ENN Weekly: July 16th - 20th

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ENN rounds up the most important and compelling environmental news stories of the week. In the news July 16th - 20th: Power lines in parks, berry picking for rainforest health, an expanding dead zone, and much more.

Top Ten Articles of the Week
In the news July 16th - 20th: Power lines in parks, berry picking for rainforest health, an expanding dead zone, and much more.


1. Preservationists Fear Major Power Lines Coming to U.S. National Parks
Preservationists worry that a 2005 law that gave U.S. regulators new authority over where massive power lines are built could put hundreds of national and state parks and other protected sites in the Northeast and Southwest in or near their path. "They're not little modest poles that you wouldn't notice," said Joy Oakes, senior regional director at the National Parks Conservation Association.


2. Picking Berries Protects Rain Forests Best, Study Shows
Small community projects for picking fruits and nuts are the best way to alleviate poverty and protect the Amazon and other tropical forests, but are largely ignored by governments, a study showed Monday. Communities harvesting natural products generate more long-term income than many national parks or big timber companies, said a report by the International Tropical Timber Organization, or ITTO, released at a forestry conference in northeastern Brazil.


3. U.S. Nuclear Bomb Site Enters New Life as Nature Refuge
Radiological and heavy metal contamination closed a Colorado nuclear weapons facility to the public for decades, but soon it will open as a national wildlife refuge where people can watch hawks and elk. The Energy Department this week said it transferred 4,000 acres of the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons production site, 16 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado, to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for use as a nature refuge.


4. Scientists Say Trout Not Endangered Species
Yellowstone cutthroat trout are "holding their own" in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming despite threats ranging from habitat loss and disease to hybridization with other species, state and federal fisheries biologists said Wednesday. The biologists said their findings, in a new study described as the most sweeping assessment of the popular game fish to date, support a federal decision last year not to put the fish under Endangered Species Act protections.


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5. System Relies on Ice to Chill Buildings
As the summer swelters on, skyscrapers and apartments around the city will be cranking up the air conditioning and pushing the city's power grid to the limit. But some office towers and buildings have found a way to stay cool while keeping the AC to a minimum -- by using an energy-saving system that relies on blocks of ice to pump chilly air through buildings. The systems save companies money and reduce strain on the electrical grid in New York, where the city consumes more power on hot summer days than the entire nation of Chile.


6. Space Station Crew Prepare to Dump Space Junk
Two crewmen aboard the International Space Station Thursday prepared for a spacewalk during which more than 1,600 pounds of obsolete gear will be tossed overboard and left to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Space station commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Clay Anderson were due to begin a 6-1/2-hour spacewalk Monday to make room and prepare equipment for the arrival of new research modules built by Europe and Japan. Their tasks include jettisoning a refrigerator-sized device containing ammonia that was part of the station's first cooling system.


7. Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Could Expand This Year
The Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" -- a swath of water with such low levels of oxygen that marine life can be threatened or killed -- could be the largest since measurements began in 1985, scientists said Tuesday. The dead zone, which recurs each year off the Texas and Louisiana coasts, could stretch to more than 8,500 square miles this year -- about the size of New Jersey -- compared with 6,662 square miles in 2006 and nearly double the annual average since 1990 of 4,800 square miles.


8. Study Shows Plug-In Hybrids Could Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions
If motorists used rechargeable "plug-in" hybrid-electric vehicles in large numbers, the U.S. could see a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century, says a study released Thursday. Researchers estimated that with a market share of about 60 percent or more plug-ins, the vehicles could help reduce approximately 450 million metric tons in greenhouse gas emissions a year by 2050. The reductions would be the equivalent of removing 82 million passenger cars, or about one-third of the cars currently on the road.


9. Snowless in a Warming World, Ski Resort in French Alps Bids Adieu
Muddy slopes, slushy peaks, unused lifts -- this town in the French Alps is living out the nightmare of many a ski resort in a century scientists say is doomed to keep getting warmer. The city council of Abondance -- its name a cruel reminder of the generous snowfall it once enjoyed -- voted last month 9-6 to shut down the ski station that has been its economic raison d'etre for more than 40 years. The reason: not enough snow.


10. Rooftops Key to Florida Green Energy Goal
Despite its nickname, the Sunshine State, Florida's heavy rains and pricey real estate mean it has never been considered a good place to set up big solar energy plants. So a new initiative by the fourth most-populous U.S. state to get its utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from sun, wind and other renewable resources will mean wiring rooftops rather than building huge solar or wind farms. Utilities say large solar power plants would simply not be cost effective.



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