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Court Temporarily Blocks Tongass Timber Sales SEATTLE, Washington, October 26, 2004 (ENS) – A federal court has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to temporarily halt construction of a new road needed for seven timber sales to proceed in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.The 2-1 decision, announced last week by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, blocks the road construction until an appeal of the sales by conservationists is heard by the court. "The roadbuilding activities will cause an immediate and irreparable change to the part of the now roadless old growth forest that would be affected by the challenged timber sale," the majority wrote. The dissenting opinion centered on the economic harm of blocking the sales on the basis of an issue that affects only part of the overall sale. The decision is a victory for the conservation groups, who contend the Forest Service violated the law by inaccurately analyzing the market demand for timber when it approved the logging plan, which covers some 380 acres. The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society and the Center for Biological Diversity filed the lawsuit. They say that had the agency correctly understood market demand, it would have been possible to provide timber to the industry without entering roadless areas like those at issue in the case. The Forest Service has acknowledged the error, but says it does not affect its approval of the seven timber sales. The agency has estimated the project could support 45 jobs. Tom Waldo, an attorney with Earthjustice representing the plaintiffs in the case, says existing roads in the Tongass provide ample access to timber for logging companies. “The Forest Service should not be building expensive new roads in the Tongass when there are so many other options available,” he said. Over the past half century, more than 4,650 access roads have been constructed in national forests and a million acres of old growth forest lost to logging. According to the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, these roads and timber sales have been subsidized by $30 million taxpayer dollars each year. WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - A group of birders that claim to be 15 million strong have declared that President George W. Bush is bad for birds and has dedicated themselves to defeat him at the polls on November 2. Birders United Against Bush says on its website that, "At the top of the list of environmental ills for which George W. Bush is responsible is the huge damage he has done to America's birds and the places where they breed and nuture their young." The birders are particularly upset that Bush nominated William J. Haynes II to a key judicial seat on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. As a lawyer for the Department of Defense, Haynes argued that the bombing of an island in the Marianas, a haven for many rare species of birds, would actually be beneficial for bird watchers. "Haynes and his team of Defense Department attorneys contended that the bombing would disperse the birds to other islands so many more people would be able to see the rare species," a position the birders call "egregiously stupid." The group accuses the Bush administration of having "engaged in a systematic campaign to cripple the Clean Water Act, to remove the federal protection of a third of America's wetlands that are vital for 50 percent or more of our nesting birds, and to undermine legislation protecting endangered and threatened species of birds." The Birders United Against Bush organization hopes to be the deciding factor in electing Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry in the White House. The group says Kerry has "a superb record on the protection of birds and their habitats." "As many political commentators have observed," the group says on its website, "it is possible today for a small band of citizens voting a common interest to be a decisive, if not deciding, force in an election. Possibly the time has come when 15 million angry birders will decide to emulate their British cousins and organize to use their huge voting numbers to expel the present administration from office. The destruction of bird habitats may be President Bush's Achilles heel."
Hot Waste Builds at U.S. Nuclear Plants WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - The rate of nuclear power plant relicensing doubled after Congress approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in 2002, a new analysis by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) shows. The Washington based organization warns that all the space at Yucca Mountain is already taken, so the nuclear waste generated by the license extensions will stay at the power plants where it was made.Currently there are renewal applications pending for 18 more reactors. No application to date has been denied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nuclear power plants supply 20 percent of America's electricity. U.S. nuclear power plants are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate for 40 years, and can renew their licenses for an additional 20 years. To date, 19 have received license renewal and 32 more are expected to have their licenses renewed. Eventually, virtually all U.S. nuclear plants are expected to apply for license renewal, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry association. The EWG says these plants "will produce thousands of tons more waste, ensuring large or larger stockpiles near local power plants, much of which - after cooling on-site for decades - will probably come to Nevada to the Yucca Mountain dumpsite." But if Yucca Mountain opens for storage in 2010 as the Bush administration proposes, its storage space will be fully claimed. "Shortly thereafter, an additional 9,000 tons of nuclear waste will be waiting to come to Yucca and even more waste will sit at plants around the country. Therefore, Congress must either expand Yucca Mountain from its very first day of operation or allow nuclear waste to continue to pile up at 79 sites in 35 states," the EWG warns. "This analysis confirms what we suspected, but what the public was never told, that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site is really a nuclear expansion plan in disguise," said Richard Wiles of the EWG Action Fund. The EWG Action Fund's interactive website, at www.ewg.org, lists each reactor around the country that has been or will soon be relicensed and for how long, along with how many tons of waste it will generate while in continued operation. Visitors to the site can see how much waste that reactor is permitted to send to Yucca Mountain, and how much will be left on site. Shipping the waste generated by power plant relicensing will take either 6,000 more truck shipments or 1,050 train shipments through communities in Nevada on their way to Yucca Mountain, the EWG Action Fund estimates. Communities near each of the country's 103 operating nuclear power plants were the targets of public relations campaigns by the nuclear industry and the Department of Energy with the message that the Yucca Mountain repository would get rid of their waste. The relicensing means that most of these communities will not get rid of their waste. The EWG Action Fund warns that they will see "large or larger amounts of waste sitting on-site for decades before being shipped to Nevada." The nuclear industry points out that the additional generating capacity obtained by extending nuclear power plant licenses is required to meet the energy needs of the United States, which are expected to increase 50 percent by 2025, according to the Energy Information Administration’s “Annual Energy Outlook 2004.”
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Takes More Documents Offline WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Monday began another security review of documents that have been publicly available on the agency website to ensure that information is removed if it could be useful to terrorists, the agency said. During this review, ADAMS, the NRC's online document library, will be temporarily unavailable to the public.For the same reason, access to documents on the NRC’s Electronic Hearing Docket and NRC staff documents relative to the Yucca Mountain high level nuclear waste repository, usually available through the Licensing Support Network, is also being suspended pending further review. No classified or safeguards material is now or has ever been permitted on the NRC website, but now the NRC is widening its review to remove additional information that could potentially be of use to a terrorist. This action "is intended to ensure that documents which might provide assistance to terrorists will be inaccessible while maintaining public access to information regarding NRC activities," the agency said. Immediately after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the NRC took down its website and removed more than 1,000 documents that contained sensitive information. Since then, the agency has revised its policy regarding sensitive information that may be displayed and additional documents have been removed. The NRC has been holding meetings with the nuclear industry to advise industry officials about what information should be submitted to the NRC for public viewing and how to mark information now deemed too sensitive to post. About 200 official agency records, some generated by the NRC and others from external sources, are posted daily to the NRC Web site through ADAMS, which holds hundreds of thousands of documents. Given this volume, it is expected to be at least several weeks before ADAMS is partially restored, while the review of documents continues.
Hair Samples Show One in Five Women Have Excess Mercury ASHEVILLE, North Carolina, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - One in every five women of childbearing age has mercury levels in her body that exceed the federal recommended limit, the Greenpeace Mercury Hair Sampling Project has found.The first test results from the project were released Monday by the Environmental Quality Institute at the University of North Carolina-Asheville, which designed the project. Mercury levels exceeding the federal limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair were detected in 21 percent - 126 of the 597 women tested. Hair tests have been analyzed for 1,449 people of all ages around the country. Coal burning power plants release 41 percent of the country’s industrial mercury pollution. The air borne mercury falls into lakes, streams and oceans, concentrating in fish and shellfish, which are then consumed by people. “In the samples we analyzed, the greatest single factor influencing mercury exposure was the frequency of fish consumption,” said Dr. Richard Maas, co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute and author of the report. “We saw a direct relationship between people’s mercury levels and the amount of store-bought fish, canned tuna fish or locally caught fish people consumed.” Mercury contamination is a concern for women 16 to 49 years old because mercury exposure in the womb can cause neurological damage and other health problems in children. The EPA has not established mercury exposure health standards for older children, men, or women older than 49. "I have an obligation to protect the health of my children as well as my own health,” said Leila Varella, a 29 year old mother from Philadelphia who got herself and her six year old son tested. “Knowledge is power and getting tested is a first step toward protecting my family and community from mercury pollution." Greenpeace started the Mercury Hair Sampling Project as a response to what they see as President George W. Bush’s failure to clean up mercury emissions from power plants. Switching from coal and oil to wind and solar energy would reduce pollution and its negative health impacts, help solve global warming and create jobs, Greenpeace says. Home hair sampling kits are available at cost on the Greenpeace website. The Environmental Quality Institute will continue testing into 2005 and issue the final report in the spring. The Environmental Quality Institute report and supporting documents can be downloaded from the Greenpeace website: www.greenpeaceusa.org.
New Director Chosen for Environmental Health Sciences Institute BETHESDA, Maryland, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - David A. Schwartz, M.D. has been selected as the new director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP).National Institutes of Health Director Elias Zerhouni, M.D. announced the appointment Monday. Dr. Schwartz is currently director of the Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Division and vice chair of research in the Department of Medicine at Duke University. At Duke, Dr. Schwartz played a central role in developing three interdisciplinary Centers in Environmental Health Sciences, Environmental Genomics, and Environmental Asthma. He will replace Kenneth Olden, Ph.D., who has led NIEHS since 1991, and stepped down last year. Dr. Olden agreed to remain in the position until a successor was named. Dr. Olden will remain at NIEHS as a researcher in the intramural program. Dr. Schwartz will join the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on April 4, 2005. "Dr. Schwartz is one of the nation's outstanding researchers in environmental health," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. "He will play a key scientific leadership role at NIH, since environmental exposures account for a substantial proportion of the causes of many of the common diseases in America." "We are extremely fortunate to have David join us," said Dr. Zerhouni. "Environmental health sciences are playing an increasingly critical role in our understanding of many diseases. His interdisciplinary approach, involving human and molecular genetics, the medical sciences, and environmental genetics and genomics, will help lead us to well conceived strategies for preventing, diagnosing, and treating disease." As NIEHS director, Schwartz will oversee a $711 million budget that funds multidisciplinary biomedical research programs, prevention, and intervention efforts that encompass training, education, technology transfer, and community outreach. NIEHS currently supports more than 850 research grants. Since 1990, NIEHS has supported Dr. Schwartz's research on the genetic and biological determinants of environmental lung disease and host defense. Schwartz said his vision for NIEHS is "to improve human health by supporting integrated research and career development in environmental sciences, environmental medicine, and environmental public health." "Given recent advances in biomedical research and computational biology, NIEHS is well positioned to use its expertise in toxicology to understand human biology, disease pathogenesis, and the unique distribution of disease in different populations," he said. These efforts have provided new insights into the pathophysiology and biology of asbestos induced lung disease, interstitial lung disease, environmental airway disease, and innate immunity. Through his own research, Dr. Schwartz has identified endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide as an important cause of airway disease among those exposed to organic dusts, the NIEHS said. He has identified a specific mutation in the Toll-4 gene that is associated with a diminished airway response to inhaled lipopolysaccharide in humans. Recent work is focusing on the genes that regulate the innate immune response in humans and the genetic regulation of environmental asthma. Dr. Schwartz is a co-author of more than 150 research papers, 38 book chapters, and a textbook. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of the American Physicians, and in 2003, received the American Thoracic Society Scientific Achievement Award.
Ecological Society's New President a Climate Expert WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - Dr. Jerry Melillo, co-director and senior scientist at the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory, is the Ecological Society of America’s new president. The society, considered the country's premier professional organization of ecologists, was founded in 1915 to stimulate sound ecological research.Elected by the 8,700 members of Ecological Society of America for a one year term, Melillo was a lead author in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process that focuses on climate change issues; and served as co-chair of the National Assessment on Climate Change Impact on the United States, a government sponsored assessment that involved hundreds of U.S. scientists. "I am particularly interested in facilitating a dialogue on environmental issues between ecologists and decision makers in government and business. Ecologists need to understand what questions the decision makers are asking about environment problems. Decision makers need the help of ecologists to grasp the essential science needed to think clearly about how to solve the problems,” Melillo said. “The Ecological Society of America needs to be viewed by decision makers and the general public as an honest broker of scientific information that is the foundation for the sustainable use of planet Earth,” he said. An important goal of the society is to promote, clarify and communicate the science of ecology through reports, journals, research and expert testimony to Congress. Members conduct research on issues such as habitat alteration, natural resource management, loss of biological diversity, ecosystem management, ozone depletion and global climate change, sustainable ecological systems, ecological restoration, and biotechnology. Melillo, who received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1977, began his career as a secondary school instructor in Kenya. He has developed a joint education program between the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL). Co-director of the MBL since 1989, Melillo has worked at the Ecosystems Center for almost 30 years. He has taken time to serve as associate director for environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1996, and was director of the Ecosystem Studies Program at the National Science Foundation for two years. His research focuses on carbon and nitrogen cycling in ecosystems from sub-Arctic shrublands to tropical forests and savannas. Currently, Melillo is focusing his field research on soil warming experiments, studying the effects of warming on microbial processes, forest growth, and carbon and nitrogen feedbacks to the climate system. He is also working with an interdisciplinary team of natural and social scientists on an integrated assessment model to study the environmental and societal consequences of global change.
66 Student Teams Win Sustainable Development Grants WASHINGTON, DC, October 26, 2004 (ENS) - Sixty-six student teams have been chosen for the 2004-2005 academic year to research and develop sustainable designs through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) competition. Each team will receive a $10,000 grant to work on its design.Sustainable development allows communities to grow economically while preserving natural resources for future generations. Students will design solutions that benefit the environment and are not prohibitively expensive. The P3 Award Competition has two phases. Initially teams compete for the $10,000 P3 grants. Recipients use the money to research and develop their projects during the academic year. Then in May 2005, the P3 grant recipients will be invited to Washington, DC to compete for the P3 Award which confers additional funding for further design development and then to move the design to the marketplace. The National Academy of Engineering will convene a panel of judges for the competition. "As our planet's resources are limited, moving our society towards sustainable development is imperative," said Dr. Paul Gilman, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development. The P3 awards give the next generation of scientists and engineers the opportunity to move the United States further toward sustainability through their innovation and creativity, said Gilman. "Sustainable practices create jobs and make wise use of resources." The P3 national student design competition was launched in January. More than 40 partners in the federal government, industry and scientific and professional societies provide financial support. To see a list of partners, click here. Project focus areas include green buildings and sustainable construction materials, biodiesel production and use, drinking water quality and supply, alternative energy sources and fuel cells, urban redevelopment and green chemistry. The EPA is now accepting applications from student teams for the 2005 P3 competition. The deadline for receipt of applications is January 27, 2005. A list of P3 national student design competition teams is available at: http://es.epa.gov/ncer/p3/projects/index.html. More information about the awards and the 2005 competition can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/P3.
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