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Water Sentinels ‘Relentless’ in
Ohio
Ohio organizer Susan Knight and the Club’s Water Sentinels program scored
a major victory when AK Steel announced in January that it would invest $65 million
to install pollution controls on its Middletown, Ohio, plant. "This campaign
to reform AK Steel has been conducted strategically, tactically, relentlessly,
and effectively in the greatest tradition of the Sierra Club," says Water
Sentinels Director Scott Dye. Former AK executives had threatened that the company
might have to give up steelmaking in Middletown because of the environmental
costs. Local residents praised the company’s decision to operate in a cleaner
way. For more on the Water Sentinels Program, go to sierraclub.org/watersentinels.
Governor Joins Fight to Protect Otero Mesa
The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) proposed plan to open up the rich
grasslands of Otero Mesa in New Mexico to oil and gas drilling is gathering opposition.
Seven hundred residents who assembled in downtown Albuquerque on Jan. 31 to protest
the drilling proposal were greeted by a surprise guest: New Mexico Governor Bill
Richardson, who recently signed an executive order formally announcing state
policy to protect the Mesa. Five former state Fish and Game Department directors,
heads of several sportsmen’s groups, area ranchers, the private property
rights group Paragon Foundation, and five former members of the BLM’s Resource
Advisory Council have also come out in opposition to the drilling plan. For more,
go to www.oteromesa.org.
This Project’s a Turkey
Residents of Gulfport, Mississippi, received good news recently when an out-of-state
developer withdrew his permit application to build a shopping center that would
have filled hundreds of acres of wetlands and exacerbated flooding in the African-American
community of North Gulfport. Under the guise of "flood control," the
city illegally dredged and bulldozed the banks of North Gulfport's Turkey Creek,
mowing down large trees and stirring up polluted soil. The Sierra Club and NAACP
filed a notice of intent to sue the city for violations of the Clean Water Act.
For more, go to sierraclub.org/fieldnotes/turkey_creek.asp.
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