Thursday, 09 May 2002

Un-Fortuyn-ate

Dutch prosecutors are accusing an animal rights activist with the murder on Monday of Pim Fortuyn, a right-wing candidate for prime minister. The suspect, Volkert van der Graaf, opposed factory farming and fur farms and worked for the little-known group Environment-Offensive, which uses legal tactics to advances its cause (rather than the in-your-face, direct-action methods of groups like the Animal Liberation Front). Roger Vleugels, a lawyer for the group, described van der Graaf as normally a "calm, restrained" individual who didn't engage in politics. In his campaign to head the government, Fortuyn made clear that he didn't think much of green issues. He told some environmentalists last year: "Environmental policy in the Netherlands has no more substance. And I'm sick to death of your environmental movement." The news that Fortuyn may have been murdered by an environmentalist has led to a wave of email and telephone threats against mainstream green groups in the country.

Mountain Mama's Day

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers yesterday to stop allowing coal companies to deposit tons of dirt and rock from their mountaintop-removal mining operations into streams and valleys. U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II in Charleston, W.Va., also said a move by the Bush administration last Friday to make the "valley fills" legal violated the Clean Water Act. He wrote in his decision, "The agencies' attempt to legalize their long-standing illegal regulatory practice must fail. ... The regulators' practice is illegal because it is contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Clean Water Act." A spokesperson for the U.S. EPA, which worked with the Corps on the rule change, said the agency would seek a stay of the ruling pending an appeal. The judge's decision was a win for the group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, but some enviros warned that the victory was not yet decisive. Haden issued a similar ruling in 1999, but an appeals court later overturned it on jurisdictional grounds.

Toxics: Australian for Fertilizer

Businesses across Australia are legally disposing of their industrial waste by selling it as fertilizers for farms and home gardens, according to an investigative report by the Sydney Morning Herald. The fertilizers often contain such toxic metals as arsenic, mercury, chromium, and lead. In western Australia, radioactive material from aluminum refineries is being used at cattle ranches; in other parts of the country, waste from zinc smelters, power stations, and cement kilns is spread on farms and gardens. The country doesn't regulate the content of fertilizers, and environmental and agricultural officials contend that the levels of the metals in the fertilizers are harmless -- though they rarely do the testing themselves, instead taking companies at their word that the products are safe. (Warning: American readers should not conclude that the situation is out-of-whack only in the land Down Under; most states in the U.S. also do not regulate the levels of toxic metals in regular fertilizers.)

Mr. Yucca

The U.S. House voted 306 to 117 yesterday to move forward with the Bush administration's plan to store the nation's nuclear waste under Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The overwhelming vote -- which overrode the veto of the plan by Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn (R) -- was expected. Now the battle moves to the Senate, where Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and Majority Whip Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have promised to derail the plan, despite long odds. Opponents argue that the science in support of the plan is faulty, that the feds have misled citizens on nuclear issues many times in the past, and that transporting tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste to Nevada from nearly 40 other states would risk hijacking by terrorists.

Metals in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands?

The American Environmental Safety Institute (first we've heard of it) sued Nestle, Hershey, Mars, and other chocolate manufacturers yesterday for not disclosing that their products contain toxic metals such as lead and cadmium, as required under California law. In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the group said that the levels of the metals in the chocolates like M&Ms posed a health threat, especially to children. California's Proposition 65 requires that companies warn individuals before they are exposed to dangerous chemicals. But a lawyer for the Chocolate Manufacturers Association said the lawsuit was frivolous and alarmist. She said the two metals are naturally present in chocolate -- as they are in other foods -- at levels too low to pose any danger.