July Roundtable
Waterways Cleanup
Addressing stormwater runoff is the next step in cleaning up our waterways. The July 13 CEC Roundtable will be devoted to a discussion of what the city, county, and nonprofit community are doing about stormwater runoff. Participants include Harris County Flood Control District, Galveston Bay Estuary Program, and Galveston Bay Foundation. Everyone welcome, 6:30 pm, HEC first floor; please reply so that we may plan refreshments: 713-524-4232.

Coalition Notes

Greens Headed for November 2000 Ballot
On May 31, the year-old Green Party of Texas turned in more than 74,000 signatures to the Secretary of State in support of a petition to grant ballot access to the Greens in November. This is approximately twice the number of signatures currently needed to put a third party on the ballot. Although formal notice of the Party’s ballot status will not be given to Texas counties until October, verification of signatures by the state is expected to be complete in July.

EcoNotes

Surface Subway
Visionary civic leaders in Curitiba, Brazil, a city of 1.6 million, have proved that a mass transport system based entirely on buses doesn’t have to be slow, polluting, or an eyesore. The Curitiba busway system carries the same number of passengers and at similar speeds as a subway, but was up to 500 times less expensive to build (using Brazilian labor costs) and the complete network was put in operation in a matter of months.

A busway system – sometimes called a surface subway – is an integrated network where the main bus lines are separated from the rest of traffic into designated lanes. The main busway lines are used by articulated buses that can hold up to 270 people. These main lines are fed by a dense network of feeder buses – conventional buses that access the outer urban environs. Buses receive traffic signal preference, thus by-passing stoplights, or can cross over intersections on overpasses.

As with a subway, passengers board the bus from an elevated, enclosed platform, where they wait after pre-paying. When the bus pulls up, multiple doors open level with the platform. Both the boarding process and the road performance of the busway system is similar in time efficiency to a subway.

Seventy-five percent of Curitiba commuters ride the busway system, despite the fact that Curitiba has one of the highest per capita rates of car ownership in Brazil. Fuel consumption in Curitiba is 30 percent less than in eight comparable Brazilian cities.

The Curitiba system – unlike most urban public transit systems – does not require a state subsidy. It is being run at a profit by a private enterprise.

The Curitiba system is powered by diesel, but busways could also be fueled by cleaner power sources - such as hydrogen fuel cells, which emit nothing but water and heat - and thus could be a zero emission transit system. (www.lightrailnow.org/facts/fa_00013.htm)

Reversing Poverty Key to Eco-Protection
At the first ever Global Ministerial Environment Forum, hosted by the UN and held in Malmo, Sweden, May 31, more than 100 environment ministers adopted an action-oriented declaration that focuses on redressing the extreme world imbalance of poverty and excessive consumption.

The Malmo Declaration is intended to set the environmental agenda for the 21st century. It will be important in shaping the “Rio+10” summit in 2002, at which governments will review progress towards sustainable development since the 1992 UN Earth Summit.

In a video message to the Forum’s opening session, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stressed that a major public education effort is needed because understanding of environmental challenges is “alarmingly low.” Corporations and individuals must realize that their choices have consequences, he said.

Annan called for “a new ethic of conservation and stewardship” and an end to “business as usual.” He underscored the importance of enforcing existing agreements and integrating environmental issues into mainstream economic policy.

The ministers noted “an alarming discrepancy between commitments and action.” In particular, they said, governments should “urgently pursue” ratification of key international conventions and protocols on climate, chemicals, biosafety and desertification. (ESN 6/00)

Otter Comeback
Sea otters in Alaska’s Prince William Sound have experienced long-term negative effects from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In some areas polluted by the spill, otter densities are now about half what they were before the accident.

Much of the apparent recovery of otter populations in contaminated areas can be attributed to the arrival of otters from unaffected parts of the sound. Still, the researchers are cautiously optimistic that the negative effects of the spill will continue to dissipate over time and that the affected ecosystems can rebound to their pre-spill conditions. (www.gristmagazine.com 5/23/00)

Green Spies?
Russian president Vladimir Putin has abolished that nation’s environmental protection agency, the State Committee on the Environment, ostensibly to help save money and cut bureaucracy. The agency’s functions will be turned over to the Ministry on Natural Resources, which oversees oil and gas development, logging, and mining.

Putin has made it clear that he is no friend to the environmental movement. He has said in the past that foreign spies pose as environmentalists. (www.gristmagazine.com 5/23/00)

Texas Closer to Creating a Kemp’s Ridley Turtle Reserve
On May 31, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Regulation Committee voted to move forward with a public comment period and public hearings for proposed shrimping regulations. Public hearings will be held and comments taken through July. The regulations include a permanent year-round shrimp closure on the South Texas coast, which is a critical nesting and migrating habitat for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles. For more information, contact the Sea Turtle Restoration Project at seaturtles@igc.org.

New EPA Dioxin Report
A report released June 12 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concludes that a minimum of 4,000 people in the United States will develop cancer from exposure to dioxin - at least ten times the number previously predicted. Dioxin is also implicated in birth defects, diabetes, learning disabilities, and immune system damage in children, and in endometriosis and infertility in women. The primary human exposure to dioxin is through food.

Dioxin, one of the most toxic substances ever studied, enters the food supply when airborne emissions fall onto pastures or grazing land and are ingested by animals. Dioxin can also flow into water from pulp mills and accumulate in fish. Since dioxin builds up in fat, people get most of their dioxin exposure from eating foods that contain animal fat.

The term dioxin refers to a family of chemical substances that are not produced intentionally but are the byproduct of industrial processes that use chlorine, including the bleaching of paper, the manufacture of petroleum, and the production of chlorine-containing pesticides and plastics like polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Dioxins are also produced when household trash, medical waste, or hazardous materials are incinerated.

The EPA dioxin report can be viewed at www.epa.gov/ncea/dioxin.htm. More information on work to eliminate dioxin from the food supply is available at www.iatp.org/edrc (ESN 6/12/00)

People’s Dioxin Action Summit, August 10-13, 2000, University of California – Berkeley Campus
Regisration $75; dormitory rooms $29/person/night (double occupancy). Scholarships are available to cover all or part of the cost of attending, including travel supplements. For more information, contact GreenAction at 415-252-0822 www.greenaction.org) or the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, 703-237-2249 (www.chej.org)