• Governor Seeks 90 Percent Mercury Reduction
• United States Ranks 28th on Environment, A New Study Says
• Arctic Out of Balance
• Lab Researches Ways to Inject Energy Plant Emissions in Basalt
• Hawaii Serves as World's Biotech Lab

Governor Seeks 90 Percent Mercury Reduction
Chicago Tribune, January 5, 2006

Illinois is making a push to have coal-fired power plants curb mercury emissions. "Illinois is among 31 states that advise children, women of childbearing age, and pregnant women to limit eating fish from every lake, river and stream because of mercury," reports Michael Hawthorne. Under a new state plan, utilities would be required to cut mercury emissions by an average of 90 percent by July 2009, compared with a Bush administration plan to cut emissions by 70 percent by 2018. "The Illinois plan would go farther than the other states by prohibiting utilities from trading the right to release mercury into the air, a feature of the federal plan that critics say could create pollution 'hot spots,'" writes Hawthorne. Installing mercury controls couldadd $1.25 per month to residential electric bills and an industry representative says he fears it could jeopardize the reliability of the state's power grid.

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United States Ranks 28th on Environment, A New Study Says
The New York Times, January 23, 2006

Felicity Barringer reports by a study done jointly by Yale and Columbia Universities ranking the U.S. 28th overall on environmental performance – "behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica, and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea." Only five nations, led by New Zealand and followed by five from northern Europe, scoped 85 percent or more on "a set of critical environmental goals ranging from clean drink water and low ozone [smog] levels to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions." Countries in Africa and Central and South Asia tended to populate the bottom half of the performance rankings, she reported. "It's like holding up a mirror and having someone help you see what you couldn't see before," said study author Daniel C. Esty, director of Yale's Center for Environmental Law and Policy. The report pointed to "serious data gaps" that led to omission of 65 countries from the study.

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Arctic Out of Balance
Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 1, 2006

No complaints about too tight a newshole to start off the new year at the Northwest’s two largest dailies. Working under a JOA, the New Years Day Sunday editions of Seattle's two strongly competing dailies devote about two-thirds of their front page to this two-part special report of "sweeping change" in the Arctic. Times reporter Craig Welch bylines from Barrow and from Nuiqsut, Cooper Island, and Teshekpuk Lake, Alaska, to report on impacts of climate change and of the impacts of oil exploration. With a stunning photo of a polar bear by Times photographer Steve Ringman gracing the January 1 front page, the papers devote four full Section A pages to the first day's report. Thirteen (13) more Ringman images in Part I alone. Part 2, on January 2, picks up again, with most of the front page again devoted to the piece and another 13 photos, plus other graphics. In an "Inside The Times" column introducing the special report, Executive Editor Michael R. Fancher writes that "weird" seems the adjective best capturing the changes on Alaska's North Slope. He points out that readers should appreciate "how hard it was to get" the story, involving hard travel, cold nights in tents on icy islands, and sleeping with a shotgun nearby to ward off any polar bears. "This was no junket. It was an adventure," adds Ian Ith, who edited the report.

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Lab Researches Ways to Inject Energy Plant Emissions in Basalt
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 13, 2006

Shannon Dininny reports that researchers at Battelle Pacific Northwest Division believe that they have found a way to use basalt formed "millions of years ago when lava repeatedly spewed from giant fissures in the Earth's crust" to help lower carbon dioxide levels. The process involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions and sequestration back into the earth. The technology would need to inject carbon dioxide into basalt at about 3,000 feet, where water is unsuitable for drinking or irrigation.

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Hawaii Serves as World's Biotech Lab
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 13, 2006

Since 1988, more than 10,600 applications to grow experimental biotech crops have been approved by federal regulators throughout the U.S. on 49,300 separate fields, more in Hawaii than in any other state. "Biotechnology companies say the weather affords them a year-round growing season, while anti-industry activists say the five-hour plane ride from California gives the 'gene jockeys' remoteness from prying eyes," writes Paul Elias. Some growers, such as papaya farmers whose crops were saved from the destruction of virus, see biotechnology as farm-saving, but others – such as Kona Coffee – see it as a major threat to the integrity of their crops. Scientists and organic farmers worry about risks to the environment through inadvertent cross-pollination, but industry representatives counter that biotechnology helps small farmers reduce pesticide use.

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