Coyotes in Umstead

While reading today’s News & Observer story on the appearance of coyotes in North Carolina’s Triangle region, I was taken aback when I came across the statement by Umstead State Park ranger Bob Davies that “no one has reported seeing them in the park.”

That’s simply not true.

About three years ago, I called Davies’ office and reported seeing a coyote in Umstead. I was running there after work one day near dusk, along the gravel bridle trail that starts at the unofficial park entrance near the intersection of Reedy Creek and Trenton roads in West Raleigh. I reached the water pump not far from the airport overlook and stopped to stretch when I felt someone was watching me. I turned around to look, and at the edge of the woods stood what I believed to be a coyote – or possibly a small wolf – watching me curiously.

Surprised and delighted, I blurted out, “Well, hello!”

The shy creature immediately turned tail and scampered back into the forest. The run back to my car seemed to pass in a moment, so buoyed was I by the thrill of sighting an animal so relatively rare to these parts. When I got home, I immediately called the park office to tell them what I had seen and to ask if they had had other sightings.

I don’t recall the name of the ranger I spoke with, but he insisted I did not see a coyote. It must have been a dog, he said. No, I argued, I’m a dog lover, and I certainly know the difference between a dog – even a feral dog – and a wild animal. But despite my protestations, the ranger refused to take me seriously, so I finally gave up and got off the phone.

One wonders how many other reports were similarly dismissed over the years…

N.C. Pollution Lawsuits Come Amidst Lax Federal Enforcement

The neoliberal agenda of devolution – that is, shifting responsibilities from the federal arena to state and local governments – is being brought to bear on the nation’s environmental enforcement system, as recent developments in North Carolina show.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and an environmental group last week announced plans to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its refusal to take action on air pollution wafting in from out of state – plans that come as the federal agency faces charges of failing to take tough enforcement actions against polluters.

Cooper notified the EPA of his intent to sue the agency for not responding in a timely fashion to North Carolina’s petition for help in controlling air pollution from upwind states. The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) also told the EPA that it intended to file a citizen lawsuit on behalf of Environmental Defense over the agency’s failure to act.

“Every day our petition is delayed is a missed opportunity to make a real impact on pollution,” Cooper said. “North Carolina has made strides in cleaning up our own air, but we know that dirty air doesn’t stop at the state line.”

In March of this year, Cooper petitioned the EPA under the Clean Air Act, asking the agency to force coal-burning power plants in 13 other states to reduce the amount of pollution they’re contributing to North Carolina. The plants are located in Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

The EPA had until Nov. 18 to determine whether the facilities named in Cooper’s petition were contributing significantly to North Carolina’s difficulty meeting standards for particulate matter and ozone, but it did not act by that date. Cooper this month also threatened to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority over its failure to adequately reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants.

More than 1,000 people in North Carolina die each year due to exposure to power plant pollution alone, the ninth-highest rate in the country, according to the SELC. Hundreds of thousands more suffer asthma attacks and other respiratory problems from breathing dirty air.

"The 'P' in EPA stands for protection, and it's time for us to get that protection from power plant pollution," said Michael Shore of Environmental Defense.

Report Faults Federal Enforcement of Pollution Laws

Cooper’s and the SELC’s actions come as the EPA confronts charges of failing to enforce the nation’s environmental laws.

Last month the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) – a nonprofit founded by a former EPA regulator frustrated with the current administration’s environmental policies – released a report that found a steep decline in the number of civil lawsuits filed against polluters under Bush.

In the last three years of the Clinton administration, the U.S. Justice Department filed 152 federal lawsuits against companies for violating environmental laws, but there were only 36 such actions in the first three years of the Bush administration, the study found. The decline in actions to enforce the Clean Air Act was particularly dramatic, with only nine such lawsuits filed by the EPA from Jan. 19, 2001 through Jan. 18, 2004, compared to 61 in the three years prior to Jan. 19, 2001.

Furthermore, the EPA’s enforcement staff last November was told to “set aside” investigations against more than 70 power companies that are some of the biggest sources of air pollution in the U.S., according to the EIP report. The agency had earlier referred 14 cases against power companies to the Justice Department for prosecution, but the department has filed only one new case since January 2001.

The EPA’s own enforcement report released this month shows that civil penalties for enforcement of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and environmental laws other than Superfund declined to $57 million, the lowest level during the 15 years in which EPA has tracked such data.

Not surprisingly, the energy and natural resources sector has been a major financial backer of the current administration, contributing more than $4.4 million to the Bush campaign in the latest election cycle alone, according to OpenSecrets.org. Cooper, meanwhile, was handily re-elected to his post earlier this month with the backing of the Conservation Council of North Carolina’s political action committee.

For more information on devolution and its implications for the environment, visit the Web site of the Center for Progressive Regulation, a nonprofit research and educational organization comprised of university-affiliated academics. The group’s member scholars include a number of professors from North Carolina universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke and Wake Forest.

Farmers Market Showcases Environmentally Friendlier Meats & Cheeses

If you are what you eat, then you’re also what your food eats. So if your diet includes conventionally raised meat and dairy products, you’re ingesting the same hormones, antibiotics and pesticides found in farm animals, which isn’t good for you. In addition, livestock nowadays are typically fed corn that’s heavily sprayed with artificial fertilizers and other chemicals produced with fossil fuel, which isn’t good for the earth.

But this Saturday, the Raleigh State Farmers Market will showcase a different approach to cheeseburgers with “Grazin’ in N.C.,” an event highlighting pasture-raised meat and other products. Pasture-raised animals eat a diet of grass rather than grain and do not take growth hormones or antibiotics. And since grass-fed cattle don’t consume their ground-up brethren, they’re presumably at less risk for mad cow disease.

“Pasture-raising animals is beneficial to the animals and the environment,” says Mike Lanier, an Orange County Cooperative Extension agent.

There’s also evidence that pasture-raising is healthier for farmers, who are not exposed to the toxic dusts and gases that result from confining livestock indoors, and consumers, as studies have found that meat from grass-fed animals is lower in calories and unhealthy saturated fat and higher in healthy Omega-3 fatty acids than meat from feed-raised animals. In addition, the flavor of pasture-raised meat reputedly is more complex and, like wine, varies from place to place.

About a dozen regional producers of cattle, chickens, pigs, goats, lambs and cheeses will display their wares at the market this Saturday, Nov. 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Pasture-based farmers "typically sell directly to consumers,” says Lanier, “and hopefully this event will open up a new market for their products.”

N.C. Targets TVA Over Air Pollution

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper is taking on the nation’s largest public power company in an effort to protect his state from toxic pollution.

Cooper has announced plans to file a lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority for violating pollution control requirements mandated by federal law. Sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants released by TVA’s coal-fired power plants blow into North Carolina, damaging the environment as well as residents’ health. Pollutants from burning coal have been linked to heart disease, asthma, neurological problems and other illnesses.

Cooper last week wrote a letter to the TVA, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and environmental administrators in Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama announcing that he would sue the TVA unless it takes action to reduce harmful emissions.

“Pollution ignores state boundaries,” he said, “so we all have to do our part to make sure the air is clean.”

Cooper alleged that TVA violated provisions of the Clean Air Act by modifying nine of its coal-burning power plants without determining whether additional emission controls were needed or installing available technology to control pollution. The EPA has found that several TVA plants contribute significantly to air quality problems in North Carolina.

Environmental advocates praised Cooper’s decision.

“North Carolina and other Southeastern states should salute Attorney General Cooper for suing TVA, which sends huge quantities of unhealthy air pollution across the region,” said Michael Shore, senior air policy analyst with Environmental Defense. “TVA has said that it wants to reduce pollution. But citizens can't depend on promises to produce results. Attorney General Cooper's action can turn TVA's words into a legally binding commitment to protect our children and grandparents from dirty air."

This is not Cooper’s first attempt to target air pollution crossing North Carolina’s borders. In March of this year, he filed a petition under the Clean Air Act asking the federal government to force coal-burning power plants in 13 other states to cut down on the pollution they’re contributing to North Carolina.

In addition to serving residents of Tennessee, TVA also supplies electricity to households in five western North Carolina counties: Avery, Burke, Cherokee, Clay and Watauga.

North Carolina has been a leader in efforts to reduce air pollution from power plants. In 2002, the state adopted the Clean Smokestacks Act, which requires the state’s 14 largest coal-fired power plants to reduce toxic emissions of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury.

Local Conferences Consider Genetically Altered Trees

Two events focusing on the promise and perils of genetically modified trees will take place in the Raleigh area this week.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University is holding a forum titled “Landscapes, Genomics and Transgenic Conifer Forests.” Researchers working in the biotech field dominate the agenda, but there is one session Thursday afternoon on community perspectives that includes biotech watchdogs Neil Carman of the Sierra Club, Alyx Perry of the Asheville-based Southern Forests Network, Kathy Jo Wetter of the ETC Group, Jane Preyer with the North Carolina office of Environmental Defense and Anne Petermann of the Global Justice Ecology Project, a Vermont-based nonprofit that has called on the United Nations to ban genetically modified trees.

Also this week, the Institute of Forest Biotechnology – which is housed at the N.C. Biotechnology Center in Research Triangle Park – is hosting a conference titled “New Century, New Trees: Biotechnology as a Tool for Forestry in North America.” That event takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday; for details, e-mail Susan McCord.

NIEHS Project Studies Gene-Environment Link

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C. today announced it’s launching a three-year effort focusing on how specific genes might contribute to environment-related diseases.

NIEHS’ National Center for Toxicogenomics is developing a new library cataloguing finds on RNA interference or RNAi, a new technology that turns off specific genes so scientists can better understand how the genes influence the cell and which genes are responsible for adverse reactions to chemicals, drugs and other environmental factors.

“This new technology gives us a stronger tool box for understanding the environmental response genes,” NIEHS Director Dr. Kenneth Olden said in a statement. “By focusing on the environmental response genes, we’re building a library of RNAi molecules that'll help us fight diseases.”

RTP-based biotechnology company Icoria, formerly known as Paradigm Genetics, will carry out the three-year contract, which is the first phase of the project.

Arctic Refuge Presentation Comes to Raleigh Monday

The N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences and the Wake Audubon Society have teamed up to present “The Last Great Wilderness Project,” a multimedia slide show on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The free showing will take place on Monday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. at the museum, which is at the corner of Jones and Salisbury streets in downtown Raleigh.

Started in 1987 by nature photographer Lenny Kohm, the project combines Kohm’s photographs of Arctic Refuge flora and fauna and his knowledge of the native Gwich’in people to create a powerful message for conservation.

Filmmaker Jeff Barrie will present the slide show along with clips from his documentary “Arctic Quest: Our Search for Truth," which has been broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. For more information, call the museum at 919-733-7450.

EPA Delays Childhood Pesticide Study

Nothing like a little bad press to prompt some action.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week announced it was suspending plans to move forward with a widely criticized study of childhood pesticide exposure that involved paying families to allow their homes to be sprayed with the toxic chemicals. Instead, the EPA will send the Children’s Health Environmental Exposure Risk Study to an expert panel for an independent review to be completed next spring.

In Nov. 8 memo distributed to EPA employees and obtained by the government watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, William McFarland, the agency’s acting deputy assistant administrator for science, said that while the EPA “may refine the study design” following the review, the study would proceed. PEER is working with agency scientists who are questioning the study’s ethics.

“EPA seems to think that the problem with this study is one of public relations, not morality,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “Regardless of the number of reviews, paying poor parents to dose their babies with commercial poisons to measure their exposure is just plain wrong.”

The study’s critics also objected to the fact that $2 million out of the $9 million in funding for the research would come from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group representing pesticide makers, and they raised concerns about the fact that the study did not require medical intervention should health problems arise or educate subjects about pesticide risks and safe application techniques.

In a press release announcing the decision, the EPA noted that the study design had been reviewed for scientific merit and ethical protections by four Institutional Review Boards for the Protection of Human Subjects – including one at the University of North Carolina.

How disappointing to learn that UNC would OK such morally dubious research.

Shearon Harris Reports Another Cooling System Problem

Add yet another incident to the unnervingly long list of reported malfunctions at Progress Energy’s nuclear power plant near Raleigh.

The cooling system at the Shearon Harris facility in western Wake County lost feedwater flow yesterday as the reactor powered up after a three-week shutdown for refueling, says Jim Warren, director of the Durham-based N.C. Waste Awareness & Reduction Network. The facility disclosed the problem in an official incident report filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

“The cause of the irregular Feedwater control is currently being investigated,” the report says.

The plant also experienced a cooling system problem last month following maintenance on safety equipment. In fact, Shearon Harris over the past two years has experienced problems at a rate significantly higher than the national average.

Meanwhile, the NRC today announced that it is seeking public comment on its Reactor Oversight Process. Created five years ago with the stated aim of improving inspection and enforcement for commercial nuclear power plants, the ROP has come under fire from some nuclear watchdogs for going too easy on the industry.

The NRC is seeking the public’s answers to 20 questions, such as whether inspection reports are useful, whether the ROP is understandable and whether the public has enough opportunity to provide input. The notice is available online here (PDF), and comments are due by Dec. 16. They may be e-mailed to nrcrep@nrc.gov or mailed to Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Office of Administration, Mail Stop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C., 20555-0001.

Green Candidate Urges Vote Probe

David Cobb, the Green Party’s 2004 presidential candidate, is among those calling for an investigation into voting irregularities in last week’s election.

“It's Florida all over again,” Cobb said. “Except this time, it’s Ohio where the person responsible for counting votes is chair of the state Bush campaign.”

He pointed to reports of voter intimidation, mismarked ballots and the targeted disenfranchisement of blacks. A nonprofit voting rights group called Count Every Vote 2004 documented hundreds of voting irregularities affecting poor and minority voters in seven Southern states, including North Carolina.

"Pure and simple: there needs to be an investigation,” Cobb said.

Last week, three Democratic members of Congress called on the Government Accountability Office to look into problems with electronic voting equipment.

Though the corporate media have largely ignored the story, independent reporters continue to raise questions about what happened Tuesday. Writing for CommonDreams.org, Thom Hartman reports that Jeff Fisher, Democratic candidate for U.S. House in the Florida’s 16th District, claims to have shared with the FBI evidence of hacking in Florida’s election, though no details have been publicly released.

In addition, an analysis of Florida’s results by Kathy Dopp show a curious pattern: While touch-screen voting machines produced results in which the Republican/Democrat ratio closely matched the Bush/Kerry vote, that was not the case in counties using optically scanned paper ballots, the results of which are tabulated by a centralized computer vulnerable to hacking.

In Dixie County, for example, there are 9,676 registered voters – 77.5 percent of them Democrats and 15 percent Republicans. But according to the election results, 4,433 of the county’s voters cast their ballot for Bush and only 1,959 for Kerry. This surprising pattern repeats itself time and again – but only in counties with optical scanners.

Fisher is calling on citizens to contact their representatives in Congress and demand a national revote. “The Electoral College makes the final decision on whom the next President of the United States will be,” he writes on his Web site. “We must be vigilant and act now as our founding fathers did against King George III.”

Voting Woes Spark Call for Congressional Probe

Three members of Congress have asked the Government Accountability Office to look into irregularities with voting machines after reports of problems in North Carolina and other states during Tuesday’s elections.

In a letter sent yesterday to the GAO, Reps. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) asked the watchdog agency to “immediately undertake an investigation of the efficacy of voting machines and new technologies used in the 2004 election, how election officials responded to difficulties they encountered and what we can do in the future to improve our election systems and administration,” Wired.com reports.

In Carteret County, N.C., more than 4,500 votes were lost in the latest election because UniLect Corp. gave local officials incorrect information about the storage capacity of its electronic voting equipment. Problems with e-voting equipment were also reported in Craven and Mecklenburg counties.

There were problems Tuesday in other states as well. In one Ohio precinct, a memory card reader gave George W. Bush 3,893 more votes than he should have received. And voters in Ohio and Florida have complained that when they tried to vote for John Kerry, the machine either wouldn’t register the vote or would indicate the vote was cast for Bush, according to Wired.com.

Conyers, Nadler and Wexler are among the 157 co-sponsors of H.R. 2239, which would amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to require a voter-verified permanent record or hard copy of ballot choices. Democratic Reps. Frank Ballance Jr. and David Price of North Carolina are also co-sponsors of that measure. It is currently stuck in the House Administration Committee, where Chairman Bob Ney (R-Ohio) opposes its passage.

This year is not the first time North Carolina has experienced problems with e-voting equipment. Here in Wake County, machines made by Election Systems & Software failed to count 436 ballots (PDF) in November 2002. Company officials confirmed that the machines were defective.

Voting Problems Raise Questions About Election Results

Writing yesterday about the strong performance by pro-environment candidates for state offices, I reported that incumbent N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Britt Cobb – a Democrat who had the backing of the Conservation Council of North Carolina – appeared to have a slight edge over Republican challenger Steve Troxler.

Well, scratch that. According to the latest figures from the N.C. Board of Elections, it now appears that Troxler is ahead of Cobb by about 9,500 votes.

However, problems with elections equipment are coming to light that cast doubt on the accuracy of vote counts in races around the state – and across the nation.

Here in North Carolina, a software snafu in Craven County’s electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a miscount that increased the number of votes for president by 11,283 more than the total number of votes cast, the New Bern Sun Journal reports. The problem involved equipment manufactured by Election Systems & Software Inc. (ES&S), a Nebraska-based company that has come under criticism in the past for product bugs.

In addition, more than 4,500 votes were lost in coastal North Carolina’s Carteret County due to equipment malfunctions, the Raleigh News & Observer reported yesterday. County officials discovered Tuesday that electronic voting machines had not recorded 4,532 votes cast in early voting.

Turns out UniLect Corp., the manufacturer of Carteret County’s e-voting system, gave incorrect information on how many votes the system could store, according to the Daily News of Jacksonville, N.C. The corporation said each storage unit – known as a “black box” – could handle 10,500 votes when the actual limit was 3,005. Consequently, Carteret County used only one unit during the early voting period, resulting in the loss of votes.

And in North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County, a discrepancy was reported in the number of early votes cast, according to the Associated Press. Before the election, the county election office said 102,109 people voted early or returned valid absentee ballots, but unofficial results from election night showed 106,064 of those votes.

Problems with e-voting equipment were not limited to North Carolina. An error with an e-voting system in Ohio’s Franklin County gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes, the Columbus Dispatch reports. The county’s unofficial election results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to John Kerry’s 260 votes in one precinct where only 638 voters cast ballots.

And in Florida’s Broward County, attorneys scrutinizing a close vote on a ballot initiative noticed a problem with the ES&S software used to tabulate absentee ballots, according to the Miami Herald. Though the error reportedly affects only the count of absentee votes on countywide questions, it raises broader concerns about the soundness of the company’s equipment. ES&S is currently the world’s largest provider of election management products, with over 74,000 systems installed worldwide.

Bloggers and others outside the mainstream media are also raising questions about the odd fact that while exit polls were largely accurate in paper-ballot states, they were inaccurate in states with e-voting – and that some news organizations appear to have retroactively changed their exit polls to coincide with what the machines said.

Black Box Voting, a nonprofit watchdog group, says it believes electoral fraud took place Tuesday. “We base this on hard evidence, documents obtained in public records requests, inside information, and other data indicative of manipulation of electronic voting systems,” the group says in a statement on its Web site. “What we do not know is the specific scope of the fraud.”

The group is preparing to file a massive Freedom of Information Act request to obtain documentation to back up its charges. To that end, it is looking for citizen volunteers, as well as lawyers to enforce public records laws and computer security professionals willing to make public statements on the evidence found. It also needs cash to fund its efforts. For details, visit the group’s Web site.

In the meantime, let us ponder the wisdom of handing so much control over our elections to private corporations.

Pro-Environment Candidates Win Big in N.C. Races

With environmentalists across the United States still reeling over the re-election of President George W. Bush, let’s take a moment to focus on some good news from the environmental politics front.

Here in North Carolina, U.S. Reps. Brad Miller and David Price, Democratic incumbents who represent Raleigh and Chapel Hill respectively, handily won their re-election campaigns. Both men have strong pro-environment voting records and ran with the endorsement of the N.C. Sierra Club.

In fact, the environmental news from Washington is hardly all bad: Out of the eight congressional races targeted as priorities by the League of Conservation Voters, the only loss was here in North Carolina, where Republican U.S. Rep. Richard Burr beat Democrat Erskine Bowles for the seat vacated by Sen. John Edwards. In fact, 90 percent of the candidates endorsed by the LCV won.

Unfortunately, North Carolina voters approved the environmentally problematic Amendment One by a narrow margin, but there’s plenty of good news from the Tarheel State, too. Winning re-election were Gov. Mike Easley and Attorney General Roy Cooper, Democrats who had the backing of both the Sierra Club and the Conservation Council of North Carolina’s PAC. Though the final result is still pending, it appears that Agriculture Commissioner Britt Cobb, a Democrat who had C-PAC’s backing, has edged out Republican challenger Steve Troxler by a few hundred votes.

In addition, Democrats strengthened their control over the state legislature with the election of a number of strong pro-environment candidates. Here in Raleigh, retiring Democratic state Sen. Eric Reeves has been replaced by fellow Democrat Janet Cowell, a former Sierra Club leader with a progressive record on the environment as a Raleigh City Council member. Cowell will be in an excellent position to hit the ground running, having staffed the environmental caucus during the latest legislative session.

In other key Raleigh areas races, Democrat Grier Martin ousted incumbent Republican Don Munford in House District 34, and Democrat Linda Coleman beat incumbent Republican Sam Ellis in House District 39. C-PAC had criticized Munford’s and Ellis’ environmental records as “irresponsible” and praised Martin and Coleman as “champions” for the environment.

They’ll join incumbent Triangle Democrats Vernon Malone of Senate District 14, Jennifer Weiss of House District 35 and Deborah Ross of House District 38. Ross and Weiss racked up perfect environmental voting records for the latest legislative session on C-PAC’s annual legislative report card, and Malone also had the backing of the group.

In fact, out of the 82 state legislative candidates C-PAC endorsed, 77 won.

Not bad. Not bad at all.

Hearing Thursday on Falls Lake Pollution Plan

Do you care about the safety of the water you drink? If so, you should plan to attend a public hearing in Raleigh Thursday on the town of Butner’s plan to increase the amount of pollution it releases into Falls Lake, the capital city’s main source of drinking water. The hearing will take place at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences at 11 W. Jones St.

This is the second public hearing on the plan to be organized by the N.C. Division of Water Quality. The first, held in Butner in late September, drew an overflow crowd, with dozens of concerned citizens turned away at the door by order of the fire marshal. Many stayed and listened to the proceedings through the windows.

Seeking to expand its sewage-treatment plant, Butner – a town that's dominated by state and federal institutions and overseen by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services – wants to buy pollution credits from a Pamlico County utility to increase by about 61,000 pounds its discharge of nitrogen into a stream that feeds Falls Lake. The Environmental Protection Agency has said the discharge would be the largest nutrient pollution transfer for water ever proposed in the United States.

It’s more than a little ironic that the state agency charged with guarding the public’s health is pushing a plan that could actually put citizens’ health at risk, but that’s exactly what’s happening. The Neuse River Foundation and the city of Raleigh have raised numerous concerns about the plan’s impact on Raleigh’s water supply. A study sponsored by the Upper Neuse Basin Association found that Falls Lake is already showing signs of nutrient pollution damage from upstream discharges and polluted stormwater runoff. In the lake’s upper reaches, concentrations of chlorophyll-a, a sign of algae growth, already exceed state standards.

Some species of algae are harmful to human health, causing digestive and nervous-system problems. In addition, algal blooms can lower levels of oxygen and lead to fish kills, which would further damage water quality. And employees and customers of marinas on the lake complain that existing levels of algae stink and are putting a damper on recreational activities.

Controversy Grows Over EPA Pesticide Study

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to pay families to participate in a study in which they would be exposed to pesticides are generating considerable controversy. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit alliance of pro-environment government workers, today reports the agency removed the study protocol from its Web site and distributed a rather misleading statement in response to objections voiced by its own scientists.

Among the concerns raised about the study is that a large portion of its funding comes from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group that represents pesticide manufacturers, and that participating families — who would be recruited from public clinics and hospitals — would be paid $970 and allowed to keep a camcorder used to record their children’s behavior. Furthermore, the study does not require medical intervention if the children show developmental problems or dangerous chemical levels in their urine, nor does it provide participants with information about pesticide risks or safe pesticide application.

In response to the concerns, the EPA removed the study protocol from its Web site and distributed a statement claiming participants are not required to use pesticides. But PEER notes that while 10 percent of the participants would be assigned to a control group with no or low pesticide exposure, the remaining 90 percent are eligible to participate in the study only if they spray their homes routinely.

“If EPA is going to engage in experimentation on human subjects, especially infants, it should go the extra mile to be aboveboard and protective of the subjects’ health,” said PEER Director Jeff Ruch.

In response to industry lobbying, the Bush administration has been considering loosening rules on human testing of pesticides and other chemicals. Among the pesticide makers who have been pressing the EPA to reverse longstanding agency policy rejecting human tests are Bayer CropScience and BASF Corp., which have local offices in Research Triangle Park, and Syngenta Crop Protection of Greensboro, N.C. Those companies are all members of CropLife America, a Washington-based pesticide industry group that has led the drive for human testing.