Joined by senators from both sides of the aisle, Vermont Republican Senator Jim Jeffords has introduced a bill to restore US funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). As the global population approaches six billion, many experts in the field of sustainable development point out that controlling the growth of population is essential to preventing critical shortages of fresh water and food, and conserving forests and wildlife. The Jeffords bill is parallel to H.R. 895 introduced in the House in March by Representatives Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat and Connie Morella, a Maryland Republican. UNFPA is a leading source of financial and technical assistance for family planning programmes in more than 150 countries--many of which are struggling with the health consequences of unsafe childbearing patterns.

Trout Unlimited to save Colorado fish

Trout Unlimited (TU) has gone to court to protect fisheries in the Eagle and Fraser River basins ofColorado. In the Eagle basin, TU went to water court on April 29 to try and block new water withdrawals by Denver Water from Eagle basin streams, including some in a wilderness area, for use on the Front Range. These conditional rights serve as a place-holder for the project in Colorado's water rights system. The proposed diversions could harm several tributaries in the Eagle basin and reduce flows in the Eagle River. The project's future is in question since it relies in part on storage at Two Forks--the reservoir blocked in the early 1990s by the Environmental Protection Agency. Endangered species concerns in the Colorado also make the project less viable. In the Fraser basin, TU filed a protest on April 21 in a move to prevent the Colorado Water Conservation Board from making a 40 per cent reduction in an instream flow appropriation on St. Louis Creek. The two cases are the first filings TU has made in Colorado under its new Western Water Project. The project's goal is to protect and restore instream flowsfor cold water fisheries and to increase citizen participation in water management decisions.

Costly water contamination

The Washington State Department of Corrections has been fined $44,000 for inadequately controlling storm water that has spoiled water quality and fish habitat in a creek and a wetland just west of Aberdeen. The Department of Ecology issued the fine and ordered Corrections to restore water quality in Stafford Creek and the health of the adjacent wetland. The construction project has caused repeated discharges of sediments and cloudy storm water that silt up the creek and degrade water quality. Silt can kill salmon by clogging their gills and blocking their oxygen supply. An Ecology water quality inspector observed multiple violations of Corrections' storm water pollution prevention plan on six days from November 1998 through February 1999. Separately, Corrections voluntarily reported 61 violations of the project's storm water permit during four months beginning October 28, 1998.Self-reporting is a requirement of the permit. "We realise that Corrections is on a fast track to meet construction deadlines and that we have experienced an extraordinary amount of rainfall this winter, but adequate measures should have been taken to protect the environment," said Megan White, who manages Ecology's water-quality programme.

NWF to fund cattle vaccination

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has a plan to both protect the cattle of Montana ranchers and end the slaughter of America's largest wild buffalo herd now underway outside Yellowstone National Park. NWF will reimburse ranchers who graze cattle along the Montana-Yellowstone border for the cost of vaccinating vulnerable animals against the abortive disease brucellosis. No case of brucellosis transmission from wild bison to cattle has ever been documented. But fear of disease transmission has been used by Montana officials to justify the killing of 1,200 wild buffalo wandering outside park borders since the winter of 1996-97."Scientific evidence has always shown that transmission from wild buffalo to cattle was a matter of very low risk," said NWF buffalo project manager Steve Torbit. "With this proposal, we take it from low risk to no risk and eliminate any claim of justification for the slaughter."