This is the Environment Show. It's about our stewardship of the Earth and the beauty
and mystery of life in all its forms. I'm Peter Burley.
Coming up, 13 salmon populations in the northwest are proposed for endangered species listing.
The salmon will require the largest, most extensive recovery plan ever devised under
the Endangered Species Act. We ride the streetcar in New Orleans, where the mayor is trying
to restore the trolley and the city, and young developers are doing historic renovation
to bring new life to the community. EPA is helping American business save $1 billion
a year in energy costs. We find out how, and coyotes are on the prowl in Illinois. These
stories and more coming up on the Environment Show.
You're listening to the Environment Show, and I'm Peter Burley. The National Marine Fisheries
Service proposes to list 13 populations of salmon and steelhead trout located in Northern
California, Oregon, and Washington state as threatened or endangered under the Endangered
Species Act. If completed, this will be the broadest and most extensive application in
the History of the Act. Bob Turner, Washington area director of the National Marine Fisheries
Service, who is located in Olympia, Washington, explains why.
Sam, it started out in the mountains and in the forest environment, they lived there for
varying from one month to one year. They come down into agricultural lands and they live
there a little bit longer than they travel through highly urbanized areas, going in through
the ports of Seattle and Tacoma out into the ocean. Travel well up into Alaska, turn around
and come back as adults and make the same journey again. They travel through virtually every
type of lifestyle and income producing activity that we have on the West Coast. As a result
of that, the solutions will be as complicated as the problem.
If the fish are listed, the Endangered Species Act requires that recovery plans be
drawn up for each population. Since habitat loss is the most significant factor affecting
salmon when they're not at sea, recovery plans must protect rivers and streams by curbing
development on their banks and controlling farming and logging to minimize water runoff
which causes pollution. What is different in this case is that many of the important salmon
waterways flow through cities and towns, again Bob Turner.
The geographic areas of concern are any of those population centers that are near or
around places where fish migrate. The Puget Town Basin, City of Seattle, Tacoma Everett
is one of the most intensely populated areas that is common habitat for salmon. The
people in the Puget Town Basin need to ensure that their future growth is managed in a way
that's fish friendly. That means they need to build their homes and shopping centers
in a way that's fish friendly. We know that can occur because it's been done in the
past in certain places. We need to do that more often, more frequently and on a broader
piece of the landscape. The National Marine Fisheries Service has specified that it will
hold off the listing for a year to give the states and local governments an opportunity
to formulate their own recovery plans. If they're unable to do so, the federal government
will impose its own. Last year, the state of Oregon avoided listing some of the salmon
populations on the California border by producing its own plan which federal fisheries managers
found acceptable. Getting local agreement on tough growth regulations is a huge challenge.
Paul Shell, Mayor of Seattle, says there is some positive and negative inducements to
local cooperation in action in this case. That's going to be the challenge as I said, there's
65 cities and three counties in our urban area and they haven't gotten along on a whole
lot of issues over the years and coordinated actions been very challenging. I think this
will pull us together because we share a common prospect that none of us want to see that
is the federal courts or the federal government telling us how to do land use planning.
But also I think we have the, as I said, the potential of something positive as an outcome
that is learning how to work together and then learning together to do something significant
in terms of leaving a legacy for the next generation.
Mayor Shell says the effort will be hard on elected officials who will have to make decisions
that will not make everybody happy. But this endangered species issue is not the same as
those in the past.
This time, no there's a difference, I think, from Spidegale controversies that we had
five, ten years ago and the logging impact this time it's the urban areas and it's a species
that everybody cares about and knows about and is deeply in our culture so that there's
more on our side in terms of trying to figure out a long-term solution. And this time we
have business community support as well as I think a pretty broad base of political support
in finding together a solution.
Mayor Shell is both Frank and philosophical about the political challenge of getting
disparate local governments to work together on one hand or in the alternative having
a cope with a federally imposed restoration and land use plan. He says the irony in all
this is that in our effort to save the salmon, we may result in saving ourselves. But not
everybody is optimistic about the prospects of getting local and state governments to take
strong enough action on their own to save the salmon in the northwest.
Mitch Friedman is executive director of the Northwest ecosystem alliance located north
of Seattle and Bellingham, Washington. His group works on endangered species and public
lands issues.
Clearly local jurisdictions have been trying to go soft habitat protection. For instance,
where I live in Northwest Washington a hundred years ago the salmon cannery was the biggest
industry. And we're still a port for a lot of the percainers and gill netters who fish
impugetown and even up in the Gulf of Alaska in the Bering Sea. But over the last ten
years our commercial fleet has just plummeted and even with that economic makeup and the
fishermen as part of our community our county council has done virtually nothing but try
to avoid the tough growth management issues that would protect clean water and salmon
habitat in our streams.
Friedman also has reservations about the federal commitment but is encouraged by state
resources which are being devoted to salmon recovery.
There really is no strong big brother to turn to. The feds under the Clinton administration
have been very weak surprisingly in implementing the endangered species. Groups like mine have
to go to court repeatedly even to get the most basic decisions made and the Clinton administration
has not been pushing Congress to give it more money for these things. So we can't just
turn to the feds and say take over. On the other hand the states are at least allocating
resources. The Washington legislature is talking about twenty five to thirty million dollars
for salmon habitat recovery this year.
The federal proposal to list thirteen salmon and steel had populations as threatened or
endangered comes at a critical time. The endangered species act itself is up for review in the
Congress and there are many who would like to weaken its provisions which call for a stringent
land use measures to protect listed species. Also the condition of the Northwestern
salmon populations is desperate. For example the National Marine Fisheries Service says
average abundance of Chinook salmon in the Sacramento River in Northern California has dropped
to eight hundred and thirty fish compared with eighty six thousand five hundred in the
nineteen sixties. In spite of all this it's widely believed that if only they could get
a chance many of the salmon populations can make it. I'm Peter Burley.
For those of us who live or work in cities the urban environment is what affects us the
most and usually it's the urban environment that causes people to remain in cities or to
move elsewhere. In the nineteen eighties New Orleans was not a healthy place. The oil
business that drove much to the economy had collapsed. Crime was high and the police force
was regarded as hopelessly corrupt and New Orleansians were voting with their feet in
the trees and their feet in the trees. The population dropped significantly. But things
are different now people are coming back to New Orleans to live and the urban environment
is improving. We talked with Mayor Mark Morial who was just elected to a second term by
a landslide. We're rebuilding our city and we're rebuilding it I think in a in the way
that old American cities have to be rebuilt. We're going back and in effect enhancing the
old giving you life to the old giving you a vigor to the old old houses old commercial
sites are being rebuilt and redeveloped. We're also enhancing old things for example tourism
and the attractiveness of New Orleans is something that's been a part of this city for
generations literally centuries by building and expanding our convention center by building
a new downtown arena. We are in effect strengthening something that's long been a part of the economy
of our city. One of the great things that's happening in neighborhoods is the way in which
people are buying old houses that some people have written off and restoring them and repairing
them and I think in many respects making them even better than they once were because modern
kitchens and baths and wiring and amenities are being added and we're rebuilding by also making
the city a safer place. Like many American mayors Morial sees transportation as a major factor in
the environmental and economic health of his city. The hope he says is in the streetcar known as
light rail and current transportation ease. Whatever it is the sound is unmistakable to anyone who
has ever written a trolley. Also with respect to transportation and the transportation environment
we're reaching back to a part of the old. We're returning the streetcar to Canal Street. This city
like many cities made a mistake caved into the power of big steel big rubber the automobile
industry big oil and others who in the 50s and 60s promoted diesel powered or gasoline powered
buses over electric railway systems so we tore all our tracks up save one in this community now
we're beginning an effort to put the tracks back down on Canal Street. The one streetcar line that
survived travels down St. Charles Avenue to Canal Street where tracks will be laid to restore its
old route. Morial says his long term vision is an integrated light rail system that links all
the parts of the city with its station airport and the suburbs so people can move easily in both
directions. Bob and Sonia are young entrepreneurs who are doing some of the restoration of old buildings
that the mayor talked about. They buy historic structures some of which are close to collapse
restore them and put them back on the market. They say things have changed in the city and people
want to be there. There are 30,000 buildings right now that could be renovated by homeowners
and many of them can be purchased for the taxes that are owed on them which means they can
range in price from five to thirty thousand dollars and many of them do need work. But the point is
is that in our business there are a large number of houses to be renovated.
For our company in particular we look at a couple things. One thing so far is that the properties
will range or will usually be five thousand square feet and above because they have been
apartments and part of the problem with the apartments is that it was then bringing in
crime and drugs and other things into the residential sections of the city that were unwanted.
And so size of the structure is one thing that definitely identifies us and architecturally speaking
we enjoy everything from Victorians, Queen Anne's to Greek Revivals to Tutor Styles to
Louisiana Rays Cottages etc. But we're trying to take these just massive structures that were
one single family beautiful homes and thriving areas and return them to their original Splendor.
That was Bob and Sonia. They founded the Plum Company and do historic restoration of abandoned
and rundown buildings in New Orleans, a process which is redefining the urban environment in an historic city.
You're listening to the Environment Show. I'm Peter Burling. The Environment Show is a
national production and it's made possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation, the Packard Foundation,
the Turner Foundation, the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Donaldson Charitable Trust,
the William Bingham Foundation and Hemings Motor News, the monthly Bible of a collector car hobby,
1-800-C-A-R-H-E-R-E.
We're going to be talking green about tuxx and drinking water. If you want to participate,
give us your name and your phone number. Our number is 1-888-49-Green. That's 1-888-49-Green.
I'm Linda Anderson and this is Ear to the Ground with stories about people affecting change
in the environment. This week, I'll bright idea that hopes to save the earth while saving your money.
Everybody in the United States uses lighting and everybody uses energy. Unfortunately,
it's estimated that our nation wastes $300 billion in energy each year, more than the defense budget
and federal budget combined. That's why the EPA has been targeting the big users of energy,
commercial and industrial buildings. Through their Energy Star Buildings and Green Lights program,
EPA's Kate Lewis says they aim to eliminate energy waste, reduce costs, cut air pollution,
and increase competitiveness. And for those organizations that volunteer to participate,
she says it's been a win-win situation. Began in 1991, Green Lights focuses on upgrading
lighting systems, which Lewis says makes up 25-30% of a building's energy use. She says many
organizations are assisted on various levels with upgrading their equipment, much of which is
outdated. The EPA program, she says, promotes new energy efficient technologies.
She says it's the amount of natural light that's coming into a facility and the components of the
system adjust to provide the right amount of auxiliary light. That's an interesting technology.
There are numbers, there are a number of lighting controls that are on the market that are
essentially sensors. You might be familiar with them. Some people call them motion sensors,
but there's a number of different lighting controls that enable spaces like topier rooms and bathrooms
to avoid being waste-idly lit when they're not occupied, things like that. Expanding on the
Green Lights program, Lewis says the EPA created the Energy Star Building's program in 1995.
And that looks at the other building-related components, air handling, heating and cooling systems,
and air distribution equipment in the building. This combination of upgrades Lewis explains
saves a tremendous amount of energy while cutting down on pollution.
The energy generating energy in the United States requires, in most cases, the burning of something,
fossil fuels, mostly in the United States. And it's this energy that burns these fuels that
creates emissions. The energy to run commercial and industrial buildings produces about 20 percent
of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is a substantive cause of global climate change.
And so when you pull the effects of, there are now 2600 organizations in Energy Star
Buildings and Green Lights, that leads to an aggregate savings, carbon dioxide savings,
of about 10 billion pounds a year. So the connection is here are these companies that are
upgrading their lighting and their building equipment. They're saving energy in terms of
kilowatt hours. That equals a reduced demand on their utility, which equals a CO2 savings.
Lewis says over the years, Green Lights Star Building's program has helped to create a dramatic
environmental savings. Since 1991, she adds the program has yielded a carbon dioxide savings of
19 billion pounds, the equivalent to removing one million cars from the road. Of course,
motivation from organizations are more about realizing profits than saving the earth.
Nobody's making these companies do this. They're doing it because it represents and we'll
move into the business benefits of bottom line savings for them. The 2600 participants
are saving on their energy bills, about $500 million per year. Since this partnership began,
it's led to a savings of almost a billion dollars. $996 million per year has been saved
from the energy bills of all of these organizations. And the organizations can range from franchises
like Walt Disney and McDonald's to healthcare facilities, colleges, or retail businesses.
Lewis believes that the EPA's Green Light and Star Building's program offers the best of both
worlds by helping organizations and businesses save money while protecting the environment.
With ear to the ground, I'm Linda Anderson.
And now it's time for the Earth Calendar. During this broadcast,
coyotes are mating along the cash river wetlands in southern Illinois.
In early March, male coyotes that call the 37,000 acre preserve home are looking for that special
female. The cash river wetlands support a high level of biological diversity ranging from prairie
to Cyprus swamp. Bob Bluet is a wildlife biologist for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
Well, a lot of times you'll see several males pursuing a single female that's in heat and
receptive at that particular time. You're a lot more likely to see coyotes out there in the daytime,
for example, than you would normally see them. It's a time of the year when their minds are almost
totally on reproduction. Coyote pups are born about two months after the mate. The litter size can
range anywhere from two to 19, with four to nine being the average. The pups are blind and helpless,
and are cared for by mom and even siblings from the previous year. Baby coyotes stay in the den for
about three weeks after they're born, and the den's are usually rocky ledges, hollow logs, small caves
or bushy slopes. Coyotes range in color from pure gray to a red brown. Bob Bluet says many people
confuse coyotes with wolves, but adds that the two are quite different. Coyotes are much smaller.
They average 30 to 35 pounds occasionally reaching about 40 pounds, but that's again that's
pretty rare in the state. They also are a lot more flexible in terms of not only their social
patterns, but also what they eat. That's been a real key to their success throughout the United
States. They mostly rodents and rabbits, no one on it based on food studies that have been done
here, but they'll also take advantage of other local abundances, for example, in the late summer
early fall when you have a lot of grasshoppers around, they'll shift their diet over almost exclusively
to grasshoppers or when you have a hatch of June beetles that might take advantage of those or when
the, you know, when some of the fruits, wild fruits, ripen, and berries ripen, they might shift to
that for a while. Usually it's the adult males that bring coyote pups food in the den. It's an
important time for coyotes in this part of Illinois because it's the only time of the year when mating
occurs. Reproduction is important because coyotes in this area only live to be three or four years
of age. During those years, Bob Bluett says coyotes will learn an elaborate communication system.
Actually they have a lot of different means of communication, anything from a wolf or a
growl or a hawk or a bark which are all kind of threats or sometimes alums that may be
sensitive to dangers around them. They'll bark just to let other animals know that something may be
up. They'll yell for wine. What we think of as the traditional coyote sound is the how
or the yip and how. Usually that signifies either a greeting or a reunion of group members.
When for example when that female and her older pups have been out hunting and kind of
disbanded a little bit as they hunt, when they get together again they may just let out a house.
Bluett says the biggest threats to coyotes are wolves, domestic dogs, and humans.
The coyote is a crafty beast and has learned how to survive on wild food sources, suburban garbage,
and farmer's lambs. He is so adaptable he will probably outlive all of us.
On the other hand we're pretty adaptable too. I have friends who actually survive on fast food.
Thanks for listening. This is the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley.
You're listening to the Environment Show and I'm Peter Burley.
Still ahead. Forests in Cambodia have been disappearing at an incredible rate during the past
several years. It seems the trees as well as people are casualties of the continuing fighting
between different political factions. We talked green about nuclear waste. The government did not
build the waste storage facility which was supposed to be completed last month. The utilities are
bringing lawsuits but you still can't store nuclear waste in the courthouse.
Author Nancy Lorde takes us for a walk in the slick gray mud on tidal mud flats in Cook Inlet in Alaska.
Stay with us.
A London based environmental and human rights group says illegal logging in Cambodia is
destroying the country's forest areas. Global witness says Cambodia is losing critical forests
at a rapid rate as militia members and high ranking government officials profit from the illegal trade.
The Environment Show's Stephen Westcott reports. Global witness officials say they have seen
the logging firsthand and describe it as out of control. The groups has financially strapped
militia members working with former Khmer Rouge guerrillas are illegally cutting and selling
critical forest areas. Speaking from London, Global Witness Director Simon Taylor says Cambodia and
Timberlands are being harvested at an enormous rate. In the early 1970s Cambodia was estimated to
be around 74% covered in forests and that declined roughly a percentage point per year
up to around 91.92 at which point the various protagonists in the Civil War in Cambodia would cut
off from external support and so for them to continue fighting their war they had to rely on
raw material resources so in other words the export of timber to generate revenue to pay for their
war and that's exactly what they did so the exploitation massively increased in around 92.93
and so what we have is more forest having been lost between 92.93 and the present date than in all
the years from the early 70s up to that point. Taylor estimates that about half of Cambodia's forests
are gone. Global Witness says from May 1997 to December 1997 70% of the Boko National Park was
logged an area that was virtually untouched prior to that time. There are some 30 companies allowed
to legally harvest timber in Cambodia but its government militia members in middle to high ranking
officials who are profiting from the illegal cutting. Last year the democratically controlled
government in Cambodia survived a coup attempt. Taylor says the timber trade helps to line the
pockets of some government officials and poor village residents and is helping defend off
anti-government factions before the national elections scheduled for July. From the 1st of January
1996 to the end of April 1997 roughly $14 million went into the finance ministry from timber-related
industries. During the same period we know a minimum of $116 million disappeared. This is worth
of timber disappeared on top of the 14 into various pockets into military parallel budget to fight
the war with the Khmeruge etc etc and that's just a fraction we think of the total. That's what we
think we can prove based on documents we have and visual sightings etc and you should balance
that up against an entire national budget in 96 there's only some $550 million so a massive
proportion effectively of the entire national budget is just disappearing. Despite an export ban
implemented last year in Cambodia timber sales to Thailand allows and especially Vietnam are
continuing. Taylor says there is also a lot of wildlife being sold. He says Cambodia will suffer
environmental repercussions from the logging that go beyond the loss of trees.
Many species have been traded as a product of that. I've been offered some bears, clouded leopard.
I know there are tigers and elephants possibly other more rare species as well in there.
Most of which will disappear very very shortly indeed unless something's done to stop it and that's
what's going on in the national parks but I think it's also fundamental importance. The water
dynamics of the country and that is the effect if you like a siltation.
Taylor says runoff will reduce fish populations and the mineral content of key waterways in Cambodia.
But he says few of any attempts have been made to curb the logging. Taylor believes because of
financial gain government officials are purposely burying their heads in the sand and says the
Ministry of Finance appears to be a large part of the problem. Cambodia is a desperately poor country
and needs revenue for development and so on and I don't think it's really our business to tell
Cambodia it shouldn't have a timber industry. That's not what we're saying at all. We're saying
they need to control the industry and channel the money through the finance ministry such that
development can then benefit in a kind of way where transparency is a major factor of control
over what goes on. Global witness is calling on Cambodia's prime minister to stop the illegal trade
and develop sustainable forestry operations before all the country's natural resources are depleted.
For the Environment Show, I'm Stephen Westcott.
We're talking green and I'm Peter Burley. Today we're talking about a problem that could be around
for 250 million years and that is nuclear waste and the latest developments in America's
efforts to deal with it. Last week, groups of utilities started lawsuits seeking hundreds of
millions of dollars from the federal government because they say the government did not provide a
place to store their waste from power plants and this is an obligation which was set up in 1982
and the waste site was supposed to be ready to go on January 31 of this year. The catch 22 is
that to build a site you need authorization from Congress and so far the legislation to do that
has not secured enough political support to become law. To make things even more complicated,
the government has been collecting about $600 million a year from the utilities and that comes
to a total of $10 billion now to build a site and there is no site and the utilities are incurring
higher costs now to store the stuff because they can't ship it elsewhere. The Christian
Science Monitor says that 17 reactors ran out of pool space last year and that 27 may run out of
space this year. So if you have a solution, give us a call. Our number is 1-888-49-Green.
My guests today are Lake Barrett and he is acting director of civilian radioactive waste
management for the Department of Energy. That's the federal agency which is charged with building
the facility. Scott Peterson, he's senior director of an external communications for the Nuclear
Energy Institute which is an industry group and Alka Piersman, he is energy policy analyst with the
Critical Mass Energy Project which is part of the citizens group public citizen and which is
frequently quite critical of the nuclear industry. So having said all that, Lake Barrett, let's start
with you in a nutshell. What is the status of efforts to build the storage facility now?
The nation's work is controlled by laws that were passed in 1982 and amended in 1987 that
in power is the Department of Energy to establish a permanent geologic repository for the nation's
high level waste. By law, right now we are not allowed to select an interim storage site
until a final geologic repository site is selected. We are presently doing a scientific
evaluation of a site called Yucca Mountain which is about 125 miles northwest of Las Vegas
to determine if that site would be suitable for a permanent geologic disposal site.
Those scientific investigations have been accelerated or are presently underway but we do not have
enough information to conclude that it is suitable to be a geologic repository site. So therefore we
have no site at this time to be able to take the utilities waste to honor the obligation that we have
to provide statute. And being tied up in the courts is about that. That's then a question of
money but the fact is I understand that at the moment there is a lot of site. So Scott Peterson from
the Nuclear Energy Institute, if indeed there is no site which like I said is the case at the moment,
isn't it irresponsible for the industry to keep on producing waste? Shouldn't they
be shutting down so that they are generating more of this stuff that there is no place to dispose of?
Well first of all let me underscore that the Department of Energy has had this obligation for
16 years and have had that much time to find a site and begin accepting waste. When it comes
to the issue of producing the use fuel, nuclear energy today generates about 20% of our electricity
and at a time when the equipment administration is doing all it can to find clean sources of
electricity sources that don't contribute to climate change and sources of electricity that will
be able to meet new clean air restrictions that are coming about. You can't do without a single
kilowatt hour of electricity from nuclear power right now. Well that will probably be getting into
that later but there are places I know parts of the Northeast where we are awash with generating
capacity of more than we need but okay your sense is that you just got to keep going even though you
have no place to put this stuff because the country needs the power. Is that kind of a fair
assessment? There are plenty of them. They're going to put it at the plant sites right now and
when these plants were built they were designed for a limited amount of space and there is a safe
technology that a lot of plants have already been using to build additional space. The bottom line
is DOE could build the same sort of facility and a poll at its obligation begin taking fuel
all its contract with consumers that have paid them 14 billion dollars including interest.
They could build the very same site at one facility and begin moving this from plant
sites across the country to one place. Okay, Oc Piersmacht from the energy project at public
citizen. Does Scott bank any sense on this? Should we just take a site and put the stuff there
while the federal activities at your commandner someplace else continue? Well, you make some sense
but the problem here is that we have this waste, this waste lasts for 240,000 years and there is
no reasonable or infeasible means of disposing over that time period. If the industry and department
industry think they can stick it underground and hope it stays there they're crazy and we've seen
you know you look at all the low level waste radar to dumps across the country they all leak and
that's much much less serious waste. So what would you do today where you have a situation with
no federal facility and plants who say they're running out of space on site? Well, they're not running
out of space. They're running out of one type of space. They have plenty of opportunity to build
dry cast storage which is reasonably safe and gives all of us the time that we need to find the
real answer to this problem. Well, let me ask you something like about this. The department
industry is criticized because they say, as Scott just mentioned, you haven't gotten it done in
umpteen years but it seems to me we are all losing the political element here. One of the problems
with Yucca Mountain forgetting about whether it's geologically sound or not sound is you got two
democratic senators there who the president needs in his coalition to run and they say we don't
want it in Arizona and you've got a lot of Republican senators and nearby states who would I'm sorry
Nevada who would say we'd love to dump it in Nevada so we don't have it in our place and as a
result of that it sounds as though legislation to put it in Nevada will never get passed because
the president will veto it. So if there is no political will, doesn't it make sense just to keep
developing capacity at the plants and keep it where it's being generated forever?
Well, it's very complex subject here. First of all, no elected official would like to have nuclear
waste in his backyard. Exactly. So doesn't that make it impossible to put it at any place?
No, I don't believe it does. The president has said he is against in-home storage
in Nevada until the scientific studies about the repository have been completed.
The president has never said that he would be against the repository if it can be shown to be safe.
Well, we have not completed those studies. We're doing those studies. I believe the administration
would support continuing on if the scientific studies show that it would be safe to build a geologic
repository there. And when would those studies be done? If we look at it purely from a technical
standpoint and we understand that people will disagree about the conclusions, but when
does your part of that analysis and technical work get finished under today's schedule?
We're going to complete a major report this fall known as the viability assessment which will
be submitted to the president and through the Congress and if it's associated continuing the project
there would be a presidential decision that would designate the site as a repository site in 2001.
And there's an opportunity for the governor to disapprove the site and then a vote in the Congress
to override the governor's video which would take care of the state's rights issues.
So there are processes built into the law to allow the political process to work as well as
the technical scientific process. But you imply that it will get a favorable
finding and that the politics are such that you can get the override and all that to happen.
Scott Peterson from the Nuclear Energy Institute, if there's a negative in any part of that chain
which Lake has described, either the technical analysis or the politics of it, what does the
industry do next? Well, I think it's important just to take one step back and recognize that
it's not the industry's problem, that the federal government's problem. Certainly we have a huge
stake in it but it's the federal government's problem to safely store this waste long term.
We think that the legislation in Congress that's been already passed by the Senate and the House and
that will go before a conference sometime in the near future lays out a safe sensible plan that
takes into account all the scientific timetables that the DOE needs to fill at Yucca Mountain.
The bill does allow for central storage in one of the versions at the Nevada Test Site which is
not Yucca Mountain but is close by and it would not begin accepting fuel out of central storage
facility there until after all the scientific tests that Lake talked about are complete.
So we think that the legislation now in the Congress is not only a sensible approach that integrates
the storage facility along with the ultimate disposal facility which is where
scientists say that's the best place to put the fuel but it also includes decision-making
points for the states in terms of routes designated to transport training for the states on
transportation issues and in the event of accidents and gives them a lot of say so in environmental
points that are in the bill. So we think the legislation before Congress now is the best option
that's out there. Okay, I'll call let's get your views on two pieces of this argument. One is
the legislation that's out there a workable solution and two is this really just the Fed's problem?
In terms of legislation the New York State Department of the United States of America is probably
one of the worst pieces of environmental legislation ever written. It essentially
guts all of the standards for Yucca Mountain. It wipes out environmental laws. It's just a
disgusting piece of legislation that the entire environmental community opposes and I can
I'm sure everyone out there that the Senate will be able to sustain the expected presidential veto.
So please call your senators and agree and okay so where do we go from here?
So well the other question you might be able to answer was is it the industry problem or the
federal problem and I think one of the basic problems of the 1982 law is that it's wrong for the
federal government to step in and say look give us your waste we'll deal with it and you throw
us a little jump change in exchange. This industry created the waste. They're responsible for it
and it's their problem to deal with not the taxpayers. And what about the argument that the
industry has been paying a 600 million a year to the government to work on that solution and so
far nothing has happened? Well lots has happened. It's just a question of trying to build a
a huge repository underground is very difficult to do. It's the first of the time thing and everyone
expects to be a set of irrational deadlines and that in the department of energy showing time and
time again that it's been very difficult and lots of delays have happened.
Like Barrett from the Department of Energy do you foresee that your scientific studies and I
realize they're not done yet will clear the way for Yucca Mountain and that the political
process that you've set up can garner enough support to become law? I believe our scientific
studies will show when it's when it's completed them that Yucca Mountain would be a a a
satisfactory place depending upon what you consider an appropriate future risk is. If you accept
nuclear risk as we do many other common risk that we have to endure in modern societies I believe
it would go forward and that the political process will support it. The time in this of it is
harder to predict. And will the government be incurring huge costs as a result of not having
met the deadline which was set in the 82 legislation? Well the federal government has since the beginning
of nuclear energy back in the 1950s has always had the responsibility for the long term
disposition of the high level waste and it's not only a commercial nuclear power issue we have
a high level nuclear waste dating back to 1943 in this country and we're two from the main
project. Okay at that I'm afraid our time is up we have just scratched the surface of a problem that
you may be with us for a quarter of a million years it has to do with the disposal of nuclear waste
if you have an answer give us a call our number is 1-888-49-green. I've been talking with Lake
Barrett who was with the Department of Energy Scott Peterson who was with the Nuclear Energy
Institute which is an inishky group and Aukka Pierce Mom which who is part of the environmental
and public interest group of public citizen. Again we like your views we've been talking green and
my name is Peter Burley. On a future talking green we're going to be discussing
toxics in drinking water. If you want to participate give us your name a number either by telephone
or at our email address green at wamc.org that's green at wamc.org
you
we all have places that are special to us for some it's a city street for others it's deep in the
wilderness for author Nancy Lorde it's the mud flats in Cook and Lat Alaska where treasures
are bound in this portrait of place Lorde reads from her book titled Fish Camp life on an
Alaskan shore. Low tides here mean long stretches of exposed beach and a huge volume of water
that first pours out and then floods back every few years someone gets stuck in the goopy mud flats
near Anchorage and the tides weeps in before help arrives I don't mean someone's vehicle I mean
someone's person legs stuck in the mud water rising from lowest low to highest high the tides
of Cook and Lat move more than 30 vertical feet whenever I walk the beach at low water I like to
pick my way along the water's edge just to look at what's exposed for a place with a huge
intertile zone there's amazingly scant intertidal life we have no tide pools teaming with crabs
darting fish with a festoon sea slugs note as newtobranx no rock walls panelled with
colorful sea stars no beds of muscles or layers of barnacles no mats of algae and seaweed no swarms
of feeding goals no feckin low tide smells no sounds of things popping spurting digging or swishing
for long stretches there's only the slick gray mud in here in one low spot that's rapidly
filling with water the tips of army green plants that look something like asparagus and our as
rubbery as gumbee I pass a boulder in terilusa clump of rockweed to eat fukus blotter rack pop
weed patty tang old man's firecrackers it has many names but it's key to hanging on is a hold
fast of tiny tenacious roots that seem to work their way right into rock the plants blotter like
a like the filled fingers of gloves swollen with a juicy liquid that contains its eggs and sperm
these tips have a good green vegetable taste slightly salted here out from the base of that boulder
where waters now flooding in kenonai once found a pale sea anemone clutching a fish several
inches long the fish a small cod was held sideways belly too in the anemones tentacle of mouth
and enemies animals that look like flowering plants wave their underwater tentacles like petals
they capture their food by shooting stinging darts from these tentacles but I'd never imagined
that they could trap quarry as large as a cod I tugged gently on the fish and it came away easily
showing no sign of being eaten no digestive juice attack I pushed it back against the anemone
which seemed unresponsive and lethargic and left the two of them alone to eat and be eaten or not
another time on a minus five foot tide one of those rare occasions when the sea rolls back so far
that I can walk a long way offshore and still be onshore I discovered a large colony of anemones
adhered to the low sides of the farthest refrocks flushing and cylindrical when they're out of water
anemones look more than anything else I can think of like the saggy breasts of buxim old women
some of their ends were simply knobby while others were opened up extending clusters of
stamen like tentacles it was the colors though that wowed me some were only the flesh tones of
unwashed skin but others fairly pulsed with fluorescent shades of red pink green and yellow solid
and in combinations I'd wandered among them as in a flower garden leaning sometimes to touch them
to pat their rubbery sides they shrank from me slowly as though it took a while for the stimulus
to connect with whatever passes for their brains in a sea of gray mud I'd never expected to find
such extravagantly decked out creatures mostly though this beach of ours is spare sparse
some would say empty even boring for me the limits are part of the attraction we get to know a few
things well the tide goes in and out in a predictable pattern the rocks stay for the most part in
their places the kingfisher that lives up the creek rattles past the rules of the beach are few
and clear stay out of the water avoid going nose to nose with a bear don't burn down the cabin
a boat or a plane passes and we look to see who it is we note shifts in the wind for what they
tell us about weather and the movement of fish we know salmon because we don't also need to know
cod pollock herring mackerel tuna halibut crab shrimp pigs or cattle there's nothing to be filtered
out and we don't if we come upon a rubbery green shoot or an enemy or catch the occasional odd fish
a halibut or scalpen in our nets we stop to look it over we pay attention to what we think we know
and then to anything that's new or different that was author Nancy Lord reading from her book titled
Fish Camp life on an Alaskan shore it's published by island press
thanks for being with us on this week's environment show i'm Peter Burlitt if the experts we
talked to gave you any idea about how we're going to cope with nuclear waste let us know you can
order a copy of the tape at 1 8 8 8 49 green ask for show number 427 the environment show is a
national production which is solely responsible for its content Alan Shartock is executive producer
Stephen Westcut is producer and Steve Waitley is audio engineer the environment show is made
possible by the W. Alton Jones Foundation the Packard Foundation the Turner Foundation the
J.M. Kaplan Fund the Oliver S. and Jenny R. Charitable Trust the William Bingham Foundation
and Hemings Motor news the monthly Bible of the collector car hobby 1 800 C.A.R. H.E.R.E
be good to the earth and join us next week for the environment show
you
