Oil leases sold in Alaska wilds ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Despite protests and a lawsuit by environmentalists, the government sold commercial oil drilling leases Wednesday in a vast wilderness reserve set aside by President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Bids totaling about $105 million were accepted for 134 tracts in the northeast corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which was established on 23 million acres to ensure that the Navy would always have enough fuel. Atlantic Richfield Co. and a partner, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., were the most prolific bidders in the first sale of drilling leases in 15 years on the land 75 miles west of Prudhoe Bay. Arco and Anadarko won exploration and production rights to 93 tracts. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559439454-887> Mexico to cut silver plant hazard TORREON, Mexico (AP) - No one seemed to care about the 250-foot-tall mountain of slag towering over surrounding houses and schools and sending what residents said was dangerous black dust wafting from the world's largest silver refinery. For 17 years, officials did nothing as poisonous lead seeped into the bloodstreams of thousands of children in what is fast becoming one of Mexico's biggest environmental crises. The government announced a plan Wednesday to evacuate a 20-block area surrounding the plant, bury the lead-tainted soil under asphalt and trucked-in dirt and establish a $6 million fund to help sick children. One official described it as the nation's largest environmental cleanup ever. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2559439374-7a0>
