January 15, 2002

Environmental Watch: UW holding land trust panel Jan. 16

SEATTLE -- The University of Washington's College of Forest Resources will hold an afternoon seminar on land trusts and conservation easements Wednesday, Jan 16.

Participants include representatives of the Pacific Land Trust, Forest Systems Inc., the Cascade Land Conservancy and the Nature Conservancy.

Land trust organizations nearly tripled in the U.S. during the 1990s. The program will run from 1 to 4 p.m. at the university's Anderson Hall, Room 207. Jim Agee will moderate. For more information contact Kelley Duffield at (206) 685-1606.

EcoBuilding Guild presentation on solar

SEATTLE -- The Seattle Chapter of the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild is hosting a presentation on solar design Wednesday, Jan. 23, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N. The meeting runs from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. for sign-in. The presentation is free to EcoBuilding Guild members; a $5 donation is requested from non-members.

Chris Herman of Winter Sun Design will discuss how to balance cost, aesthetics and performance in solar design. A reasonable understanding of solar principles will be assumed, and the focus will be on getting projects built. The specific focus (active, passive or photovoltaic) will depend on audience interests.

McClelland joins Anchor

SEATTLE -- Michelle McClelland has joined the Seattle office of Anchor Environmental. She has spent the last 12 years providing consulting services as an environmental chemist. McClelland's responsibilities will include preparing sampling and analysis plans and data reports, coordinating field sampling programs and database management. Anchor Environmental is an environmental science and engineering firm with offices in Seattle, Oakland and Irvine, Calif., and College Station, Texas.

Elk Creek Dam stays another year

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided against cutting a notch in the half-completed Elk Creek Dam to improve fish passage for threatened coho salmon in the Rogue River.

Dallas Boyd, in Rep. Greg Walden's Washington, D.C. office, said last week Mike Parker, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, has decided that for this year, at least, the dam will not be notched.

"I think it's a win-win situation for the people, a win-win for the fish and for our future water needs," said Jackson County Commissioner Ric Holt.

Holt met with Parker and other Army officials for about an hour in Washington on Friday. Holt said he showed a video that explained how ludicrous it would be to blow up the $20 million project.

Holt said he broke into tears when he got the cell-phone call from Parker Wednesday night while standing in a Wal-Mart check-out line.

"The people won," said Holt, who wants the dam completed to provide flood control, water storage and to generate hydroelectric power.

$3M OK'd for Rogue dam removal

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- The Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board has approved a $3 million grant to help fund the removal of Savage Rapids Dam and replace it with modern pumps.

"This is a down payment on restoring one of Oregon's crown jewels," said Bob Hunter, a staff attorney for WaterWatch, an environmental group.

The dam has been the source of a long-running fight over the health of the Rogue River.

Gov. John Kitzhaber signed a declaration last year recognizing a consent degree that dissolved state and federal lawsuits against the Grants Pass Irrigation District over harm the dam has caused threatened coho salmon.

The agreement, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene at the end of August, calls for installing pumps to draw water out of the Rogue River by 2005, then removing the dam built in 1921.

The action was a milestone for a river that was one of the original wild and scenic waterways in the United States, and whose salmon and steelhead runs drew such celebrities as Clark Gable and Ginger Rogers.

Putting in the pumps and removing the dam is expected to cost $13.5 million, Hunter said Friday. The price rises to about $20 million when restoration and recreation projects are factored in.

Judge halts EPA plan for ombudsman's office

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge has temporarily halted a Bush administration plan to reshuffle the office of the Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous waste ombudsman.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts issued a temporary restraining order against the government until a full hearing on the matter can be scheduled. The order remains in effect until Feb. 26.

Robert Martin, who handles citizen complaints on waste and Superfund matters, has asked the court to block EPA Administrator Christie Whitman from moving the ombudsman's office to the EPA's Inspector General's Office.

Martin contends the move would weaken his independence within the agency. He said in court papers the action was being taken because he has been an outspoken critic of corporations' influence in Superfund cases, large environmental cleanups that involve the worst types of hazardous waste.

EPA spokesman Joe Martyak denied the agency was trying to weaken Martin's role. "I am confident, on the merits, the court will find the claims unfounded," the spokesman said.

A General Accounting Office report suggested moving the ombudsman, Martyak said, and "the ombudsman himself stated in that report that he thought he should be moved out of the Office of Solid Waste.