Friday, 31 Mar 2006

Slippery When Wet

Bush admin declares that wet lands are wetlands, says acreage is way up

Yesterday, betraying no hint of irony, the Bush administration announced that even though the U.S. lost a net total of 523,500 acres of natural swamps and tidal marshes between 1998 and 2004, the country actually gained 715,300 acres of wetlands -- if you count features like ornamental lakes, golf course ponds, and mining pits filled in with water. And make no mistake: it does. Such artificial ponds provide few if any of the ecological services of a natural wetland -- soaking up floods, filtering water, providing habitat for diverse plants and critters -- but they're ... wet, and thus deemed wetlands in Interior Department surveys. Said National Wildlife Federation wetlands expert Julie Sibbing, "The most stunning thing about this report is that we're losing diverse natural wetlands in this country and the administration tells us it's OK because we've increased the number of ponds."


Pacoima, Calif., a largely Latino community on the north end of Los Angeles, is laden with freeways, airports, power plants, chemical manufacturers, and landfills. But residents intent on making their neighborhood a cleaner, safer place to live have teamed up through the nonprofit Pacoima Beautiful. They're working to prevent lead poisoning, clean up trash, repair heavily polluting cars, and turn an asphalt recycling plant into a park. Marlene Grossman and other community activists lead a walking tour of the neighborhood.


As he's built up his Minnesota nonprofit that installs solar systems for low-income households, Jason Edens, this week's InterActivist, has gone from solar activist to solar expert. And it's a good thing: readers this week barraged him with questions about all things solar. He shines a light on topics ranging from DIY solar-system installation to solar ovens -- and he's got the scoop on web resources and other tools that can help you calculate your solar-power potential as well as costs, savings, emissions reductions, and more.


On this, the final day of our seven-week Poverty & the Environment series, Grist editor at large Kathryn Schulz steps back to take a big-picture look at the challenges we've been covering and the path toward meaningful social change. She also picks her highlights from the series, and invites you to do the same.

Space Inveighers

New NASA policy emphasizes open communication with media

Stung by recent press reports of political interference with scientists -- the dictum that "Big Bang" be accompanied by "theory" was amusing; the suppression of global-warming findings less so -- NASA has scrambled to repair the PR damage. Yesterday, administrator Michael Griffin released a new policy making clear that agency scientists can freely speak with journalists about their research, and offer up personal interpretations of their findings, without being bird-dogged by a public-affairs officer (though he warned that for un-media-savvy scientists, going "into an interview without a media professional is courting trouble"). The new policy promises that "scientific and technical information from or about (space) agency programs and projects will be accurate and unfiltered." House Science Committee Chair Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.) praised the NASA policy's emphasis on open communication, saying it "should become a model for the entire federal government." That'll happen.

What Fresh Eliot Is This?

Spitzer claims green mantle in race for governor of New York

As attorney general of New York, Eliot Spitzer (D) has garnered a reputation for many things, but subtlety is not one of them. So it's fitting that he kicked off the first big environmental speech of his gubernatorial campaign with this: "George Bush is, hands down, the worst president on environmental and energy issues that this country has ever seen." It's more than a kick in the stones of an unpopular president -- Spitzer has taken legal action against the Bush administration 17 times, often over environmental issues. In his Wednesday speech to supporters, he also stumped for closure of the state's Indian Point nuclear facility and touted the economic benefits of environmental advances like reduced emissions, redevelopment of brownfields, energy conservation, and wetlands protection. He gave a shout out to Gov. George Pataki (R) for protecting large swaths of undeveloped land, but said he would strengthen that effort with better smart-growth policies. Supporters responded by saying "Ellllliot" in the voice of E.T. over and over again. Or was that just us?