• Court Challenge to Nuclear Waste Policy Proceeds
  
• Western Wildfires Continue to Cause Injuries
  
• Nuclear Reactor Heads Need Better Inspections
  
• Rocky Mountain National Park at Risk
  
• Gila Chub Proposed for Endangered Listing
  
• CITGO Fined for Environmental Violations
  
• Bonnie Raitt Trumpets Environment at Concerts
  
• Duck Hunting Seasons Largely Unchanged
  

Court Challenge to Nuclear Waste Policy Proceeds

The suit brought by two environmental groups and two Indian tribes alleges that the agency gave itself the authority to illegally reclassify the nuclear wastes so that it could leave them at three facilities in Idaho, Washington and South Carolina.

In his ruling, the judge, B. Lynn Winmill at U.S. District Court in Boise, called it "inconceivable that Congress intended to allow the DOE unfettered discretion in the management of radioactive waste as the Defendants [DOE] have alleged."

"The language, purpose, and history of the NWPA make it clear that Congress didn't intend that DOE's compliance with the NWPA to be voluntary," Judge Winmill said in his decision.

"We are pleased Judge Winmill denied DOE's motion to dismiss and that the facts of this case will be heard," said Geoffrey Fettus, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), one of the plaintiffs and lead counsel in the case. "It's stunning that the Energy Department is trying to cut corners when dealing with a substance as dangerous as high level nuclear waste."

"The agency says it would like to accelerate cleanup," Fettus added. "We would like the cleanup to take less time, but not by stashing thousands of tons of the nation's most radioactive waste under a concrete cap in leaky tanks and hoping no one notices."

The lawsuit, filed in February by NRDC, the Snake River Alliance and the Yakama Indian Nation, argues that the DOE, by giving itself the authority to reclassify high level nuclear waste as "incidental waste," would use an illegally low standard for cleaning up some 100 million gallons of the nation's most radioactive waste. Most of this waste is located in underground tanks at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington; the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) near Idaho Falls; and the Savannah River site near Aiken, South Carolina. Dozens of the tanks in Washington and South Carolina are leaking, the plaintiffs charged.

The NRDC and its coplaintiffs maintain that the DOE is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to bury all of its high level radioactive waste deep underground in a geologic repository. They say that leaving the waste in tanks and covering it in concrete would ensure it would leach into groundwater adjacent to the Columbia River in Washington, the Snake River Aquifer in Idaho, and into the water table at the Savannah River site.

Since filing the suit, the plaintiffs have been joined by the Shoshone-Bannock tribe, whose reservation sits about 40 miles downstream on the Snake River from the INEEL. The court also has allowed Washington and Idaho standing in the lawsuit as "friends of the court."

"While the judge has not yet ruled on the merits of this case, he made it very clear that the DOE may not continue to act as a law unto itself when it comes to how it disposes of radioactive waste," said Gary Richardson, executive director of the Snake River Alliance. "This comes as very good news to the people of Idaho, Washington, and South Carolina whose water supplies are being threatened by irresponsible nuclear waste disposal practices."

Western Wildfires Continue to Cause Injuries

The firefighters were headed to help battle the Bryant fire, a 500 acre blaze west of Palm Springs when the fire truck's drive shaft malfunctioned. The truck swerved across three lanes of traffic on Interstate 15 and plunged down the bank, leaving the driver in critical condition and injuring two other firefighters.

The Bryant fire was one of four large fires burning across the state this morning. The largest, the McNalley fire in Sequoia National Forest, is spreading into the Inyo National Forest and the Golden Trout Wilderness Area, threatening at least 200 structures. The blaze has now burned more than 127,948 acres and cost more than $28 million in federal and state firefighting funds.

The nation's largest current fire, the Biscuit Fire, has now burned more than 376,492 acres - more than 460 square miles - in southern Oregon and northern California. The fire in the Siskiyou National Forest, continues to burn actively as crews work to complete firelines.

The Illinois River Valley remained under an evacuation advisory today after the fast moving Biscuit Fire grew by more than 40,000 acres on Sunday. More than 6,000 firefighters are battling the blaze, but they do not expect to contain the fire before the end of the month.

The Biscuit Fire is the largest to hit Oregon in more than a century, surpassing the 1933 Tillamook Fire that scorched 311,000 acres.

The fires continue this year's devastating fire season, fueled by ongoing drought across much of the west. Alaska currently has the most acres ablaze, with 473,930 acres burning in five large fires. The largest, on Bureau of Land Manage property about 70 miles west of Fairbanks, has burned about 257,549 acres, and firefighters have no estimate on when it will be contained.

In Washington state, the Deer Point Fire in Wenatchee National Forest has burned almost 41,000 acres about seven miles northwest of Chelan. Colorado, Utah and Wyoming are also battling large wildfires, as fire conditions remain very high to extreme in all western states.

Nuclear Reactor Heads Need Better Inspections

The NRC has sent a bulletin to companies that hold licenses for the nation's 69 operating pressurized water reactors, advising them they may need to supplement inspections of their reactor vessel heads.

The discoveries of cracked and leaking vessel head penetration nozzles at several pressurized water reactors, and major corrosion of the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio, have raised concerns about the adequacy of current inspection programs. Most inspection programs rely on visual examinations to identify nozzle cracking, boric acid leakage and corrosion.

Last August, and again in March, the NRC sent bulletins to the licensees that described the discoveries of cracked and leaking penetration nozzles in reactor pressure vessel heads. In response to that bulletin, pressurized water reactor licensees provided their plans for inspecting their reactor pressure vessel head penetration nozzles and the outside surface of the reactor pressure vessel head to determine whether the nozzles were leaking.

The NRC has analyzed the data supplied by the licensees and concluded that inspection programs that rely on visual examinations may need to be supplemented with volumetric or surface examinations. The bulletin provides suggested inspection schedules and examples of acceptable supplemental inspection techniques, including the use of ultrasound, electric currents, and liquid dyes to check for cracking and corrosion in metal structures.

The agency has asked licensees to respond in writing within 30 days, describing their plans for future inspections.

On August 23, NRC will meet in Rockville, Maryland to discuss the bulletin with the Nuclear Energy Institute and pressurized water reactor licensees. The meeting, which is open to public observation and participation at designated points, will be held from 9 am to 12:15 pm.

Interested individuals may listen to the meeting via telephone by calling: 1-888-566-5771 and entering passcode 31063 at the prompt. More information is available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/vessel-head-degradation.html

Rocky Mountain National Park at Risk

Last week, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) unveiled the results of a two year study indicating that although Rocky Mountain National Park, located 70 miles northwest of Denver, scores well on most areas of management and protection, some resources are still at risk.

"We usually think national parks are protected for all time," said Mark Peterson, director of the NPCA's State of the Parks project that produced the report. "But this assessment shows that even this park, which is in generally good shape, faces potentially devastating threats that could harm park wildlife, landscapes, and archaeological artifacts forever."

The Rocky Mountain National Park State of the Parks Report - third in a series of assessments of national park cultural and biological resources - scored the park 75 on a scale of 100 for the condition of its natural resources and 67 for the condition of its cultural resources. Despite the strong scores, some threats could damage the park in the next 10 years unless steps are taken to ensure park integrity, Peterson said.

One of the most serious concerns is management of wildland fire, a natural component of park ecology. Decades of fire suppression have created unhealthy forest conditions with unnatural accumulations of downed trees and dense underbrush in some areas of the park.

When combined with drought, these conditions could result in fires that burn more intensely than normal, as shown by recent wildfires near the park.

A second cause for concern is the threat of chronic wasting disease, a relative of mad cow disease that causes brain damage in deer and elk and is always fatal. Eight cases of the disease have been reported in park deer and elk since it first turned up there 1981.

Park staff are working with the Colorado Division of Wildlife to learn more about the disease. The National Park Service also needs funding to acquire additional veterinary and wildlife management expertise to develop means for controlling the disease while protecting park wildlife.

Invasive species such as yellow toadflax and Canadian thistle pose another major problem, threatening native plant communities such as aspens, ponderosa pine and river meadows. Park staff members are attempting to control 14 invasive species and are proposing control for 19 more.

Lack of adequate funding is a persistent problem at this and other parks. NPCA studies indicate that the National Park Service operating budget is under funded by about $600 million dollars a year, undermining programs such as fire management and control of nonnative invasive species.

The report is available at: http://www.npca.org/across_the_nation/park_pulse/rocky_mountain/

Gila Chub Proposed for Endangered Listing

The agency is also proposing to designate 208 miles of spring fed and perennial streams and headwaters in New Mexico and Arizona as critical habitat for the fish. The chub was once found throughout the Gila River basin in southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northeastern Sonora Mexico. Today, just 31 isolated and vulnerable populations remain.

A gila chub (Photo courtesy USFWS)

"Although these changes took place nearly a century ago, the aquatic ecosystem hasn't bounced back and may never fully recover," said H. Dale Hall, director of the USFWS southwest region. "Today, people do a much better job of managing their livestock, but the habitat is so degraded that this once widespread southwest native fish is confined to deep pools in the headwaters."

The Gila chub is now found in less than 15 percent of its historic range. The fish faces additional threats from increased groundwater pumping, growing development pressures, competition from non-native fish and new diseases.

Gila chub are secretive fish, preferring quiet, deeper waters and remaining near cover such as land based vegetation, boulders and fallen logs in smaller streams, springs and desert wetlands. The fish can also survive in small artificial impoundments.

The USFWS is proposing to designate critical habitat for 26 of the 31 populations along the headwaters of seven rivers. The proposed critical habitat designation includes a 300 foot riparian zone on each side of the river. The majority of proposed critical habitat is on federal, state and county lands, 50 miles of the proposed habitat is on tribal lands, and just 17.8 miles is on private land.

The five populations not covered in the proposal have other protections in place that safeguard the species, or are found only in Mexico. Areas crucial to a species survival can be left out of a critical habitat designation if sufficient management protections are in place.

"We're looking for additional scientific and commercial information that is relevant to our proposal to grant endangered species protection to the Gila chub, as well as economic information regarding the critical habitat proposal," said Hall. "Public participation in this information gathering is essential to our developing proper protection for the fish."

More information is available at: http://arizonaes.fws.gov

CITGO Fined for Environmental Violations

The violations include failure to maintain records, comply with emissions limitations, maintain a continuous emission monitoring system, submit required reports, conduct performance tests, and provide required notifications to the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC).

The TNRCC has agreed to offset a portion of the administrative penalty for the violations on the condition that CITGO perform a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP), a program designed by the TNRCC to benefit the communities where environmental violations occur. The $375,000 SEP will benefit the local environment by providing a means of validating and improving air quality data.

CITGO will make a $375,000 contribution to Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi, which will be used in a Remote Vehicle Emissions Sensor Project to pay for the cost of acquiring a remote vehicle emissions sensor, for maintenance costs, and for both employee/employer and public car care clinics.

The contribution will also buy a "smart sign," a tool used to raise public awareness about the importance of well maintained cars and trucks to cleaner air. Vehicles pass through an invisible beam that measures carbon monoxide emissions. In less than a second, the smart sign flashes a reading of good, fair or poor to help motorists assess their vehicle's fuel efficiency and overall condition.

The employer/employee and public car care clinics will distribute discount coupons for repairs to the owner of vehicles who receive fair or poor readings of their vehicle emissions, and may enable employers to offer assistance towards appropriate repairs or adjustments. Vehicles repaired because of the car care clinics will help reduce air pollution across the region.

Bonnie Raitt Trumpets Environment at Concerts

Each summer concert by the nine time Grammy winner and longtime activist will include a traveling environmental exhibit, Green Highway. The physical site and accompanying website feature exhibits of products and organizations that offer environmentally friendly alternatives.

"It's no accident that we're in danger of losing both our ecological and our economic well being at the same time," said Raitt, who created the Green Highway concept along with colleagues Kathy Kane and Harvey Wasserman. "I feel too many government and corporate policies are inseparably shortsighted and we've created Green Highway to demonstrate that working in harmony with nature can offer real solutions for preserving both our planet and our prosperity."

Two important components of the Green Highway midway are Honda's hybrid Insight and Civic cars, which employ a small gasoline engine coupled with a high output electric motor to reduce emissions and boost fuel efficiency. Honda's two cars will be at every concert in conjunction with the Green Highway exhibits.

Some of the Green Highway tour vehicles will run on B20, a biodiesel fuel made from fat or vegetable oil that offers a cleaner burning alternative to standard diesel.

"I think it's wonderful that Bonnie Raitt is leading by example, using a farm grown fuel that decreases emissions and dependence on foreign oil," said Bob Metz, president of the National Biodiesel Board and a South Dakota soybean farmer. "Biodiesel is beginning to enjoy commercial success as one of the fastest growing alternative fuels available."

Green Mountain Energy Company, the nation's largest retail provider of cleaner energy, will be supporting the generation of wind power to cover the estimated 500 megawatt hours of electricity that the 38 city tour will consume, offseting the production of 327 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2).

The tour's sponsors include Green Mountain Energy, Honda Hybrid Cars and the National Biodiesel Board, Marvin Windows and Doors, ShoreBank Pacific's Eco-Deposits, BP Solar, American Wind Energy Association, Guayaki Yerba Mate Tea, Aloha Bay 'Petroleum-free' Candle Company, and American Solar Energy Society.

"The presence of these companies and their products means they endorse our basic principle of ecological harmony, and our belief in the timeless Quaker philosophy - that you can do good at the same time you are doing well," said Raitt. "Their presence does not imply a blanket endorsement by us, simply that they adhere to the core principle of the Green Highway, that our economic life must run in harmony with the sanctity of the natural environment."

Bonnie Raitt has been involved with the environmental movement since the mid-1970's and was a founding member of MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy), which produced the historic 1979 NO NUKES concerts at Madison Square Garden. That concert resulted in a platinum selling triple album, and a feature length movie directed by Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple.

Raitt has been active in the fight to preserve ancient forests, performing numerous benefit concerts, lobbying in Washington and twice committing civil disobedience in support of ecologically sound government and corporate policies.

Duck Hunting Seasons Largely Unchanged

The agency is proposing to maintain hunting regulations similar to those offered in recent years for most species of ducks, but restrict opportunities for some species due to continuing concerns about population status and a poor production outlook this spring in key nesting areas. Under the USFWS's late season frameworks proposal, hunting season lengths for pintails will be much more restrictive and the season for canvasbacks will be closed.

For most duck species, however, the USFWS is proposing to continue the same season lengths and bag limits that have been offered since 1997. Earlier this year, the agency also agreed to extend by about a week the earliest opening and latest closing dates that individual states can use to set their hunting seasons.

"While it is clear that habitat conditions in the prairies and parklands of mid-continent North America will lead to a reduced fall flight compared to last year, duck numbers are still sufficiently high to offer the hunting opportunities that these seasons afford," said USFWS Director Steve Williams. "In light of the unusual situation this year, we have chosen to restrict hunting for selected duck species whose populations remain a concern rather than impose blanket reductions in the upcoming waterfowl season."

The USFWS proposal was developed after consultation with representatives from the four Flyway Councils (Atlantic, Mississippi, Central, and Pacific), which provide state wildlife agencies a formal mechanism to assist the USFWS with cooperative management of North America's waterfowl populations. After the USFWS publishes its final late season frameworks in early September, states will set their own season dates, lengths and bag limits within the guidelines the frameworks establish.

Under the proposal, the hunting season on pintails would be reduced from 107 to 60 days in the Pacific Flyway, from 74 to 39 days in the Central Flyway, and from 60 to 30 days in the Mississippi and Atlantic Flyways, with a bag limit of one pintail per day in each flyway. The USFWS is proposing to close the hunting season on canvasbacks because of recent population declines and a poor outlook for production. Canvasbacks are sensitive to breeding habitat conditions, and season closures have been used in the past because of their low abundance.

More information is available at: http://migratorybirds.fws.gov