Residents in the Seattle area received a
nice Earth Day gift last week when an impending trash strike was
averted there. This op-ed
piece from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer applauds the
negotiations that headed off the strike, then veers off onto a
litter-related tangent that touches on trucker bombs (oy vey) and
a
litter hotline operated by the Washington Department of
Ecology that invites residents to report littering that they see, along
with license plate numbers for incidents of the
trash-chucked-out-the-car-window variety.
From where I sit, this Washington litter hotline is utterly
commendable. As I've written before, I'd like to see
cigarette-butt-flicking motorists and their ilk dealt with much more
aggressively and harshly than they are now. But it also seems to me that
Washington's program doesn't go far enough. It could use some sharper
teeth.
Nonetheless, it makes me wonder how many other such litter-tipster
programs exist out there across the fruited plain. Does anyone know of a
national clearinghouse or organization that might have information like
this? And does your state or local area have a program along these
lines?
Probably you've heard that our old garbage-scavenging friends, the
black bears, have awoken from their winter sleep and are out and
about across the continent, ravenous and looking for edibles to inhale.
Perhaps, too, you've heard that there have already been at least two
instances of black bears attacking and seriously injuring people, one in
Tennessee and the other in
Washington. In the Tennessee incident, a 6-year-old girl
died, and her mother and younger brother were severely mauled.
Those attacks lend a greater degree of gravity and urgency to the
normal spate of stories we see each spring about bears and people and
trash, like
this from the Sacramento Bee and
this from the Anchorage Daily News.
Not to put too fine a point on it: If there are bears in your area,
spend the extra bucks necessary to securely enclose your garbage, and
bug your neighbors to do the same.
The Detroit News, in an
editorial posted yesterday, lambasted Michigan Gov.
Jennifer Granholm's proposal to require utilities to reduce their
mercury emissions by 90% by 2015. Granholm's proposal mirrors recent
moves by Illinois and Pennsylvania that go well beyond the federal
government's mandate requiring coal-burning plower plants to cut mercury
emissions by 70% by 2018.
The Detroit News editors conclude that the plan would greatly raise
consumers' electric rates and give utilities a strong disincentive to
site plants and create jobs in Michigan, without generating any
appreciable health benefits.
Residents in the Seattle area received a
nice Earth Day gift last week when an impending trash strike was
