Environmental groups take legal action to halt Zeb Mountain destruction

By Shawn Gaynor

Asheville, North Carolina, Sept. 17(AGR)— Four regional environmental groups — the Sierra Club, Save Our Cumberland Mountains (SOCM), Appalachian Voices, and Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project (SABP) — have joined forces to launch a legal challenge on the Zeb Mountain mine, demanding an immediate injunction on operations.

“The damage to endangered and threatened species now occurring on Zeb Mountain is unconscionable,” said the groups.

The groups have combined forces to file the injunction against further activities at the site, until a full Endangered Species Act lawsuit can be heard.

The injunction claims that the Zeb Mountain mine, operated by the Robert Clear Coal Company, will negatively impact 11 federally endangered and threatened species. Of these, three are terrestrial species: the Gray bat, the Indian bat, and the Red Cockaded woodpecker. The Indiana bat, which not long ago was at the center of controversy over logging in the Franklin, North Carolina area, is believed to feed in the Zeb Mountain Area.

In addition, the groups claim, eight aquatic endangered and threatened species will be gravely impacted by sedimentation in local streams and rivers caused by the removal of Zeb Mountain.

Among these are the rare Cumberland Elktoe, and Cumberland Combshell fresh water mussels. The mussels have persisted in the area due to the clean water there, which until now has provided a haven for these rare animals.

The injunction claims that the Fish and Wildlife Service did not undertake a biological assessment of the project as is legally required.

The Endangered Species Act also forbids any agency from taking any action that would make an irreversible or irretrievable commitment of resources in regards to species preservation.

The groups claim that the Office of Surface Mining violated this rule in permitting the removal of Zeb Mountain.

The mountaintop removal practice is exactly what it sounds like: coal companies mine thin layers of coal by blasting off the tops of mountains. Compounding the problem, underground aquifers, an important source of fresh drinking water in many areas, are often destroyed by the process.

The Zeb Mountain mine is a “cross ridge mine,” which is a variation of mountaintop removal in which the resulting mine tailings are re-contoured to resemble the original shape of the mountain rather then be pushed into the valley as fill.

“What we are looking at here is a delayed valley fill,” said Charles Blankenship, a SOCM member who lives less then 1/4 mile away from Zeb Mountain. “They are going to pile 33 million cubic yards of mine spoil up where there used to be a mountain. It is only a matter of time before that mine spoil slides down into the valley, and the problem is we live in the valley.”

Another concern is how the project will change the local aquifer and affect the drinking water of the valley’s residents. By shattering and moving the sedimentation layers of the mountain, and then attempting to reassemble the broken pieces, the natural water table will be irrevocably altered.

“Mountaintop removal mining is strip mining on steroids. By arbitrarily approving mountaintop removal mining for Zeb Mountain the Bush administration is leaving our communities at risk from toxic mining chemicals in our drinking water,” said Bill Price, environmental justice organizer for the Sierra Club.

Though the controversial mountaintop removal mining process has become widespread in West Virginia, where over a million acres of permits have been granted, the Zeb Mountain project is the first mountaintop removal in Tennessee.

Some areas of West Virginia have had drinking water supplies destroyed by the mountaintop removal process.

The issue of environmental destruction at Zeb Mountain came to a boil after three activists were arrested for trespass after blockading access to the project.

It is estimated that the Robert Clear Coal Corporation lost over $25,000 due to the blockade.

Experts warn of radioactive battlefields in Iraq

By Katherine Stapp

New York City, New York, Sept. 12 (IPS)— Concerns are growing about the presence of depleted uranium and other toxins in Iraq following a rash of illnesses among US troops and the discovery by a reporter that radiation levels in parts of Baghdad are extremely elevated.

So far, according to figures obtained by the Washington Post, more than 6,000 soldiers have been pulled out of Iraq for medical reasons since the start of the war. About 1,400 of them were injured in combat or non-combat incidents, such as vehicle accidents, meaning the majority were evacuated for various physical or psychological illnesses.

No further breakdown has been released. In July, the US Army announced that two soldiers had died of severe pneumonia and more than 100 were hospitalized for the illness. The deaths are still being investigated.

While experts discount a single cause for these illnesses, some remain concerned that neither the troops stationed in Iraq nor the civilian population is being adequately protected from toxic residues left over from the war.

These fears were heightened when a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor took a Geiger counter to parts of Baghdad that had been subjected to heavy shelling by US troops. He found radiation levels 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal in residential areas where children were playing nearby.

One explanation is the presence of depleted uranium (DU), the trace element left over when uranium is enriched and the most radioactive types have been removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. DU munitions vaporize on contact, dispersing particles over wide areas, where they settle as dust that can be inhaled or ingested.

The Pentagon has portrayed DU munitions as indispensable in giving US soldiers an edge on the battlefield. The high density of DU shells allows them to punch through walls and armored vehicles.

But some see a more cynical reason for their popularity: the United States is the largest generator of DU in the world, with a stockpile of 700,000 tons and growing. Since the supply is controlled by the Department of Energy, it is readily available and free of charge. Transforming DU into weaponry has the added advantage of easing the DOE’s burden to safely store the spent nuclear fuel.

DU munitions made their debut in the 1991 Gulf War, and were later deployed in Bosnia and Kosovo. It is almost certain that DU was used in Afghanistan in 2001, but information on the exact amount remains unavailable.

Precise data is similarly hard to come by for the most recent US-led invasion of Iraq, but based on preliminary reports, experts estimate that at least 200 tons of DU were released during combat.

While some studies on the effects of DU have been inconclusive, others determined that it raises the risk of childhood cancers, birth defects and other long-term health damage.

“The Pentagon’s own published studies have shown adverse health effects,” said Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute (NPRI), which published an analysis of the available scientific research on DU in July.

“That’s what so bizarre about their stance on this.”

NPRI and other groups are now calling on Washington to immediately halt the use of DU, initiate a plan for cleaning up contaminated areas, and to support further studies.

“The research that’s been done — the little and flawed research that’s been done — has focused on adults,” Sheehan-Miles added in an interview. “No one today has ever done any study on children that are exposed to it. We know from other research that children are much more sensitive to toxicity.”

His concerns appear to be well founded. Two Iraqi doctors visiting Japan recently reported a ten-fold increase in the number of cancer cases diagnosed in and around the southern region of Basra since 1988.

Dr. Janan Ghalib Hassan, a neo-natalogist at the Women and Children’s Hospital in Basra, said that in 2001, 611 babies were born with no limbs, no eyes or other birth defects, compared with 37 such cases in 1990. The area where the children were born was subjected to heavy shelling with DU munitions in the first Gulf War.

A recent analysis of already available data by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) concluded the latest invasion has “undoubtedly” worsened the serious environmental problems that have accumulated in Iraq over the past two decades, dating back to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.

“Given the overall environmental concerns during the conflict, and the fact that the environment of Iraq was already a cause for serious concern prior to the current war, UNEP believes early field studies should be carried out,” said UNEP administrator Klaus Toepfer in a statement.

Tree sitters remain as Wachusett ski area begins clearing forest

By Michael J. Kellet

Sept. 15— Conflicts between forest defenders, Wachusett ski area officials, and the police have intensified after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of the ski area expansion on Wachusett Mountain on Mon., Sept. 8. Earth First! activists have been living in the trees in the public forest since Aug. 1 to stop the cutting of this rare and public forest. Earth First! vows to non-violently resist the clear-cutting and remain in the trees. This is the first tree sit to ever take place in the Northeast.

The ski area has begun attempts to evict the sitters, cutting off their ground support, which has provided food and water, and people have been denied access to public roads. Heavy equipment has moved into the forest, shoveling boulders against trees that sitters are connected to, and the clearing of under story has begun. This weekend, a 75 ft. tree was temporarily suspended by cables by workers to prevent it from falling onto one of the sitter’s trees. Tree sitters have died on the west coast in similar forest defense actions when loggers tamper with the trees or the platforms.

Wachusett is a state-owned reservation. Wachusett Mountain Associates (WMA) leases 450 acres from the state of Massachusetts. In 1993, WMA proposed an expansion that would have involved the cutting of 64 acres of a not yet discovered old growth forest. After its discovery, Trudy Cox, formerly of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs barred the cutting of old growth trees. The Environmental Impact Report (EIR) used in the permitting process was issued by a non-independent party hired by WMA which was completed in 10 minutes, whereas the EIR done by Mass Audubon took 12 hours and concluded that indeed, this was a rare parcel, not represented anywhere else on the mountain. Though scaled back, the current proposal put forth by WMA will destroy 12.5 acres of public land for private profit. The area slated to be cut is not only rare, but also an important buffer zone protecting the state’s largest and only known stand of ancient trees from erosion and the harsh winter winds that hammer the northeast slope of the mountain. The environmentalists are worried that the recent SJC ruling has set a dangerous precedent throughout the state turning state parks into land banks for private developers.

“We are protesting more than the cutting of trees; we are protesting the privatization of public land,” said Dandi, a tree-sitter who has lived in a red oak for more than a month now.

Source: Earth First!

Endangered Species of the Southern US:
Plant demonstrates the importance of natural wildfires

A weekly column by Shawn Gaynor

COOLEY’S MEADOWRUE
Thalictrum cooleyi
STATUS: Endangered 1989
Range: Coastal bogs and savannas of eastern North Carolina, and one population in Florida

DESCRIPTION: Cooley’s meadowrue is a perennial herb which grows from an underground rhizome. Its stems are usually one meter in height, but sometimes grow as high as two meters on recently burned sites. Under ideal conditions, in full sun, these stems are erect; in shade they are lax and may trail along the ground or lean on other plants. The species’ green leaflets are lance-shaped, and less than two centimeters long. Both basal and stem leaves are present on the plant, and the leaves are usually in groups of threes. Each plant is unisexual, and the male to female ratio is 3 to 1 (Leonard 1987). The flowers have no petals. The sepals on the male plants are pale yellow to white; there are numerous stamens, and the filaments are pale lavender. Female plants have green sepals, and their short-stalked, ribbed carpels develop into narrowly ellipsoidal achemes. Cooley’s meadowrue flowers in mid- to late June; its fruits mature in August or September, and remain on the plant into October. (Rayner 1980). If the plants grow in partial shade instead of full sun, their flowering may be delayed by as much as two weeks (Leonard 1987).

The idea that suppression of wildfires leads to “healthy forests” is one of the greatest management mistakes made in the highly managed natural world of the continental United States.

It is impossible to say with certainty how many species the policy of fire suppression has driven into extinction, but judging from the cases of plants endangered by continual fire suppression the number must be high.

Among those plants on the brink of extinction due to fire suppression is Cooley’s meadowrue. It is unclear how widespread Cooley’s meadowrue historically was, but it is clear that the coastal moist bog and savanna area where it is found has become endangered also.

Depending on fire to keep these areas clear and open-canopied, Cooley’s meadowrue now exists in only 11 sites. The way in which the plant has been treated since the desperate situation of its survival was officially recognized is a testimony to the lack of sound ecological policy and protection. While the Endangered Species Act prohibits disruption of endangered species, and permits the acquisition of land to protect endangered species, there has never been the political commitment or funding to actually protect those species (and their habitat) by setting aside the last places they exist.

Of the 11 populations of Cooley’s meadowrue known to be in existence none are owned by the government for protection of the plant. One population, in Florida, was severely damaged by commercial logging in 1989, leaving only nine plants alive after the operation. Current information on the survival of that site was unavailable.

The other ten sites all occur in North Carolina. Two of these are believed to have been lost in the early 1990s; one from commercial timber cutting, and the other, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, “accidentally covered with fill material during road maintenance operations.”

This means that in the period of a decade over a 1/4 of the populations were lost to mismanagement. Could more not have been done to protect these sites?

Further complicating the survival of Cooley’s meadowrue is that small population levels have lead to an imbalance of male and female plants.

At one site no male plants have been found in several years. For almost all remaining sites, a ratio of three male plants to one female has slowed recovery (if the current state of affairs can really be called a recovery).

The Nature Conservancy has joined the effort to save Cooley’s meadowrue by purchasing two of the remaining sites. The first site, Myrtle Head Savanna Preserve, holds the largest population of Cooley’s meadowrue that remains.

It was bought from the Georgia-Pacific timber company, and is now being managed with prescribed burns of fire.

Prescribed burns have become necessary, because the frequency of human-caused accidental fires and the lack of continuous habitat for lightning-started wildfires has disrupted the fire cycle of the area, even in sections in which fire suppression is not part of management. The goal of prescribed burns is to imitate what was the natural cycle of fires in a given area.

A second population site of Cooley’s meadowrue bought by the Nature Conservancy is the Neck Savanna Preserve. This 142-acre preserve was bought from a land owner who had been burning the land to cultivate Venus fly traps for commercial sale. The burnings were most likely what allowed this population to remain viable, while others in the area have disappeared.

While the Nature Conservancy should be commended for its efforts, one has to wonder why more effective government protection is not forthcoming for endangered species.