Wednesday, 15 Jan 2003

Highway Robber

Two years ago, environmentally minded Mexicans rejoiced when Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was elected mayor of Mexico City. Prior to taking office, AMLO (as he is known) was possibly the nation's most prominent environmental activist, battling to protect his native state of Tabasco from despoliation by the oil industry. But as mayor, AMLO has done little but disappoint: Believe it or not, his biggest "environmental" initiative to date is a plan to build some 20 miles of additional road in the form of a second tier of three-lane highways on top of two of Mexico City's busiest thoroughfares, a proposal that has enviros up in arms. Read about AMLO's environmental bait-and-switch, only on the Grist Magazine website.

Park and Writhe

The National Parks Conservation Association has released its annual list of endangered parks -- and, sadly, it includes some of the most treasured wild areas in the U.S.: Yellowstone, Denali, and the Great Smoky Mountains, among others. The unlucky parks made the list because they are plagued by problems such as air pollution, excessive motor vehicle traffic, chronic funding shortages, and development just outside their borders. The report also cited multiple ways the parks are imperiled by the Bush administration, which has attempted to weaken the Clean Air Act, proposed regulations that could lead to road building in national parks, and failed to follow through on promises to increase park funding. Other national parks on the list include the Everglades in Florida, Glacier in Montana, Joshua Tree in California, Shenandoah in Virginia, and Virgin Islands National Park, as well as Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas and Ocmulgee National Monument in Georgia.

Spotted Record

Federal protections for the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet have been blamed by many in the anti-enviro camp for the collapse of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest during the 1990s. Now, the Bush administration has announced that it will review those protections, as well as the designation of "critical habitat" thought necessary to ensure the survival of the species. The agreement to review the protections settles a lawsuit brought by the timber industry against federal biologists for allegedly dragging their feet on reviewing the health of the two birds. Under the terms of the settlement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must review the status of both species by the end of this year, and review the designation of critical habitat for the owl and murrelet by December 2005 and August 2006, respectively. Both species are currently listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, but a strong bill of health could alter their classifications and change the level of protection they receive.

Glow Worms

It's been a busy week when it comes to nuclear security. Here in the U.S., the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to overhaul its management of the nation's atomic power plants in response to concern that it failed to rapidly detect potentially disastrous damage to a reactor in Ohio. Yesterday, the NRC adopted almost all 50 recommendations that stemmed from an investigation into the incident at the Davis-Besse plant. The NRC will now conduct more thorough inspections and create a mechanism to intervene sooner when problems are detected. Meanwhile, in New York, a coalition of lawmakers, environmentalists, and citizens groups urged Gov. George Pataki (R) not to sign off on a disaster plan for Indian Point nuclear power plant, located just 35 miles from midtown Manhattan. They say the plant is dangerous and should be closed. And across the Atlantic, Greenpeace activists broke into a nuclear power plant in England to demonstrate its vulnerability to attack. Despite the breach, Trade Minister Nigel Griffiths said there was nothing wrong with the security at the plant.

Oil and Accuracy Don't Mix

The public owes much of its knowledge about the environment to journalists on the green beat -- but what happens when those journalists get it systematically wrong? That's what has happened with reporting on Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to a new study funded by the U.S. EPA and published in the journal Annual Reviews: Energy and the Environment. The study analyzed 35 news reports on the Arctic Refuge published or broadcast between December 2000 and September 2001; it found that, on average, the reports overstated the amount of economically recoverable oil in the refuge by roughly 300 percent. The source of the misinformation was a high-end estimate of 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil, made by the U.S. Geological Service in 1998. The actual range of economically recoverable oil, according to the EPA's study, is between zero and 5.6 billion barrels. Kudos to Newsweek for publishing the only article included in the study that mentioned the possibility of recovering zero oil from the refuge, whose sensitive ecology would be disrupted by energy extraction.