Friday, 09 Jun 2000

Once More Into the Reach

Vice President Al Gore toured the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River in Washington state today and announced that President Clinton this morning declared the surrounding area a national monument, a designation that needs no congressional approval. The 200,000 acres to be protected include the only remaining free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River, 51 miles that are the spawning grounds of the last great wild salmon runs in the waterway. Clinton also gave national monument status to three other sites: the Canyon of the Ancients in southwestern Colorado, the Soda Mountain area in southern Oregon, and a section of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona that includes ironwood trees that can live for more than 800 years.

Red Hot Chile Cyclists

Officials in Santiago, Chile, are struggling to deal with the city's dirty air, so severe that it rivals the notorious pollution in Mexico City and Sao Paulo. The problem, caused mainly by auto exhaust and industrial emissions, has grown along with the nation's economy, which has expanded 7 percent per year in the last decade. On bad air days, schools in the city are banned from holding physical education classes outside, hospital visits increase markedly, and drug stores do a booming business in surgical face masks. Bicyclists in Santiago have formed the "Furious Cyclists Movement," which stages monthly street invasions to urge the government to build bike paths. Chilean President Ricardo Lagos is considering the unpopular move of banning private cars from city streets when pollution levels are high.

Fees: "Fie," Foes Fume

This weekend, in at least 40 towns and cities across the U.S., protests are expected to draw thousands of people who oppose a federal government plan to charge user fees for access to national forests, recreation areas, and other public lands. A pilot user-fee program began in 1997, and now the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies have asked Congress to create an expanded, permanent user-fee program to help pay for maintenance on the federal lands, including upkeep of trails and campgrounds. Congress is expected to take up the contentious issue this summer. A survey for the National Parks Conservation Association found that 80 percent of the public supports fees as high as $6 per person per day, as long as the money goes to the parks. But others argue that public lands should be open to all, free of charge, and that user fees exclude low-income people and create a disincentive for Congress to adequately fund public lands.

Maples Leaving

U.S. cities will likely be hotter and more humid, sugar maples in the Northeast may disappear, and barrier islands off the Carolinas may be flooded under rising sea levels as climate change takes its toll on the U.S. over the coming century. These predictions are part of a federal government report on the likely effects of climate change -- compiled over four years by a dozen government agencies and hundreds of scientists -- that is expected to be released next week and later presented to Congress. The report predicts that unless steps are taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions, average U.S. temperatures will rise between 5 and 10 degrees by the end of this century. Other effects: scarcer ski runs, disappearing alpine meadows, increased rainfall, devastated salmon runs, and the spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria.

The Gray and the Blues

Some environmentalists say California Gov. Gray Davis (D) has succumbed to campaign contributions from the timber industry and is failing to push for more protections for the state's forestland. Clear-cutting has exploded in the state in recent years, largely because of one company, Sierra Pacific Industries, which owns 1.5 million forest acres in the state, making it the second largest private landowner in the U.S. Since Davis was elected in 1998, Sierra Pacific has been active in helping to fill his campaign coffers, and the governor has appointed a company executive to the state Board of Forestry. Enviros say the state has been too lax in regulating timber cuts -- last year, the state Department of Forestry approved 574 timber plans and rejected none. A strong reform bill is making its way through the state legislature. The Davis administration is proposing a different reform plan that would require less public and scientific review.