Wednesday, 09 Jan 2002

Methane to Their Madness

Wyoming's Red Desert is the highest desert in North America. It is home to the largest migratory ungulate herd in the Lower 48, as well as to one of the nation's healthiest populations of sage grouse, a vanishing species. Unfortunately, it is also home to an estimated 314 trillion cubic feet of coal bed methane (CBM), a form of natural gas. The recent boom in the CBM extraction industry has brought a maze of wells, power lines, roads, pipelines, and compressor stations to southwestern Wyoming, which the U.S. Bureau of Land Management expects will become the nation's leading natural gas producer by 2015. But at what price? Hal Clifford takes a look at CBM extraction and the struggle to save the Red Desert, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Lord of the Wrings

Lord Peter Melchett, the former head of Greenpeace U.K., has accepted a position with the public relations company Burson-Marsteller, which numbers among its clients the pesticide and food company Monsanto. Long a leading target for green groups, Monsanto is currently drawing fire for its production and promotion of genetically modified (GM) foods. Melchett, who led the Greenpeace campaign to eradicate GM crops and was once arrested for attacking a field of GM maize, will advise the PR company's Corporate Social Responsibility unit on environmental issues.

Rey of Sunshine

A controversial Bush administration plan to log trees harmed in fires that raged in the Bitterroot National Forest in 2000 was halted yesterday by a federal judge in Montana. U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy also excoriated Mark Rey, natural resources and environment undersecretary for the Agriculture Department, for bypassing a 45-day public appeals process and unilaterally giving the green light to the logging proposal. Rey, a former timber industry lobbyist, said it was necessary to expedite the process in order to salvage the wood before it rotted. The logging, which would have been the largest salvage operation in history, was expected to generate more than $75 million for the local economy. The administration has not announced how it will act in the face of Molloy's ruling; it could open a public comment period, or appeal the decision to a higher court.

Taps

Drinking chlorinated tap water puts pregnant women at a higher risk for miscarrying or bearing children with birth defects, according to a new study by two environmental organizations. The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group and U.S. Public Interest Research Group studied water quality data from thousands of water utilities before publishing their findings yesterday. Chlorine is used to disinfect polluted drinking water, but when added to some organic matter it can form compounds called trihalomethanes that are linked to cancer, miscarriages, and birth defects. The Chlorine Chemistry Council disputed the findings of the new study and reiterated the importance of chlorine in disinfecting water. But EWG's Bill Walker disagreed: "Wouldn't it be smarter to simply prevent the pollution of the water in the first place?"

We've Got Mail!

Okay, so we shouldn't have printed that satire piece about the Bush administration bombing the rainforest. Or maybe it was the funniest article we've ever run. You got it: The latest letters from Grist readers are out, and there's not necessarily a unanimous opinion about much of anything. But there's plenty of feisty, informed responses from our readers on topics ranging from soil degradation to the bombing of Afghanistan, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Retirement Party

Utah Republican Jim Hansen, who has served 11 terms in the U.S. House, most recently as chair of the Resources Committee, announced yesterday that he will not seek reelection this year. The announcement came as a surprise to even some of his closest staff members -- and a welcome one to environmentalists. Hansen started off light green, proposing a recycling measure while serving as a state legislator and then backing a wilderness bill in the House that protected some 700,000 acres of Utah forest. In an abrupt about-face, however, Hansen then launched into nearly two decades of relentless anti-environmental campaigning, stonewalling in the face of petitions to set aside millions of acres of Utah wilderness and derisively referring to endangered species as "trash fish" and "slimy slugs."