Thursday, 19 Dec 2002

Tilting at Windmills

It's been 400 years since Cervantes penned "Don Quixote" and finally, life is imitating art: In Cape Cod, Mass., a group of modern-day Men (and Women) of La Mancha are convinced that windmills are monstrous giants. Wind power has been a controversial energy source since the 1980s, when a wind farm in Altamont, Calif., was found to be a killing field for birds. Now the controversy is reaching a crescendo as Cape Wind Associates prepares to build 170 wind turbines on Horseshoe Shoal, a shallow portion of Nantucket Sound. Advocates note that the project would be the nation's largest renewable energy installation, capable of weaning the region off of oil and dramatically reducing its greenhouse gas emissions; opponents say it would kill birds and sully pristine ocean vistas. The debate is pitting environmentalist against environmentalist, reports Amanda Griscom, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Morgue of Orca

Environmental organizations sued the U.S. government yesterday for failing to grant protections under the Endangered Species Act to orcas in Washington state's Puget Sound. The population of orcas in the region has declined almost 20 percent since 1996. Earlier this year, the National Marine Fisheries Service acknowledged that the region's orcas were at risk of becoming extinct, but said the population was not biologically distinct and that neighboring whales could potentially repopulate the waters if the current whales died off. The NMFS denied endangered status to the orca population, offering only limited protection under a less stringent law. In response, People for Puget Sound, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the San Juans, and several other groups filed suit, saying the Puget Sound population is genetically distinct and needs the stronger protection status to recover. Listing under the ESA would protect habitat critical to the orcas and require federal agencies to ensure that their actions do not interfere with the survival of the animals.

We Got to Get Ourselves Back to the Garden

New Jersey may be the Garden State -- but can it be known as green in other ways as well? Gov. James McGreevey (D) thinks it can, and he's embarking on an ambitious plan to make the state a national leader in clean energy. Earlier this year, the state government agreed to purchase at least 12 percent of the electricity it consumes from renewable energy ventures. Last week, McGreevey convened a state energy summit, bringing together energy industry leaders, regulators, and local government officials to discuss ways to encourage clean energy consumption in New Jersey. The governor also appealed to colleagues in other states to create and implement energy-efficiency standards for common products ranging from ceiling fans to traffic lights. State leadership on clean energy issues is all the more important, McGreevey said, in light of the Bush administration's failure to prioritize the issue.

Read-letter Day

Sure, your mantel may be lined with cards bearing snowflakes, season's greetings, and smiling children, but we wouldn't trade the Grist mailbag for anything. This month, our ever-insightful readers discuss the racial politics of native-plant rhetoric, caution against blind advocacy of tree-free paper, and criticize the U.S. Interior Department for curtailing free speech. And that's just the beginning: Don't miss out on what your fellow readers have to say about vegetarianism, shoveling snow, and public employees. Check out Letters to the Editor, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Just Goshute Me

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday that it was not responsible for evaluating the potential environmental impacts of a terrorist attack on a proposed nuclear-waste storage facility in western Utah. Opponents of the $3.1 billion facility, which would be located about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City on sovereign lands belonging to Skull Valley Goshute Indians, received a second blow when the NRC also determined, in a separate ruling, that it does have the authority to license private storage sites for spent nuclear fuel. The state of Utah, which currently has no nuclear storage facilities, has opposed the project from the beginning, but the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which conducts independent legal and scientific reviews for the NRC, has rejected more than two dozen of the state's concerns. Utah's legal advisors were not immediately sure whether they would appeal the latest rulings.