The Death of a River Looms Over Choice for Interior Post
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Eight years ago, Ignacio Rodriguez took his grandson out for an afternoon
of fishing near his house on the Alamosa River in the foothills of the San
Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado. The river that runs through the
valley was his longtime neighbor, but on this day, he said, it was a stranger.
"The rocks were red and the river had some greenish tinge to it," Mr.
Rodriguez said in a telephone interview last week. "The fish were all belly
up. Rainbow trout and German browns � all dead. It was sickening."
Mr. Rodriguez was one of many witnesses to what state officials have called
the worst environmental disaster in Colorado, a spill of cyanide and acidic
water from a gold-mining operation that killed virtually every living thing
in a 17-mile stretch of the Alamosa River, though causing no human injuries.
The company responsible for the leakage, the Summitville Consolidated
Mining Corporation, declared bankruptcy, and its major officers fled the
country, leaving taxpayers with a cleanup bill that is approaching $150
million.
It may take decades before clean water runs year-round through the Alamosa.
But the account of what happened in the little valley in a remote corner of
Colorado nearly a decade ago is emerging, both sides say, as a central
exhibit in the testing of the political philosophy of Gale A. Norton,
President-elect George W. Bush's choice for secretary of the interior.
Ms. Norton, 46, was the attorney general in Colorado when the Alamosa was
sterilized with waste from the Summitville mine, and it was under her that
many of the legal proceedings against the mine were initiated. Even Ms.
Norton's political opponents in Colorado say that her office did a
commendable job in trying to get compensation for the damage, though they
criticize her for not pressing criminal charges.
But it is not Ms. Norton's conduct as the state's chief legal officer that
is being debated in connection with the Summitville mine. Rather, it is her
philosophy. Ms. Norton, like Mr. Bush, has long advocated allowing the
mining, timber and oil industries more leeway to police themselves. Their
argument is that if businesses are given incentives, like immunity from
fines and prosecution, for reporting and cleaning up their own pollution,
most will do the right thing � a so-called self-audit.
Ms. Norton has also been a consistent advocate of states' rights and
minimal federal interference. But in the Summitville case, it was the
federal government that stepped in, acting on an emergency basis after the
poisoning of the river to avert an even larger disaster, and later winning
felony criminal convictions against many of the corporate owners of the
mine. The state welcomed the federal intervention.
"The whole problem with Summitville goes back to the essential trust that
the state put in that mining company," said Larry MacDonnell, former
director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the University of Colorado.
"Summitville is a poster child for the inadequacy of that kind of philosophy."
Regulation was so lax, and state laws so weak � both were strengthened
after the mine disaster � that Summitville is seen by members of both
parties in Colorado as a lesson for the vigilance that government needs to
keep over potential polluters.
Ms. Norton, like other cabinet choices, could not comment on past official
actions pending her confirmation hearing.
But five years ago, when she was asked about how her philosophy of giving
polluters incentives to come forth squared with the Summitville case, she
said, "This was an unusual case, a situation where the individual in
question knew about continued environmental problems and continued with
operations in spite of that."
Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/07/politics/07NORT.html
===
Slowdown at Home Spells Risks Abroad for Bush
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 � The last time the Federal Reserve was forced to cut
interest rates in a hurry � in October 1998 � it was to protect the United
States from a fast-spreading currency crisis in Russia, after more than a
year of economic turmoil in Asia. It was called the "contagion effect," and
the strategy was to stop it before it infected a booming American economy
that had become the predominant force for growth around the world.
Little more than two years later there is now fear of a different kind of
contagion effect, this one radiating from the United States. The sharp
slowdown here alarmed the Fed so much that it took the highly unusual step
on Wednesday of acting between scheduled meetings, slashing short-term
interest rates by a half a percentage point.
And what is already clear is that the faltering American economy is not
just a domestic problem for the Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan, and for
President-elect George W. Bush when he takes over the White House in two
weeks. In the last few days it has also become evident that it could rank
among Mr. Bush's early international troubles, along with the violence and
fragile negotiations in the Middle East, a difficult relationship with
Russia, collapsing sanctions on Iraq and lingering questions about the
nature of Washington's engagement with China.
For nearly seven years, the United States has so dominated the world
economy that other nations have come to depend, more than ever, on
constantly rising demand from the United States for products of all kinds.
America's role as the main engine of global growth has been all the more
vital because the world's second-largest economy, Japan, has been stagnant
for nearly a decade � and now appears headed into yet another recession.
Suddenly, officials around the world are afraid that as America's engine
sputters, they could become the first to suffer. "There is no safety net,"
one senior Japanese official said Friday from Tokyo. During the Asian
crisis, he noted, it was the United States that sucked in manufactured
goods from around the world, helping stabilize the world economy.
That is unlikely in 2001, and Mr. Bush may discover, as Mr. Clinton did
time and again � from Mexico City and Jakarta to Tokyo and Moscow � that as
financial troubles spin around the world, diplomatic troubles follow.
Mr. Greenspan, by all accounts, was far more worried about problems at home
than problems elsewhere when he sprang his interest rate cut on the world's
markets. But he was a central player in each of the global financial crises
of the last decade, and understands better than most in Washington how a
more tightly linked world economy means that problems resound more quickly
than ever.
Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/07/business/07CONT.html
===
Radiation From Balkan Bombing Alarms Europe
By MARLISE SIMONS
PARIS, Jan. 6 � Pekka Haavisto made some startling discoveries on a recent
mission in Kosovo to assess the impact of uranium-tipped weapons hurtled on
the province during NATO's 78-day bombing war against Yugoslavia in 1999.
"We found some radiation in the middle of villages where children were
playing," said Mr. Haavisto, a former environment minister of Finland who
headed the United Nations inquiry in Kosovo. "We were surprised to find
this a year and a half later. People had collected ammunition shards as
souvenirs and there were cows grazing in contaminated areas, which means
the contaminated dust can get into the milk."
The discovery by Mr. Haavisto and his team of low-level beta radiation at 8
of the 11 sites they sampled seems certain to fan a rapidly spreading sense
of fury and panic across Europe about the well-being of soldiers sent to
serve in the Balkans, more than a dozen of whom have since died of leukemia.
Residents of Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro may also increasingly
resent that they were unaware until now of the need to clean up the
low-level uranium dispersed by American weapons dropped over Bosnia in
1995, and over Yugoslavia during the 1999 Kosovo war.
Mr. Haavisto said that even though the radiation was low level, the debris
should be removed. "We are recommending that until the cleanup starts,
contaminated areas should be clearly marked and fenced off," he said. "The
local people do not understand the material."
Even in Western Europe, it is only in recent days that full alarm has been
sounded about what the European newspapers have dubbed Balkan syndrome.
Besides the leukemia deaths and cases being treated, uncounted numbers of
soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans have complained about an
array of symptoms, like chronic fatigue, hair loss and various types of
cancer � complaints similar to gulf war syndrome, registered after the
Persian Gulf war in 1991.
The 15-country European Union has ordered its own inquiry into the possible
noxious effects of the uranium-tipped ammunition and any potential link to
the recent cancer deaths among Balkan veterans.
Tens of thousands of European soldiers who served in the Balkans have
already undergone quietly conducted medical tests in countries like
Belgium, France and Canada. This week, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal,
Spain, Finland, Norway, Greece and Bulgaria have announced that they will
screen all Balkan veterans. Britain, which also owns uranium- tipped
ammunition, has resisted.
Alarm bells rang first in Belgium, where nine Balkan veterans have fallen
ill with cancer, five having since died. Two veterans have died of leukemia
in the Netherlands, and one in Spain. France said it was treating four
veterans for leukemia. In Italy, 30 veterans contracted serious illnesses,
12 of whom developed cancer. Six of the cancer patients have already died
of leukemia.
Full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/07/world/07BOSN.html
Louis Proyect
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