Green Options

PacRim Coal’s plan to strip mine coal right through 11 miles of salmon-bearing streams in Alaska would destroy critical wetlands and headwater streams beyond the point of restoration, according to three new studies by scientists.

The salmon fisheries along the Chuit River would be severely damaged, so much so that the researchers say that restoration would be “virtually impossible”.

In a memorandum issued last Thursday, Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stated that “water in the United States is not meeting public health and environmental goals. Too many of our streams, lakes and rivers do not meet our water quality standards.”

The Nature Conservancy announced this week that they have purchased ranchland in Shasta, California and hope to return Big Springs Creek to its former glory as a major salmon run.

The organization noticed the creek’s consistent, glacier-fed flowing water supply should make it the perfect spawning area for the embattled Pacific salmon, but it wasn’t being properly cared for. Years later, they’ve purchased 4,136 acres of surrounding land and plan to fence off the creek to protect it.

Gooey melted cheese on pizza, a glass of cold milk with freshly baked cookies, ice cream on a hot summer day… who hasn’t at one time or another enjoyed something made from milk?

Dairy products are part of most American diets on a daily basis, but what is the health and environmental impact of this high demand for milk?

The production of much of the milk in this country is done in large scale-operations, some having thousands of cows.

That’s a lot of manure to be dealt with, this reduces the air quality (especially for people living near the dairy operation), and consistently finds its way into our rivers, streams, and groundwater.

Climate change, developers, and logging are blamed

Since the winter of 2006, when a state of emergency was declared for 18 counties in the state, Western Washington has experienced increasingly dramatic annual flooding episodes creating a state of emergency in growing numbers of counties each year.

For the past three years here, the number of roads, farms, buildings, and houses damaged or destroyed increased—helped along by the landslides that usually follow in the wake of such flooding. Although with this year the number of landslides has been somewhat constrained, the total area of flooding has increased from the previous two years (several sections of Interstate 5 remained shut down as of Saturday night, Jan. 10), and tens of thousands of people have had to be evacuated over the past 10 days. The governor declared a state of emergency in late December, which has only abated in the past couple of days.

It would seem that a “trifecta” of reinforcing factors is to blame: climate change (an extra heavy dose of snow, followed by several days of heavy rains), upland forest clear-cutting (leaving less vegetation to soak up water and hold the soil in place), and over-development in flood plane areas (leaving too many people’s houses too low in the face of rising rivers) …all of which set the stage for the current state of emergency. The damage is still being tallied, and although the heavy rains have largely abated, repairs to roads and highways will take months if not a full year (and with state budgets so tight) or more.

Trout Are Made of Trees, written by April Pulley Sayre and illustrated by Kate Endle, is the story of how a river’s ecosystem works together for the benefit of the trout. From leaves falling from the trees to trout hatchlings growing up in a stream, this book emphasizes the natural cycle of a trout.

In fall, trees let go of leaves,

which swirl and twirl

and slip into streams.

They ride in a rush

above rocks

and over rapids.

They snag and settle soggily down.

Bacteria feed on the leaves.