Monday, 13 Oct 2003

Dump Struck

Bush Lets Mining Companies Dump on More Public Land

The Bush administration announced yet another environmental rollback on Friday, following a pattern of releasing such news right before a holiday weekend, presumably in hopes that it will slip past the public's notice. This time the beneficiaries are mining companies, which, thanks to a reinterpretation of the 1872 Mining Law, will now be able to use as much public land as they want to develop operations for mining gold, silver, and other minerals. The 131-year-old mining act, long criticized as outdated by the environmental community, already allows mining companies to extract minerals from public lands without paying any royalties to taxpayers. Steve D'Esposito of the Mineral Policy Center, an environmental group, called the Bush decision an "open invitation to dump massive quantities of toxic mining waste on unlimited amounts of our public lands. It puts clean water and community health at increased risk."

Solar Flair

U.S. Companies Are Getting Hip to Solar

A growing number of U.S. companies are installing solar-power systems at their facilities, driven at least in part by government tax credits and incentives that make solar more financially attractive. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has built a large solar installation on the roof of a major facility in Titusville, N.J.; as one of the largest solar installations on the East Coast, it can produce 500 kilowatts of energy, enough to power about 500 homes. "[N]ew incentive programs made the project financially neutral, and we felt it was the best time to jump in and do something good for the environment," said John Subacus of Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceutica Products unit. Lowe's, Toyota, BJ's Wholesale Club, and a number of other companies have made similar solar forays. Many of the solar-power systems they install will pay for themselves within 10 years and then produce essentially free electricity for 15 or more years.

Gulf Clubbed

Gulf of Mexico Beset by a Bevy of Environmental Ills

The Gulf of Mexico is in deep trouble, reports the Naples Daily News in an extensive 15-part series. Named last year by the U.S. EPA as the dirtiest coastal body of water in the U.S., the gulf takes a beating from leaking hog-waste lagoons, fertilizer from Midwest farms that reaches the gulf via the Mississippi and other rivers, runoff from land that has been developed to house an ever-expanding population, and a wide variety of dirty industrial facilities that line the southern coast, including chemical, petroleum, paper, and fertilizer plants. The negative effects of all these forces range from lost tourism income and a dramatically declining fishing industry to so-called Cancer Alley in Louisiana, where high numbers of people living in the shadow of petrochemical facilities have developed serious health problems. "I'm writing the epitaph," says Gary Burris, a former area fisher who is now making a documentary about the gulf's decline. "We have gone over the edge of sustainability."

On Thin Ice

Sierra Nevada Glaciers Are Shrinking

Glaciers that have topped California's Sierra Nevada Mountains for the past 1,000 years are shrinking markedly and even vanishing altogether, according to research by scientists from Portland State University and the U.S. Geological Survey. Seven Sierra Nevada glaciers that were surveyed over the summer are smaller than they were a century ago, including the Darwin Glacier near Bishop, Calif., which is about 50 to 100 feet thinner than it was in the early 1900s. Nathan Stephenson of the USGS was surprised to see notable changes in another glacier, the Goddard, just since 1976, the last time he photographed the area. "I thought, 'Oh, my gosh. In my lifetime I'm seeing this change,'" Stephenson said. He declined to attribute all of the warming causing the glacial melt to human causes. "But maybe we are speeding it up now," he said.

Creature Discomforts

Endangered Species May Soon Be Imported to U.S., Under Bush Proposal

The Bush administration wants to radically alter conservation policies to allow hunters, circuses, the pet industry, and leather importers to bring endangered animals into the U.S. from other nations -- dead or alive. Since its adoption in 1973, the Endangered Species Act has been interpreted as effectively prohibiting trade in endangered species between the U.S. and other countries, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now argues that other nations should be permitted to sell a limited number of endangered animals to American buyers, so the funds generated can be used to support conservation efforts. Environmentalists aren't buying it. "As soon as you place a financial price on the head of wild animals, the incentive is to kill the animal or capture them," said Adam Roberts of the Animal Welfare Institute. "The minute people find out they can have an easier time killing, shipping, and profiting from wildlife, they will do so."