Recently in Land Use & NEPA Category

Moving.

My bosses often disagreed with my point of view, but they usually let me air it. But it was frustrating. My vision and that of my producers were often not in harmony. Too many stories I thought were important -- such as the land theft called eminent domain, or the FDA's endangering people's lives by withholding life-saving drugs -- were not aired. When I pushed, ABC producers often stared at me as if they were thinking, "Why would you want to do that?"

So after 28 years, it's time to move on.

Debate over the eminent domain ruling in Kelo was but a vapor in the thundering, gaseous wind tunnel that is Washington these days. Probably because phants and donks - and the big corps and bureaucracies aligned with them - both liked the outcome.

The view of the Firth and aversion to light pollution was more important than a center for worship and outreach to the community.

I'm sure they're disappointed, but I respect the democratic process. And besides, my brothers and sisters, the bonny view you're giving up doesn't hold a candle to this one.

MORE - A bit of Baptist history:

The early church leaders in Florida came primarily from Georgia and the Carolinas. The work was hard and dangerous. Early Baptists in Florida did not do as they wanted to, they did as they could. They faced difficulties with the environment and lived through rugged conditions. Ministers served churches at little or no pay. Missions giving was measured in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. In the early days of the convention, contributions were listed in the annual state report and many times a person was listed who gave two cents or five cents to missions.

Solar and wind are useless unless they're connected to the grid. Where do we put 6,000 miles of transmission lines for all these new sites? The folks running things now are suing the folks who came up with Plan A. I doubt lawsuits will get us Plan B either.

And power tourist Julianne Couch clears security, dons a dosimeter and takes us inside a nuclear plant in far east Nebraska.

Cool maps show the concentration of residences around D.C. compared to where they work. Lots of interesting comments at the link.

Here's the one for Pentagon employees:

"While Mr. Obama may have wanted voters to believe otherwise, he never flat-out said he would end this brand of mining." Hope, change, yada yada. Not what the WaPo said when a previous president OK'd the process:

"Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change"  Joby Warrick's August 2004 series for THE WASHINGTON POST on the changes wrought by the 2002 fill rule. The series includes a map of West Virginia mountaintop mining sites and a detailed description of the process.

Is this what you folks voted for? Certainly these folks didn't.

The current issue of Backpacker magazine (June '09) has an article "Hike it, Save it" that details 10 wilderness areas in danger of one sort or another. It also lists some recently saved sites.

P.S. The article notes with excitement new land protections under a recent bill signed by President Obama. But no one seemed to care when President Bush signed the biggest increase for National Parks in its history. That didn't matter according to the political partisans. -D

From The Maker's Diet:

Myth: Meat consumption contributes to famine and depletes the earth's natural resources...The fact is, two-thirds of the earth's landmass is unsuitable for farming, but easily provides food for grazing animals.

...two-thirds of the plants and plant products fed to animals are unsuited for human consumption. Both the animals and the plants are renewable resources, in no danger of depletion.

People do need to eat an abundance of plant products for good health, but the problem has never been a shortage of these foods, rather their equitable distribution as well as widespread poverty. Even the Population Reference Bureau attributed the world hunger problem to poverty, not eating meat, and did not consider mass vegetarianism to be a solution to world hunger.

-D

The 2009 Index of Leading Environmental Indicators is on the street. Here are some bits you won't find in the NY Times:

• Growing evidence that tropical rainforests may now be expanding faster than they are being cut down, though more data are needed to determine the nature and extent of reforestation trends.

• The world’s most severe environmental problems, as ranked by the Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland, are overwhelmingly problems of poverty in developing nations.

• Stratospheric ozone, the “good” kind of ozone—akin to “good” cholesterol in blood—appears to have reversed its long-term decline and is now increasing over the United States. The level of ozonedestroying chemical compounds in the atmosphere declined 12 percent from 1995 through 2006.

• Water quality monitoring efforts are picking up steam, though it will still be several more years before we have enough data to draw a clear picture of water quality trends on a national basis. However

— The U.S. Geological Survey sampling of drinking water drawn from surface waters in 17 areas around the continental United States found very low (nonhazardous) or no presence of 258 different man-made chemicals.

— Long-term monitoring of Lake Tahoe on the California–Nevada border has detected an improving trend in the clarity of the lake’s water over the last seven years, reversing decades of slow decline.

• The health of U.S. ocean fisheries has improved substantially over the last few years, according to the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service’s “Fish Stock Sustainability Index.”

• Flat or declining global average temperatures in 2008 have ignited new controversy over climate change. The data show that 2008 was the coolest year since 2000, and there has been no discernible warming for the last decade, after two decades of steady warming between 1978 and 1998.

• Public opinion data on advertising and marketing suggest growing public weariness with “green” messages in general and messages on global warming in particular. In recent polls, 58 percent of Americans declined to identify themselves as environmentalists; 78 percent so identified themselves as recently as 1991.

And a few tables:

Columbia Post Dispatch:

"It seems like every time there's something that has the possibility of creating odor, they stick it in this area," said Teresa Mills, a Grove City resident and leader of the Buckeye Environmental Network. "If this is going to be such a great facility, why don't they stick it in Worthington?" The facility would use bacteria to digest 40,000 tons of waste a year to create methane that would be burned to make electricity. "If we have leaks and we're losing biogas, we're losing our profit," said Bruce Bailey, Schmack's vice president of technical affairs. "There really is an economic incentive for us not to cause odors."

Not in my back yard. Sounds like Ted should be a member of BEN too...

The Obama Administration is forcasting national calamity if government pork stimulus projects aren't funded and started, well, yesterday. Many of these projects are large public works projects which require environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

This has created a very interesting argument raised by Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming). He's proposing an amendment to the pork economic stimulus bill to "streamline environmental regulations for projects funded by the stimulus– a move that could ignite a firestorm in the environmental community." Politico reports:

The amendment for the stimulus bill, now being debated in the Senate, would give the government a tight, 270-day deadline to complete environmental reviews of stimulus projects required under the National Environmental Policy Act, which environmentalists consider the Holy Grail of environmental laws.

“This bill aims to streamline NEPA so reviews are done within nine months of any stimulus bill being passed,” Barrasso said. “If these projects are indeed ‘shovel ready,’ they will be able to meet a nine-month deadline. Otherwise they should face the ax.”

Usually there are no time limits on NEPA reviews. The law requires government agencies to examine the environmental impacts of their projects, a tool that environmentalists have relied on for decades to revise or stop projects that pose dangers to the environment or animal species.

More than a dozen environmental groups have written senators, arguing that the stimulus is already chock-full of projects that have completed environmental reviews and would not be held up.

And Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is currently working on a counteramendment that would mandate all stimulus funded projects comply with NEPA or not be funded.

The collision of pork progressives and greens will be pretty interesting to watch.

UPDATE: WSJ Market Watch reports "cuts" in green pork stimulus in Senate negotiations:

CNN reported the list of items cut that it received from a Democratic leadership aide showed the federal "green building" program was to have been $7 billion but was pared to $5 billion. Also cut was $300 million of $600 million for a federal fleet of hybrid vehicles; $200 million of $600 million for the federal Superfund pollution clean-up program; and a complete elimination of $122 million for new U.S. Coast Guard polar icebreaker/cutters. Also on the cut list was $100 million of $427 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; $100 million of $400 million for FBI construction; and $75 million of $150 million for the Smithsonian Institution, CNN reported.

The foods you buy often travel thousands of miles (and burn a lot of energy) before reaching your home. Add to that any stops they make on the way to process your food (more energy and more nutrient loss). Some have have also said the best way to build a strong economy is to start by supporting your locals, especially farmers and growers. So you don't know how to find local foods that are more eco-friendly and healthier? Start at Local Harvest for the largest database of local farms and growers. - D