Monday, 02 Oct 2000

Fit to Be Tide

Red tides are becoming a severe environmental problem along China's coast, killing tons of fish and costing the country more than $100 million every year. Red tides, which can be caused or exacerbated by industrial and sewage waste, are massive and fast-spreading algae outbreaks that poison the water or deplete its oxygen supply, suffocating marine life. Outbreaks in China in the last couple years have threatened the livelihoods of thousands of fishers. Red tides are also a problem in Japan, Korea, and the U.S., where they periodically hit the waters of New England, the Pacific Northwest, and the Gulf of Mexico. Nearly 300 miles of Texas coastline are now suffering from red tide and have been closed to oyster fishing, putting the squeeze on folks who make their living in the oyster industry.

Double, Double Oil and Trouble

George W. Bush unveiled an energy plan on Friday that would boost domestic oil production significantly and open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other federal lands to drilling. Speaking at a Michigan auto plant, Bush hammered at some of Al Gore's environmental beliefs. "The vice president likes electric cars -- he just doesn't like making electricity. In speeches, he calls autoworkers his friends. In his book, he declares the engines they make an enemy," Bush said. (Still, it seems that Bush is having a hard time convincing autoworkers that Gore's environmental views threaten Michigan's economy.) Bush said royalties from drilling in ANWR would support conservation efforts, and he proposed increased funding for research into "clean coal" technologies and tax credits for companies that produce energy from alternative fuels. Meanwhile, Gore ripped into Bush's plan for ANWR, saying it would "bring decades of environmental damage to reap just a few months of increased oil supply." He said the U.S. must reduce its dependence on oil and called for more investments in the "job-creating, environmental-protecting technologies of the future." Gore's running mate, Joe Lieberman, traveled to Houston to attack the environmental record of former oilman Bush in the governor's home state.

Bush Oil Plan: Exhibit A

The Supreme Court refused today to hear a case in which the ExxonMobil Corp. contended it should not have to pay $5 billion in punitive damages for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. The corporation's lawyers had urged the justices to throw out the penalty on grounds of irregularities during jury deliberations when the case about the nation's worst oil spill was first heard. Tom Cirigliano, an ExxonMobil spokesperson, said the corporation would continue to dispute the payment through other court appeals. Cirigliano said, "We're not even close [to the end of the disputes]. This doesn't have any effect whatsoever on us having to pay the $5 billion."

Nafis Enough

Under the leadership of Nafis Sadik, the U.N. Population Fund has been transformed from an organization that foisted contraceptives on women in order to meet fertility-control targets to one that has as its central mission giving women more power not just over their own fertility but over health care, education, and many other aspects of their lives. Sadik, a Pakistani obstetrician who became executive director of the fund in 1987, will retire at the end of this year. Her push for women's rights has rankled not only some Islamic and developing nations, but also the U.S. Congress, which has withheld funding because of the population fund's position that women should have access to safe abortions as a last resort. This year, the Clinton administration has requested a $169 million increase in international family planning levels, and Congress is expected to debate the issue soon.

Royalty Flush

The White House and congressional leaders reached a compromise late last week on a landmark bill that would set aside $12 billion over six years for land conservation. The program, which would be financed in part by oil royalties, would double funding to acquire new federal lands, protect sensitive ecosystems, create urban parks, and preserve historic sites. A number of enviros praised the agreement, part of a spending bill for the Interior Department, as a big breakthrough. Still, they were disappointed that Congress hasn't passed the more sweeping Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), which would provide $3 billion a year in conservation funding; CARA was approved by the House with strong bipartisan backing but has run into trouble in the Senate from conservative Westerners. The compromise measure could still face opposition from some Western senators, but it is expected to pass Congress and be signed by President Clinton. Enviros were also pleased that Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) gave up on a rider he had attached to the Interior bill that would have prevented the federal government from even studying the possibility of breaching four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington to help salmon runs.

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel -- Oh Wait, There Is No Bottom

Radioactive contamination in groundwater may be 400 times higher than the federal standard at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state because high-level nuclear waste was buried 40 years ago in containers that had no bottoms, the U.S. Energy Department said on Friday. The department's groundwater manager said the contamination will likely reach the Columbia River. Meanwhile, newly released documents show that groundwater has also been contaminated in Paducah, Ky., where a uranium processing plant spread plutonium outside the plant's boundaries. Last year, the DOE launched an investigation into the plant after the Washington Post reported on problems there, and the investigators concluded that groundwater contamination wasn't a problem. However, the new documents, which only just came to light after the Washington Post uncovered them, map out plutonium in soil and water more than a mile from the plant. When confronted with this evidence on Saturday, the DOE promised to investigate (again).