration last Friday to make the “valley […]

Toxics: Australian for Fertilizer

Businesses across Australia are legally disposing of their industrial waste by selling it as fertilizers for farms and home gardens, according to an investigative report by the Sydney Morning Herald. The fertilizers often contain such toxic metals as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and lead. In western Australia, radioactive material from aluminum refineries is being used at […]

Metals in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands?

The American Environmental Safety Institute (first we’ve heard of it) sued Nestle, Hershey, Mars, and other chocolate manufacturers yesterday for not disclosing that their products contain toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, as required under California law. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the group said that the levels of […]

Mr. Yucca

The U.S. House voted 306 to 117 yesterday to move forward with the Bush administration’s plan to store the nation’s nuclear waste under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The overwhelming vote — which overrode the veto of the plan by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) — was expected. Now the battle moves to the Senate, where Majority […]

Cell Outs

If you count yourself among the cell-phone-hating masses (and doesn’t almost everyone at least claim to, even if owning one on the sly?), here’s more fuel for your fire: Within three years, Americans alone will discard about 130 million cellular telephones annually, generating 65,000 tons of toxic trash, according to a recent report. On average, […]

The Lion Sleeps Better Tonight

A new economic model that uses cost-benefit analyses to predict the fate of endangered species has been unveiled by New Zealand economist Robert Alexander and researcher Chris Fleming. The model analyzes the socio-economic pressures that push animals to the brink of extinction and could be used to assess the probable success or failure of conservation […]

The Big O

Consumers of organic produce, take a moment to feel good about yourselves: A study published today shows that organically grown foods contain a fraction of the pesticides found in conventionally grown foods. Organic foods were less likely than their conventional counterparts to have any pesticide residues; what residues they did have were from fewer sources […]

Bagladesh

Now consider a less sophisticated but equally troublesome form of trash — plastic bags. Polyethylene-based bags are hazardous to produce and, once discarded, can take up to 1,000 years to decompose. The bags are all but omnipresent: Consumers in the U.K. go through 8 billion per year; four out of five shoppers in the U.S. […]

Maybe He Makes a Good Cup of Coffee

John Suarez, the Bush administration’s pick for the job of enforcing the nation’s environmental laws, used to work closely with U.S. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, back when she was governor of New Jersey. Trouble is, that appears to be about his only qualification for enforcing EPA rules. That was the concern expressed by Democratic members […]

The Violence of the Lambs

Oregon, a state that has been targeted at least 29 times since 1980 by so-called “eco-terrorists,” is now home to the nation’s first organization exclusively dedicated to tracking and eliminating eco-terrorism. The organization, Stop Eco-Violence, was cofounded by a former spokesperson for a building products company, a Portland State University terrorism expert, and a conservative […]