Hello friends, it's the Environment Show and welcome.
The Earth Summit not only lives on, it is springing into action, and international coalition
is targeting a massive forest in Russia, with global warming up issue, as the forest for
the future initiative gets underway.
We'll have the story.
Also this time, a profile of lowest Gibbs, the Love Canal Mother, her citizens' action
led to the passage of the Superfund Act, legislation that she says neither she nor
many are proud of today.
The program is embarrassing, and I'm embarrassed because I was part of making it big.
New tactics in the fight for a cleaner environment on this edition of the Environment Show.
The Environment Show is a national production made possible by Heming's MotorNews, the
National Bible of the Old Carhovy, monthly from Bennington, Vermont.
And by the JM Kaplan Fund of New York, this is Bruce Robertson.
At first, the United States refused to sign the Earth Summit Treaty on Global Warming.
Not only were there objections to proposed timetables for reducing levels of global warming
gases, the U.S. delegation also felt that not enough attention was given to the role
of and the health of the planet's forests.
Now if we think of Earth as a sink, it is thought, to keep the sink from overflowing, so to
speak, with greenhouse gases, we need to unplug the drain as well as turn off the faucet.
In other words, by cutting down CO2 production, we are turning off the faucet.
But by chopping down the planet's forests, we are plugging up the drain.
For trees are known to absorb the primary greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
In fact, we refer to forests as a carbon sink, a place where carbon drains out of the
atmosphere.
To unplug the sink, as it were, President Bush proposed that the Summit establish a $1.5
billion project called Forest for the Future Initiative.
Dr. Daniel Doudek, an air quality specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund, is working
with a provision of FFI, known as Joint Implementation, where several or more nations work together
on forest preservation projects.
The first phase is targeting a forested region of Russia.
This region's name is Bologda.
It's about 350 miles to the northwest of Moscow.
Interestingly enough, it's an area that once was the site of the infamous Goulai, under
Stalin's reign of terror in the Soviet Union.
This region is an area of so-called a taiga.
It's a combination of a forest wetland ecosystem, one which once when cut, basically will not
return, except with a very long passage of time, naturally back to a forested state.
The project in the Volgoda Forests involves government agencies in Russia, Norway, the
United States, the Environmental Defense Fund, and in the United States, and as yet unnamed
major utility interested in offsetting its pollution emissions.
Doudek says the project will give the Russians assistance to preserve this forested region.
They've created a national park called the Russia of the North.
The park will be built.
It's 150,000 hectares, a hectare is about 2.5 acres.
This area has previously been logged, under part of it has been logged, under orders from
Moscow.
This area has proven its legal capability and resisting such commands to destroy its resources.
In addition, it's a unique cultural area.
There are three monasteries, the oldest of which is 700 years old.
It has the finest collection of icons in Russia.
So these folks are saying, gee, what we can do is we can create this combination of a
natural and cultural park built around our unique local assets.
What we need now is some additional investment to transform that into a real future.
The role of the foreign agents will be to finance the project to accelerate its completion.
Doudek says Russia overall is particularly ideal for launching this forest for the future
initiative.
The things the Russians need most now are hard currency.
Their economy is in a mess.
They don't yet are not benefiting from any stream of private western investment because
of these uncertainties.
But this is a way of getting money flowing to the Russians, helping them with their economy
and serving ourselves at the same time, not only by compensating for our missions into
the atmosphere, but also doing it in a way that has the latest possible burden on rate
payers and on our own US economy.
But more specifically, why Russia?
I mean, what is particularly valuable about Russia's forests or are we seeing this just
as an economic opportunity on our part?
In terms of the forest resources of the world, Russia contains approximately 25 percent
of the world's forests.
Unlike many forest systems around the world, the Russian forests are still actively in
the process of taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing it.
The Russians in their search for hard currency and investment that I mentioned earlier are
engaged in a kind of fire sale of their natural resources.
They're looking for anything that they can latch onto and turn into liquid assets, hard
cold cash.
One of those resources is the vast forests in Siberia and those that are equally large,
not as significant in the western part of the country.
Dudeck says there are active negotiations going on between the Russians and the Japanese
and the Koreans to cut vast tracts of timber.
Now is a critical time to act.
The catalyst for this right now is the need industrialized nations have to reduce their overall
pollution output.
Dudeck says the specific utility that will be participating here in the United States
has not yet been named, but the process in general is one that many industries are already
planning for.
Those far-sighted companies have developed plans, committing themselves, committing their
companies to, in some cases, 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by the year
2000.
Part of their portfolio will be investments in these forest-based projects that we've
been discussing.
It's in their competitive interest from the standpoint of lowering the cost of meeting
those targets that they've committed themselves to to make sure that they have the cheapest
options available.
The utility industry right now is being swept by changes in competitive forces.
We had also as a part of that National Energy Policy Act a requirement to allow access
to transmission lines and the possibility of reforming the public utility control holding
act.
All of this means that the local monopolies that utilities have enjoyed are breaking
down.
They're going to have to focus on cost and manage and reduce that cost.
Essentially these folks are positioning in themselves to win the competitive race to
go into the 21st century.
The argument, Dudeck, advances is that in a broken economy, such as the former Soviet
Union, an invested dollar goes farther toward reforestation or other environmental remediation
programs than it would here in the United States.
Dudeck says under Provisions outlined in the new Energy Bill, a polluting industry may
submit its reduction plan to the Energy Information Agency, which will act as a sort of bank,
showing deposits in the form of pollution reductions and withdrawals in the form of continued
pollution generation.
The object being to maintain a healthy balance, achieving a net reduction of pollution worldwide.
As an environmentalist, I'm interested in saying that we get the most bang for our buck.
We've got to be concerned about the tension between the economy and the environment.
That means that we ought to be focusing on squeezing every last bit of pollution control
out of every dollar spent.
Which raises a major argument voiced by many active environmentalists on the other
side of this issue, namely that we are rushing headlong into this type of project as a way
of reducing global pollution overall while not being required to change our own behavior.
If we grow trees in Russia, we may be allowed to continue polluting here in the United States.
That's the argument.
Dudeck objects.
Absolutely not.
In fact, quite to the contrary, the idea of this is to show that once we can get someone
to actually pay a forest owner to maintain the forest in its current state, not to cut it down,
and be willing to accept in exchange money for its stored carbon value, that's a critical precedent
that the foes of clear cutting and the other forest degrading management practices in the
United States can use to say, look, there are other choices,
just beside simply whacking down these trees and destroying the habitat of endangered species.
There are other choices beside legal strategies involving the endangered species act and the
spotted owl and the marbled merlet as ways of protecting these forests.
Let's recognize their real and legitimate value and contribution to the global ecosystem.
Dr. Daniel Dudeck, an air quality specialist with the Environmental Defense Fund and one
of the chief negotiators for the Forest for the Future Initiative now underway in Russia.
He says the participating utility here in the United States has not been named publicly yet,
though he indicates one has been selected.
As he says, this is cutting-edge strategy.
What happens in the Volgoda region will be the proving ground for future projects.
This is Bruce Robertson.
Reparian areas comprise less than 1% of the western United States, yet these lush zones adjacent
to streams, ponds and lakes provide habitat for the majority of our plant and animal species.
Reparian areas also help control floods, improve water quality and stabilize stream banks.
Environmental groups and ranchers have often been at odds over riparian zones, mostly because
cattle are a major cause of wetland destruction.
But as Becky Rumsy reports, there are signs of growing cooperation.
As far as a ranchers obligation is concerned, I think if you've got this wonderful resource,
you should try to do the best your ability to try to preserve it and enhance it.
As we became a better fly fisherman, it became a very obvious toss that repairian, healthy
repairian habitat was very, very important to fisheries.
I think the most important is water management.
Having dams operated in a way that allows the streams to maintain some dynamics.
Meeker Rancher Phil Barrett, steamboat angler, bill chase and Boulder-based ecologists, David
Cooper, have at least one thing in common, a concern for riparian areas.
They were just three at the speakers at the Colorado riparian association conference
this year.
The four-year-old association is a coalition of landowners, resource managers, organizations
and citizens interested in protecting and restoring Colorado's riparian zones in wetlands.
We're not here to tell anyone how to manage their areas, be they public agency or private
landowner.
We're not here to regulate or dictate anything.
All we're here to do is provide a forum for an information exchange.
Dave's Brown of the Colorado Cattleman's Association is the current president of the Colorado
riparian association.
He helps to foster dialogue between various interest groups with demonstration sites,
tours, workshops and a newsletter.
I don't draw the line.
I don't distinguish between environmentalists and non-environmentalists.
I see a distinction between people who want to solve problems and people who want to create
issues.
Public lands grazing has been a divisive issue in the West.
Livestock management in riparian areas has become a key topic for the Colorado riparian association
and for other similar groups propagating throughout the Rockies.
Wyoming, Idaho and New Mexico all have riparian associations in some form or stage.
In Oregon, a watershed improvement coalition goes beyond information exchange by promoting
restoration projects and cooperative management among agencies and landowners.
When the state of Montana found that 80 percent of its non-point source pollution came from
agricultural lands, it committed staff time to riparian education.
Joan Shoemaker of Montana's Department of Natural Resources has been working with conservation
districts since 1988.
She says riparian management workshops draw as many as 100 Montana ranchers at a time.
She believes they succeed because they focus on benefits to the landowner.
So if we can show them how it's going to cost more money because they lose productive
land because of stream-make erosion and channel widening, they lose potentially very productive
forage areas that can put on lots of extra pounds, calf-weening weights.
These repair owners provide shelter that are probably increased the survivability of their
calf crop.
So yeah, we really just have to translate it into dollars and I think they'll listen.
I think one of the things that we're trying to do in nature conservancy is to convince
livestock operators that we're not out to get them.
The Nature Conservancy's Alan Carpenter is a board member of the Colorado riparian association.
What really gets me going is people coming together, talking to each other in a congenial way,
just realizing that we don't have all the answers individually and we probably don't
have all the answers collectively.
I think there are a lot of opportunities for win-win situations out there.
Where I have difficulty understanding the future is how to scale up this sort of activity
into the next quantum leap, how to have a thousand people figuratively speaking at a meeting
like this.
It's often difficult for ranchers to take time out, unpaid to attend a meeting.
This year, the Colorado Reparian Association's conference was overwhelmingly attended by agency's
staff.
But half of the speakers were ranchers and by 1996, the association hopes to boast that
half its members are private landowners.
For the High Plains News Service, I'm Becky Rumsy.
A High Plains News Service is a production of the Western Organization of Resource Councils
in Billings, Montana.
It all started near Niagara Falls, New York.
For lowest Gibbs, Love Canal was home.
It was.
After toxic chemicals brought sickness to her family, Gibbs not only moved out, she organized
a campaign to tell the world what was happening.
Today because of her efforts, we have the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act, or Circola, better known as the Superfund Act.
Today, Gibbs lives in Virginia, far away from Love Canal, which she says is now under
resettlement.
Right now, the present status is that the state and federal and local governments are trying
to move people back into Love Canal.
There is no community there anymore.
So there isn't a whole lot of uprising.
Most of the people who are struggling to fight back and again, we're fighting politically
are pretty much from the outside now and perceived as outside agitators even though, you know,
I live there and had a role in having it evacuated from the get-go.
There are 39 families that have moved in to Love Canal, mostly in the northern end of
the community, which was the least exposure levels.
And we're trying to file a suit against the EPA to stop it, just to totally stop it.
What have those families been told about the safety of the region and what they can likely
anticipate in the future?
They've been told that Love Canal is habitable.
They have not been told Love Canal is safe.
But the way the haveability statement is posed is that we did air water in soil tests at
Love Canal and we did it at these other two communities where people are presently
living and there is no difference.
So therefore, it's habitable.
What they do not tell the people is that one community is downwind of the Occidental
Petroleum and Cinerator who is the same chemical company that dumped at Love Canal and the
Pulum and it was one of the suits the Attorney General Office was going to bring recently.
And the other one is an old oxyduck.
So it's like comparing a rotten orange to a rotten orange and say both of these oranges
are the same, therefore they're edible.
Excuse me.
I find that very bizarre and totally unscientific.
I think the worst part of it is really not the local implications of those families.
I think that's tragic.
What ultimately we believe is happening is they're trying to set residential exposure standards.
If you go anywhere in this country, California, Florida, Wisconsin, and people say what is the safe level for exposure of a family living in a home, whether it's air or water or soil, every health
official will tell you we don't know.
And that's the honest truth.
Once Love Canal is resettled, then the exposure levels there will become interim, which could be interim for 20 years.
Expose your levels and you can see the responsible parties who make these messes coming back and saying, well, you're complaining about birth defects as the residents that Love Canal did and all these other problems.
But the state of New York said that this level is okay, that it is a habitable area.
And people are going to lose.
They won't get evacuated.
The cleanup cost and the magnitude of cleanup will be much less than it needs to be.
And responsible parties will not pay personal entry suits.
And so all the corporations win and all the people lose.
Love Canal, in a sense, was the first super fun site.
Lois Gibbs was the first to fight such a condition.
At first, with the signing of the legislation in 1980, there was much hope.
Today, though, Gibbs says most agree.
The program is embarrassing.
And I'm embarrassed because I was part of making it be.
Originally, the way it was designed, they were supposed to go in and clean up these sites and protect public health and our resources, our drinking water supply and our air, and then go out to the responsible parties to clean it up.
Unfortunately, since it's been enacted in 1980, and maybe it has to do with our Republican office since 1980, but since it's been reacted enacted in 1980,
there has been very few cleanups.
It's almost all lawyers first.
And the way they figure out what needs to be cleaned up is they sit down with the responsible parties.
Those were going to pay for the cleanup.
And they say, how much do you want to spend?
How much will you spend?
Almost every case, if you look at across the country, comes to $20 million or less.
Then, EPA comes back and says, OK, what can we do for $20 million?
And then they'll lay out three options.
And it's not all of the options available for cleaning that up.
It's not all the options available to protect public health or natural resources.
It is the only options that are available within that dollar amount.
And that's what's wrong with the program.
So you never get an adequate cleanup of these sites.
You definitely don't get permanent cleanup of these sites.
In the corporations, again, have the power and the control and get off the hook very, very easily.
Today, Gibbs is founder and executive director of the Citizens Clearing House for Hazardous Waste.
Her main campaign is to reduce what is going into the pipeline, reduce what we generate
in order to reduce what we have to throw away.
She has a twofold plan.
One is what we call very crudely plugging up the toilet.
If we take away, we believe, the inexpensive disposal methods, which is bearing it and
burning it in massive amounts in central locations.
Then industry, if they don't have a cheap place to dispose of their waste, will begin to
deal with it at the plant site.
Right now, it's cheaper to even truck it all the way to Alabama than it is to reduce it,
because it's just so inexpensive to dispose of there.
So if we stop these facilities from going in, and there's only a few facilities left,
and those facilities, knowing they're only a few of them left, will charge an arm and
a leg for every ton deposited there.
And what we're hoping, the discussion will result in the boardroom with the board member
saying, G-Jo, we used to pay X for waste disposal.
Now we're paying Y. How can we cut those costs?
What can we do?
And I think unless we affect those corporate balance sheets that will never get serious
source reduction and elimination in this country.
The other targets, as Gibbs, is actual products.
Citizens Clearing House led the successful campaign against McDonald's and other fast food
restaurants to eliminate the use of foam.
Lois Gibbs, the love canal mother who discovered in 1978 that her children were attending a school
built atop a toxic waste dump that they were getting sick, and though very shy, she says
she was motivated to organize out of fear that her children were going to die.
What it really means, I mean, I had high school education, extremely shy, no political experience
before.
But what that says to the world is that my goodness, if I could do it and I'm nothing special,
I really not any different than anybody else out there.
If I can do it, then other folks can do it.
And what that means, I can remember for years sitting back my father saying, oh, we can't
change it, we can't fight City Hall.
There's no point.
And I can remember those words and the feeling of having no power.
And what I found quite by accident is that we really do have power, we have incredible power.
Lois Gibbs, she says we can and need to get involved and get organized, not necessarily
on environmental issues either.
Go to a school board meeting, anything.
You will be surprised and gratified to feel a sense of power and influence just by participating.
This is Bruce Robertson.
And that's our report on the Environment Show this week.
The Environment Show is a program about the environment, the air, water, soil, wildlife
and people of our common habitat.
If you'd like a cassette copy of the program, call 1-800-767-1929.
Ask for the Environment Show, program number 154.
The Environment Show is a presentation of national productions solely responsible for
its content.
Dr. Alan Shartock, executive producer and this is Bruce Robertson.
The Environment Show is made possible by the JM Kaplan Fund of New York and by Heming's
Motor News, the national Bible of the Old Car Hobby, monthly from Bennington, Vermont.
