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CEC ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS UPDATE 5/2/03 Coalition Notes Asthma Walk this weekend Join the Mothers for Clean Air team to help raise money to fight asthma and clean the air during the 2003 Blow the Whistle on Asthma Walk, Saturday, May 3 at Tom Bass Regional Park in Houston. Money raised will fund lung research and local asthma education programs that include environmental health. The walk is a three-mile loop that even kids can complete. After the walk, there will be a complimentary lunch for all walkers, live music, kids' fun zone, and an asthma education fair including free asthma screening. There is no registration fee, but if you raise $100 you will get a free T-shirt. If you can't walk, you can donate to the Mothers for Clean Air team. Any support you give will help a child with asthma breathe easier. You can register and/or donate online or by mail. Visit the Asthma Walk site, click on Houston and follow the links to the Mothers for Clean Air team page. Yard sale to raise funds for Sierra Club The Houston Sierra Club will hold its annual Mother of All Yard Sales on Saturday, May 10, in front of Corazon-Global Fair Trade, 2318 Waugh (at the corner with Fairview) in Montrose. The sale will run from 8am-4pm. Sierra Club will accept items, including clothing and furniture. To donate items, drop them off at Corazon during the week prior to the sale. If you have appliances, electronics, etc., that are saleable but need some sort of repair, please note the problem on an index card and tape that to the item. This is one of the Club's annual fundraising efforts. All proceeds go to support the Houston group and its local conservation and educational programs. For more information, contact Frank Blake at 713-528-2896, frankblake@juno.com or Lorraine Gibson 713-436-1833, raineygib@aol.com. Discovery Center hosts Bokashi lecture As part of its ongoing monthly lecture series, the Nature Discovery Center presents "Bokashi", a lecture and demonstration of a non-chemical based garden fertilizer technique. First developed in Japan, as an alternative to chemical fertilizers in agriculture, Bokashi makes use of effective microorganisms (EM) to create a natural, non-polluting fertilizer. Help mix up a batch, and if you want, take home your own pot for only $5. The lecture is Wednesday May 7 at 7 p.m. For more information, call 713-667-6550 or visit the Center's website. Houston Arboretum celebrates International Migratory Bird Day The Houston Arboretum & Nature Center will celebrate International Migratory Bird Day on Saturday, May 10th with free activities including "Migration Hopscotch," crafts, children's art contest and a puppet show. They will also feature a birder's equipment drive to collect and new birding equipment such as binoculars, spotting scopes, tripods, field guides to Neotropical birds, backpacks, laptop computers, modern 35mm cameras, lenses and accessories for Birder's Exchange- a bird conservation program of the American Birding Association. This ongoing program collects and redistributes equipment, free of charge, to researchers, conservationists, and educators working to conserve birds and their habitats in the Neotropics. For more information call the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center (713-681-8433) or visit the Arboretum's website. Local Houston activists fight Bush forest policy by Erika McDonald A bill passed by the U.S. House Resources Committee Wednesday would make the Bush Administration's controversial Healthy Forest Initiative law. The plan calls for logging on protected land, starting with the Sam Houston National forest. From rallies in Houston to lobby efforts in San Antonio, Texas conservationists are fighting to keep public lands in public hands. Opponents call it the Unhealthy Forest Initiative, a Bush administration proposal to thin and burn acres of publicly owned and protected national forests. Officials say the plan is designed to protect communities from wildfires. At an Earth Day rally in downtown Houston, protesters like Live Oak AllianceÕs Cameron Naficy called the policy a lumber industry handout. ÒWhat they call thinning is really logging,Ó he said. ÒThe policy puts no cap on the size and age of trees being cut down.Ó Initiative opponents argue more fires would be prevented if the forest service concentrated efforts in areas where development borders protected lands. Instead the agency plans to log the interior of forests where critics say trees are less likely to burn because of their age. Sam Houston National Forest, an hour north of the city, is one of ten pilot projects across the country to institute the new policy. Texas Forest Service director Jim Hull said he thought the local preserve an ideal location to test the Bush policy. "I don't think there's all that big an issue here," he said. "But you get people looking to make a big deal out of something, they'll figure out a way to do it." According to Houston Sierra Club's forestry chair, Brandt Mannchen the project, which could begin this fall, means bad news for wildlife, recreation and fire prevention in Sam Houston Forest. "With what they're proposing, you're basically going to have a big thicket that you can't hike through, you cant enjoy in any way," he said. "It's not good for the wildlife, its not good for the native vegetation." All of this comes with more logging and less public participation. The Bush initiative "expedites" forest management, Hull said. "Before you had constant appeals," he said. "This (bill) really does cut through the bureaucratic red tape." What Hull calls red tape, opponents of the bill call vital public participation. The Bush policy guts the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to require public comment or analysis of alternative projects. "This is just another example of the Bush double speak we hear all the time," Naficy said. "Just like what we saw with the Patriot Act, and the clean air rollbacks and all of these policies that are being forced on us." The administration's policy was crafted by Mark Rey, a former lumber industry lobbyist now Bush's under secretary of natural resources. Opponents argued Rey's background, including 18 years with American Forest and Paper presents a conflict of interest. "My past has nothing to do with the decisions being made here and now," Rey said. Rey also served a stint from 1989 to 1992 as the executive director of the American Forest Resource Alliance, a trade association that lobbied for logger-friendly national forest policies. Action in the US House of Representatives this week set into motion a process that would turn administration policy into federal law. The Healthy Forests Restoration Act by Colorado Republican Scott McInnis surfaced in the House Resources Committee Wednesday. While Bush policy opponents fear the measure will pass a Republican controlled House, state agency officials say they look forward to implementing national policy in Texas. "Some people are looking for Congress to legislate things they have no control over," Hull said. "All Congress is trying to do here is get forest management back into the hands of professionals where it belongs." Public lands campaign organizer Jeanette Russell said a broad-based coalition of homeowners and conservationists in San Antonio want lawmakers to resist administration efforts to hand public resources over to commercial loggers. The bill could reach the House floor as early as mid-May. Texas environmental regulations committee chair calls EPA stupidby Erika McDonald State Representative Dennis Bonnen of Angleton made national waves this week when he sponsored a resolution calling on state agencies to adopt controversial Bush administration clean air policies. Bush administration changes would effect the EPA's new source review program by allowing plants to make factory design changes without applying for permits. Bonnen wants the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to fall in step with the policy environmentalists say weakens the Clean Air Act. Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention's John Wilson said, "The new source review program is the fundamental engine of clean air law in this country. There's many other pieces of air law on top of it. If it is removed, it sets in place the momentum to remove every other safeguard that's in place." Though Representative Bonnen supports the federal government when it comes to weakening clean air law, he showed this week he's willing to fight the feds should they attempt to crack down on polluters. The spat between Bonnen and the Environmental Protection Agency arose after EPA released a letter blasting a Texas Senate bill that restricts the state's use of citizen-collected evidence to punish polluters. "I think this letter is just a glowing example of the overbearing EPA trying to dictate environmental policy in the state of Texas," said Bonnen who chairs the House Environmental Regulation Committee. "This letter in a way is very stupid, although they're arrogant and they don't care." Arrogant or not, the EPA warned passing Senate Bill 1361 would require amendments to the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan, sponsored by Bonnen. If EPA does not approve the TERP, the state faces serious federal sanctions including loss of millions in federal highway dollars. Caught in the middle is the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state agency tasked with regulating industry emissions. Commission spokesperson Adria Dawidzcik said officials were working closely with EPA and state law makers to "understand the issue." Meanwhile, Bonnen's behavior earned him the Clean Air Trust's villain-of-the-month award. The national environmental-watch group normally reserves the distinction for D.C. lawmakers and industry lobbyists. ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION CEC Environmental News Update is a weekly publication by the Citizens' Environmental Coalition, a 501(c)3 dedicated to fostering dialogue, education and collaboration about environmental issues in the Houston-Gulf Coast Region. Visit the CEC online at www.cechouston.org. To subscribe or unsubscribe, or to suggest items for inclusion, send your request via e-mail to Sarah Doss at sarah@cechouston.org. |
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