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Roadless
Warrior | Turtles
and Teamsters | Salvation
for the Dammed | Shell
Game
Bill Clinton, Roadless
Warrior
Order could halt logging on 60 million acres of public land
As a boy, said a cowboy-booted Bill Clinton last October, "I
learned by walking the Ozark and Ouachita national forests of my
home state that national forests are more than a source of timber;
they are places of renewal of the human spirit and our natural
environment." The setting was the Reddish Knob Overlook in
Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, but the speech's impact will be felt
throughout the Lower 48—and possibly beyond.
Whether Clinton was thinking more of his Arkansas childhood or
his presidential legacy, conservationists were downright jubilant
over the sweeping national-forest initiative he announced that day.
The proposed executive order—an extension of an 18-month
roadbuilding moratorium already in place on 33 million acres of
national forest—would permanently put at least 40 million acres of
federal woodlands off-limits to roadbuilding, logging, and mining,
and could ultimately extend protection to as many as 60 million
acres. (The system's 380,000 miles of existing roads, besides making
it possible to log in once-remote areas, are in need of over $8
billion worth of maintenance and repair.) Federal officials hope to
have the measure in place by the time the temporary ban expires this
fall.
Clinton called the proposal "one of the largest land-preservation
efforts in America's history to protect these priceless backcountry
lands." In the 36 years since the Wilderness Act passed, Congress
has designated only 34 million acres of America's national forests
as wilderness, a status that offers similar protections to Clinton's
initiative. Although a few conservationists voiced skepticism that
the new proposal would be realized, many more were rallying to
capitalize on what they viewed as an extraordinary opportunity to
halt commercial logging in America's dwindling roadless areas. "The
president has set the stage for making real conservation history,"
said Melanie Griffin, director of the Sierra Club's land program.
Most of the targeted lands are roadless areas of 5,000 acres or
more. Whether to include Alaska's Tongass National Forest, which is
exempt from the temporary ban, and roadless areas under 5,000
acres—essentially all of those east of the Mississippi—has yet to be
decided.
While a number of small U.S. Forest Service "listening sessions"
produced some vocal opposition, thousands of forest activists and
interested citizens turned out in force at a round of large public
hearings held by the agency in November and December. Many urged an
end to logging, mining, and other destructive activities in all
roadless areas, including those in the 17-million-acre Tongass.
Steve Marshall, a Forest Service staffer assigned to the project,
estimates that the agency received "well over 500,000" messages on
the initiative.
Pro-timber legislators wasted no time in attacking the plan,
which, as an executive order, does not need congressional approval.
Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) accused Clinton of "acting outside the
law," while Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) vowed to rescind the order
if elected president. The Club's Griffin warned that timber allies
are likely to try to block the initiative by saddling critical
legislation with riders to reverse it or by withholding Forest
Service appropriations. That's why, though the formal public-comment
period has ended, messages to Congress are still crucial.
"For a century, the Forest Service built roads to give industry
access to our forests," said Debbie Sease, the Sierra Club's
legislative director. "Now it's time to stop building roads to
ensure there's a forest left for the rest of us to enjoy."
By B. J. Bergman
To take action: Call your U.S. senators and representative via
the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or write them care of
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510 or U.S. House of Representatives,
Washington, DC 20515. Let them know you want remaining roadless
areas of 1,000 acres or more—including those in the
Tongass—protected permanently. For more information, contact Tanya
Tolchin at (202) 547-1141 or tanya.tolchin@sierraclub.org.
Turtles and Teamsters In
the past, environmentalists and union members have often been at
odds, with some unions seeing environmental laws as a threat to
jobs, and some conservationists blaming workers for their bosses'
policies.
But that was then. Consider now the scene on the streets of
Seattle on the first day of last year's World Trade
Organization meeting: On the one hand, environmentalists dressed
as sea turtles protested the WTO-mandated weakening of laws
protecting the creatures; on the other, Teamsters protested the
WTO's tolerance of member countries that refuse to allow workers to
organize.
A spontaneous chant arose from the turtles: "Turtles love
Teamsters!" The truck drivers responded: "Teamsters love turtles!"
Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. By Paul
Rauber
Salvation for the Dammed
Slowly, life returns to once-choked rivers and streams Striped
bass, alewife, herring—they're all here. They've all come back,"
says Maine paddler Steve Brooke. All it took was removing the
Edwards Dam on the Kennebec River.
Since 1912, 465 dams across the country have been taken down,
mostly because of safety concerns. Last summer, however, Edwards
made history as the first dam to be demolished over the objections
of its owner because of the environmental harm it caused.
Brooke once led the Kennebec Coalition, the group that
spearheaded the fight against the dam. He can now point to the
benefits of a free-flowing river. Its banks, muddy and exposed
immediately after the dam was taken out, are now thickly covered
with grasses. Osprey, eagles, and other wildlife have returned to
the water's edge. But what really excites him are the fish.
"I am constantly impressed by the variety of habitat that the
Edwards Dam removal has re-created for sea-run fish," says Brooke.
"Paddling over the six sets of rapids created by the dam removal,
you think of the blueback herring that spawn in fast whitewater. The
fast-flowing deeper sections of water are waiting for the spring run
of American shad, and the holes look like ideal habitat for the
Atlantic and short-nosed sturgeon." Atlantic salmon, nonexistent
upstream of the dam last year, have recently been spotted by
anglers.
West Coast salmon are also benefiting from dam dismantling. In
Butte Creek in California's Central Valley, only 14 spawning
spring-run chinooks returned to the creek in 1987. But in 1998,
after four small dams were taken out, restoring 25 miles of
free-flowing river, the spring chinook run rose to a record 20,000.
While these streams are improving, it will likely be several
years before the full environmental and recreation-based economic
benefits are realized. If there is a lesson to be learned from
Edwards and the other dams that have been pulled down in recent
years, it is that restoration—and public acceptance of dam
destruction—takes time.
For example, Bill Griffith, city administrator for Sandstone,
Minnesota, isn't ready to call the 1995 removal of the Sandstone Dam
from the Kettle River a success. After the dam's destruction, he
says, fishing "went to hell" because the sand that had piled up
behind the dam was washed downstream, where it filled in the
riverine depressions, or "kettles," in which the fish spawn. "What
we need is a big rainÑa good flood to flush the river out," Griffith
says. Once that happens, he believes, spawning areas for walleye,
northern pike, and lake sturgeon will be re-established.
The Sandstone Dam, a dilapidated, inactive hydropower facility,
posed a safety hazard to anglers and paddlers. Refurbishing it would
have cost a million dollars. Taking it down cost a fifth as much,
and revealed a set of notable rapids, ideal for whitewater kayaking.
"Where there was once a dam, you now have a waterfall," says
Griffith.
Biologist Michael Hill is cautiously optimistic about the
recovery of Florida's Chipola River. In 1987, the local community
voted to take down Dead Lakes Dam. Instead of a stagnant pool, he
says, "the water levels are allowed to rise and fall naturally now,
so water quality is far better than it was with the dam." Today, 61
species of fish are found in the Chipola, as compared with only 34
prior to the dam removal. But like Griffith, Hill believes it will
take several years and "some major local storms" to flush out the
muck that had built up behind the dam and bring the river back to
full health.
In Wisconsin, many locals worried that jackhammering the defunct
Waterworks Dam out of the Baraboo River in 1997 and draining the
dam's mill pond would leave an unsightly, smelly mess. "You've still
got the pro-dam people who say it was a bad idea, that the mudflats
stink, that we lost a piece of our heritage when the dam went," says
Gene Dalhoff of the Baraboo Area Chamber of Commerce. But, he adds,
some people are changing their minds as they discover new fishing
and paddling opportunities.
Two more dams are scheduled to come out of the Baraboo in the
next three years. Once this happens, the Baraboo will be the longest
main-stem stretch of river restored through dam removal in the
United States. by Amy Souers
Shell Game
The chutzpah of corporate image-makers can be stunning. Take
Shell Oil's recent ad: The Shell logo is superimposed over the face
of an African woman; above her the copy asks, "None of our business?
Or the heart of our business?" The ad tells us that human rights
aren't the "usual business priority" for a multinational, but Shell
is "committed to support fundamental human rights." Meanwhile, in
oil-rich Nigeria, where Shell and other oil companies have
substantial investments, unrest over land and oil rights in the
Niger Delta has expanded. Four years after the November 1995
execution of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigeria's environment minister
accused Shell and other multinationals of "heinous environmental
crimes" and alleged that their activities ultimately caused
Saro-Wiwa's death.
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