OREGON. The secret ingredients in some widely-used pesticides won't be secret anymore, thanks to a small nonprofit in Eugene. The Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides won a lawsuit in October against the EPA and the pesticide industry, which had claimed that "inert" ingredients were trade secrets. The EPA has identified over 2,000 inerts that make up the bulk of most pesticides. Some are more toxic than the active ingredients, and most have not been tested by the EPA for toxicity. (High Country News)

PACIFIC NORTHWEST. Conservation groups and outraged property owners from across the Northwest have joined together to denounce the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) controversial land exchanges and destruction of ancient forests in eastern Oregon and Washington. These trades include handing over stands of old growth forests to Boise -Cascade Corporation and others in exchange for logged and overgrazed parcels that are in need of decades of expensive environmental restoration. "It is crucial to keep late successional and old growth forests on the eastside [of WA and OR] in public hands until the BLM complies with its own land management rules and with environmental laws," said Marianne Dugan, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center representing the plaintiffs. (Columbia River Bioregion Campaign)

CALIFORNIA. When the Western Area Power Association proposed that its wholesale power customers be required to purchase at least five percent of their electricity from non-hydropower renewable sources, such as wind power, they met stiff resistance. One California irrigation district complained that the proposal required buyers to "purchase exotic forms of energy at prices totally unsustainable in the market." In fact, the requirement would have resulted in a maximum 1.7 percent rate increase. But regardless of that, is windpower really exotic? Didn't the Dutch use it two centuries ago to reclaim practically half their country from the sea? What's more, the California irrigation utilities are among the most heavily subsidized in the nation. Writes the Northwest Conservation Act Report, "those guys wouldn't know a free market if it jumped down their throats and tap-danced on their lungs."

Matt Wuerker © 1996

MONTANA. Opponents of Clean Water Initiative I-122, raised a record breaking amount of money to defeat the ballot measure. Ninety-eight percent of the $1.9 million raised came from big corporations, mostly mining companies such as the Seven-Up Pete Joint Venture, a company which hopes to open up a cyanide-heap leach mine near the Blackfoot River. This company alone donated half a million dollars to the anti-I-122 campaign. Most of the money was poured into TV ads which made no mention of their large corporate patrons. One commercial implied that if the initiative passed, homeowners would have to treat their water before pouring it down the sink. In fact, the initiative did not even apply to homeowners. (Missoula Independent)

UTAH. A flurry of road-building bulldozing in three southern Utah counties has led to one arrest and a federal lawsuit. The bulldozing was ordered by county commissioners, and is the most serious challenge yet to federal land managers trying to maintain wilderness qualities in areas they manage. The Bureau of Land Management area resource manager had first tried to stop the bulldozing with a cease-and-desist order, which was ignored. One protester who attempted to block the bulldozing was arrested by local law enforcement. (High Country News)

IRAQ. For more than six years UN security council sanctions have prevented Iraq from exporting oil and importing a range of goods. The embargo has caused acute shortages of food and medicine. According to recent UN estimates, 640,000 children have starved to death or died of disease since the embargo began in 1991, and 28% of Iraqi children have had their growth stunted by malnutrition. Former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark writes that "if the United Nations participates in such genocidal sanctions backed by the threat of military violence, and if the people of the world fail to prevent such conduct, the violence, terror, and human misery of the new millenium will exceed anything we have known." In early December 1996, the international community granted Iraq's request to export up to $6 billion of oil in order to pay for much needed food and medicine for the Iraqi people.

FREEWAY, USA. One of the biggest myths in traffic planning is that computer projections of traffic are good for planning new roads. Such projections presume at first that current trends are healthy. The computer models also rarely look at the side effects of the roads they justify. Another myth is that planners are not responsible for how much people want to drive. For example, Houston residents use eight times more gas per capita than Amsterdammers. A city's infrastructue affects travel patterns. Do bigger roads increase your mobility? No. In fact bigger roads encourage sprawl and longer trips, and local stores are replaced by Wal-Marts. Mobility should be defined by being able to reach desired destinations rather than by average speed. (Auto-Free Times)

SOLAR COOKERS. Consider getting your friends a Solar CooKit for a holiday gift. Each purchase allows another kit to be sent to a refugee family. The kit is a one-pot fold-out panel cooker, handy for emergencies and back-packing. Must be used with black, covered pot (not included). $18 including shipping and handling to Solar Cookers International, 1919-21st Street, #101, Sacramento, CA 95814.

To avoid streaking or spotting with these recipes, use a lint-free rag to wash and a second one to dry. For extra sparkle , polish with a piece of newspaper when nearly dry. When the drying rag becomes too damp, use it to wash and get a fresh dry rag.

#1-Lemon Juice/Water (Source: Consumer Reports )
Put 1 tablespoon reconstituted (or strained fresh) lemon juice in a quart spray bottle and fill to the top with warm water.

#2-Vinegar/Water (Source: Clean & Green )
Put 1/4 cup vinegar in a quart spray bottle and fill to the top with warm water.

#3-Ammonia/Alcohol/Water (Source: Consumer Reports )
NOTE: This recipe is much more hazardous than the others. If you already have the ingredients in the house, this is one way to use them up. Put 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol and 1/8 cup ammonia in a quart spray bottle and fill with water. (Add a few drops of dishwashing liquid if you wish)

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Contents on this page were published in the January/February, 1997 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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