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The Jury's In
Property rights advocates had cause to celebrate yesterday as the Supreme Court ruled that landowners who sue local governments over their land use regulations can be entitled to a jury trial. The case concerned a California developer whose plans to build a residential complex were rejected by the City of Monterey, which said the beachfront […]
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Prairie, the New Home Companion
Across the Midwest, the preservation and restoration of prairie lands are all the rage. In Kansas, the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, one of the newest national parks, is gearing up for thousands of hiking tourists this summer, and a push is on to create another tall-grass prairie national park in Iowa. In Illinois, prairie boosters […]
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Toxicistan
The U.S. plans to spend as much as $6 million to help Uzbekistan dismantle and clean up one of the former Soviet Union’s biggest chemical weapons testing labs. Only after Uzbekistan gained its independence in 1991 did Uzbek officials learn of the severe pollution that resulted from the Soviet Union’s use of the region as […]
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Salton Wounds Not So Bad
The Salton Sea in inland southern California, long thought to be virtually dead, is in better environmental health than expected, according to a preliminary report released last week. Common wisdom holds that the sea is being poisoned by pesticide runoff from surrounding farmland, but though the researchers expected to find elevated levels of pesticides, herbicides, […]
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Elise Richer, Urban Institute
Elise Richer plays center halfback for the Flanders Football Club and does social policy research for the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. Monday, 24 May 1999 WASHINGTON, D.C. Defining a neighborhood is difficult. Residents living physically near each other often conceptualize their neighborhoods completely differently, depending on the local paths and people which populate their […]
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Enviros Mobil-ize to Put the Nix on Exxon
Enviro groups plan to oppose the proposed merger of Mobil and Exxon at the companies’ annual meetings this week out of fears that Mobil’s more conciliatory stance on climate change will be x-ed out if Exxon gets regulatory clearance to buy Mobil for $75 billion. Mobil was initially critical of the Kyoto climate change treaty, […]
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Dam Yangtze!
The official newspaper of China’s communist party has acknowledged that serious environmental problems, engineering difficulties, and corruption plague construction of the Three Gorges Dam. The editorial in the People’s Daily, published today, marks the first time the influential newspaper has been permitted to note problems with the dam project, which if completed as planned would […]
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Call Me Fishmeal?
International whaling officials begin meeting today in Granada to debate easing a ban on commercial whaling, with the recent whale kill by the Makah Indian tribe in Washington state likely to stir things up. A ban instituted in 1986 has helped whale populations recover, but most species still remain endangered. Japan, Norway, and a few […]
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Greenery Is Chicago's Hope
Chicago’s environment department will plant rooftop gardens on a number of municipal buildings in an effort to reduce heat and pollution, and it will encourage private companies to do the same. Dark-roofed buildings and miles of pavement absorb the sun’s heat and raise the city’s temperature by as much as four to six degrees. The […]
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Thanks for Nothing, Big Guy
Pres. Clinton on Friday signed a $15 billion emergency spending bill that will help fund NATO’s air war in Yugoslavia and hurricane-relief efforts in Central America, even though the bill contained several anti-environmental riders that his administration had opposed. He said the pressing need for the funding overrode concerns about the riders, including one that […]
