Latest Articles
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Grand Piano
President Clinton yesterday announced tighter limits on sightseeing flights over Grand Canyon National Park, an effort to restore “natural quiet” to one of the nation’s busiest national parks. The new rules will cap the number of flights at 90,000 a year and make 75 percent of the park off-limits to planes and helicopters, up from […]
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The nitty-gritty on the ruling that lets citizens sue their way to a clean environment
Once upon a time, a South Carolina wastewater treatment plant repeatedly violated the Clean Water Act by dumping illegal amounts of mercury into a river. Unsurprisingly, several environmental organizations responded by suing. They could do so because the Clean Water Act contains “citizen suit” provisions that allow private citizens to sue for the law’s violation. […]
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I Want My TVA
On Earth Day, April 22, the Tennessee Valley Authority will launch a “Green Power Switch” program, the biggest clean energy project in the Southeast. By the end of the year, TVA plans to erect three wind turbines on a reclaimed strip mine, put solar panels at schools and other public sites, and construct a landfill […]
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Isn't it Good, Certified Wood
Consumer demand in Washington state for eco-friendly lumber is surpassing supply, even as a growing number of wood products firms turn to harvesting and selling timber from sustainably managed forests. The state Department of Natural Resources just announced that it would like to have as much as 1.1 million acres of state forestland certified as […]
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Olive This Idea
Spain’s biggest power company, Endesa, is building two plants to generate electricity from olive residues, the leftovers from olive oil production. The plants, due to be completed in late 2001, will produce enough electricity to meet the household needs of 100,000 people, and Endesa may build dozens more. Other planned biomass projects in Spain include […]
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All We Hate Is Dust in the Wind
The Department of Energy is abandoning its plan to build the first U.S. nuclear-waste incinerator in southern Idaho, a change of course applauded by environmental and community groups that had raised a lot of money and waged a high-profile battle against the facility. The DOE announced its decision yesterday as part of an agreement to […]
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National Park and Ride
Yosemite National Park in California would be returned to a more wild, less developed, condition under a plan outlined yesterday by Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt. The plan — which follows 20 years of battles over the future of the park and is now open to public comment — would scale back parking and remove some […]
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How Will the West Be Won?
In our last column, we promised to put the presidential campaign on the back burner and take a look at some of the key House and Senate races likely to decide control of the 107th Congress, as well some of the competitive gubernatorial contests. Instead of attempting to cover the entire country in one column […]
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Catalogs of Ills
In what appears to be an uncoordinated campaign, three friends have brought me three different mail-order catalogs, asking me to condemn them publicly. At first I resisted, because I prefer to dump on catalogs as a class, rather than singling some out, which might leave the mistaken impression that others are okay. However, three requests […]
