• Great Lakes U.S. Policy Committee Unveils Cleanup Strategy
  
• Bush Administration Target of Earth Day 2002 Campaign
  
• Mystery of Black Water Off Florida Not Solved
  
• Genetic Integrity of Native Trout Upheld in Court
  
• Army Engineers Undertake Environmental Restoration
  

Great Lakes U.S. Policy Committee Unveils Cleanup Strategy

"The Great Lakes are American treasures - home to residents from eight states and home away from home for vacationers and visitors from across the country," Whitman said. "The Great Lakes Strategy, and the aggressive goals it sets, will provide a framework for specific actions to protect and restore the lakes over the next several years."

The Great Lakes Strategy addresses the most serious problems in the lakes such as contaminated sediments, invasive species, loss of habitat and fish that are unsafe to eat. It establishes several ambitious goals, including reducing concentrations of polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs) in lake trout and walleye by 25 percent in five years.

The plan would have 90 percent of Great Lakes beaches clean enough to be open 95 percent of the season by the end of the decade.

"We're raising the bar because our Great Lakes deserve nothing less," said Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Russell Harding. "Reaching these bold goals demands unwavering resolve on the part of all stakeholders. I am confident that the past decade's successes will inspire us to take our commitment to the next level. The Great Lakes are truly a global treasure and the parties represented here today will exercise their stewardship with vigor and passion."

The strategy was created by the U.S. Policy Committee, a partnership of senior environmental officials from federal, state and tribal agencies. In addition to the U.S. EPA, the committee has representatives from the eight Great Lakes states, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Geological Survey, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, U.S. Forest Service, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and more than 30 tribal governments.

The Great Lakes are the largest body of fresh water in the world, supplying drinking water to more than 30 million people. There are more than 600 beaches on the U.S. shores.

Bush Administration Target of Earth Day 2002 Campaign

In a statement released announcing the campaign, the groups warned, "Behind closed doors and away from public view, the Bush administration is allowing big corporations to weaken our nation's environmental laws, so they can put more pollution in our air, put more poison in our water, cut down our national forests, damage our public lands, and make taxpayers, rather than polluters, foot the bill for cleaning up toxic wastes."

Over the course of the month of April the groups will conduct a series of events focusing on specific examples of efforts to weaken environmental laws covering clean air, toxic waste, nuclear waste, wildlife, forests, public lands, and clean water.

The groups will continue their efforts to focus public attention on the Bush administration's anti-environmental energy plan with newspaper and TV ads and video news releases, new reports documenting the problems, plus activism and special websites that will encourage public involvement.

The first of the several issue specific days will be a major Earth Day initiative focusing on clean air tomorrow at the National Press Club. A coalition of groups will release a new report detailing increased air pollution from power plants, and will highlight specific instances where the Bush administration, behind closed doors, is allowing the utility companies to weaken enforcement of the Clean Air Act. A new website has been created for this campaign: http://www.savethecleanairact.org/

National groups that are a part of this general Earth Day campaign include: American Oceans Campaign, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Environmental Working Group, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, League of Conservation Voters, National Environmental Trust, National Parks Conservation Association, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ocean Conservancy, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Sierra Club, U.S. Public Interest Research Group, and The Wilderness Society.

For more on the Earth Day campaign effort, visit the environmental community's collaborative website for environmental activism: http://www.saveourenvironment.org/

Mystery of Black Water Off Florida Not Solved

The Florida Marine Research Institute offered to look at samples collected by fishermen who encountered the phenomenon as early as January. Reporting on their investigations Friday, the institute said that based on individuals' observations and satellite imagery, the intensity of discoloration is reduced from that described in January and February.

Samples and observations from March 28 indicate that an algae bloom known as Karenia brevis is still present in an apparently patchy distribution north of the Florida Keys. The discoloration and textural variation may be caused by floating debris often associated with decayed biological matter, the institute said. Samples only a few nautical miles apart or several hours apart can be very different, which indicates that sporadic, nonstandard sampling may result in quite varied results and interpretations.

In the samples collected on March 19, the institute said, nutrient levels often linked with algae blooms were not higher than those previously found on the West Florida Shelf. The phytoplankton composition was similar to other coastal samples, and the colored dissolved organic matter was characterized as coastal marine in origin.

Characterization of the area or water mass as a dead zone is not accurate because living organisms of various plant and animal groups are still present, but conditions on the bottom deserve further study, the institute said.

This black colored water is not related to the abnormally low levels of oxygen, called hypoxia, found in the northern Gulf. Although hypoxia on the bottom as a result of decomposition of organic matter is always a concern with algal blooms, none of the sampling in south Florida coastal waters has indicated that this is an issue to date.

The scientists say the black water does not appear harmful to humans, but it may repel fish.

Genetic Integrity of Native Trout Upheld in Court

Judge Emmet Sullivan, of the U.S. district court in Washington DC, found that the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) gave little attention to the extinction risks posed by interbreeding or "hybridization" of the Westslope cutthroat trout with non-native fish in the Northern Rockies.

The judge ordered the agency to reevaluate the trout's status in light of widespread hybridization and to issue a new listing determination within one year.

"This is a real turning point in the battle to protect native trout," said Abigail Dillen of Earthjustice, who represented American Wildlands, the Gallatin-Madison Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Clearwater Biodiversity Project, Montana Environmental Information Center, Idaho Watersheds Project and Mr. Bud Lilly.

In the time of explorers Lewis and Clark, the Westslope Cutthroat Trout was abundant in lakes and rivers across the Northern Rockies. The fish takes its scientific name, Oncorhynchus clarki lewisi, from the explorers, who first described the "cutthroat trout" in 1805.

Today, westslope cutthroat trout are just managing to survive in the few headwaters streams across Montana, Idaho, northwest Wyoming, eastern Washington, and the John Day River Basin in Oregon, where logging, mining, roading and other development have not yet taken their toll on sensitive fisheries. "Like the American buffalo, these fish have become an icon of a vanished wild west - the cutthroat trout is now the state fish of both Idaho and Montana," says Earthjustice.

Judge Sullivan's ruling vindicates serious concerns that the Westslope cutthroat trout could be hybridized to death on the Fish and Wildlife Service's watch. "The agency tried to play a numbers game, counting hybrids and pure strains of Westslope Cutthroat Trout as the same. Yet, in the same document, they stated hybridization is the greatest threat to the native fish, " said Rob Ament, executive director of American Wildlands. "The court said they can't have it both ways."

"The state fish of Montana and Idaho is still in limbo," stated well known fly-fishing guide Bud Lilly. "It's time for the Fish and Wildlife Service to quit its legal wrangling and give this fish protection under the ESA. It won't survive if there's no coordinated recovery plan in all five states where its survives."

Army Engineers Undertake Environmental Restoration

Sites include the Tieville-Decatur Bends Project in Iowa that is scheduled to begin construction in March 2002; Tobacco Island in Nebraska, completed in December, 2001; and Eagle Bluffs, Missouri, completed in January 2002.

Dominic Izzo, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, the mitigation project demonstrates the Army's dedication to its environmental restoration mission as well as its desire to contribute to a net gain of wetlands nationwide.

Congress has authorized the Corps to acquire 166,750 acres for fish and wildlife mitigation purposes as annual funding is available. This would represent almost one-third of the original river habitat lost due to channelization of the lower Missouri River and is the Corps says it is "arguably the most ambitious riverine habitat restoration plan in the world."

v Congress authorized the Corps to acquire and develop 48,100 acres in 1986 and another 118,650 acres in 1999.

The Corps and others are developing these mitigation lands to replace the loss of fish and wildlife habitat because of past channel development efforts dating back to 1912 as well as the continuing navigation operations on the Missouri River.

The Mitigation Project will restore or preserve shallow water, wetland prairie, bottomland forest and other native habitats in ways that the Corps says "will make an important contribution to restoring the natural ecosystem."

The report says that acceleration in land acquisition "will be essential if the agencies are to overcome the lag time between habitat development and the recovery of native fish and wildlife species." This is especially true for an endangered species, the pallid sturgeon, which may benefit from the new habitat.

This mitigation project has involved a multi-agency team from the Corps, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, levee districts and private landowners have worked together to help make each site a success.

Additional information about the mitigation program is available at: http://www.nwk.usace.army.mil/projects/mitigation/index.htm