• Yucca Mountain Hits Budgetary Stumbling Block
  
• Commerce Head Adopts Ecosystem View of Oceans Management
  
• Diverse Idahoans Unite for Quiet in National Forest
  
• 1st EnviroSafety Ordered to Stop Pesticide, Anthrax Claims
  
• Carbon Sequestration Partnerships Multiply
  
• Canadian First Nations Share Boreal Problems With Kennedy
  
• Mississippi Developers Indicted for Federal Wetlands Crimes
  
• Weeds Overlooked as Medicinal Sources
  

Yucca Mountain Hits Budgetary Stumbling Block

Congressman Dave Hobson, an Ohio Republican who chairs the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, scolded the Bush administration for assuming that the House and Senate would reclassify fees paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund by nuclear power plant operators for the Yucca Mountain budget.

"The Committee funds the Yucca Mountain repository at the administration’s net budget request of $131 million," said Hobson, "and does not include the proposed authorization language to reclassify the fees paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund."

Hobson said the White House Office of Management and Budget "played Russian roulette" when they assumed the House and Senate would pass the proposed reclassification language that would have allowed $749 million to be spent on Yucca Mountain.

The underground repository for high-level nuclear waste from power plants and weapons manufacturing is located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department aims to have Yucca Mountain operational by the year 2010. Waste in casks would be transported by rail and truck from locations in 39 states to the repository for burial.

Yucca Mountain has been approved by Congress and by President George W. Bush, but it is opposed by the Nevada Congressional Delegation and by the State of Nevada, which has filed several lawsuits against the facility due to be heard this summer.

A report released May 3 by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, found that the Energy Department is failing to conduct quality scientific work at Yucca Mountain.

Nevada Senators Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, requested the investigation when whistleblowers who worked at Yucca Mountain were either fired or transferred after publicly raising concerns more than a year ago. Reid and Ensign held a Senate hearing to follow up on the whistleblowers’ accusations, but "the employees were intimidated into not appearing," Reid said.

The GAO report verifies the accusations by the whistleblowers and adds new substance to claims by Reid and Ensign that the outcome of studies at Yucca Mountain are "politically, not scientifically, motivated," Reid said.

Still, the licensing procedure is moving forward. On Thursday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued new requirements for the electronic filing of documents connected with the licensing of Yucca Mountain, a process that NRC Chairman Nils Diaz said could take three to four years.

To ensure wide public access to the Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings, the NRC will establish an electronic docket to contain the official record materials in searchable full text, or, for material that is not suitable for entry in searchable full text, by header and image. The NRC established this rule to accomodate large complex documents and reduce the time that it takes to serve filings by substituting electronic transmission for the physical mailing of filings typically used in NRC licensing proceedings.

The Department of Energy must make its material available six months in advance of submitting its license application to the NRC to receive and possess high-level radioactive waste at the Yucca Mountain geologic operations area.

The NRC must make its material available no later than 30 days after the DOE certification of compliance with the submittal requirement. Other potential parties must make their material available no later than 90 days after the Department of Energy certification.

The Yucca Mountain documents will be accessible on the Licensing Support Network website at: http://www.lsnnet.gov.

Commerce Head Adopts Ecosystem View of Oceans Management

The commission is now receiving comments from state governors on the recommendations, and a final version will be delivered to Congress later this year.

In remarks at the Oceans Week Conference on Capitol Hill, Evans said, "We're committed to developing new approaches and partnerships to build on our successes, and restore and sustain healthy oceans."

As Commerce Department chief, Evans oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. government agency in charge of ocean research, fisheries management, navigational charting and weather forecasting. NOAA has a major stake in upcoming discussions on recommendations made by the Commission on Ocean Policy and has already begun pursuing initiatives similar to those recommended by the panel.

Evans underscored the importance of the seas for their economic and ecologic resources. "The Commission addresses ecosystem based management. This is one of NOAA's fundamental strategic goals," he said.

"Ecosystems are highly complex," Evans told conference delegates from business, nongovermental organizations and government agencies. "A better understanding of species, habitat and their interactions is central to our efforts to protect and manage the nation's ocean and coastal resources."

Among the Commission's recommendations are proposals for increased marine research, exploration and observing systems. "One of the more exciting recommendations involves creating an Integrated Ocean Observing system. This is the next frontier in environmental management. It represents a paradigm shift in how we view our planet," Evans said.

"A comprehensive global observing system will offer improved ocean monitoring and marine resource management," he said. "Right now, ocean observations represent the largest gap in global efforts."

"The goal is a system that is comprehensive, coordinated and sustained," said Evans "What we need - and what we're working toward - is a system that fills in the missing pieces of the global environment puzzle."

Diverse Idahoans Unite for Quiet in National Forest

The 2003 Revised Caribou Forest Plan is online at: www.fs.fed.us/r4/caribou-targhee.

1st EnviroSafety Ordered to Stop Pesticide, Anthrax Claims

The products involved are Organic Cleaner/Degreaser (Military Strength); Organic Veggie Wash; Yacht & Boat Bath (Organic); Any Floors #123; ECCO Dishwashing Machine Concentrate; ECCO Commercial All Purpose;" "Industrial Cleaner/Degreaser; Organic - Bath & Tile; Organic - Pet Care; and Organic - Multi-Purpose.

Among public health claims to which the EPA objects, the company says that "Organic Cleaner/Degreaser helped neutralize anthrax in the U.S. Justice Department building.

This language is still posted on the company's website. "ANTHRAX- 1st EnviroSafety’s Universal Concentrate was used in the only Anthrax decontamination project that successfully neutralized Anthrax in the first application. (U.S. Justice Department facility)"

Other products claimed to eliminate or remove bacteria, odor-causing bacteria, germs, mildew, fleas, mites and ticks.

Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, products claiming to prevent, destroy, or repel pests, including anthrax bacteria, are considered pesticides and must be registered with the EPA.

The pre-market registration process requires a company to prove the product is safe and effective for consumer use before a legal claim can be made that it protects people and pets from illness caused by pests.

Products registered with the EPA must bear the registration number on labeling, along with directions for use and any safety precautions.

The stop sale order requires 1st EnviroSafety Inc. to remove all pesticide claims from its advertising and labeling and to notify EPA within 30 days of the steps they have taken to do so.

Company owner Ann Tidwell, Ph.D., has had great success with her "gentle yet exceptionally effective organic formula" for cleaning and degreasing. The U.S. Navy Environmental Health Center accepted it as one of 10 products qualified as “Ecological Preferable” for use by the U.S. Navy Fleet. This product has been added to the General Services Administration and Defense Department procurement list.

The EPA and the Florida Department of Agriculture will be monitoring compliance with the stop sale order and will continue to monitor the Internet for illegal pesticide sales.

Carbon Sequestration Partnerships Multiply

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted when fossil fuels - coal, oil, natural gas - are burned. CO2 is the main greenhouse gas regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, and the United States has chosen to rely on sequestering the gas rather than on adopting the emissions limits in the protocol.

The goal of the program at this stage is to determine technical feasibility and cost of capturing and sequestering these emissions in deep geologic formations, agricultural forests, and degraded land systems.

DOE's Carbon Sequestration Regional Partnership Program began last year and is a nationwide network of federal, state, and private sector partnerships. With the addition of the seven new states and 13 organizations, the partnerships now include leaders from 154 organizations spanning 40 states, three Indian nations, and two Canadian provinces.

The partners are working towards determining the most suitable technologies, regulations, and infrastructure for future carbon capture, storage and sequestration in different areas of the country.

The original partnerships were selected in August 2003 to evaluate and promote the carbon sequestration technologies and infrastructure best suited to their unique regions.

At the end of two years, technologies will be recommended for small-scale validation testing in a Phase II competition expected to begin in late fiscal year 2005.

The second phase will provide additional funding to continue progress in environmental permitting, public involvement and education, and protocols and other infrastructure needs for ensuring that greenhouse gases can be safely and permanently sequestered.

The Department of Energy is providing approximately $13 million to support the partnerships during the first phase of the project. Three participating organizations are contributing another $7.2 million, or an average of nearly 36 percent of the total funding. The partnerships are managed for DOE by the Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory.

The partnerships also provide a link to the Bush administration's plans for FutureGen, a highly efficient and technologically sophisticated coal-fired power plant that will produce both hydrogen and electricity, with near-zero emissions. The partnerships will provide the regulatory, infrastructure, and site-selection basis for wide-scale deployment of FutureGen technology.

Canadian First Nations Share Boreal Problems With Kennedy

Two Canadian First Nations - the Pimicikamak of Cross Lake and the Poplar River First Nation welcomed the U.S. conservationists and their help in raising public awareness of the threats to their boreal forest home.

"First Nations have been safeguarding these environmentally significant forests for centuries," said NRDC senior attorney Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member of the group's delegation. "We need to support their efforts to keep these forests intact."

One threat to the Heart of the Boreal BioGem is hydroelectric power. NRDC members and activists have have sent more than 17,000 alert letters to Manitoba Hydro, which sells nearly 40 percent of its electricity to U.S. customers.

They are asking the power company to conduct an environmental assessment of the existing and planned hydropower development before building new dams or transmission lines.

"Our actions as U.S. consumers have a major impact on Canada's boreal forest," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of NRDC's campaign to safeguard the region. "We are educating our members and the broader U.S. public about how our demand for electricity and forest products threaten the health of the boreal forest."

The Poplar River First Nation Band is located on the east side of Lake Winnipeg at the mouth of the Poplar River and covers 3,800 acres. The band is signatory to a 1875 treaty and its people speak the Ojibway language.

The reserve is home to 842 aboriginal people with another 86 living off the reserve and is accessible by winter road, air and water. Subsistence fishing and hunting is the band's main employment.

Major hydroelectric development in the 1970s on the Nelson and Churchill Rivers in northern Manitoba has altered the traditional lands and waters of northern aboriginal people, including the Pimicikamak of Cross Lake.

Cross Lake is located on the Nelson River system, approximately 825 kilometers north of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The Pimicikamak are a Cree nation, and they have been affected by flooding as dams were built to generate hydropower and sell it south of the border.

NRDC, indigenous communities, and other conservation groups on both sides of the border maintain that protecting the boreal forest is critical for North American waterways, migratory birds and other wildlife, and for combating climate change.

Mississippi Developers Indicted for Federal Wetlands Crimes

In a 41 count indictment made public Thursday morning, Robert Lucas, Jr., of Lucedale, Mississippi; his daughter, Robbie Lucas Wrigley of Ocean Springs, Mississippi; and M. E. Thompson, Jr., of D’Iberville, Mississippi, were charged with having violated the Clean Water Act in having developed wetlands in a 2,600 acre subdivision on property in Vancleave, Mississippi, known as Big Hill Acres.

They and Lucas corporations Big Hill Acres, Inc., and Consolidated Investments, Inc., were also charged with conspiracy and mail fraud for allegedly having sold to hundreds of families home sites in wetlands where septic systems were likely to fail.

The defendants made the sales in spite of numerous warnings from public health officials that they were illegally installing septic systems in saturated soil and they would contaminate the property and the drinking water aquifer below it.

Big Hill Acres residents were sold property on representations that the lots they were buying were good home sites for them and for their families, said Dunn Lampton, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi. Instead, the defendants sold them wetlands and illegal septic systems that failed during seaonal floods and discharged sewage into their yards and homes.

The development has been the subject of numerous civil lawsuits by tenants against the developers.

The indictment records warnings from 1996 onwards, and alleges that neither those warnings nor cease and desist orders from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) restrained the defendants from improperly installing septic systems that did not conform to state health department regulations in lots that they continued to develop and sell.

David McLeod, the EPA’s resident agent in Mississippi who investigated the case with the FBI office in Pascagoula, said the case was referred to his office only after years of effort by civil enforcement agencies had failed. "The federal government sought criminal charges because the warnings of state and federal regulators were ignored and their orders violated," McLeod said.

Weeds Overlooked as Medicinal Sources

"If I had one place to go to find medicinal plants, it wouldn't be the forest," said John Richard Stepp, a University of Florida anthropologist who did the study. "There are probably hundreds of weeds growing right outside people's doors they could use."

Stepp defines weeds as short-lived, herbaceous, fast-growing plants that thrive in areas of human disturbance and sprout along the outskirts of jungles.

Reviewing the literature, Stepp found that although only about three percent of the world's 250,000 plant species are weeds, they make up roughly a third of the 101 plant species used in pharmaceuticals.

Still, as drug companies search for new remedies, weeds that may have healing properties are routinely overlooked, said Stepp.

Perhaps the world's best known medicinal weed is the poppy, from which morphine is derived, Stepp said.

Scopolamine, an important drug for treating motion sickness, also is weed-based, as are the cancer medicines vinblastine, for Hodgkin's disease, and vincristin, for childhood leukemia, he said.

Americans may be able to get similar benefits from weeds as do people in developing countries, such as the Mayans Stepp has studied, although he warns that people should not experiment with weeds on their own without professional advice.

In a classroom experiment with 15 undergraduate students in Georgia, Stepp had about half collect plants from weedy fields and half pick them from a forest.

Identifying the plants using a database developed by University of Michigan anthropologist Daniel Moerman, the students found that as many as 50 plants from the fields had been used medicinally by Native Americans compared with only 12 of those they gathered from the forest.

"The realization that medicinal plants are readily available in a living pharmacy right outside the door and along the sides of trails rather than deep in the forest could lead governments to encourage and promote traditional medicinal practices," Stepp said. "They are readily available, cost nothing to gather and are often more effective."

"With all the emphasis on the tropical rain forests, an entire area is being missed in natural products research," said Stepp, whose results appear in the current issue of the "Journal of Ethno-Pharmacology." "These findings suggest that we need to broaden our horizons if we're going to search for new drugs from plants."