No. 184, July 25-31, 2002

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Navy gets approval for whale 'harassment'


Gray whales use their hearing to follow migratory routes, locate one another, find food and care for their young.
Photo courtesy NOAA.

Washington, DC, July 17 (ENS)-- The US Navy has been given permission to "harass marine mammals" in the course of operating low frequency sonar used to detect submarines while remaining outside the range of their onboard weapons. The Navy has been approved to deploy two ships that use the sonar system in spite of continuing controversy over whether the loud signals it emits injure whales, dolphins, seals and turtles.

For full story please go to http://www.ens-news.com

Secret US biopharms growing experimental drugs

Washington, DC, July 16, (ENS)— Experimental plants engineered to produce pharmaceuticals are being grown at over 300 secret locations nationwide, a new report has revealed. Biotechnology firms are conducting experiments with corn, soy, rice and tobacco that are genetically manipulated to produce drugs designed to act as vaccines or contraceptives, induce abortions, generate growth hormones, create blood clots, produce industrial enzymes, and propagate allergenic enzymes.

For full story please go to http://www.ens-news.com

Hunger strikes target Dow, Union Carbide

Seadrift, Texas, July 19, (ENS)— Diane Wilson is sitting in the back of her pickup truck outside a chemical plant, wearing a cowboy hat and refusing to eat to draw attention to pollution in San Antonio Bay.

Full full story please go to http://www.ens-news.com

ENVIRO BRIEFS

State officials, Bush admin.
lock horns on renewable energy

In a letter that attacks what it says is the Bush administration’s failure to address the looming crisis of global warming, the attorneys general of 11 states have written to the president pressing for strong federal measures to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

The state officials argue in the letter, sent on July 17 to Bush, that his administration’s “regulatory void” has left it to the states to piece together a patchwork of inconsistent regulations on the environment and that a strong federal policy would be far more effective.

At the same time, the Bush administration and several utilities are opposing a provision of the Senate energy bill that would require utilities to increase the amount of renewable energy they produce.

The Senate energy bill includes a renewable electricity standard that requires major electric companies to increase sales of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources from two percent today to about 10 percent in 2020. This would result in 74,000 megawatts of renewable energy – enough to power about 53 million homes, and a quadrupling of the amount of clean, renewable energy produced today. (ENS)

GM genes found in human intestine
Research commissioned by Britain’s Food Standards Agency has demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from crops is finding its way into human intestinal bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions.

Researchers at the University of Newcastle gave seven volunteers, who had had their lower bowel removed, a single meal containing gene-spliced soy. Samples of intestinal bacteria were taken from each subject and low levels of an herbicide-resistance gene from the GM soy were detected in three of the seven cases. The researchers also fed the same meal to 12 other human volunteers, whose stomachs were intact, but no GM material or bacteria containing herbicide-resistance genes were detected in their feces.

Genetically modified material in most GM foods poses no risk to human health, but many GM crops have antibiotic-resistant marker genes inserted in them, raising concerns that the ability to fight infection could be compromised if such material passes to humans. (Reuters, The Guardian)

Highway project could harm
Great Smokies

The US Army Corps of Engineers and the Tennessee Valley Authority have approved a road widening project that would alter a stream in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, despite massive public opposition. The road project is in an area known as the Southeast Rivers and Streams Ecoregion and is home to more freshwater aquatic species than any other terrestrial area on Earth.

The agencies have approved plans to widen 2.6 miles of Highway 321, roughly doubling the size of the road and moving it closer to Dudley Creek, portions of which lie within the borders of the park.

According to Judy Takats of the World Wildlife Fund, all but one of the 11,646 comments submitted by the public to the Corps was in opposition to the project. (ENS)

 

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