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California Bans Flame Retardant SACRAMENTO, California, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - California has become the first state to ban flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) commonly used to coat plastics, electronics, textiles, carpets and furniture.Recent research indicates that the chemicals - developed in the 1960s - could cause neurological and development disorders in children. PBDEs accumulate in the body, much like mercury, lead and polychlorinated biphenyls, and a recent study found North American women with the highest level of PBDEs ever recorded. The California law, was signed by Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, on Saturday and will take effect in 2008. "Banning this chemical means that California's children will live healthier lives," said Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California, the bill's sponsor. "This first in the nation law makes California a leader in protecting our children's health." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it is investigating PBDEs. The European Union (EU) approved a ban similar to California's earlier this year. The EU ban was in part a reaction to a Swedish study that found levels of the chemicals in breast milk in Sweden had increased 40 times from 1972 to 1997. How the chemicals get into the environment is still uncertain, but PBDEs are being found worldwide in house dust, indoor and outdoor air as well as in the water and sediments of rivers, estuaries and oceans. PBDEs have been found in the tissues of whales, seals, birds and bird eggs, moose, reindeer, mussels, eels, and dozens of species of freshwater and marine fish. A recent study by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, DC based watchdog organization, analyzed six species of fish in the San Francisco Bay and found PBDEs in every sample. The tests compared fish caught by local anglers with archived samples caught in 1997, and found that PBDE levels more than doubled in halibut and more than tripled in striped bass. Striped bass and halibut are the two most commonly eaten species of Bay fish, and as large, mobile, carnivorous species, are considered good indicators of overall toxic contamination in the Bay. A variety of furniture, plastic, and electronics manufacturers have already developed products that meet fire safety standards without the use of PBDEs. Companies including Sony, Apple, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Motorola, NEC, Panasonic, Phillips, and Ikea have adopted PBDE free policies, switching to a number of alternatives considered safer, cost effective, and capable of meeting California's stringent fire safety standards. "We now look to Congress to move on this issue," said Jacobson.
Florida Judge Puts Brakes on Off Roading in Big Cypress WASHINGTON, DC, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - A Florida judge has upheld restrictions in a National Park Service management plan for the use of off-road vehicles (ORVs) in the Big Cypress National Preserve.Big Cypress's management plan will implement a 400 mile designated trail system for off-road vehicles, designated access points, as well as nighttime and seasonal closures. It changes the current management policy that allows ORVs to enter and travel through much of the preserve, activities that many say have resulted in extreme damage to the preserve's fragile biodiversity and wetlands ecosystem. Big Cypress's off-road vehicle management plan "implements the management philosophy for ORVs that was identified by Congress when it created the Big Cypress National Park," wrote U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Frazier in the 27 page Report and Recommendation, issued earlier this month. "This Plan reasonably balances [the Park Service's] desire to permit ORV users access to most of the Big Cypress National Park while minimizing the impacts of ORVs on natural resources, including several threatened or endangered species," Frazier wrote. Frazier's Report and Recommendation must still be approved by Justice John Steele, Chief Judge of the Fort Myers Division; the parties have until August 13, 2003 to file any written objections. The ruling was hailed by a coalition of environmental and animal welfare organizations, who have intervened on behalf of the federal government in a lawsuit by the offroad vehicle users and organizations against the plan. "The report is a clear signal that the days of swamp buggy abuse at Big Cypress are over," said Don Barry, executive vice president at The Wilderness Society and a former assistant secretary at the Interior Department. "The damage at Big Cypress is the worst that I have seen in the entire Park System. The real tragedy is that the National Park Service let this happen at all." Big Cypress is home to the Florida panther and Cape Sable Seaside sparrow, two critically endangered species. The Park Service must still assure that the management plan is fully implemented, and supporters say this will depend on adequate funding from the Interior Department and from Congress.
Army Corps Will Lower Missouri River - For Three Days WASHINGTON, DC, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Friday that it will comply with a court order to lower levels on the Missouri River, but only for three days.The Corps said it will reduce releases from Gavins Point Dam on the border of Nebraska and South Dakota on Tuesday, August 12 to 21,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). Releases would remain at that level until August 15, when under the Corps management plan releases are required to be increased to 25,000 cfs until September 1. The federal agency is complying with a July 12 order by Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who agreed with a coalition of 10 conservation groups that high water flows during the summer have a negative impact on endangered species. In its announcement Friday, the Corps said it would immediately be talking with river users in order to determine whether the August 12 scheduled reduction in water releases could be expedited without compromising public safety requirements and private property. The Corps has fought lowering water levels because of the impact it could have on the barge industry. The higher water levels in the summer, however, flood out sandbar nesting habitat for endangered river birds - the piping plover and least tern - and reduces survival rates for juvenile pallid sturgeon. Conservationists applauded the decision by the Army Corps but acknowledged that they are not much closer to resolving the long running dispute over water levels on the Missouri River. Few of the ecological benefits of lower flows are expected to be realized this year, as the Corps' action comes later in the summer than most believe is necessary to aid the endangered species. In 2000, the Fish and Wildlife Service provided ready ammunition for conservationists with a final biological opinion on Missouri River dam operations that concluded the least tern, piping plover, and pallid sturgeon are likely to go extinct on the Missouri River if the Corps fails to change dam operations. The agency recommended restoration of modestly higher flows an average of once every three years during the spring to cue fish reproduction and build river sandbars. The Fish and Wildlife Service also recommended a short period of lower flows each summer to increase shallow water habitat and to expose more sand for nesting birds. These flow changes were to take effect in 2003, but the Corps has not complied with the Fish and Wildlife Service's request. The agencies say they are working together on a new management plan for the Missouri to protect endangered species and the barge industry.
Conservationists Challenge Grand Canyon Timber Sale PHOENIX, Arizona, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - A coalition of conservation groups is challenging the proposed East Rim timber sale in the Kaibab National Forest, less than three miles from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The conservationists say the timber sale would allowing logging of thousands of old growth trees in the Kaibab National Forest under the guise of hazardous fuel reduction."The Forest Service claims that the East Rim timber sale is necessary to promote forest health and reduce fire risk," said Sharon Galbreath, executive director of the Southwest Forest Alliance, one of the groups appealing the sale. "Yet they are logging the fire resistant old growth trees that are essential to a healthy forest ecosystem." The timber sale's entire eastern boundary lies on a steep canyon side contiguous with the Saddle Mountain Wilderness area, includes extensive logging within rare spruce-fir habitat, and contains popular camping and recreation sites overlooking Grand Canyon National Park. It includes part of the Kaibab that holds the most extensive tracts of old growth ponderosa pine remaining the Southwest. Some 95 percent of Southwestern old growth has been logged in the last century. Conservationists say the densest population of northern goshawks in North America nests within the area, which was designated as the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and is the only such preserve in the United States. "The North Rim, particularly the Kaibab Plateau area where the East Rim timber sale is located, has long been recognized as important to wildlife," said Sandy Bahr, conservation outreach director for the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, another member of the coalition. "Theodore Roosevelt intended that it be protected forever for the use and benefit of our people as a whole and not sacrificed to the shortsighted greed of a few, as is evidenced by this timber sale proposal."
Citizen Group Raises Red Flag on Nuclear Waste Transport ASHFORD, New York, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - Government watchdog group Public Citizen says a government panel studying nuclear waste transportation issues should evaluate the questionable circumstances surrounding a recent shipment of high level nuclear waste from the West Valley Demonstration Project in Western New York to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.In a letter sent to the National Academies of Science Committee on Transportation of Radioactive Waste, the group raised concerns about the U.S. Department of Energy's handling of the shipment of 125 irradiated fuel assemblies - referred to as bundles of fuel rods. The Energy Department shipped the waste 2,360 miles by rail without informing local officials, emergency first responders or the public along the route. "While we do not dispute the need to address the national security implications of nuclear waste transportation, we are not convinced that this level of secrecy is justified, or that it meaningfully reduces risks," Public Citizen said in the letter. "On the contrary, such secrecy fundamentally conflicts with the principles of government transparency and accountability essential to protecting the public interest. Clearly, a more appropriate and effective way to reduce security risks associated with transporting nuclear waste would be to minimize shipments." The seven car train departed Ashford, New York some 45 miles south of Buffalo shortly after midnight on July 13 and arrived in Idaho four days later, according to news reports. Energy Department officials say security reasons prompted them to keep quiet about the shipment, which was one of the largest in U.S. history. But some believe federal officials made the wrong decision. "At least tell the fire chief," said Bill King, town supervisor of Ashford, where the West Valley facility is located. "These volunteer firefighters are the ones who come running any time of day or night to respond to emergencies. If they are not prepared and on notice, it threatens them and it threatens the community." The West Valley waste is part of the legacy of the United States' failed experiment with commercial nuclear waste reprocessing. The waste was transported inside 100 ton steel casks manufactured in the mid-1980s. Even local groups that have been pushing for years for the cleanup of the site were dismayed about the shipment of the waste. Carol Mongerson, cofounder of the West Valley Coalition on Nuclear Waste, has been pushing for 25 years for cleanup at the highly contaminated site. "Of course it would be nice if this waste could magically disappear," she said. "But at the same time, we realize that there is no place that is not somebody's back yard, and transporting it introduces nuclear risks to many more communities along the routes." Government plans for a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada call for thousands of crosscountry nuclear shipments starting in 2010 - a point of contention in many communities along proposed shipment routes which cross 43 states. The Energy Department wants the public "to believe that these shipments are safe and then they proceed under cover of darkness without notifying local officials," said Brendan Hoffman, organizer on nuclear waste issues at Public Citizen. "If this is how the agency handles one shipment, it certainly does not bode well for the proposed Yucca Mountain shipping campaign."
Zoos Receive Okay on African Elephant Import WASHINGTON, DC, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - A federal judge ruled Friday to allow the San Diego Zoo and Florida's Lowry Park Zoo to import 11 wild African elephants from Swaziland. A coalition of animal welfare groups known as Save Wild Elephants had hoped the judge would issue a preliminary injunction barring the import of the elephants, which they believe should remain in the wild.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently gave the zoos the necessary permits to import the elephants and U.S. District Court Judge John Bates ruled it unlikely the coalition would win its legal challenge to the agency's decision to issue the permits. The elephants have been in a government park in Swaziland since 1994 and park officials have said the animals would be killed unless they were moved from the park. The animal rights groups say the elephants should be transferred to another park in Africa and contend that allowing U.S. zoos to import them violates the international treaty on trade in endangered species. "It has been international trade policy by extortion," says Debbie Leahy of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "The judge clearly felt backed into a corner and did not want blood on his hands." The zoos do not want these elephants to save their lives, the plaintiffs say, but rather for captive breeding programs. Two of the elephants are pregnant. "Zoos want new wild, young elephants, because those animals bring in the visitors and their wallets," said Suzanne Roy of In Defense of Animals. "This was never about conservation. It is always been about money and profits." Zoo officials disagree and say the elephants will help fuel larger conservation efforts. "We can provide these elephants with excellent care, rather than seeing them culled, as their current park home cannot accommodate them," said Dr. Michael Hutchins, director of conservation and science for the American Zoological Association (AZA). "It is surprising animal rights activists who profess to care about animals would rather have them killed, than to live and help support essential wildlife conservation, research and educational efforts." AZA says public support for zoo elephant programs allowed AZA member institutions to conduct 56 elephant conservation and related educational and scientific projects from July 2000 to December 2001. The judge ordered shipment of the 11 elephants be delayed pending appeal until August 14. BOULDER, Colorado, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - Researchers with the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder will receive $1.8 million from the U.S. National Atmospheric and Space Administration (NASA) to compile an online database of the world's glaciers. This database will combine historical records with measurements from the latest technologies in satellite remote sensing. "Glaciers are key indicators in monitoring and detecting climate change," said Richard Armstrong, a senior research associate and principal investigator on the project. "Accelerated melting over the last two decades has contributed to rising sea levels and impacted water resources and hydropower potential in many mountain regions of the world." Armstrong says a global picture of the response of glaciers to climate change has been difficult to obtain, in part because length fluctuation measurements have been made on only a few hundred of the world's approximately 160,000 glaciers. The scientists will combine high resolution data from NASA's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer with other satellite imagery and new digital inventories of glaciers in the former Soviet Union and China, and historical data sets collected from both of those countries and from other regions around the world. Glaciologists located at research facilities around the world are partnering with the Colorado research team in analyzing satellite imagery to create a new baseline of current glacier conditions that will be compared to historical measurements. The scientists also will collect historical records from field surveys and aerial photography, topographic maps, glacier inventories, the results of direct measurements of ice thickness, internal physical and mechanical properties, mass balance, runoff, and meteorological parameters. Two regions - one in central Asia and one in southern Alaska - have been selected for validation of the combined data. Glaciers in central Asia cover some 17 percent of the global glacier area outside of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and the largest glacier covered region on land outside of Greenland and Antarctica. In southern Alaska, the scientists will focus on the Wrangell and St. Elias mountains where the world's largest mountain piedmont glaciers are located. Scientists say these glaciers have experienced unprecedented ice loss over the last several decades, an average of more than half a meter (19.5 inches) per year, with melt accelerating since the end of the 1990s.
New York Creates Invasive Species Task Force ALBANY, New York, August 11, 2003 (ENS) - New York Governor George Pataki today signed into law a bill to create a state task force to examine the factors surrounding the introduction and impact of invasive species. Supporters say the New York State Invasive Species Task Force will allow the state to develop a comprehensive strategy to a problem that could be costing the state hundreds of millions - if not billions - of dollars."New York State is blessed with a wide array of important natural resources, and we are committed to protecting our ecosystems from the damage that can be caused by invasive species," said Pataki, a Republican. "The creation of this Task Force will reinforce and strengthen the State's ongoing efforts to prevent invasive, non native species from harming our environment, our economy and our communities." The task force is expected to build on a number of state efforts already underway to combat invasive species. The state is engaged with research projects on the impacts of zebra mussels and Eurasian water milfoil on lakes as well as biological control of purple loosestrife in the lower Hudson River Valley. New York also supports educational outreach, such as posting information at state-owned boat launches on the dangers of nuisance aquatic species and helpful tips to prevent the spread of invasive species. In addition, the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute funds projects that improve ecosystem health and protect endangered species. The task force will be charged with assessing the nature, scope and magnitude of the environmental, ecological, agricultural, economic, recreational, and social impacts caused by invasive species in the state. It will identify actions that can be taken to prevent introduction of invasives, as well as how best to detect, respond and monitor nonnative species that take hold in the state. "Invasive species, introduced into New York from across the globe, are one of the largest threats to New York's ecosystems and native plants and wildlife," said Henry Tepper, director of the New York State Office of The Nature Conservancy. "Combating this critical threat to the health of New York's environment will require a coordinated approach from state government, landowners, and private organizations."
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