Monday, 12 Sep 2005

Photovoltaic Finish

California's Million Solar Roofs bill dies in legislature

Partisan squabbling effectively killed California's closely watched Million Solar Roofs legislation last week, as the state Assembly session ended on Thursday with no vote on the bill. The measure, which would have dramatically boosted the state's use of solar power by providing incentives for businesses and homeowners to install photovoltaic systems, initially had broad backing from across the political spectrum, but Republicans and Democrats failed to reach a compromise over Democrat-sponsored provisions that would have required workers on large commercial solar installations to be paid union-level prevailing wages. Many Republicans said the provisions would be too costly, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said he'd veto the bill unless they were changed. Now, under Schwarzenegger's direction, the state's Public Utilities Commission is expected to implement some aspects of the Million Solar Roofs plan, but others would still require legislative approval.


Nicole Rycroft has been working to make the Harry Potter books more forest-friendly, for all you wizard-loving, eco-conscious Muggles out there -- or at least those of you in Canada. As campaigns director for the British Columbia-based nonprofit group Markets Initiative, she urges publishers to use recycled paper that doesn't contain fiber from ancient or endangered forests, and she's gotten the Canadian publisher of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on board. She's also this week's InterActivist, so send her a question by noon PDT on Wednesday; we'll publish her answers to selected questions on Friday.

Touch and Goshute

Feds approve nuclear-waste dump on Utah tribe's land

On Friday, the Bush administration approved a controversial $3.1 billion plan for a massive temporary radioactive-waste dump on a Utah Indian reservation -- a win for nuclear-power interests. A private firm and the sovereign Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians struck up the agreement for the repository, so the plan has evaded the kind of public review and political debate that's kept the proposed nuclear-waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain in stasis. The Utah facility could come online by 2007, and might ultimately hold about 40,000 tons of spent reactor fuel. The poverty-stricken Goshutes are themselves divided over the plan: some see it as a great moneymaker, but at least one faction says it will dishonor sacred sites and obliterate the tribe's culture. Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R) says the state will sue to stop the dump from being built, and environmental groups stand firmly behind him.


With colder weather on the way and oil and gas prices on the rise, a homeowner wonders about the most efficient, un-icky material for new windows in his old house. Umbra says the answer is anything but transparent.

Egrets, I've Had a Few

Feds start to assess ecological damage to refuges near New Orleans

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is beginning to gauge damage from Hurricane Katrina to the 23,000-acre Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge east of New Orleans and the Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge on the north side of Lake Pontchartrain, home to the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Though Bayou Sauvage was flooded along with the city when the levees broke, many critters survived the deluge, including white-tailed deer, raccoons, alligators, egrets, and, to the chagrin of local agency official Dan Parker, pesky non-native wild hogs. But an influx of Lake Pontchartrain's brackish waters into Bayou Sauvage damaged the refuge's freshwater marsh grasses, the whole place smells of sewage and petroleum, and the receding floodwaters are leaving garbage in their wake. Says Parker, "It'll take years to recover."