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.
By Jennifer Hattam
American Southeast:
Jeb Bush Cements Deal
Florida activists celebrated in June when the state quashed plans to build a cement plant near the scenic Ichetucknee River (see "Cement Nix-ers" in "Homefront," November/December 1999). But their victory was short-lived.
Five months later, state
Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs and Republican Governor Jeb
Bush reversed the decision, giving developer Joseph Anderson III a permit to build the
cement kiln and lime-rock mine. No studies have been done to predict the facility's impact
on the Ichetucknee, which runs for seven miles as pure spring water through dense hardwood
forest. "The Ichetucknee is a symbol of the best nature offers us," says
Virginia Seacrist of the Club's Suwannee/St. Johns Group, which is fighting the decision.
"If we can't save it, we can't save anything in Florida."
To get involved, contact
Seacrist at vseacrist@aol.com. Floridians should call Governor Bush at (850) 488-4441 or
write to jeb@jeb.org, and tell him that they will remember his environmental turnaround at
election time.
Across Canada:
Genetic Ghouls
On Halloween weekend, ears
of genetically engineered corn and "Flavr Savr" tomatoes marched down the
streets of 24 Canadian cities. A sly figure in a devil's mask held up a sign saying,
"Mon-Satan says GE food is safe: Trust me," while Frankenstein led rousing
choruses of eco-carols like "Monsanto's Chemical Restaurant." During these
Frankenfood Days of Action-organized by the Sierra Youth Coalition (SYC), the Council of
Canadians, and other health and environmental groups—activists paraded their
costumes, songs, and slogans at supermarkets, corporate headquarters, and town squares to
illustrate the potential dangers of genetically engineered foods, which now include
everything from french fries to infant formula.
"Genetically engineered food
is created to make profits for the company, not to help people or feed the hungry,"
says 25-year-old SYC activist Aaron Koleszar. No long-term tests have been done to assess
the impact of such foods on human health. The European Union has already gone GE-free, but
the U.S. and Canadian governments are resisting even labeling these products. To
activists, that's far scarier than Halloween.
Mississippi Basin:
Literal Tree Huggers
Members of the Club's Iowa
City Area Group are reaching around tree trunks with tape measures to help preserve and
maintain their natural heritage. Volunteers on surveying trips are assigned a specific
area and given a map on which to record the location, type, diameter, and other features
of each tree they see. The information they and other groups gather about parks,
residential streets, and other public areas will be used by the city forester to make
decisions about managing and planting, as well as to create maps of scenic neighborhood
walks. "People don't know a lot about trees anymore," says Kate Klaus of
Heritage Trees, the group leading the effort. "But people who volunteered on the
surveying trips say again and again that when they go on walks now, they're looking
up."
Atlantic Coast:
Army Green
"In the 1930s,
Shawme-Crowell State Forest was carved up to create the Massachusetts Military
Reservation. Now 15,000 acres of the Army National Guard facility will become a natural
resource again, thanks to intensive lobbying by the Sierra Club's Cape Cod Group and other
activists. In October, Republican Governor Paul Cellucci took away control of Cape Cod's
largest remaining tract of undeveloped land from the military and entrusted it to state
environmental officials. The area's forests, grasslands, scrublands, and pine barrens will
now be managed to protect the public water supply and habitat for wildlife such as
whippoorwills, upland sandpipers, and eastern box turtles. Since any future military
training must be compatible with environmental goals, it will likely be limited to
soldiers marching through the woods.
The victory is particularly sweet
for the Cape Cod Group, which was founded in part to work for the cleanup of the military
reserve, a federal Superfund site that has polluted more than 66 billion gallons of
groundwater with chlorinated solvents and aviation-fuel by-products. In January, the EPA
ordered the National Guard to clean up its firing ranges, a move that could set a
precedent for the 65 million acres nationwide that the military has polluted with
unexploded ammunition.
Southwest Deserts:
Power Plant Cleans Up
For more
than 25 years, the Mohave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada, fouled the air while
other power plants cleaned up their acts. The notorious facility, built before most
clean-air requirements were enacted, has been one of the largest single sources of air
pollution in the West, pumping out more sulphur dioxide than 6 million cars. "Blasts of dark, lung-damaging soot would fall on the town,"says Sierra Club Southwest Director
Rob Smith.
"The plant had no pollution controls for the sulphur dioxide that creates
haze over Grand Canyon National Park, even though other southwestern power plants have
installed scrubbers that remove up to 90 percent." Thanks to a lawsuit and persistent
lobbying by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, Southern California Edison and
the plant's other owners agreed in September to install pollution-control
equipment."It's a major environmental victory at a time when Congress is talking
about rolling back the Clean Air Act," Smith says. "The settlement will turn one
of the dirtiest power plants in the Southwest into one of the cleanest."
To
spotlight Sierra Club activism in your area, contact Jennifer Hattam at Sierra, 85 Second
St., 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105-3441; e-mail jennifer.hattam@sierraclub.org; fax
(415) 977-5794.
