Articles by Grist staff

Gore Plays Heart and Soul

Vice Pres. Al Gore played the good environmentalist yesterday in New Hampshire, designating the Connecticut River, which winds through four New England states, as an American Heritage River and announcing that $819,000 will go toward projects related to the river. Gore canoed along the river with New Hampshire Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D), as friends, backers, […]

Californians Log Off

In an effort to improve water quality and protect fish populations, California Gov. Gray Davis (D) has proposed new regulations to tighten logging restrictions along streams on private forestland. But environmentalists say they don’t go far enough. The rules would represent steps toward strengthening the state’s 26-year-old Forest Practices Act, which many say has failed […]

Lettuce Have Standards

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to offer up a second proposal for national organic standards by the end of this year. The first draft of proposed standards, unveiled in late 1997, elicited a record 300,000 public comments, most of them critical of the proposed rules, which, among other things, would have allowed some genetically […]

Uncrossing the Delaware

Fish populations in the Delaware River in Pennsylvania are making a striking comeback following a major river cleanup effort. In the last 20 years, levels of harmful ammonia and bacteria in the Delaware have been cut by about half, and the level of dissolved oxygen in the river, necessary for fish to breathe, has quadrupled. […]