Monday, 29 Nov 2004

Doo-lemma

Umbra ponders doggy-poop disposal options

A reader finds herself in the environmental catch-22 of eschewing plastic bags, but owning a pooping pup. How to gather the excreta? And where to put it? Umbra sniffs out a solution -- in Ask Umbra, today on the Grist Magazine website.

Paulding Gray

Mega-farms in Ohio offer stench but little else to communities

The Plain Dealer examines the effects of eight giant hog farms built in Paulding County, Ohio, since 1994 and five mega-dairies since 2000, and comes away with a grim cautionary tale. A number of local families have fled from their homes, some unable to live with the stench from open manure pits, others because the hydrogen sulfide emitted by the pits has caused brain damage, they and their doctors say. Three of the massive dairies have also violated the Clean Water Act, according to the U.S. EPA. And what do local communities get in return for hosting these stinking factory farms? Not much. The farms buy only 1 percent of their feed from local grain farmers. They also provide few jobs, and the ones they do offer pay about $7.50 an hour and are largely filled by Mexican migrants. Nevertheless, Ohio Department of Agriculture Director Fred Dailey says the farms are welcome: "In Ohio, they're all family farms."

NOAA's Parks

Marine expert John Emory Parks InterActivates

After a long career in environmental nonprofit work, John Emory Parks recently made the jump into government service as an international affairs specialist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He cites his son as his environmental hero, relates the horrifying moment when he realized his conservation work might be contributing to the AIDS epidemic, and ponders why the oceans, which cover about 70 percent of the globe, are so low on enviros' priority lists, as he answers Grist's questions -- in InterActivist, today on the Grist Magazine website. Ask him a question of your own by Wednesday at noon PST.

Oops, We Did It Again

Native Americans at risk from toxic military leftovers

More than a century ago, the U.S. slaughtered a bunch of indigenous folks and put the rest on reservations in the most arid, isolated, undesirable parts of the American West. A new study shows that many closed military sites in the Lower 48 states -- including bombing ranges, weapons-testing sites, and waste dumps -- are close by those reservations, possibly putting Native Americans at disproportionately high risk from the toxic materials and unexploded bombs left behind. According to a Defense Department report, the abandoned bases are home to "hazardous materials, unexploded ordnance, abandoned equipment, unsafe buildings, and debris." The feds estimate that unexploded ordnance contaminates up to 50 million acres in the U.S. and, at current rates, would take centuries to clean up. Seems environmental racism isn't confined to low-income urban areas.

Coming Clean

Green start-ups attracting substantial venture capital

Investor interest in eco-friendly start-ups has taken a leap with the entry of two big venture-capital players into the field. Two California public pension funds -- the largest and third-largest in the U.S. -- recently announced plans to invest a combined $950 million in the clean-technology field in coming years. Beneficiaries of their investment funds include companies developing non-toxic batteries, ocean-wave power systems, water-treatment systems, and other products and services that cut down on energy use and waste. Entrepreneurs moving into clean tech, and the investors trailing in their wake, are not motivated primarily by enviro do-gooderism, according to Bob Epstein of Environmental Entrepreneurs. "It's driven by economics," he says. A new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council supports that viewpoint, predicting that clean-tech companies could create 52,000 to 114,000 well-paying jobs in California over the next six years.