In 65 chapters and hundreds of local groups spanning 21 ecoregions and two nations, Sierra Club members are hard at work protecting our natural
heritage.
Pacific Coast: INTO THE WOODS WITH WOODY
The San Francisco Bay Area's record rainfall earlier this year didn't put a
damper on the fun for urban kids on an outing to Henry Coe State Park near San
Jose, California. In addition to fording streams and hiking five miles through
mud, the Inner City Outing conservationists were treated to a surprise visit from
a well-known actor from the old TV comedy Cheers. Woody Harrelson, who was
arrested last year as he protested logging in the ancient Headwaters Forest
(snarling traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge for hours), tagged along to work off
his community-service sentence. Over the three-day backpacking trip, the
performer shared his well-known enthusiasm for the great outdoors and his less
publicized interest in personal health, leading the kids in a yoga lesson one
sunny afternoon.
Atlantic Coast: SLUDGE FIGHT
Industry spinmeisters call the noxious sewage by-product "biosolids." But the New
Hampshire Chapter insists that sewer sludge by any other name still threatens
environmental and public health. To highlight the potential dangers of using a
material loaded with pathogens and heavy metals to fertilize farmland and reclaim
gravel pits, the chapter held a press conference. One mother recounted the death
of her son, who had walked through a hayfield spread with sludge from a
waste-treatment plant weeks before. A farmer explained how dozens of his cows
died after eating sludge-tainted feed. And other speakers recited a host of
health problems, including rashes, nosebleeds, and diarrhea, that they attributed
to sludge exposure. The moving testimonies bolstered the chapter's efforts to win
a state moratorium on using sludge until stricter detoxification guidelines are
adopted.
Across the Nation: FIRST, DO NO HARM
According to the EPA, dioxins are among the world's most toxic substances. The
agency's new emission standards for medical-waste incinerators, however, suggest
that the EPA sometimes ignores its own data. Trash from many
of the nation's 6,000 hospitals flows into incinerators unleashing dioxins,
mercury, and lead-all linked to cancer, birth defects, and other debilitating
diseases. In amending the Clean Air Act in 1990, Congress ordered the EPA to
impose stringent emissions standards on the incinerators. But the EPA lowered the
bar, allowing poorly managed incinerators to spew out up to 100 times the
pollutants emitted by the cleanest facilities. Represented by the Earthjustice
Legal Defense Fund, the Sierra Club is suing for stronger air protections.
American Southeast: GREEN BAYOU
This February the future looked grim for Clam Bayou along the shore of Florida's
Boca Ciega Bay. For the second time in three years, sewers in nearby St.
Petersburg overflowed, pouring millions of gallons of untreated sewage into the
undeveloped marsh. But on Earth Day, as Club volunteers kicked off a preservation
campaign at Clam Bayou, a promising sign appeared from above-a bald eagle
circling. And the good omens keep coming.
From city council members to church
groups to local columnists, nearly everyone supports the creation of a 140-acre
natural haven, not only for the osprey, roseate spoonbills, and manatees that
make Clam Bayou their home but also for their human admirers. Even Clam Bayou's
private landowners are offering to donate some property to the green-space
project. Now activists are urging St. Petersburg to acquire land, remove
destructive non-native species, and construct a boardwalk for nature enthusiasts.
Great North American Prairie: DUMPING A DUMP
"Modern landfills don't smell," the Transport Development Group boasted about the
110-million-ton-capacity landfill it proposed to build in an industrial park near
the recently established Midewin National Prairie. But the Sauk-Calumet Group of
the Illinois Chapter smelled something fishy in TDG's maneuvering to construct
the facility. In its initial development plan, the company proposed only a
rail-and-warehouse operation on the site, promising to create 1,300 to 1,500 jobs
for the small town of Elwood and adjacent communities. But only two weeks later,
it was pushing for a mega-dump and a quarry, offering the town a cut of the
filthy lucre.
Joining Republican Congressman Jerry Weller in challenging the
project, the Sauk-Calumet Group went door-to-door in Elwood posing a critical
question: Would the town rather be the gateway to a prairie paradise or the home
of the nation's largest dump? The community's unequivocal reply convinced the
developer to drop the dump. The group is now focused on blocking the quarry.
Southwest Deserts: CAN YOU DIG IT?
Ask some Inner City Outing participants about the preservation of nature and they
might show you a fossil. Seven El Paso Group kids ages 12 to 17 were invited by
the Center of Indigenous Research to help excavate the 10,000-year-old remains of
a mammoth found near Nogal, New Mexico. "It was a good lesson in patience," says
ICO leader Rich Rheder. "Most of the weekend, we were sifting rock and clay, and
every once in a while, we'd come up with a bone fragment or a chipped stone
artifact." In the final moments of the outing, the kids' virtue was rewarded with
the discovery of a mammoth's rib bone.
