DISPATCHES
Dredging Up a Toxic Mess
In California's Central Valley, 75 miles inland from San Francisco on the banks of the San Joaquin River, the city of Stockton is about to triple the size of what was, until recently, a relatively sleepy shipping port. In 2000, the Port of Stockton acquired an idle World War II-era naval base and was quick to recon-figure it for commercial shipping-too quick, according to the U.S. District Court in Sacramento. NRDC and Baykeeper filed suit against the Army Corps of Engineers in August, arguing that it had not sufficiently considered the environmental damage the project would cause. Deepening the shipping channel by removing sediment laden with pesticides and heavy metals such as copper and zinc would impair water quality, and the sharp spike in traffic would increase air pollution in an area that already has some of the dirtiest air in the nation. NRDC won a preliminary injunction in September, which means that dredging will stop while the judge hears the case.
-- Erin Kiley
Music To Our Ears
Through its partnership with NRDC, and at the encouragement of some of its well-known artists, Warner Music Group has decided to overhaul its paper procurement practices and has committed to buying recycled paper for every CD insert it prints. To do that, WMG's printer, Ivy Hill, put a sizeable paper contract up for bid: 11 million pounds for WMG, plus another 11 million for its other printing clients. An order of that size was enough to whet the appetite of industry behemoths like Stora Enso, the world's second-largest paper company. As the winning bidder on the contract, Stora Enso will supply recycled paper to Ivy Hill, helping to bring the sustainable paper-making industry significantly closer to the scale at which recycled paper and non-recycled are cost competitive.
-- B.C.
Just The Facts, Please
Highly complex science is at the center of political discourse as never before, from the effects of military sonar on marine mammals to the genetic studies that increasingly define what is an endangered species. But too often science -- or what passes for science -- is misused for ideological and financial gain. To bolster its advocacy efforts, NRDC launched its Science Center in 2005, and this past fall hired its first director, Gabriela Chavarria, who completed her doctoral training under the famed Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson and who joins the organization from the Defenders of Wildlife. Under Chavarria's direction, four visiting science fellows, each specializing in a specific program -- oceans, lands, public health, and climate -- will address the new threats to environmental protections posed by complex scientific controversies. Not only will the center increase NRDC's scientific authority on such matters as the chemistry and physics of global warming and the use of genetic analyses in conservation biology, but it will also expand the organization's capacity to identify emerging environmental issues.
-- Alba Garzon
Still Dirty After All
Last year Peabody Energy sunk some of its record profits into a slick ad campaign to try to persuade Americans that coal isn't black, sooty, or environmentally destructive. The Southern Company joined forces with Peabody, and together they enlisted the help of precocious children to tout the benefits of coal online and in national television ads with the tagline "Learn About Coal." Not one smiling child had an inhaler in hand. But industry's freshly scrubbed young actors can't obscure the grim truth of America's dependence on coal: Dozens of new coal-fired power plants are planned or under construction in the United States, fueling a legacy of air and water pollution, global warming, and health problems including asthma and heart disease. In response, NRDC created a website that asks, "Why choose nineteenth-century pollution when we have twenty-first-century solutions?" See how America can meet its energy needs with renewable, modern technologies that leave fossil fuels in the dust at www.nrdc.org/coal.
-- Kathryn McGrath
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