World News Clips

Unocal to Rebuild Poisoned Town
US – Over the course of several years, a Union Oil of California (Unocal) plant leaked 400,000 gallons of crude oil, gasoline and diesel fuel into the ground beneath the seaside town of Avila Beach. Residents joined forces with the Environmental Defense Fund to sue the company under the state’s Proposition 65 toxic waste law. The town’s 300 residents and businesses will receive $18 million in compensation. Unocal has been ordered to demolish the town, remove the underground contamination, and rebuild the entire business district and six square blocks of homes. “There’s never been anything like this,” explained activist Denny Larson. “Love Canal, Times Beach… involved moving people away…. Nothing every really got decontaminated.” But at Avila Beach, he added, “There’s going to be full cleanup… and people will be able to move back to their homes.”

Battery Scam
UK – In 1986, Duracell and Energizer started attaching test-strips to the sides of AA batteries so consumers could see how much power was left in the batteries. It turns out that the strips have been giving bogus readings and consumers have been throwing away perfectly good batteries (and buying perfectly unnecessary replacements). The scam was first uncovered by the United Kingdom Consumers Association, which found that both brand’s test-strips were “generally inaccurate” and prematurely declared perfectly usable batteries “dead.” Earth Island Journal tested several US batteries and confirmed the UK findings. Batteries declared “dead” by the test-strips still had as much as 25 percent of their original power. Caveat emptor: Don’t give up on the batteries until they stop working. Better yet: If you must use batteries, use only rechargeable models.

More Holes in the Carbon Sink
US forests currently remove about 8 percent of the human-caused carbon dioxide that spills into the country’s air each year. According to studies by Oregon State University, the decline in the amount of acreage of growing forests in the US could mean that America’s forests may lose their ability to absorb excess CO2 within the next 20 years.

Seize the Streets
FRANCE – It went unreported in the US media, but May 16 marked the first Global Street Party, with anti-car demonstrators taking to the streets in 21 countries around the world. The first “street party” occurred on May 14, 1995 when activists for Reclaim the Streets crashed two jalopies in the middle of a busy London intersection, bringing traffic to a halt while activists filled the streets with sofas, carpets, toys, food stalls music and soothing cups of hot tea.

While the leaders of the G8 Summit and World Trade Organization met in Birmingham to promote expansion of oil-based economies, activists commandeered the nearby Bull Ring roundabout. Utrecht activists occupied a six-lane highway. Czech activists hit the streets of Prague with four music systems and 20 DJs. Pedestrian rebellions also popped up in Berlin, Lancaster, Lyon, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Toronto and Berkeley.

In Geneva, police beat and arrested demonstrators. In Toronto, knife- wielding officers swept through crowds, slashing ribbons and popping balloons. Police violence in Prague triggered what Car Busters magazine called “the worst riots in ten years [with] six police cars, three McDonald’s, a Kentucky Fried Chicken and 22 policemen [damaged].”

Activists in Turku, Finland, however, reported that “The police were fine. Two said ‘No problem with your illegal demo, but please, a bit less volume.’ Finnish police are worth exporting.”

House News
Torpedo the Dams, Full Speed Ahead: On July, 18 environmental and activist groups from seven countries in North American, Asia and Europe formed Living Rivers: The International Coalition for the Restoration of Rivers and Communities Affected by Dams. The coalition’s Walker Creek Declaration notes that dams “have flooded huge areas of the world’s most beautiful and ecologically rich habitats and the lands and homes of tens of millions of people” and that many of these dams are now obsolete, aging and unsafe, “threatening the lives of millions of people, as well as property, fish and wildlife.” It is time to start decommissioning these dams, the coalition believes, and it is the dam owners, beneficiaries and financiers (such as the World Bank) that must shoulder the cost of removing the dams and restoring the rivers and floodplains. Living Rivers will be working with the new World Commission on Dams. Members of Living Waters include the International Rivers Network, India’s Save the Narmada Movement, Wildlife Fund Thailand, Green World Ukraine and Earth Island’s John Muir Project.

Pete Fiddles While World Burns
US – An alarming New York Times article reports that Alaska’s average surface temperatures have risen 5 degrees Fahrenheit, causing glaciers to melt and tundra to thaw. Sinkholes opening up in the once-solid permafrost have buckled roads and caused entire forests to sink into freezing ponds, killing the trees. The dead forests are easily spotted: The trees tilt at crazy angles and the frozen trunks and branches have turned gray. The same week that the Times published this story, California Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed nearly $10 million in funding for the development of cleaner fuels and low- emission vehicles.

These “Ecologists” Should Be Dumped
US – A “low-level” radioactive waste dump near Beatty, Nevada, contains 47 pounds of deadly plutonium. The US General Accounting Office called its discovery “astonishing.” The plutonium – enough to poison the drinking water of 200 million households in a single year – was discarded in unlined trenches dug in the desert 100 miles from Las Vegas. “Most in the general public do not realize that federal laws can define plutonium as ‘low-level’ waste,” the Las Vegas Sun pointed out. The groundwater from the dump site is believed to flow toward the Amargosa Valley, home to dairy herds, pistachio orchards and farmlands. US Ecology, the company that ran the Beatty site, was kicked off the property in 1992 for waste-handling violations. US Ecology and Governor Pete Wilson have been pressing to open another “low-level” nuclear waste dump in California’s Ward Valley. Neither US Ecology nor its parent company, American Ecology, has revealed how much plutonium has been dumped at waste sites in Nevada, Illinois, Kentucky and Washington. [Note: Any ecologists and environmental groups wishing to join a class-action suit challenging the right of US Ecology and American Ecology to misappropriate and demean the word “ecology” are invited to contact Earth Island Journal.)

A Green “Blacklist”
DENMARK – The last half-century has seen the production of persistent organic pollutants grow from 7 to 250 million tons per year. The Danish EPA has published a “blacklist” of 100 dangerous chemical substances or groups of substances that are to be reduced or eliminated entirely. In a similar action, the European Union (EU) is drawing attention to 2,700 of the 100,000 chemical products now marketed in EU countries. According to Environmental News from The Netherlands, risk-assessments will be carried out on these “problematic” compounds and all new chemical substances will henceforth “have to be investigated before they may be sold.”