| Wildlines
Archive
SERC Wildlines Report #25
June 24, 2002
A publication of the State Environmental Resource
Center (SERC) bringing you the most important news on state
environmental policy from across the country.
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In this Edition:
Issue Spotlight:
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
Headliner: CWD
Invades Southwest United States
Watchdog: Farm
Bureau supports Pro-Factory Farm Legislation
News Important
to the States:
Safe Air &
Water
*Alaska Health
Department Offers Mercury Testing for Pregnant Women
*MTBE-Contaminated
Sites have More than Doubled in Nebraska
Protecting Wildlife
*Delaware DNR
Enlisting Volunteers to Guard Endangered Piping Plovers
Land & Water
Use
*Study: Traffic
Congestion Spreading to Smaller Cities
Recycling &
Waste Disposal
*New York Bill
Requires Oil Filters to Be Recycled
Equal Justice
*California Senate
Approves Corporate Whistleblower Law
Clean Energy
*North Carolina
Gov Signs Bill to Restrict Power Plant Emissions
*New York Energy
Plan Strives to Cut Greenhouse Gases
*BLM Finds Renewable
Energy Potential in 11 Western States
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Issue Spotlight: Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
Chronic Wasting Disease belongs to the same group of brain diseases
as Mad Cow Disease. Little is fully understood about this
disease that affects elk and deer, except that all animals who become
infected lose bodily functions and eventually die. According to
many scientists, CWD seems more likely to occur in areas where deer
or elk are crowded or where they congregate at man-made feed and
water stations. Also, the importation and exportation of deer
and elk among states and game farms has most likely contributed
to the spread of the disease by keeping herds in close quarters.
Once thought to be well-contained in a small area of northeast Colorado
and southern Wyoming, the disease now has been detected in the wild
in Nebraska, New Mexico, Wisconsin and South Dakota. To learn what
your state can do to keep CWD out, visit SERC's Chronic Wasting
Disease site at http://serconline.org/CWD.
Watchdog: Farm Bureau supports Pro-Factory
Farm Legislation
Despite strong opposition by township supervisors
and family farmers, the Farm Bureau is pushing through legislation
in Pennsylvania that restricts a municipality's right to regulate
and oppose factory farming operations in their communities. The
Farm Bureau is hailing this legislation as a protection for family
farms, when in reality, it will harm family farms by allowing
large agribusinesses to monopolize the industry without complying
with local safeguards. If this bill continues to sneak through
the House, current municipal regulations will be overturned and
municipalities will not be able to enact regulations to keep factory
farms from pushing local farmers out of business, increasing groundwater
and air contamination, lowering property values and posing threats
to public health. As part of the Farm Bureau’s Right to Farm initiative,
this is the latest example of how the organization is sneakily
pushing anti-family farming, environmentally harmful legislation
in legislatures throughout the country.
Headliner: CWD Invades Southwest United States
The 6/20 Rocky
Mountain News reported that New Mexico officials have reported
the state's first case of chronic wasting disease in free-ranging
deer, which is the farthest South that the disease has appeared
in the United States. Because game farms that import deer and
elk from other states have been implicated in spreading the disease,
the state immediately ordered a complete deer and elk import ban.
Safe
Ai r
& Water -- Mercury Testing for Pregnant Women
The
6/21 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported that the state has a new
program in place to
test pregnant women's hair for dangerous levels of the harmful contaminant
methylmercury, sometimes
found in fish. The Alaska Division of Public Health began the monitoring
program this
month across the state. There is currently no national or statewide
system in place to monitor fish
for elevated levels of methylmercury, a more toxic form of mercury
that's been found to cause
harm to developing fetuses if consumed by the mother during pregnancy.
To learn how to reduce
mercury poisoning in your state, visit SERC's Mercury Poisoning
Reduction page at http://serconline.org/mercury.
MTBE-Contaminated Sites have more than Doubled in Nebraska
The
6/21 Omaha World Herald reported that the number of sites contaminated
with the gasoline additive
MTBE more than doubled in Nebraska since last year as environmental
officials investigate the
problem. MTBE stands for methyl tertiary butyl ether, which
has been used as a gasoline additive to
help reduce air pollution. However, it also can poison aquifers
and is known to cause cancer in animals.
Protecting Wildlife -- Delaware DNR Enlisting Volunteers to Guard Piping Plover
AP
reported last week that volunteers have been recruited by state
wildlife officials to serve sentry duty at
several state parks to protect the nests of the piping plover, a
small shorebird on the state and federal endangered
species lists. Volunteers will be armed with cell phones to alert
park rangers if people and dogs
ignore verbal warnings or the signs and fences erected around the
plover nesting areas. For related information
about what can be done to protect endangered species in your state,
visit SERC's Protecting Endangered
Species web page at http://www.serconline.org/esa/index.htm.
Land & Water Use -- Study: Traffic Congestion Spreading to Smaller Cities
A
new study by Texas A&M's Transportation Institute finds that
the traffic congestion that for years has snarled
the roads around New York, Los Angeles and Washington is now threatening
the quality of life for commuters
in smaller cities such as El Paso, Nashville, and Tucson. The study
indicates that too many vehicles on
too few streets cost the country's 75 largest urban areas $67.5
billion in lost time (3.6 billion hours of delay) and
fuel (5.7 billion gallons of gas) in 2000. The average amount of
time gobbled up each year by delays during rush
hour increased from 60 hours per rush-hour traveler in 1999 to 62
in 2000 — a nearly quadruple rise from the
16-hour average reported when the first study came out in 1982.
To learn how to reduce traffic congestion in your
state, visit SERC's Traffic Congestion Relief page at http://serconline.org/trafficcongestionrelief.
Recycling & Waste Disposal -- New York Bill Requires Oil Filters to Be Recycled
Environmental
Advocates of New York is strongly supporting A.4552, a bill that
requires used oil filters to be included
in the system currently in place for diverting used motor oil from
the waste stream. The groups says an estimated
700,000 gallons of waste oil remains in the 18 million used oil
filters discarded annually in the state and that
this oil is often re-circulated back into the environment.
Equal Justice -- California Senate Approves Corporate Whistleblower Law
The
6/20 Sacramento Bee reported that than an Enron-inspired whistleblower
bill (SB1452) that would hold corporate officers
accountable if they knew about illegal behavior and didn't report
it to regulators was approved last week by the state
Senate. The bill would also set up a whistleblower hot line
for employees at any level of a corporation to report suspicions
of illegal activities at their companies. Consumer advocate Doug
Heller with the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer
Rights praised the bill's passage, saying it would help law enforcement
on a number of fronts, including the discovery of
environmental violations.
Clean Energy -- North Carolina Gov Signs Bill to Restrict Power Plant Emissions
Last
Thursday, Governor Michael Easley signed the Clean Smokestacks bill,
which is intended to slash power plant emissions
of air pollutants responsible for smog, haze and other air quality
problems. "There is not another plan in the country
that goes this far toward cleaning harmful smokestack emissions
from our air - and it does so without raising rates,"
Easley
said. "These reductions will protect the health of all our
people by reducing lung disease and asthma, benefit our
environment
by reducing smog and acid rain, and benefit our economy by preserving
our investments in tourism." Under the
new law, North Carolina's 14 coal fired power plants are required
to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxides by 78 percent
and Sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 49 percent. The law requires
the North Carolina Division of Air Quality to
conduct a study of mercury and carbon dioxide emissions across the
state. The equipment needed to reduce SO2 emissions is
expected to cut mercury emissions by about half.
BLM Finds Renewable Energy Potential in 11 Western States
The
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently issued its draft report
on the renewable energy resource potential for power
production on federal lands. The report notes 64 public land areas
in 11 western states that have a high potential for power
production
from one or more renewable energy sources, and of those, 19 land
areas in 6 western states could draw on three or more
renewable energy sources. To learn how your state can capitalize
on renewable energy sources, visit SERC's Renewable Portfolio
Standards page at http://www.serconline.org/RPS/index.html.
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