News Articles

10/5/08, Chattanooga Times Free Press
Cleveland: Tracking forest history
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — Most people who visit the Cherokee National Forest have never heard of Quentin Bass. But if they walk on the Old Copper Road, read interpretive signs or hear of historic discoveries in the forest, they are seeing work largely due to the forest’s archaeologist.

Sitting at his somewhat cluttered desk in a hidden corner of the district office in Cleveland, Mr. Bass has a low-key way of explaining his job. Read more...

10/13/08, New York Times
Thinking Anew About a Migratory Barrier: Roads
SALTESE, Mont. — Dr. Chris Servheen spends a lot of time mulling a serious scientific question: why didn’t the grizzly bear cross the road? The future of the bear may depend on the answer.
The mountains in and around Glacier National Park teem with bears. A recently concluded five-year census found 765 grizzlies in northwestern Montana, more than three times the number of bears as when it was listed as a threatened species in 1975. To the south lies a swath of federally protected wilderness much larger than Yellowstone, where the habitat is good, and there are no known grizzlies. They were wiped out 50 years ago to protect sheep. Read more...

3/27/08, U.S. News & World Report
Mass Transit Systems Have a Hard Time Paying the Bills
The good news, ridership is up; the bad news, ridership is up
Strong-arming recalcitrant aldermen, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley recently framed the debate this way: Either support a property tax increase to fund the city's cash-strapped transportation authority or "stand up and say, 'I want the CTA to bypass my ward.'" Minutes later, the 40 percent tax increase on city property buyers passed overwhelmingly, 41 to 6. If only it were that easy in every burg where the aging rail lines keep rotting, the fares keep rising, and the trains have to keep rolling. Read more..

2/14/08, The Post and Courier
Comment sought on nuclear shipment
"Federal nuclear industry regulators are seeking comments on a plan to import 20,000 tons of radioactive waste and debris from Italy through Charleston or New Orleans.
EnergySolutions, which runs the radioactive waste dump in Barnwell County, wants to recycle and treat some of the material in Tennessee and bury the rest in its landfill in Utah." Read more...

2/13/08, Knoxville News Sentinel
Congressman: Importing nuke waste would violate U.S. principles
"U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, has stepped up his opposition to a company’s plan to import tons of nuclear waste from Italy and process it in Oak Ridge. In a Feb. 12 letter to Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gordon said rules that would permit the importation of radioactive materials were never intended to allow broad-scale commercial trafficking of nuclear waste, and he asked the NRC chief to deny the application by EnergySolutions." Read more...

2/11/08, Knoxville News Sentinel
Foreign waste in OR not new
Plant official says pending Italian contract would not differ from past work
"Mike Johnson said the EnergySolutions plant in Oak Ridge has been processing foreign nuclear waste for more than a decade. Lots of it. All told, the Oak Ridge plant - formerly owned by Duratek and other predecessor companies - has probably recycled about 1.5 million tons of radioactive metals from foreign sources since 1996, Johnson said. Those metals were smelted and formed into 20,000-pound blocks and used mostly for shielding at nuclear science facilities, including the Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge, he said. Because of that experience, the EnergySolutions executive said he was surprised by the recent attention - and concern -generated by the company's plans to import as much as 20,000 tons of radioactive material from Italy." Read more...

1/15/08, CNN
Panel: Increase gas tax to fix roadways
"WASHINGTON (AP) -- A special commission is urging the government to raise federal gasoline taxes by as much as 40 cents per gallon over five years as part of a sweeping overhaul designed to ease traffic congestion and repair the nation's decaying bridges and roads." Read more...