FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

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DANGEROUS DIGGIN'S

Utah Governor Scott Matheson (along with a goodly portion of his constituency) is up in arms over the government's plan to turn some awesomely beautiful mountain property outside of the Canyonlands National Park into a nuclear waste disposal site. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has already gone so far as to threaten to begin a preliminary survey of this federal land in the near future . . . to determine the feasibility of the project.

Worse still, the survey alone could damage the delicate desert ecology . . . scarring it with 6,000-foot boreholes and any number of trenches and pits, cluttering it with 200-foot precipitation-monitoring towers, and leaving in its wake the damage caused by hundreds of four-wheel-drive vehicles.

The question at issue here is whether—although alarming amounts of spent fuel and defense waste are continuing to pile up daily in temporary holding facilities, causing more than 20 states to ban nuclear plant construction until this waste problem can be taken care of—it's absolutely necessary that some of our natural wild lands be sacrificed in order to provide "answers" (and questionable ones, at that) to the nuclear refuse dilemma.

"No!" answers Governor Matheson, who has taken action to bar the Department of Energy from the state lands it would need to travel over in order to reach the federal site near Canyonlands Park. And "No!" rejoin the environmentalists who have filed an appeal to challenge BLM's right to even permit a survey. (After all, even if the land is found to be "wasteworthy"—whatever that means—no one knows exactly how the used nuclear materials might affect the surrounding geology . . . or what sort of containers should be employed to permanently store the toxic material . . . or even whether or not the brine below the site could enter these repositories and disperse radioactivity into the ground water.) It's hoped that the opposition forces will be able to cause enough state action and legal hassles to successfully cool DOE's enthusiasm to convert this lovely section of Utah landscape into a nuclear waste depot.

ENDANGERED FUNDS COULD ENDANGER SPECIES

While antinuclear advocates are preparing for a long, bitter battle . . . wildlife defenders can breathe a small sigh of relief. Recently, both houses of Congress passed bills that re-authorized the Endangered Species Act for the next three years.

Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the act during that period of time will depend upon the funds that Congress allocates for its implementation. And there might not be much money available!

For example, if the administration gets its way, the Fish and Wildlife Service will—in the next fiscal year—receive 27% fewer funds to be spent for the protection of animals in peril than it did last year. Furthermore, state—executed wildlife—aid programs may no longer be awarded matching government dollars. And other proposed federal reductions already in the works could severely limit the protection of the sea turtle and commercial fisheries, while also cutting down on the enforcement of trade controls for plants.

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