And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT WINS GLOBAL JABILUKA TEST By Andrew Darby CANBERRA, Australia, July 13, 1999 (ENS) - Strong lobbying by the Australian government bore fruit yesterday with a decision by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee not to inscribe Kakadu National Park as World Heritage In Danger. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999 For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-13-02.html *************************************************************************** RENEWABLE ENERGIES DOWNPLAYED IN U.S. GOVERNMENT REPORTS By Bill Eggertson WASHINGTON, DC, July 13, 1999 (ENS) - Only half the renewable energy that is produced and consumed in the United States is ever reflected in official government reports. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999 For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-13-01.html *************************************************************************** ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JULY 13, 1999 Anonymous Whistleblowers Say Alaska Pipeline Rupture Imminent Pacific Fisheries Management Violates Environmental Laws, Court Says Radio Ads Urge Higher Minimum Mile Per Gallon Standards Clean Water Projects Nationwide Get $210 Million Pesticide Tax Could Save Money and Lives, Groups Say Engineered Tobacco Plants Grow Human Blood Proteins African Dust Pollutes Florida's Air Manufacturer Fined for Air Quality Violations Activists Block Loggers with Giant Net Mayflies Mean Cleaner Water Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999 For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-13-09.html AmeriScan: July 13, 1999 ANONYMOUS WHISTLEBLOWERS SAY ALASKA PIPELINE RUPTURE IMMINENT An environmental disaster far worse than the wreck of the Exxon Valdez could happen any day at the 800 mile Alaskan oil pipeline, six senior employees of the pipeline company have warned. Corrosion, delayed repairs, poor maintenance and record keeping, and an environment that discourages workers from filing negative reports could lead to a pipeline rupture or an explosion at the Valdez tanker port, the whistleblowers say. In a 21 page letter sent to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, two Congress members and pipeline lead owner BP Amoco, the anonymous whistleblowers say they represent a much larger group of concerned employees, all of whom fear for their careers if they criticize Anchorage based Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. "It won't be a single gasket, or valve, or wire, or procedure, or person that will cause the catastrophe," the letter says. "It will be a combination of small, perhaps seemingly inconsequential events and conditions that will lead to the accident that we're all dreading and powerless to prevent." Many of the allegations about the 22 year old pipeline, which carries 20 percent of the nation’s crude oil production, are familiar to the Joint Pipeline Office of federal and state regulatory agencies that oversee the pipeline. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill dumped 10.5 million gallons of crude into Prince William Sound, attention was focused on possible risks from the pipeline. Alyeska has since spent hundreds of millions of dollars on repairs, which the whistleblowers say has failed to correct the pipeline’s many problems. Alyeska’s license to operate the pipeline is under government review in Alaska. * * * PACIFIC FISHERIES MANAGEMENT VIOLATES ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS, COURT SAYS The U.S. District Court in Seattle ruled Friday that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in its management of North Pacific fisheries. The court said the agencies failed to take measures recommended by its own scientists to protect the threatened Steller sea lion. The court also found the agency failed to prepare a comprehensive environmental impact statement assessing the impact of the fishery on the North Pacific ecosystem. Trawlers from Washington, Oregon and Alaska net millions of tons of fish each year from sea lion critical habitat. "The trawl fleet has brought intense pressure on the agency to allow continued overexploitation of the North Pacific, despite the impacts to sea lions, harbor seals, and to the long-term health of the fisheries," said Doug Ruley, an Earthjustice attorney in Alaska. "The decision today will force the Agency to take aggressive measures to conserve the North Pacific ecosystem and maintain healthy fisheries that truly are sustainable." ......... * * * RADIO ADS URGE HIGHER MINIMUM MILE PER GALLON STANDARDS Raising minimum fuel economy standards for vehicles could conserve millions of barrels of oil and save consumers billions of dollars, the Sierra Club says. Sierra Club radio ads now running in four states urge lawmakers to vote against a budget bill rider which would prevent the Department of Transportation from reviewing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. The Senate is expected to vote on the Clean Car Resolution, which would oppose that rider, within the next ten days. "These Senators should hear loud and clear that cleaner cars are too important for Congress to stand in the way," says Daniel Becker, director of Sierra Club’s global warming and energy program. "Making our cars and trucks go further on a gallon of gasoline is the biggest single step we can take to curb global warming." * * * CLEAN WATER PROJECTS NATIONWIDE GET $210 MILLION The U.S. Department of Agriculture will fund $210 million in safe drinking water projects in 40 states. The new grants and loans announced Monday represent the largest package of financial assistance ever distributed under the Clinton administration's Water 2000 program. Vice President Al Gore said, "These grants are another example of how we can continue to grow our economy without endangering our environment. The need for clean water is not only a critical public health issue, it is also a key factor in promoting rural economic development. Without safe, reliable drinking water, no community can attract the new businesses needed to provide America's families with good-paying jobs." At least two million rural U.S. residents live with serious drinking water problems, including an estimated 740,000 people with no running water in their homes. Projects announced Monday include $24 million for 12 projects serving low-income, rural towns in Appalachia; $12.3 million for impoverished areas in four Southwest states; and $7.2 million for five projects in Mississippi Delta communities. President Bill Clinton also announced $16 million for Water 2000 projects on American Indian tribal lands and Alaska Native villages in eight states. * * * PESTICIDE TAX COULD SAVE MONEY AND LIVES, GROUPS SAY A coalition of consumer, farm and environmental groups are calling on officials in 29 states to eliminate exemptions from state sales taxes for agricultural chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers. The states lose at least $674 million a year to the exemptions, says a report by the coalition called "Fair Agricultural Chemical Taxes: Tax Reform for Sustainable Agriculture." The report highlights health and environmental problems caused by pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture. Nationwide, health and environmental costs as a consequence of pesticide use alone are estimated to be about $8 billion per year. Commercial fertilizer use has doubled since 1960, growing from 25 million to 53 million tons in 1996. Of the 175 billion spent by U.S. farmers to grow crops in 1996, nearly $20 billion went to the agrochemical industry. Chemical fertilizers accounted for about $11 billion and pesticides about $9 billion. ............................... The "Fair Agricultural Chemical Taxes" report as well as a set of state profiles is available on the web at: http://www.foe.org/fact. * * * ENGINEERED TOBACCO PLANTS GROW HUMAN BLOOD PROTEINS Researchers at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are genetically modifying tobacco plants to produce human blood proteins and tissue growth agents. Pacific Northwest researchers have produced two blood factors that are used to treat most patients with blood clotting disorders. These blood-clotting agents could lead to safer and less expensive treatments for hemophiliacs and an alternative way of sealing wounds. Plant based blood factors would avoid the risk of transmitting diseases like hepatitis and HIV from human blood donors. "In addition to the obvious health benefits, we expect the cost of synthesizing blood factors in transgenic or genetically modified plants to be 10 times cheaper than current methods," said Brian Hooker, a biochemical engineer at Pacific Northwest. "And, unlike human blood donors or mammalian cells, plants provide a stable production source and yield much higher amounts of the desired blood factors." Commercialization manager Daniel Anderson says it likely will be several years before the blood products will be available for humans. * * * AFRICAN DUST POLLUTES FLORIDA'S AIR Large amounts of dust from Africa blow across the Atlantic Ocean each summer and make up half the breathable pollution in the air over Miami, Florida, a new study finds. African dust sometimes pushes the total number of airborne particles above the limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act. The study, by Joseph Prospero of the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, will appear in the July 20 issue of "Journal of Geophysical Research." ...................... * * * MANUFACTURER FINED FOR AIR QUALITY VIOLATIONS Ohio based Tomkins Industries has been fined $575,000 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to install air pollution control equipment at its Lasco Bathware plant in Moapa, Nevada. Tomkins violated the Clean Air Act by failing to install devices to reduce smog forming volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions at the Lasco plant. The company is required to install the devices because Lasco is a major source of ground level ozone, or smog, in the Las Vegas Valley. "Companies in the Las Vegas Valley must recognize their responsibility to protect air quality for the sake of Clark County residents' health," said Dave Howekamp, EPA regional air division director........................ * * * ACTIVISTS BLOCK LOGGERS WITH GIANT NET Forest activists began blocking roads in the Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon Monday to prevent logging in the Salmon Huckleberry Roadless Area, the Old Baldy Trail and the Eagle Creek municipal watershed. A cargo net was suspended over 60 feet above a forest road blocking access to a large roadless portion of the Eagle timber sales adjacent to the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness Area. The activists are capable of living in the cargo net for weeks. The 1,000 acres of forest in Eagle timber sales contain roughly 500 acres of unprotected wilderness eligible for addition to the nearby Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness and provide clean drinking water to the Clackamas River, a water source for over 175,000 Oregon residents. Conservation groups believe the Eagle timber sales should be canceled in part because they are out of touch with recent Forest Service policy changes designed to better protect roadless areas and watersheds implemented by Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck...................... * * * MAYFLIES MEAN CLEANER WATER US Geological Survey (USGS) biologist Thomas Edsall says the clouds of burrowing mayflies emerging from western Lake Erie this summer are a welcome sign of an ecosystem in recovery. "They're telling us that the water's clean out there," Edsall says. Burrowing mayflies are large aquatic insects that spend most of their lives in larval form, living in shallow bottom sediments of lakes. On the bottom of western Lake Erie, larval mayflies once numbered in the hundreds per square meter. But populations decreased in the 1950s due to deteriorating water and were almost absent from the Great Lakes for 30 years. Edsall and his colleagues at the USGS Great Lakes Science Center report that mayfly larvae in western Lake Erie have increased from near zero to numbers approaching those of the early twentieth century. Edsall says the mayfly recovery is a strong sign that improvements in water quality, which have been taking place since the 1970s, have resulted in a healthier, more normally functioning ecosystem............ AmeriScan Index: June 1999 *************************************************************************** Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1991-1998. All Rights Reserved. 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