CWC – ENVIRONMENT AND CONSERVATION REPORT- Mary Anne McLean Welcome to January, when we join the two faced Roman deity, Janus, in looking back and looking forward. In an environmental context this leads us to search the record for benefits that have accrued to the earth in the year just past, and to look forward with hope to the year just beginning to unfold. How well our hopes will be fulfilled lies in part on the resolutions that each of us makes to contribute to healing the earth through our actions and through advocacy. Looking back, one area in which we can take satisfaction is the progress of Gulf Coast recovery efforts. These include a landmark agreement between the Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Louisiana that sets the stage for large-scale restoration of the Mississippi delta. In the past, the levee building and channeling of the river have caused the destruction of thousands of acres of wetlands, which, among other ill effects, left the area more vulnerable to the force of Hurricane Katrina. The new agreement opens the door to allowing the river to once again build and sustain wetlands, while better meeting navigation and flood control needs. This ties in with a comprehensive effort, launched last month, that is intended to go beyond repairing immediate damages to the task of restoring the entire Gulf Coast ecosystem to good health. As described in a December 10 editorial in the New York Times, “the plan includes the essential task of rebuilding the marshes and barrier islands that act as fish nurseries and defenses against storms. It also calls for a serious effort to reduce the flow of excess nutrients that have created an oxygen-starved “dead zone” in the gulf, where fish cannot survive. The presidential task force behind the plan announced $50 million in assistance from the Agriculture Department to help farmers control polluted runoff.” To provide funding for the massive enterprise that will be required, the RESTORE Act, a bi-partisan bill now pending in Congress would allocate 80% of the civil penalties to be paid by BP, probably between $5 billion and $20 billion, depending on the degree of negligence, directly to the states suffering from the impact of Katrina, whereas under normal circumstances, most of this money would disappear into the federal treasury. Good news of a different sort comes from the organization, Defenders of Wildlife, who report that there is now hope for at least some of the bison who wander away from the protection of Yellowstone Park in search of forage, where they fall prey to a government-led slaughter based on the fear (not well founded) that they will spread Brucellosis to cattle. Thanks to a decision by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission, 68 bison now held in quarantine, will be moved to tribal lands, where the residents of the Fort Peck and Fort Belknap reservations have offered to welcome them. Looking forward: including the environment in our New Year’s resolutions should lead us to more diligent recycling and purchasing of recycled products, to eating less meat, to replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, available at a discount from the Will County Forest Preserve District at the Sugar Creek headquarters on Laraway Road, (see price list on their website www.fpdwc.org ), to creating wildlife habitat in our yards by adding native plants, (an extensive variety of plants and shrubs is offered through the Thorn Creek Audubon Society sale currently in progress; order form on website, www.thorncreekaudubonsociety.org or from Kathy Bader – (orders due by February 20, pickup on June 2), to paying attention to environmental threats in the news, e.g. mountaintop mining in Appalachia and sand mining proposed, right on our doorstep at Starved Rock State Park, and engaging in advocacy, as we “put into action our better impulses - straightforward and unafraid”! |
