And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may99/1999L-05-24-09.html
AmeriScan: May 24, 1999
North Carolina Chip Mill Shut Down, 10 Arrested
Americans Oppose Whaling
Coast Guard Special Agent's Car Hits Whale Conservationist
Grizzly Bears Could Face Hunters Again in Montana
Farm Bureau Attacks Federal Water Protection Law
***Public Comments Welcome on Yucca Mtn. Nuclear Waste Repository***
U.S. Park Service Director Visits South African Parks
Manatees Make Their Home in Cincinnati Zoo
Tiny Great Lakes Plankton Have Cancers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NORTH CAROLINA CHIP MILL SHUT DOWN, 10 ARRESTED
Activists from Asheville, North Carolina shut down the
Willamette Chip Mill in
Union Mills, Rutherford County this morning by locking
themselves to the front
gate and to a crane blocking the mill entrance. They hung a
25 foot long banner
saying, "Willamette Destroys Our Jobs, Rivers and Forests."
The newly opened
chip mill was the target of Katuah Earth First! and
EarthCulture who object to the
chipping of hardwood trees from National Forests for the
production of virgin
fiber cardboard. The Pisgah, Nantahala, Cherokee and Sumter
National Forests lie
within the sourcing area for the Willamette Mill. The ten
people arrested are in the
Rutherford County Jail charged with 2nd degree criminal
trespass and resisting,
obstructing and delaying of police officers, said Cathie
Berry of Katuah Earth
First! who called the six hour mill shutdown "successful."
Five arrestees locked
to the front gate are: Ed Stein, Maxwell Goodman, Vanessa
Harper, Terra
Hanks and Emily Adderman. Colleen Rockstroh, Dane Kuppinger, and
David Tomlinson were arrested for climbing the crane and
hanging on with the
banner. Bill Gorz, of Fletcher, North Carolina, locked onto
the crane with a 45
degree angle steel lockbox. Josh Kelly, of Asheville, was
arrested while videoing
the action from the woods. The activists must post $2,000
bail before they are
released. Plant manager Tim Parton told local TV reporters,
"As long as people
we live in a consumer society that encourages the use of
disposable products, we
will fulfill that need." Berry said, "We did this action to
bring attention and tie in
the the local community. And we succeeded. One local
resident got a $110 ticket
for giving us water."
* * *
AMERICANS OPPOSE WHALING
The results of a new poll released just as the International
Whaling Commission
opens its annual meeting in Grenada, shows that Americans
are overwhelmingly
opposed to whaling. The poll conducted May 14 and 15 by
Penn, Schoen &
Berland Associates on behalf off the International Fund for
Animal Welfare
(IFAW), found that more than 8 in 10 of those polled oppose
killing whales.
Sixty-one percent "strongly" oppose whaling. Fred O'Regan,
executive director
of IFAW said, "Americans recognize that commercial whaling
is incredibly cruel
and unnecessary, and represents the greatest threat to whale
populations around
the world." The poll shoed 75 percent of Americans want
their government to
speak out publicly against whaling conducted by Japan and
Norway. A majority
of those polled, 55 percent, believe the U.S. government
should impose limited
trade sanctions banning the import of seafood products from
countries that
conduct whaling. The survey of 610 registered voters has a
+/- 3.97% margin of
error.
* * *
COAST GUARD SPECIAL AGENT'S CAR HITS WHALE
CONSERVATIONIST
Chuck Owens, founder of the Peninsula Citizens for the
Protection of Whales,
was hit by a car driven by a U.S. Coast Guard agent near
Sekiu, Washington, on
Saturday. The U.S. government vehicle narrowly missed a
second protester, then
sped from the scene. The driver had previously identified
himself to Owens as
Coast Guard special agent Richard Gardner. Paramedics called
to the scene
examined Owens, who was knocked down by the impact, and
determined he was
uninjured. Owens says he will press criminal and civil
charges against Gardner
and the Coast Guard. The Clallam County Sheriff is
investigating the incident as a
hit and run accident. The Coast Guard has come under intense
public criticism
for their actions at Neah Bay, Washington, last week, when
they arrested
protestors and seized their boats in order to allow the
Makah to kill a whale
unimpeded, which the tribal whalers did on May 17. Two of
the arrested
protesters, charged with reckless endangerment, were
arraigned on Friday. Jacob
Conroy and Josh Harper of the Sea Defense Alliance entered
pleas of "not
guilty." The trial date is set for August 16.
* * *
GRIZZLY BEARS COULD FACE HUNTERS AGAIN IN MONTANA
Twice as many grizzly bears in the Yellowstone and Northern
Continental Divide
Ecosystems died on non-wilderness lands as in wilderness,
according to a new
study presented at a conference in Missoula, Montana today.
The study by Mike
Bader, titled "Wilderness-Based Ecosystem Protection in the
U.S. Northern
Rockies," was presented at the Wilderness Science in a Time
of Change
conference. Wilderness, the study concludes, is a "source"
habitat for grizzly
bears, while the roaded landbase of non-wilderness lands are
a "sink" habitat,
meaning more bears die there than the local population can
replace. It concludes
de-listing and resumption of hunting for grizzly bears could
destabilize the
Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem
populations, further
threatening their status. The density of mortalities has
shifted from wilderness to
non-wilderness lands following the end of legal hunting
seasons for grizzly bears.
De-listing of grizzly bears from the list of threatened and
endangered species has
been proposed and the states of Wyoming and Montana have
indicated they wish
to resume legal hunting for grizzly bears. Most legal
hunting kills occurred in
wilderness habitat, the study found. If hunting were
resumed, it could shift the
density of mortalities back into the core habitat. Taking
bears from the core
habitat could be similar to deficit spending: it robs from
the "principle" rather than
harvesting the "interest." This could "bankrupt" grizzly
bear populations, Bader
concluded.
* * *
FARM BUREAU ATTACKS FEDERAL WATER PROTECTION LAW
A coalition of fishing groups and environmentalists has
moved to intervene in a
lawsuit filed recently by two landowners in Mendocino
County, California and
several units of the Farm Bureau. The suit targets the first
total maximum daily
load (TMDL) regulations in California, issued to regulate
surface-disturbing
activities in the watershed of the Garcia River, which
enters the Pacific Ocean
near Point Arena in Northern California. The purpose of the
suit, the intervenors
claim, is to destroy a vital part of the nation's effort to
protect and restore polluted
streams nationwide from a wide variety of sources of
contamination. At issue are
regulations under the federal Clean Water Act that aim to
clean up the nation's
waterways by calculating how much of all kinds of pollution
various waterbodies
can tolerate, then adjusting all polluting activities in the
area to keep them under a
total overall limit. The limits are called TMDLs. The Farm
Bureau, for its part,
argues that logging and other nonpoint sources of pollution,
such as agriculture,
should be exempt because Congress never intended to regulate
them. The lawsuit
was filed April 12, in the U.S. District Court for the
Northern District of
California and assigned to Judge Fern Smith. The plaintiffs
ask the court to
eliminate all regulations concerning nonpoint sources of
pollution in the watershed
of the Garcia River and to make a blanket finding that the
Clean Water Act does
not cover nonpoint sources in the TMDL process. A hearing on
the motion to
intervene is scheduled for June 25.
* * *
PUBLIC COMMENTS WELCOME ON YUCCA MOUNTAIN NUCLEAR
WASTE REPOSITORY
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold three public
meetings in Nevada
next month to provide an additional opportunity for comment
on its proposed new
regulations for making a decision on whether or not to
license a possible future
high-level radioactive waste repository that the Department
of Energy (DOE) may
seek to develop at Yucca Mountain. The proposed regulations
were issued on
February 22, with comments requested by May 10. The NRC held
two public
meetings in Nevada on March 24 and 25 to discuss the
proposal. In response to
comments at those meetings, and written comments, the agency
extended the
public comment period until June 30. Details of the new
series of public meetings
are: June 15, from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm at the Amargosa Valley
Community Center
in Amargosa Valley. June 16, from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm at the
Richard Tam
Alumni Center of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. June
17, from 4:00 pm to
7:00 pm at the Caliente City Hall, Caliente. The meetings
will open with an NRC
presentation on the proposed rule, which would establish the
criteria and
standards against which NRC would evaluate a possible future
DOE license
application for a repository at Yucca Mountain. This
presentation will be followed
by public discussion, facilitated by Francis Cameron, NRC
counsel for public
liaison. The NRC will consider comments received at the
meeting in developing
the final version of the proposed rule. Written comments are
welcome by June 30
to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC
20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
Comments may be
submitted on the NRC's interactive rulemaking website at
http://ruleforum.llnl.gov
* * *
U.S. PARK SERVICE DIRECTOR VISITS SOUTH AFRICAN PARKS
U.S. National Park Service (NPS) director, Robert Stanton,
arrives in South
Africa Tuesday for a week-long visit at the invitation of
Mavuso Msimang, chief
executive officer of South African National Parks (SANP).
Msimang extended the
invitation last year during his extensive visit to U.S.
parks. The visits back and
forth form part of the bilateral cooperation between the
U.S. and South African
parks services established within the framework of the
U.S.-South
Africa-Bi-National Commission and was given practical
expression through a
series of exchange programmes. These include a training
programme for SANP
managers and rangers provided by the U.S. National Park
Service. The SANP's
Department of Social Ecology has also benefited from the
sponsorship of a visitor
programme to the United States. SANP conservationists are
held in high regard
and are invited regularly to visit the U.S. to share their
experience and techniques.
The NPS has a strong interest in the SANP programme of
partnership with park
neighbours for environmental management and the promotion of
business
opportunities. Also of interest is the management of land
claims made on parts of
South Africa's national parks. During his time in South
Africa, Stanton will visit a
number of parks, among them Kruger National Park and the
Cape Peninsula
National Park which includes Table Mountain.
* * *
MANATEES MAKE THEIR HOME IN CINCINNATI ZOO
Following a month of getting accustomed to their new
Midwestern home, Florida
manatees Stoneman and Douglas met the public on Saturday at
the Cincinnati Zoo
and Botanical Garden's Manatee Springs exhibit. Prior to
their move the pair were
cared for by the Miami Seaquarium, by permit with the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife
Service Manatee Recovery Program in Jacksonville, Florida.
"The Cincinnati Zoo
and Botanical Garden is one of many facilities stepping
forward and offering to
help us provide suitable long-term care locations for our
manatees that, for
various reasons, are not currently releasable," Jim Valade,
assistant Manatee
Recovery Program coordinator explained. "This helps us make
space for the
many manatees in need of critical care in Florida and lets
the people in the
Midwest get a closer look at these beautiful, federally
endangered species." Both
four years old, Stoneman, a captive-born male, and Douglas,
a hand-reared male,
were moved to Cincinnati April 19 in a special "whale box"
for flight. "We're
happy to know that, with Stoneman and Douglas now at the
Cincinnati zoo, many
more people will get a chance to see them and learn about
ways to prevent the
extinction of these amazing creatures," Valade said. "They
are harmless, marine
mammals, close cousins to land animals such as elephants and
aardvarks, and are
also known as sea cows." Manatees have been protected since
1967 and were
grandfathered into the Federal Endangered Species Act of
1973. "There were
problems with manatees even earlier than 1967 and many were
taken to private
aquariums to be cared for. The Service started the Manatee
Recovery Program in
1980 working with aquariums to rehabilitate sick, injured
and orphaned manatees
for their eventual return to the wild. There are 50 to 60
manatees now cared for
in captivity.
* * *
TINY GREAT LAKES PLANKTON HAVE CANCERS
Zooplankton, near the bottom of marine and freshwater food
chains, can develop
tumors like those of higher life forms, according to
scientists at the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Great Lakes
Environmental Research
Laboratory and the University of Michigan Center for Great
Lakes and Aquatic
Sciences in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The evidence, including
photographs, will be
presented Thursday during the annual meeting of the
International Association for
Great Lakes Research, which opened today in Cleveland, Ohio.
Although tumors
in zooplankton were reported in 1994 from the Baltic Sea,
this is the first time
photographs have been taken of the abnormalities and that
preliminary evidence
has been presented that the tumors are cancerous. The
affected zooplankton are
copepods and water fleas, crustaceans that are less than an
eighth of an inch in
size. Tumors have been found in a variety of invertebrates
such as molluscs,
insects, and flatworms, but reports of tumors on crustaceans
are rare. Earlier
research speculated that tumors might form in zooplankton,
but the organisms
would die at molting before tumors would be obvious. The
team found large
tumors on juveniles and on young, recently molted adult
zooplankton in Lake
Michigan. Predatory species were more likely to have tumors
than herbivorous
species and tumors are more common nearshore than offshore.
The work is the
effort of a team of five scientists: Dr. H.A. Vanderploeg of
NOAA's Great Lakes
Environmental Research Laboratory and Dr. G.L. Fahnenstiel
of GLERL's Lake
Michigan Field Station; M. Omair and D.J. Jude of the Center
for Great Lakes
and Aquatic Sciences; and T.M. Rizki, Department of Biology,
University of
Michigan.
Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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