Getting Rid of Plastic Bags

By Courtney Washburn, Community Conservation Director-

Increasingly I have been hearing about banning the use of plastic shopping bags or adding a fee to deter people from using them. Using less plastic bags is a good thing for various reasons but like some of you I thought this idea might work in cities like San Francisco or countries like Canada but Idaho?

I recently read an article in Grangeville’s weekly newspaper, the Idaho County Free Press. The article features the Elk City Store getting rid of plastic shopping bags by providing customers with reusable bags. Part of the reason they made this decision was to reduce litter, conserve energy and reusing resources.

Mercury Legacy Bigger Than Reported

By Rick Johnson, Executive Director -

The Idaho Statesman has been giving heavy coverage to a mercury cleanup in Boise but too little gets said about mercury that’s been settling over Idaho for years from Nevada mines.

The Boise cleanup is dealing with 12-16 ounces of mercury. You might remember the hoopla over a possible 125 pounds of airborne mercury from the proposed (and defeated) Sempra coal-fired power plant in the Magic Valley.

Yet until recently, in clustered facilities in Northern Nevada the gold industry was emitting as much mercury as 160 coal-fired power plants combined. That is over 20,000 pounds of mercury into the air each year from Nevada alone. Idaho Conservation League work has helped see this number spiral down, but there is still a lot, something like 1,000 pounds, coming out of the stacks across the border.

Idaho has been downwind from the largest concentration of mercury emitting sources in the United States, quite possibly in the world. The mercury settles out of the air, onto the land and is washed into waterways where it is taken up by fish.

It’s great that EPA is cleaning up the spill in Boise…but what about the legacy of 20 years of airborne Nevada mercury?

Breathe Deeply

By Sara Cohn, Community Conservation Associate-

Today, you are probably experiencing a nice breath of fresh air. This was not the case on Friday.

Flying out to visit friends over the weekend, Friday’s poor air quality was not lost on me. I got to witness the brown soupy haze from the window seat of a small airplane. I flew through it and thought: “I really don’t think I should be breezing that.”

And I shouldn’t have.

Sure Friday’s haze probably looked browner because of the massive amount of smoke coming from Northern California, but according the Statesman, there was more than smoke in the air.

It is official – The Treasure Valley is soupy with ozone. There are lost of ways we can clean up our air – the Statesman offered a few solutions.

There are all sorts of little things you can do to improve air quality in your neighborhood. For example, look into getting rid of that gas guzzling lawn mower. There are some great options for push mowers these days. For more information on manual, no-gas push mowers and comparisons to the gas-powered standard you can start here.

Who gives a hoot?

By Susan Drumheller, North Idaho Associate –

I once naively thought the lessons of Woodsy Owl  had reached, at the very least, those outdoorsy people who camp in the woods and at high mountain lakes, like Upper Ball Lake in the Selkirk Mountains.

That’s where we discovered on our Idaho Conservation League-sponsored hike Saturday a mysterious brain-like floating mass near the shore, surrounded by an eerie halo.

We probed the otherworldly orb only to have it unravel into wormlike strings that turned out to be – you guessed it – somebody’s leftover spaghetti dinner. Thanks to a handy hiker’s Tupperware container, we were able to remove most of the offending pasta.

But like the algae left in the lake, a question lingered. Was the perpetrator of the pasta crime ignorant of the leave-no-trace ethic or just lazy and uncaring?

Tasty Bites

By Rick Johnson, Executive Director -

I like to eat. More than that, I like to eat well. I am also an environmentalist and I link these two facts about my life as much as possible.

Food comes from the earth and more than ever we can savor good local food that’s better for the planet rather than the homogenized glop most of us grew up with which the modern world still foists upon us. Eating well for the palate and planet requires smart shopping, but I believe it’s worth it, even with a sometime higher cost.

Hot off the New York Times website is an article on the upcoming Slow Food USA festival in San Francisco, “where a broad band of people will see that delicious, sustainably produced food can be a prism for social, ecological and political change.”

The article covers a lot of ground, but I particularly liked this quote from Carlo Petrini, an Italian founder of the slow food movement:
“I always say a gastronome who isn’t an environmentalist is just stupid, and I say an environmentalist who isn’t a gastronome is just sad.”

I’ll raise a fork to that. Let’s all eat something really good today.

Keepin’ It Green

By Aimee Moran, Membership Coordinator-

Phyllis Mott, long-time Idaho Conservation League member, rules conservationist supreme on North Idaho’s Lake Cocolalla.

This week the Spokesman Review newspaper featured Phyllis’ commitment to preserving her 52 acres of pristine lake front acreage.

Phyllis partnered with the Inland Northwest Land Trust to create a conservation easement to keep her land magnificent and undeveloped. This protection ensures that her land remains a sanctuary for the deer, moose, elk, bear, raccoons, bobcat and a variety of birds that share the space with Phyllis.

The easement consolidates multiple lots and prevents the building of up to 8 additional houses. It is tailored to allow farming, limited grazing, and ongoing forestry. It will protect wildlife and natural habitats and will help maintain the rural character of the Cocolalla Lake area by preserving visible open space.

“I hope those who visit will find peace and beauty,” says Phyllis. Three Idaho Conservation League staffers, including North Idaho Associate Susan Drumheller, did just that when they visited Phyllis in June. We were treated to a visit to the lands’ grove of majestic old growth cedars.

For information on how to protect your green space go here.

Rural Missouri Town 100% Wind Powered

By Sara Cohn, Community Conservation Associate-

Wind turbines, along with providing clean energy, have been hailed as a potential for economic opportunity in rural communities in the US.

The town of Rock Port, Missouri has decided to make this potentiality a reality. This small town – only 1300 residents – has partnered with the University of Missouri to create the first US community completely powered by wind energy.

Benefits to Rock Port?
• Tax revenues generated by the lease of the land
• 20 year stable energy prices

Attention Ada County Drivers

By Sara Cohn, Community Conservation Associate -

It is fairly safe to say that the issue of the year is transportation.

Whether the discussion is about is air pollution, funding for transportation alternatives, road maintenance, or greenhouse gas emissions in the state, our transportation system has been getting quite a bit of attention.

Today, the conversation hits a regional tone. An article in the Idaho Statesman this morning addresses a potential increase in vehicle registration fees for Ada County residents. Not a huge increase – if you have a car that is older than 7 years, your registration fees will increase from $13 to $24, but an increase nonetheless.

The Ada County Highway Discrict Commissioners will meet today to decide whether to put this registration increase on the November ballot.

Every little boy’s dream…

By Justin Hayes, Program Director –

When I was a kid I used to love to blow stuff up. Blog readers who are men are sitting at there desks nodding their heads.

Last week folks had a blast blowing up dams in an effort to restore salmon.

In Oregon, the US Army Corps of Engineers blew up a portion of the Elk Creek Dam in the Rogue River watershed to allow salmon to migrate upstream to spawn.

In Maine, the Fort Halifax dam on the Sebasticook River is being demolished to aid in fish passage as well.

Not that long ago the idea of removing a dam to save salmon was heresy – now it’s a pretty common practice and dams both small and big are coming down across the United States in an effort to restore fisheries and water quality.

Scientist have long argued that the surest way to restore Idaho’ endangered salmon run is to remove the four dams on the lower Snake River in Washington state. To learn more about this effort, visit the Save Our Wild Salmon web page.

Wolf hunt on hold

by John Robison, Public Lands Director -

Responding to a lawsuit*, District Judge Malloy placed wolves back under ESA protections for the time being. Idaho Fish and Game will still manage wolves but will not be able to hold a public wolf hunt this fall.

While individual wolf populations are doing well, the judge found that there was no guarantee of genetic exchange between wolf populations.

The judge specifically cited Wyoming’s wolf plan as being unacceptable.

While the judge found Idaho’s overall wolf plan adequate, the last page of the ruling cites the Idaho’s high quota of 428 wolves as one of the reasons to resume protections.

This May the Idaho Fish and Game Commission increased the wolf quota by an extra 100 wolves above their own biologists’ recommendations to appease anti-wolf extremists who were “sick of hearing about biology and science.”

The Commission also rejected a proposal brought by the Idaho Conservation League for wolf viewing areas where wolves would not be hunted.

Wyoming will certainly have to re-do their wolf management plan, and it remains to be seen if Idaho’s Fish and Game Commission will make any different decisions next time around.

* The Idaho Conservation League was not a party to this lawsuit.