Economist.com Cities Guide: Atlanta Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Death of an icon

Coretta Scott King, the widow of Martin Luther King, died on January 30th at the age of 78. Her body lay in state at Atlanta’s state capitol building, not far from Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her husband and his father had preached. Such was the reverence for Mrs King, who had been ill with cancer for much of the past year, that mourners lined up in the rain to pay their respects, and some 15,000 people (and four presidents, including both George Bushes) attended her funeral on February 7th at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, outside Atlanta.

Mrs King was a staunch supporter of her husband’s civil-rights struggles. After he was assassinated in 1968, she worked to establish a national holiday in his honour. She also raised their four children, who said after Mrs King’s death that it was their decision to send her to the alternative-therapy clinic in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, where she died. On February 2nd, Mexican officials shut down the clinic, alleging “high-risk” conditions for patients, although they said that the closure was not directly related to Mrs King’s death.

Campbell's day in court

The trial of Bill Campbell began on January 23rd, with the former Atlanta mayor (from 1994 to 2002) defending himself against charges of federal corruption and racketeering. Federal prosecutors spent five years investigating Mr Campbell before indicting him in August 2004, but whether they can get a conviction is unclear: he still has strong support in downtown Atlanta, where the trial is taking place, which could influence jury deliberations. The trial is expected to continue throughout February.

The court sessions have already made for plenty of drama. One former aide wept as he recounted how Mr Campbell had gone gambling in New Orleans with $10,000 in bribe money. Several businessmen have testified to giving money in exchange for favourable contracts when Mr Campbell privatised the city’s water system in 1994. And, according to prosecution plans, a former strip-club owner who has admitted to burning down rivals’ clubs will testify that he paid Mr Campbell $50,000 in cash. The former mayor, meanwhile, continues to plead innocent.

McReprieved

Shirley Franklin, Atlanta's mayor, won unexpected national attention when she decided temporarily to ban “McMansions” within the city. On January 20th she issued an executive order to prohibit developers from tearing down smaller homes and replacing them with much bigger ones. The ban halted “infill” construction in five popular neighbourhoods within the city—Ansley Park-Sherwood Forest, northern Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Lake Claire and Morningside-Lenox Park—until February 6th, when the city council would vote on whether to extend the ban for 120 days.

But the city's zoning committee rejected the ban, with nay-saying committee members arguing that it was unfair to say that some neighbourhoods were more valuable than others. Indeed, the prohibition would have covered less than 5% of the city. Real-estate developers had also speculated that owners might see the value of their homes drop dramatically (as their greatest selling point is often their suitability for conversion). Supporters of the moratorium had suggested that it was a welcome measure to preserve the character of popular neighbourhoods.

Bible study

A bill that would allow for Bible classes in public schools was approved by a 50-1 margin by state senators on February 3rd. Regina Thomas, a Democrat from Savannah, was the lone dissenter. State Republicans had been trying to pass a version of the bill since 2000. The version that passed, sponsored by Tommie Williams, the majority leader, requires the state board of education to approve two new elective high-school courses (which are not required for graduation): one on the Old Testament and one on the New. The bill also requires that the Bible be used as a textbook.

A version of the bill sponsored by three Democratic members would have created only one course and would not have required the use of the Bible, but lack of support forced the sponsors to vote for Mr Williams’s bill. Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, observed that it was better to be seen “running and hiding in the rest room” than be accused of voting against the Bible. A spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, meanwhile, promised to watch the bill closely.

Hapeless

On January 23rd, the Ford Motor Company announced that its 60-year-old plant in Hapeville, south of Atlanta, would close by mid-2008. This did not surprise Hapeville residents, since local economic developers had been in talks to preserve the plant, which employs more than 2,000 people, for years. Speculation about the closure had been rampant since Ford’s announcement in August that it would be phasing out the Taurus, which is made in Hapeville. While Ford restructures to try to bring its car division back to profitability, developers already have their eyes on Hapeville, which sits near Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. There are already talks about converting the 117-acre site into a mixed-use project.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967–2005 & The Quilts of Gee’s Bend

March 25th–June 18th 2006

Think of these two big, travelling and disparate exhibits as the High Museum of Art stretching and settling into its new space: a 177,000-square-foot expansion that opened last November. Chuck Close, an American painter, is known for his inventive take on portraiture. His often over-sized works are remarkable for the way they capture a likeness through an assembly of abstract, individually painted shapes. From a distance, his paintings have a photo-realism, but up close these faces dissolve into a grid of blobs, shadings or thumb-prints (in his earliest works). This exhibit traces Mr Close's technique in more than 100 of his works, beginning with a self-portrait from 1967, his first year in New York City.

Quilting is rarely the subject of avant-garde art circles. But “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” surely raises the under-estimated craft to something like high art. It features more than 40 gorgeous, innovative quilts, handmade by generations of resourceful black women in a rural community near Selma, Alabama. (The exhibit is co-produced by a non-profit organisation that raises funds on behalf of the quilters.)

High Museum of Art, 1280 Peachtree St. Tel: +1 (404) 733-4444. Open: Tues–Sun, 10am–5pm (Thurs till 8pm, third Fri of month till 10pm, Sun from noon). Admission: $10–15. For more information and for tickets, see the museum’s website.

More from the Atlanta cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Mexico City Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Switch hitter

With July's mayoral election fast approaching, the National Action Party (PAN) announced Demetrio Sodi as its nominee on January 30th. Mr Sodi may seem an unlikely candidate for the centre-right party, as he is a former senator for PAN’s rival, the centre-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). He made the switch and won the PAN's primary only after it became clear that he could not secure the PRD’s nomination.

Mr Sodi trails the PRD’s candidate, Marcelo Ebrard, by a wide margin. Still, he may be able to close the gap, as he is already seen as more progressive and open than his opponent. Mr Sodi quickly won the favour of editorial writers in La Jornada, a left-leaning newspaper, as well as the support of prominent PRD members dissatisfied with their party’s choice. His victory—though a long shot—would be a coup for the PAN: the PRD has held Mexico City’s mayoralty, considered the second most important office in the country, since the position became an elected seat in 1997.

American hospitality

The Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel was the centre of a diplomatic scuffle in February. It was the site of a three-day summit on “US-Cuba Energy”, which saw Cuban officials eagerly wooing American oil executives from Texas and Louisiana, in an effort to get American firms to extract Cuban oil resources. But the seduction was foiled in many ways on February 3rd, the second day of the summit, when the Sheraton kicked out the Cuban delegation under pressure from the American treasury. Because Sheraton is owned by an American firm, hosting the officials violated America’s 45-year-old trade embargo with Cuba.

The conference was promptly moved to a non-American hotel, but the affair has roiled anger in Cuba and Mexico alike. The Cuban government filed a complaint with the Mexican government; Luis Derbez, Mexico’s foreign minister, condemned the application of American laws in Mexico; and Mexico City officials are considering closing the Sheraton. Tension between Mexico and America has been running high already, owing to the matter of illegal immigration. America's Congress is considering building a fence along parts of the border, and some politicians claim that the Mexican army is infringing on American territory.

Serial captures

January was a good month for the city’s crime-fighters. A two-year saga may have come to an end on the 25th, when police arrested Juana Barraza, a 48-year-old former professional wrestler. They declared that she was the “little-old-lady killer”, or mataviejitas, accused of murdering 30 elderly women in their homes. Ms Barraza was captured fleeing a house where an 82-year-old woman, Ana Maria Reyes, was found strangled with a stethoscope. She admitted that she had killed Ms Reyes and three other women, but denied to reporters that she was guilty of the rest. Police detectives, however, said that Ms Barraza’s fingerprints place her at the scene of at least ten other murders.

The city’s mayor, Alejandro Encinas, had made capturing this serial killer his top crime-fighting priority. In other good news, police also announced that they had captured Raul Osiel Marroquin, an alleged serial killer, who confessed to the press that he had killed at least four homosexual men, apparently after picking them up at bars.

Ready, set, jump

An Austrian daredevil parachuted off Mexico City’s tallest building, the Torre Mayor, on January 30th. After his feat, 36-year-old Felix Baumgartner paused briefly to speak with onlookers and the press at the foot of the 225-metre (738-foot) building, before speeding away in a Hummer to avoid authorities—in typical fashion, he had not obtained a permit for the jump. The city government has been split over whether to punish the building’s management for allowing Mr Baumgartner to evade security measures. Mayor Encinas wants to fine the management firm 7,000 pesos ($670), while district officials wish to let matters lie.

Though it towers over the city, the Torre Mayor was only a medium-sized jump for Mr Baumgartner. He has parachuted off the world’s tallest building, the 450-metre Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and holds the cheeky world record for the shortest parachute jump, a mere 29 metres, from the top of a statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro.

Raging bull

In the annual festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, the city unleashes six bulls onto its streets and the foolhardy run for their lives. This spectacle was unintentionally reproduced in Mexico City on January 30th, when a 503kg (1,108-pound) bull named Pajarito (Titmouse) cleared two fences and jumped into the stands during a bullfight. The stands were full, but miraculously no one was killed; seven people were injured—at least one seriously—before a bullfighter followed Pajarito into the stands and killed him.

Built 60 years ago, the city's bullring is one of the world's biggest, holding 48,000 spectators. Mayor Encinas is in talks with local officials to figure out the best way to make the stadium more secure. The bull had little problem clearing the metal bars that are meant to keep the animals in the ring.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Phil Kelly

Until March 4th 2006

This small exhibit proves that a bold dash of paint can sometimes convey more than a thousand tiny strokes. Phil Kelly, an Irishman who lives in Mexico, creates paintings that are testaments to the power of suggestion. Aggressive strokes and vivid colour bring vistas to life, giving a kinetic energy to otherwise clichéd landscapes such as Paris’s Seine and Mexico’s beaches.

Perhaps the best of these, “Mar Can-Cún”, features a pair of furled beach umbrellas that look more like plaintive sentries than workaday blights on the sand. The exhibit also includes a series of yellow-tinted portraits, which recall Matisse. One work, “The Historic Centre denuded after the rain”, unites the portraits and landscapes, as it combines the undulation of a woman’s legs with a stretch of Mexico City’s old downtown.

Alliance Française Polanco Sócrates #156 Col. Polanco. Open: Mon-Fri, 9am-8pm; Sat 9am-1.30pm. Tel: +52 (55) 1084-4190. See the exhibit’s website.

More from the Mexico City cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Dubai Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Danish boycott

United Arab Emirates officials have condemned a Danish newspaper's decision to publish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The cartoons have inspired violent protests by Muslims around the world, particularly in the Middle East. Mohammad Nakhira al-Daheri, the UAE's minister for justice and religious affairs, characterised the cartoons as “cultural extremism”. A number of prominent UAE supermarkets, including Carrefour, a French chain, removed Danish goods from their shelves as part of an unofficial boycott. UAE nationals and Muslim expatriates also staged a number of peaceful protests against Denmark.

But the UAE's response to the matter has been notable for its moderation: the boycott has clear limits, revealing Dubai’s liberal approach towards trading partners, and the street protests were subdued relative to those in other Arab countries. Danish diplomats said that while the boycott was hurting Danish companies that sell consumer goods, such as Arla Foods (maker of Lurpak butter), Danish firms that supply business-to-business goods and services were largely unaffected. AP Moeller-Maersk, a Danish shipping line, is one of the most active carriers serving the UAE.

Kingdom come

The Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX), the emirate's new stockmarket, received some much-needed good news when Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a Saudi billionaire, announced plans to list one of his companies, Kingdom Hotel Investments. Kingdom executives praised the exchange's strong regulatory environment, and bankers estimate the listed company could have a market capitalisation close to $1 billion.

Since its launch in September, the exchange has been something of a damp squib. Investcom, the only stock listed, did not trade for months. Nine index-tracking funds received similar short shrift from investors. Privately, investment bankers and chief executives were growing concerned about this lack of trades. But matters have improved since late January, when two high-profile bonds were listed on the exchange. This included the world’s biggest Islamic bond—a $3.5 billion sukuk (which pays a profit rate, rather than an interest rate) from the state-owned Dubai Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation to help finance a planned acquisition of P&O ferries. Then Barclays Capital, one of the world’s leading investment houses, got a licence to be a broker on the bourse, and HSBC traded Investcom on the DIFX for the first time. Bourse officials admit the exchange has a long way to go before it achieves critical mass, but crow that about 15 companies have firm plans to list by the end of 2006.

Foreign investment

At the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos in late January, Sheikha Lubna al-Qassimi, the UAE’s economy minister, announced that the Emirates was keen to attract more direct foreign investment. She added that foreigners would soon be allowed to own up to 75% of UAE firms. The limit is now 49%, except in the country’s free zones such as Dubai Internet City (home to the likes of Microsoft and CNN), where 100% foreign ownership is permitted. The UAE's Ministry of Economy and Planning is preparing a new commercial law with these changes, which should be in place by the first quarter of 2006.

Sleeping rough

Spiralling rents for homes in Dubai have forced some low-wage Asian expatriate workers to sleep in their cars. The Gulf News, an English-language daily, reported in February that a growing number of men spend the night in their vehicles, paying around Dh60 ($15) per month for access to bathrooms. They are priced out of Dubai's rental market, where real-estate rates increased by around 40% in 2005, according to property brokers. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that, while Dubai is witnessing a construction boom, developers favour luxury apartments and villas, leaving little accommodation for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, mainly from India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

Russian arrest

On February 6th Dubai police arrested Alexander Kukovyakin, a Russian who is believed to be a leading member of an organised crime group based in Yekaterinburg. Few details of the arrest were published by Itar-Tass, a Russian news agency, but Russia is seeking Mr Kukovyakin’s extradition.

Dubai is increasingly popular with Russians, many of whom have set up businesses in the emirate, or visit on holiday. They are becoming significant buyers of property in Dubai, with some local luxury developers holding road-shows in Moscow. Russian women also make up a significant proportion of Dubai’s prostitution industry, giving rise to concerns that organised Russian gangs are operating in the emirate.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Hussein Madi

February 13th—March 20th 2006

Hussein Madi is a prolific Lebanese painter whose fractured, figurative works and exuberant use of colour have earned him the title “Picasso of the Orient”. In this three-week show at the Fairmont hotel, visitors can appreciate Mr Madi's wide-ranging command of media. In four decades, there have been 46 solo shows of his paintings, graphics, prints and iron sculptures, and he has exhibited in such places as Beirut, Tokyo's Ueno Museum, the Venice Biennale and the British Museum’s permanent collection.

Artspace, the Fairmont Dubai. Tel: +971 (0)4 332 5523. Open: Sat-Thurs, 10am-8.30pm. See the gallery's website.

More from the Dubai cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: San Francisco Briefing - February 2006

News this month

In due force

Reports that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) nurtures a culture of brutality have sparked a serious row in the city. In a series of articles published this winter, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the 2,000-member SFPD often turns a blind eye to officers who use excessive force. Though a core group of some 100 officers account for 25% of citizen complaints, the newspaper claims, the SFPD has not punished these officers and has even allowed some to rise in the ranks.

The response from police officers has been fierce. The head of the police union, Gary Delagnes, charged the Chronicle with sensational “cop bashing”. Heather Fong, the police chief, threatened legal action against the Chronicle, saying that the newspaper’s misidentification of a police officer on the front page of its special report exemplified faulty information throughout. Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, San Francisco’s mayor, expressed alarm and said he would ensure the SFPD develops a computerised system to track problem officers as soon as possible. Some hailed the mayor’s response; others were less enthusiastic. Mr Delagnes carped that Mr Newsom’s initiative showed “complete and total lack of respect for the rank and file”.

Golden parachutes

California’s universities may be starved for funds, but their top executives and star faculty have been far from deprived. In a state-senate hearing on February 8th, the president of the ten-campus University of California (UC), Robert Dynes, said that UC may have violated school policy by granting generous pay packages for some executives and staff. Mr Dynes apologised for failing to disclose the payouts and said that internal investigations were underway. He allowed the payments, he explained, because of the pressure to hire and retain America's best academics.

The senate education committee called the hearings after a series of articles in the San Francisco Chronicle last autumn revealed that UC has secretly handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, benefits and other perks to select administrators and faculty. A former UC Davis vice chancellor, after threatening to sue for discrimination, received more than $400,000 in a two-year contract for a job without regular duties. In another case, a former provost under investigation for improper hiring was paid more than $300,000 to take a 15-month leave. Revelations of such payouts have come at a time when campuses have been raising student fees in response to state budget cuts. More hearings are to come, and a proposed bill would force UC to be more open about its pay practices.

Hacker nightmare

The FBI and the California attorney general are investigating a local debit-card heist. An international counterfeit ring apparently hacked into a northern California retail store’s computer system in December and stole debit-card numbers belonging to as many as 200,000 people. These numbers were then used to create counterfeit debit cards sold on the international black market. Revelations of the scam emerged slowly over the past month: some victims found they could not use their debit cards at ATM machines, while others were notified that thousands of dollars were charged to their accounts by people in Russia or Ukraine.

Fraudulent charges related to the theft have also been reported in Britain, France, Spain and China. In early February, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and other banks sent replacement cards to customers whose personal information may have been stolen.

Investigators declined to name the retailer with the breached computer system, but newspapers have fingered a Sacramento-area office-supply store called Office Max as the likely site. Officials are considering whether the store violated any laws by failing to safeguard its electronic data or to promptly notify customers of the theft.

California's favourite grape

California has an official state bird, flower, fish and fossil. Now a state senator from San Francisco wants California to crown Zinfandel the official state wine. Carole Migden, whose district includes Sonoma County, one of California’s top winemaking regions, introduced a bill in February to honour Zinfandel, a varietal known for its spice and fruitiness. She said the grape deserves this attention because it was brought to California by pioneers during the Gold Rush. Ms Migden’s move was hailed by Zinfandel devotees, who say that it is integral to California’s winegrowing history; about 600 of California’s 800 winemakers bottle Zinfandel.

But the proposal is expected to face opposition from winemakers who specialise in other varietals. Some have already complained that it is not fair for the state to honour one above others, especially given that Cabernet Sauvignon reigns in Napa Valley and Pinot Noir put Santa Barbara county on the map. What is more, Zinfandel comes in fourth—behind seedless grapes, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon—in the number of grapes crushed each year.

The last dance

International acclaim, it seems, does not a budget make. More than 40 years after its founding, the Oakland Ballet announced in late January that financial troubles were forcing it to disband. The storied ballet company began as a community troupe in 1965, but quickly became one of America’s more important companies. Ronn Guidi, the ballet’s founding director, scored critical hits by working with legendary choreographers such as Leonide Massine and Agnes de Mille. He also dusted off forgotten American ballets and works originally staged by Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes.

Mr Guidi left the company on shaky ground in 2000. So dire was the ballet's status that his replacement, Karen Brown, scrapped the 2004 season to pay back debts and raise $500,000. A comeback season in 2005 drew rave reviews—and a meagre audience. Disappointing ticket sales ($129,000 below target in November) were compounded by the city’s decision to close the company’s theatre, and on January 31st, Ms Brown announced that the 2005 season would be Oakland Ballet's last.

Catch if you can

February 2006

“Gem of the Ocean”

Until March 12th 2006

In the early 1980s August Wilson set out on the ambitious task of chronicling the African-American experience in the 20th century. He aimed to depict black life in a cycle of ten plays, each set in a different decade in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was born. It took Wilson more than 20 years to complete the cycle, but by the time he died in 2005 his work had won him two Pulitzer prizes and placed him in the pantheon of great American playwrights.

This winter, the American Conservatory Theatre presents one of Wilson’s last plays, “Gem of the Ocean”, written in 2003. Though the play is the ninth in the cycle, its setting in 1904 makes it the earliest of the series. Characters struggle to find their way in the post-Civil War era, with bigotry and subjugation as rampant as ever. Aunt Ester Tyler, a former slave who enjoys the clairvoyance of a 287-year-old, helps a young man and possible murderer named Citizen find redemption. This Bay Area premiere of “Gem of the Ocean” is nimbly directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, a seasoned actor and director who appeared as the antagonistic constable, Caesar, in the show's 2004 production on Broadway.

Geary Theatre, 415 Geary St, San Francisco. Tel: +1 (415) 749-2228. For more information visit the theatre’s website.

More from the San Francisco cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Sydney Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Wheat and chaff

One of Australia’s biggest-ever corruption scandals is unfolding in Sydney. Terence Cole, a former judge, is examining allegations that AWB, an Australian wheat seller, paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq to secure contracts under the UN’s oil-for-food programme. Between 1999 and 2003, AWB sold Iraq wheat worth more than $2.3 billion. Allegations of impropriety surfaced in a UN report last year, which listed AWB among companies that had paid the Iraqi government. The report found AWB paid more than $221m to Alia, a Jordanian trucking company, to distribute its wheat in Iraq between 1999 and 2003; these payments were then remitted to the Iraqi government. AWB has denied knowledge that these payments were going to Mr Hussein’s regime, but new evidence has made such denials look thin.

Heads began rolling on February 9th when Andrew Lindberg resigned as AWB’s managing director after four days of intense questioning; a company statement said his resignation was “in the best interests of the company”. The inquiry is also proving to be an embarrassment for Australia’s coalition government, led by John Howard. One of the loudest critics of Mr Hussein’s regime, Mr Howard was quick to commit troops to the American-led invasion of Iraq. The Cole inquiry is due to report on March 31st.

Up in the air

Plans by the owners of Sydney Airport to build a giant mall of shops, cinemas and car parks near the airport’s busy runways have unleashed a torrent of opposition from the city’s authorities. The Sydney Airport Corporation (SAC), controlled by a subsidiary of Macquarie Bank, Australia’s biggest investment bank, wants to build the complex over the next five years to generate revenue from vacant land adjacent to Botany Bay. But Clover Moore, Sydney’s Lord Mayor, is considering a legal challenge, saying the land should be kept for future airport expansion. Her blunt-speaking predecessor, Frank Sartor, now minister for planning in the New South Wales state government, said the airport's “willy-nilly, stuff-you attitude is over the top”. The snag is that state and local governments have little hold over airport land, which is controlled by the federal government in Canberra.

Since it won control in a 2002 privatisation, the Macquarie Bank consortium has turned Sydney Airport, Australia’s largest, into a profitable business by cutting costs and raising charges to the airport’s users. Max Moore-Wilton, the SAC’s chief executive (known as “Max the Axe” from his former role as a senior civil servant in Canberra), was recently appointed chairman of Macquarie Airports, whose holdings also include airports in Brussels, Rome and Birmingham. Mr Moore-Wilton is due to be succeeded in April by Russell Balding, managing director of the publicly owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Island hoping

Sydneysiders are gripped by the murder of Janelle Patton, whose battered body was found in March 2002 on Norfolk Island. A 29-year-old from Sydney, she worked as a temporary resident on the island, a speck in the Pacific Ocean about 1,500km north-east of the city. Hers was the first known murder in the island’s history. The trail seemed to have gone cold until February 1st, when police in New Zealand arrested Glenn McNeill, a 28-year-old New Zealander. A chef who once worked on the island, Mr McNeill was extradited and appeared in a Norfolk Island court on February 9th on murder charges. He did not enter a plea, and has been held in custody pending a further hearing.

The case has strained relations between Australia and the island, a self-governing territory. First a British penal colony, Norfolk Island then became home to the descendants of sailors who committed the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. Islanders argue that Queen Victoria gave them the territory, and accuse Australia of imposing authority. In 2004 an Australian magistrate upset locals when he publicly named 16 “persons of interest” in the case, mainly island residents; Mr NcNeill was not among them. Some news reports then inflamed the situation by suggesting islanders could be protecting Ms Patton’s killer.

Republic opinion

A long-running campaign to make Australia a republic got a shot in the arm in late January, when supporters gathered at Sydney's Bondi Beach under the banner of their new slogan, “A Mate for Head of State”. Similar rallies took place in other cities, to draw public attention to the republican call for an Australian head of state to replace Britain's Queen Elizabeth. But an opinion poll that came out around the same time showed support for a republic had fallen to 46% from majority support earlier this decade. In the same poll, support rose to 52% in the event of Prince Charles succeeding the Queen as monarch.

The issue has lain dormant since a 1999 referendum was defeated, 55% to 45%. Republicans have blamed John Howard, the prime minister and a fervent monarchist, for manipulating the result by offering an unpopular republic model: a head of state chosen by parliament. Polls indicate a referendum has no chance of succeeding unless Australians are offered the option of electing the head of state themselves.

Gowings gone

In a city that rarely lets nostalgia stand in the way of progress, Gowings department store survived defiantly for 138 years. Its art-deco building on the corner of George and Market Streets has been as recognisable a landmark among Sydneysiders as the Sydney Opera House. Yet on January 29th the company's neon sign finally stopped twinkling, and Gowings ceased trading. Two other company stores, on Oxford Street and in the northern suburb of Hornsby, had closed some months earlier. An administrator, appointed last November to try to stem heavy financial losses, decided to shut down the business after failing to find a buyer.

The demise of Gowings is a cruel irony at a time when Australians are enjoying the fruits of a booming economy driven largely by consumer spending. But that may have been part of its problem. The store’s mixture of casual, own-brand clothes once attracted a loyal following, but as younger shoppers flocked to suburban shopping centres, chasing designer clothes and computer gadgetry, Gowings’ formula seemed increasingly out of kilter. The end was nigh when John Gowing, great-grandson of the founder, floated the retail business as a separate company in 2001, in order to concentrate on his family’s more lucrative stockmarket investments.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Mozart’s Masterpieces

March 1st-4th 2006

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) marks the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth with this concert of two contrasting works from the composer’s repertoire: his Symphony No.40 and Concerto for Two Pianos K 365. Michele Campanella and Monica Leone, two virtuoso pianists from Italy, will perform the second piece, in an evening conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti, the orchestra’s chief conductor and artistic director. Suite No.2 from Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloe” will finish the evening.

The SSO plans a series of four more concerts, called “Mozart in the City”, for April, June, August and November at Sydney's City Recital Hall in Angel Place.

Sydney Opera House, Bennelong Point. Tel: +61 (02) 9250 7777. March 1st, 3rd & 4th at 8pm; March 2nd at 1.30pm. See the opera house's website for further details.

More from the Sydney cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Zurich Briefing - February 2006

News this month

If it ain’t broke

Zurich’s local elections on February 12th largely maintained the status quo. The eight members of the city government who stood for re-election—there are nine in total—were comfortably returned. The city mayor, Elmar Ledergerber, easily held onto his position, winning more than three times as many votes as his challenger, Roger Liebi. The results were unsurprising in light of several pre-election surveys that found high levels of satisfaction among the general public. Voter turnout was also low at just over 33%, down from 48% four years ago.

Mr Liebi, a member of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, also stood for and lost the only vacant government seat; Gerold Lauber of the centrist Christian Democratic Party replaced Monika Weber, the ninth member of the executive and an independent who is retiring from her position as schools minister. The People’s Party, despite 16 years without a representative in Zurich’s city executive, maintained its position as the second-strongest party in the city’s parliament—the election saw it keep its 18.5% share of the vote. But the party still had to surrender seven of its previous 31 seats, under the parliament’s proportional representation system. The Social Democrats remain the most powerful faction, despite losing five of their 49 seats.

Battered reputation

A long-running scandal over alleged brutality by members of Zurich’s police force shows no sign of abating. In April 2002 two unnamed, plain-clothes policemen attempted to arrest a 23-year-old Bosnian—identified only as Eldar S.—whom they wrongly assumed was a drug-dealer. Not realising that the men were police, Eldar S. tried to fight them off, earning a broken arm and concussion. An inquiry into the event cleared these officers in February.

After studying eyewitness reports, Peter Schäppi, the investigating magistrate, said the officers had not committed any crime. He suggested that some of the more serious injuries might even have been inflicted following the Bosnian man's transfer to police custody—as Eldar S. had already claimed. Yet Mr Schäppi said he was not empowered to rule on such a possibility, as events at the police station were not within the scope of his investigation. The lawyer of Eldar S. told reporters it was “frightening” that somebody could be hospitalised by police without any repercussions, and promised to appeal against the judgement.

Poor Swiss

The outside world may view Switzerland as a land of unlimited wealth, but figures released at the end of January showed that plenty of Swiss are struggling to make ends meet. Studies carried out in several German-speaking cities revealed a marked increase in the number of 18- to 25-year-olds reliant on social-welfare payments. In Zurich, the figure for 2004 was 11% of people in this age group (up two percentage points on 2003). Meanwhile, Caritas, a local aid organisation, estimated that up to a million Swiss of all ages could be living below the poverty line. A more precise figure should emerge in May when the federal statistics office publishes the first nationwide survey of social-welfare recipients.

Stage fright

Zurich’s renowned Schauspielhaus theatre saw some unusually dramatic scenes at the end of January, when a strike by technical staff forced it to close its doors. The state-subsidised theatre, which has operated since 1892 and claims to be the only German-speaking theatre to have run uncensored throughout the second world war, had never previously been forced to close because of a labour dispute.

The technicians, disgruntled by a new pay structure, ended their four-day strike after reaching a compromise with the theatre’s management board. They agreed to return to work in exchange for a 1% pay increase, followed by a raise of a further percentage point in August 2007. The management warned, however, that cuts would still have to be made to balance the increases, and that job losses could not be ruled out.

All change

Zurich’s city parliament has approved plans for a SFr1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) building project centred on the main train station. The “Hauptbahnhof” project, which will create office-space for up to 8,000 workers, plus as many as 500 new flats, follows two other abandoned schemes to utilise 320,000 square metres of land adjoining the station. The new project was unanimously supported by the parliament, but could still face a public vote. Opponents of the scheme, angered at the planned involvement of private investors, need 4,000 votes to force a referendum on the plan. Unless objections slow the project, the new complex will be built in several stages and should be finished in 2018.

Catch if you can

February 2006

Take Away: Design for eating on the move

Until March 19th 2006

Zurich’s Museum of Design is taking a long, hard look at items most of us are happy to condemn to the rubbish bin. This show is devoted to today’s take-away culture, including its packaging, design and marketing ideas. Divided into bite-sized chunks, the exhibit compares “Japanese style” take-away with that of Zurich’s take-away-laden district of Niederdorf. 18th-century English picnic hampers are also on display, and a “littering” section considers the ugly side-effect of eating on the go.

Museum of Design, Ausstellungstrasse 60, 8005 Zurich. Tram 4 or 13 to ‘Museum für Gestaltung’ stop, or five-minute walk from Zurich main station. Tel: +41 (0) 43 446 6767. Open: Tues-Thurs, 10am-8pm; Fri-Sun 10am-5pm. Admission: SFr7 (concessions SFr5). For more details see the museum’s website.

More from the Zurich cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Brussels Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Breaking up is hard to do

King Albert II of Belgium may have limited power in government, but that has not stopped him from riling local politicians. He ruffled feathers on January 31st when he used his annual New Year’s reception to speak out against efforts to divide Belgium. Calls to split the country have mounted in Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking half of the country, where most residents are wealthier than those in francophone Wallonia. In December the Warande Group, a Flemish think-tank, published a manifesto for an independent Flanders, arguing that the region subsidises the poorer south. The king's speech seemed to offer a direct response, as he warned against “an anachronistic and disastrous separation” caused by “over-hasty conclusions based on certain economic differences”. His talk coincided with celebrations to mark the 175th anniversary of the Belgian constitution.

The speech enraged Flemish nationalist parties of all stripes, including the Christian Democrats, Vlaams Belang, N-VA and Spirit, with politicians accusing the king of exceeding his constitutional powers. The Christian Democrats—an opposition party at the federal level but leader of the Flemish regional government—have been pressing for devolving more power to the regions, an effort that is expected to gain momentum after local elections in the autumn. Though a complete split is unlikely in the near future, such a divide would create a problem for Brussels. The city is capital of both Belgium and Flanders, but Brussels is bilingual, with francophones far outnumbering Dutch-speakers. Some suggest Brussels could become an independent city-state or even a European preserve.

Steely resolve

Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian owner of Mittal Steel, has been knocking on doors in Brussels to win support for an €18.6 billion ($22.1 billion) takeover bid. On January 27th Mr Mittal announced an offer to combine his steel company, the world’s largest, with Arcelor, a Luxembourg-based firm with plants throughout Europe. While Arcelor hired a phalanx of bankers to fend off the bid, Mr Mittal began courting Europe’s leaders, travelling to Brussels to meet Neelie Kroes, the European Union competition commissioner, Günter Verheugen, the enterprise commissioner, and Josep Barrol, president of the European Parliament. But Mr Mittal also wants to win over local authorities. Politicians in Madrid, Paris and Luxembourg have already condemned the takeover, but Belgian leaders have been a bit more open, if still wary. Guy Verhofstadt, the prime minister, has met Mr Mittal and Arcelor’s chief, Guy Dollé, while Didier Reynders, Belgium’s finance minister, said on February 14th that there was no need to denounce the Mittal offer before learning more about it.

Despite the gripes from elsewhere in Europe, the Mittal offer is not anti-competitive and will probably go through. It remains unclear how the takeover would affect Belgium. The steel industry has long been integral to the country’s economy, and Arcelor employs 15,400 people in Belgium, at plants in Ghent, Genk, Liège and Charleroi. Furthermore, the regional government of Wallonia still owns a 2.4% stake in Arcelor, a remnant of the days when Belgian steel was state-owned. But Wallonia is fairly immune to swings in Arcelor’s fortune, for better or worse: the Walloon government entered into share arrangements to guard itself against sharp drops in Arcelor’s stock price, which in turn means it will miss out on rises brought about by a takeover.

A pressing issue

Belgium’s national security chief, Koen Dassen, resigned on January 30th amid charges that he had allowed a Flemish company to breach the international nuclear embargo on Iran. In November 2004 Epsi, a local firm, exported an isostatic press to Iran, despite warnings from America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that the press could be used to fortify nuclear weapons. A committee report to the Belgian Senate on January 31st revealed that Mr Dassen’s security service had not only ignored the request to intervene from the CIA, but had kept information from Laurette Onkelinx, Belgium’s justice minister.

With the international community fighting tooth and nail to halt Iran’s nuclear programme, the scandal over the isostatic press was sure to make heads roll. Belgium’s interior minister, Patrick Dewael and Ms Onkelinx said that Mr Dassen would become a “special expert” on security and migration policy. Epsi, for its part, denies wrongdoing, insisting that Iran Aircraft Industries bought the press to treat aircraft parts.

Under quarantine

Belgium’s Federal Food Safety Agency has placed almost 400 pig and poultry farms in temporary quarantine after discovering in January that animal feed had been contaminated with dioxin, a cancer-causing chemical. More than 200 farms in the Netherlands and a handful in Germany have also been closed. The scare recalled a similar incident in 1999, when news of dioxin-contaminated feed in Belgium created such a frenzy that the Christian Democrats were ousted from office in the general election.

The origin of the current crisis seems to have been Tessenderlo Chemie, a Belgian chemical producer. Hydrochloric acid used to strip pork fat from the bone at the company may have contaminated the feed, and filters supposed to purge the acid of dioxins malfunctioned for three weeks in October. The defect was not detected, so contaminated material was distributed to subsidiaries, then to feed producers. This sequence has exposed errors in the safeguards put in place after the 1999 crisis, when Belgium’s meat industry lost more than €600m ($713m). South Korea, Taiwan and China have quickly banned pork imports from Belgium and the Netherlands, despite assurances from Belgian authorities that dioxin levels are not high enough to pose a serious health risk.

A match made beforehand

Fans need not get so worked up during Belgian football games—the fate of the matches may be predetermined. A documentary broadcast on February 5th by VRT, a Flemish television station, claimed that the league is riddled with match-fixing. VRT’s charges centred on the involvement of Zheyun Ye, a Chinese businessman, in the club La Louvière. Mr Ye is not new to controversy: as a stake-holder in other Belgian clubs, he was arrested and questioned about match-fixing last year, but released without charge. The fresh allegations provoked threats of libel action from La Louvière, as well as from agents and coaches.

Belgian football authorities have voiced concern over the unusually large amounts of money sometimes bet on league games. Match-fixing may be more common in Belgium than in neighbouring countries because its leagues have smaller teams with often shaky finances, making them more vulnerable to bribery. Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian justice minister, said that an investigation of the charges was underway.

Catch if you can

February 2006

The desire for beauty: the Wiener Werstätte and the Stoclet Palace

February 17th–May 28th 2006

The Palais des Beaux-Arts celebrates Austrian art nouveau with work from the Wiener Werstätte, or Viennese Workshop. Josef Hoffman and Kolo Moser created the atelier in 1903 with the aim of elevating everyday objects, such as a teapot or vase, into high art. More than 1,000 items from the Wiener Werstätte make up this exhibition.

The show lavishes attention on the Stoclet Palace in Brussels, hailed as the apex of art nouveau. Designed by Hoffman and decorated from doorknob to teaspoon by the Wiener Werstätte, the building has been a landmark since its completion in 1911. The palace, built for the family of Adolphe Stoclet (a Belgian banker and industrialist), is closed to the public, but this may soon change. Since the death of Baroness Stoclet in 2002, her heirs have been fighting over whether the palace should be on view. This exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts offers a hint of the wonders that would be revealed.

Palais des Beaux-Arts, Rue Royale 10, 1000 Brussels. Tel: +32 (0) 2-507-8200. Open: Tues-Sun, 10am-6pm. For more information see the Bozar website.

More from the Brussels cultural calendar

Economist.com Cities Guide: Berlin Briefing - February 2006

News this month

Kick-start

As the June finals of the football World Cup in Germany draw near, local security and emergency forces have been engaged in a flurry of preparations. These include equipping Berlin's 38 hospitals to deal with an atomic, biological or chemical incident. By May they should have collectively 160 special suits to protect staff from the effects of a dirty bomb, and six decontamination tents to prevent the spread of infection.

Authorities are also bracing themselves for more traditional dangers, with football hooliganism a top concern. For months now, German police forces have been pooling data on potentially violent fans: so far, around 9,500 Germans have been classed as dangerous. There are also concerns about louts from abroad, especially from England, Poland and the Netherlands. Last November, fighting broke out between Polish and German fans near the town of Frankfurt an der Oder, on the border between Poland and Germany—a so-called pre-World Cup tussle that left 40 people injured.

Past mastered

After more than a decade of ferocious debate over the fate of Berlin’s Palast der Republik, work on demolishing the former parliament of communist East Germany finally began on February 6th. But unlike the Prussian Imperial Palace, which stood on the same spot before it was blown up by the East German communist government in 1950, the 1970s steel-and-concrete building will be slowly dismantled over a year. The first cranes have already started removing the glass plates that form the Palast’s characteristic gold-brown mirrored façade. The building has achieved a sort of cult status in Berlin, and many are sorry to see it go. Some will be further disappointed to learn that souvenirs will not be available, as the building's materials will be either sold or recycled.

The Palast should be gone by Easter 2007. In its stead, the German government has provisionally agreed to rebuild the former Prussian Palace, although how this will be funded is not yet clear. Until that question is resolved, the site will be grassed over.

Bumpy ride

The future of Berlin's troubled international airport project remains uncertain. The German Federal Administrative Court is discussing the plan to build Berlin-Brandenburg International (BBI) east of the city, on the site of Schönefeld airport. BBI, intended to replace Schönefeld, Tegel and Tempelhof airports and give Berlin a facility worthy of its capital-city status, is supposed to be complete by 2011. However, work has been slowed in the last decade by objections from local residents. The case before the court is the result of legal action by over 3,300 people, who have complained of potential noise pollution, environmental damage and the destruction of local businesses.

The court is due to decide by March. Besides being a critical transport link—BBI would handle 22m passengers a year at first, while Schönefeld can only hold 5m—BBI is the largest new infrastructure project in former communist East Germany. It is expected to give an economic boost to the region, which suffers from high unemployment. It is hoped that as many as 40,000 jobs could be created.

Honouring her memory

A year after the “honour killing” of a 23-year-old German woman of Turkish origin, an exhibition in her memory has opened in Berlin. Hatun Sürücü was shot dead last February by her youngest brother while she waited for a bus in Tempelhof, a Berlin suburb. Shortly before being killed, she had obtained a divorce from an arranged marriage, stopped wearing a headscarf, and started to train as an electrician.

The exhibition, which opened its doors on February 7th at a restaurant in Kreuzberg, a predominantly Turkish neighbourhood, includes photos of Sürücü, and is meant to be both a memorial and a statement against the oppression of women. According to Terre des Femmes, a campaigning organisation, Sürücü’s case has “led to a change of thinking in society” and brought the issues of forced marriages and honour killings to light. No official statistics exist, but several other similar deaths have been reported in Berlin.

The exhibition in memory of Hatun Sürücü is at Muskat, Muskauer Strasse 33, 10997 Berlin-Kreuzberg (Tel: +49 (0)30 612 891 38).

Out of line

Jewish groups in Germany are outraged that eBay, an auction website, is being used by neo-Nazis to distribute right-wing extremist material. Despite the fact that texts promoting Nazism are classified as anti-constitutional in Germany, neo-Nazi bands are managing to sell illegal songs on the site. In February local authorities also noticed that more copies of “Mein Kampf”, Hitler's Nazi manifesto, which cannot legally be sold in Germany in its original form, were being auctioned on the website.

EBay, which has its German headquarters just outside Berlin, reacted by saying its company policy strictly forbids users from auctioning articles which idealise Nazism or play down the harm it causes. The company has strengthened its filters, but also declared it would be difficult to stop such products being sold in Germany completely. Many of the items come from countries where it is legal to sell such material.

Catch if you can

February 2006

“Cabaret”

Booking until April 2006

Thanks to Bob Fosse's 1972 film version, starring Liza Minnelli, Berlin is forever linked in the minds of many with this powerful musical, based on stories by Christopher Isherwood. This staging, which has won accolades since opening last year, brings the show back to the city for the first time in years. Bar jeder Vernunft, an atmospheric venue, does a fabulous job of standing in for the Kit Kat Klub. The decadence of the last days of Weimar-era Berlin (both horrifying and irresistible to Isherwood), juxtaposed with the Nazis' rise to power, is beautifully captured by an enthusiastic and talented cast.

Bar jeder Vernunft, Scharperstrasse 24, Berlin-Wilmersdorf. Tel: +49 (0)30 883 1582. See the venue's website.

More from the Berlin cultural calendar

Endangered, but on road to recovery

from the March 02, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0302/p03s03-uspo.html

By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Is the Endangered Species Act really helping the piping plover, Delmarva Fox squirrel and more than 1,300 plants and animals on the protected list survive - or is it as critics argue - a costly failure?

One of the nation's landmark environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the focus of congressional overhaul legislation. Reformers say the act wastes taxpayers' money, spawns costly lawsuits, and does little to help endangered species.

But a independent study released Tuesday suggests otherwise, showing populations of most listed species in the Northeast improved significantly under the ESA, the bald eagle most notably. Other species are stabilizing, the report said.

Concern about altering the ESA brought about the first-of-its-kind study by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz. It compiles federal, state, and university research to provide long-term population trend data for the large majority of endangered species in the Northeast.

At least 38 of 41 endangered species in the Northeast have increased in number or maintained stable populations since being listed, the report says. About 7 percent of species are in decline. No species has become extinct since being listed. The analysis included all species for which there were at least six years of data and a recovery timeline, comprising 73 percent of those listed.

"We find that the Endangered Species Act has been remarkably successful in the region," said the CBD report.

In particular, the bald eagle soared from 417 pairs in 1963 to 7,230 by 2003. Populations of the American peregrine falcon, the Atlantic piping plover, the humpback whale, the Puritan tiger beetle, and the American Hart's-tounge fern also increased.

"It often takes many years on the [ESA] list before some populations even begin to rebound," says Peter Galvin, CBD conservation director. "These species didn't become endangered overnight, and people shouldn't expect them to recover overnight."

That's unlikely to satisfy those in Congress who say the act is a boondoggle. Less than 1 percent of the endangered species put on the list since 1973 have recovered enough to be taken off, critics say.

Leading the way to change the ESA is Rep. Richard Pombo (R) of California, chairman of the House Resources Committee. He sponsored ESA overhaul legislation that passed the House last fall. Similar ESA legislation could surface in the Senate as soon as this month, observers say.

Government data "makes it clear the vast majority of these species have not improved," said Mr. Pombo in a statement last year. Just 10 species have recovered enough to be removed from the list since the act was passed in 1973, with 60 percent of species "uncertain" or "declining," according to US Fish and Wildlife Service reports.

But that biennial report to Congress charts "declines" and other species' status on a two-year time frame, during which plant populations can fluctuate dramatically, Mr. Galvin says, citing a need for long-term information.

But Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for Pombo's committee, says those "declines" are accurate. The CBD report, he says, uses US Fish and Wildlife Service data that are being revised, and so are "unreliable and not meaningful."

Mr. Kennedy agrees that collecting long-term species population data is a good idea - and that Pombo's overhaul does this. For its part, the CBD study shows the average recovery plan for Northeast species is 42 years, Galvin says.

For example, a little pond turtle called the northern red-bellied Cooter found in southern Massachusetts was down to 300 in 1985 and is now at 3,000. Though the cooter has been on the list for 20 years, the first hatchlings have been breeding for only five. A cooter begins to breed at age 14.

"Because of the systems we've worked out we know it won't disappear again," says Tom French of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. "Whether it will ever thrive again we don't know.... We're still working for that long-term goal." The cost to taxpayers to save the cooter is about $5,000 to $15,000 a year.

Also on the list is the slow-reproducing shortnose sturgeon on the Hudson River. It increased from 12,669 spawning fish in 1979 to 56,708 by 1996. Meanwhile, the Atlantic piping plover, a shore bird increased from 550 pairs in 1986 to 1,423 by 2004. Each has a long way to go, but they've made strides, Galvin says.

"The data in this report does show that many endangered species are making significant progress toward recovery," says Michael Bean, chair of the wildlife program for Environmental Defense, a Washington environmental group. "It refutes the claim that the act has failed because there are not more species delisted. This shows a lot are making progress. They're not there yet, but they're headed in the right direction."

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Yellow light for a 'green' energy source

from the March 02, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0302/p14s01-sten.html

By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Soaring on the wings of new wind-turbine technology, tax breaks, and rising fossil fuel costs, the US wind-power growth picture looks great - except to Edward Arnett, a wildlife biologist who sees a dead bat in it - many thousands of dead bats, actually.

Swatted by wind-turbine blades perhaps 300 feet long and traveling up to 200 miles per hour at the tips, bats in some US regions may be killed by wind farms in greater numbers than previously thought, his industry-funded research shows.

Dead bats are just one of a growing list of concerns that threaten to tarnish wind power's reputation as one of the nation's most promising renewable energy sources. Concerns over the potential impact on migratory songbirds, aesthetic issues like the "shutter effect" of flickering turbine blade shadows, and "view shed" damage from turbines on scenic skylines are growing, observers say.

The nation's first offshore wind farm looks as though it could be blown away. An amendment to a US Coast Guard reauthorization bill, which may be taken up in Congress this week, would ban the big turbines within 1.5 nautical miles of shipping and ferry lanes. Amendment supporters say the turbines are a shipping hazard. Supporters say the real concern is that rich folk on the island of Martha's Vineyard don't want ocean views disrupted.

A nest of other problems that may seem small today could hatch into much bigger ones. Consider the many bird lovers in the United States. How happy would they be if wind turbines killed songbirds?

Birds killed by turbines are now only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions killed in collisions with skyscrapers, and by house cats. Yet the wind, wildlife, and aesthetics clash could intensify. The US wind power market is expected to grow by 40 percent this year, according to Emerging Energy Research, a Cambridge, Mass., research firm. The 3,400 megawatts of new capacity could power between 816,000 and 1,020,000 US homes, based on American Wind Energy Association estimates.

"It is now recognized that wind power facilities can have adverse impacts - particularly on wildlife, and most significantly on birds and bats," the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported in September.

Mr. Arnett, a research biologist with Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas, coordinates an industry-funded research effort. "There's no question the industry will face some tough choices in order to maintain the 'green' image of wind energy," he says.

Where to put wind farms is a big one. As wind farms sprout from the Appalachian Mountains to coastal waters to the vast expanse of North Dakota, signs of resistance are also appearing. A threat to scenic vistas may have undone the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts, but a sterner concern, a lawsuit citing adverse impact on migratory birds, has hit a proposed Virginia wind farm.

Industry officials say such concerns are misplaced, since other forms of power generation do far more harm to the environment. Little is known about bat and bird mortality from wind turbines, they say, and industry studies should help stanch the problem. "We have a better understanding of the nature of the risk today," says Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, D.C. "We're working with turbine manufacturers and developers to learn how to minimize the risk and ensure that, as we build, we're not unduly harming birds and other wildlife."

The same GAO report that cites birds and bat problems concludes ambiguously that, "it does not appear that wind power is responsible for a significant number of bird deaths."

Wind generation has long been one of the great green hopes for pollution-free power. Current wind-generation capacity in the US is about 9,000 megawatts. The industry target is 100,000 megawatts by 2020, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.
Cheering wind power from the sidelines are a number of environmental groups, including the World Watch Institute and the Audubon Society. Audubon sees traditional power plants as a larger threat than wind turbines.

"We support renewable energy, including wind power," an Audubon spokesman wrote in an e-mail statement. "Renewable energy has a lower overall impact."

National Wind Watch (NWW), organized last year, is skeptical - and vocal. Though it represents only 1,000 activists, mostly in the Northeast, its ranks are growing.

"Unlike other forms of electricity generation, there's very little in the way of regulation to oversee and ensure that the environment is not being harmed," says Lisa Linowes, an NWW spokeswoman. "So little reporting is required, that we don't know the harm being done."

She points to Europe, where wind farms are far more common. Recent reports of eagle and other bird kills are big news in Germany and the United Kingdom, she says. Siting of facilities seems to have been a problem there, as in some US areas like Altamont, Calif., where wind turbines are notorious for killing large raptors.

Wind advocates say a lot has been learned since Altamont about density and siting of wind turbines. Siting remains critical, and Audubon tempers its support by saying reviewing agencies must "conduct a detailed assessment of potential impacts on wildlife."

New wind farms proposed for certain ridge lines in the Appalachian mountains in Virginia could, for instance, chop at already declining populations of migratory songbirds that tend to fly far lower - under 400 feet - than sea birds and raptors, scientists say.

"We could see tens of thousands of birds moving down this range that would be in the hitting range of these turbines," says Mitchell Byrd, professor emeritus of ornithology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., commenting on a proposed development for Highland County, Va. "People say other things kill more birds than turbines. But if someone slaps you five times, it still hurts the sixth time."

The problem is even worse for bats, who seem attracted to turbines, says Arnett. In 2003, he studied bat mortality at a 44-turbine facility in West Virginia owned by FPL Energy of Juno Beach, Fla.

What he and his colleagues found was a shock. In a six-week period, the 44 turbines killed an estimated 1,364 to 1,980 bats - 38 per turbine, according to their study, released last spring. If West Virginia were to build the more than 400 wind turbines currently permitted, research suggests up to 14,500 bats could be killed in a six-week migratory period alone, Arnett says.

There are signs the wind-energy industry is responding. In January, FPL, the nation's largest wind-power utility, announced funding for several new bat conservation efforts. "We're not trying to say wind turbines don't have an impact [on wildlife]," says Steve Stengel, an FPL spokesman. "But if you look at all forms of power generation and compare them, wind stacks up very well."

Bat advocates, too, expect a solution can be found.

"I don't see wind energy and bat conservation as incompatible goals," says Arnett. "This is within our control to alleviate. We just haven't put enough money into solving it."

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Scientists unearth 'Pompeii of the East'

from the March 02, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0302/p14s03-sten.html

By Peter N. Spotts Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NARRAGANSETT, R.I. - The eruption started modestly. On April 5, 1815, after two years of puffs and burps, Mt. Tambora launched a thick column of ash, pumice, and gas into the sky. For people living near the foot of the massive Indonesian volcano, the view was spectacular, but the fallout was merely a nuisance - good for the soil.

Five days later, however, in the early evening, Tambora exploded in the largest volcanic eruption in history. For the first three hours, ash and dust hurtled into the sky in a roiling cloud some 26 miles tall. Then, much of the cloud collapsed back onto the mountain, sending a thick, searing avalanche of ash, dust, and rock tumbling down the slopes at Autobahn speeds, burying everything in its path.

Now, a team of US and Indonesian volcanologists say they have unearthed evidence of a town buried under the eruption's debris. They suggest that it may be the political center of the small kingdom of Tambora, which had a population of roughly 10,000 at the time of the eruption.

So far, the team has unearthed the charred beams of a house and the remains of two occupants, some bronze and iron tools, and uniquely decorated ceramic and porcelain vessels. They've also found glass artifacts fused and distorted by the heat of the debris that swept through the area.

The ceramics hint that Tamborans had some sort of direct or indirect ties with Cambodia and Vietnam, according to Haraldur Sigurdsson, a University of Rhode Island volcanologist who led the effort.

The ties may have been cultural as well. According to records gathered by British officials at the time, Tamborans spoke a language that appeared unrelated to any other Indonesian dialect. It seemed more closely related to the Mon-Khmer family of languages spoken throughout Southeast Asia. Tambora, Dr. Sigurdsson says, "could be the Pompeii of the East."

Based on the evidence so far, some researchers are skeptical that Tambora was a kingdom in the classic sense of the word. But that doesn't diminish the site's value, they add.

"No research has been done by professional archaeologists on the effects of the Tambora eruption as far as I am aware," notes National University of Singapore archaeologist John Miksic in an e-mail. "So this is a useful contribution."

Tambora's effects were far-reaching. The 1815 eruption released 100 cubic kilometers of magma and left a caldera nearly five miles wide and 1,250 feet deep. (By comparison, Mt. St. Helens ejected about half a cubic kilometer of magma during its 1980 eruption.) The original summit of the 37-mile-wide mountain reached nearly 14,000 feet; after the eruption, the mountain stood just over 9,000 feet tall.

Ultimately, Mt. Tambora's eruption killed 117,000 people, either directly, through the surge of pyroclastic material down the slopes and the fallout that collapsed houses on nearby islands, or indirectly, through famine after the fallout buried fields and fouled water supplies.

Tambora's reach was global. It vaulted 400 million tons of sulfur dioxide high into the stratosphere, where it was carried around the world. The compound formed sulfate aerosols, which reflect sunlight back into space. The next year, 1816, would become known as the "the year without summer." The unusually cool climate led to crop failures and famine worldwide.
Sigurdsson, a native of Iceland, has a longstanding interest in the impact of volcanoes on culture.

He has worked at Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy (both buried in 79 AD when Mt. Vesuvius erupted), as well as at the site of the 1982 eruption of El Chichon in Mexico. Tambora's remoteness and the scant scientific record of such an important eruption proved an irresistible lure.

Sigurdsson says he made his first trip to the island in 1986 with a colleague to begin seeking answers to some of the fundamental geological questions about the event. Historical records indicated that the town of Tambora was near where the two scientists were working. At the time it existed, the area was known for its horses, honey, sandalwood, and sappan-wood, which was used to make red dye.

Sigurdsson returned to the island in 2000 to continue his work. There, one of his guides described a gully where people had been finding pottery shards, bones, and bits of bronze. It lay some 16 miles west of the volcano's caldera.

On the last day of the trip, with a boat scheduled to pick the team up the next morning, he and his colleagues set out to find the gully. "It was 5 p.m., and we had to do a 'death march' to get there before dark," he says. What he saw was enough, he says, "to convince me that I had to come back here, that this was a very promising place."

Excavations during a return trip in 2004 yielded the carbonized remains of house beams and the foundation stones around which they collapsed. Scientists also found iron, bronze, and ceramic artifacts, as well as other evidence of human habitation.

Despite the tropical setting, "it didn't rain a drop during the time we were there," says Lewis Abrams, a University of North Carolina geophysicist who worked with Sigurdsson that year, adding that the lack of rain was vital in allowing the team to excavate the house's remains from the gully bed.

Sigurdsson says he hopes to return next year with his team to map the area more fully with ground-penetrating radar, magnetometers, and other remote-sensing tools. Then, he says, he hopes professional archaeologists will pick up the baton, relegating him to more of a supporting role in setting the geophysical context for the area.

Indeed, the work "presents a wonderful opportunity," notes University of Hawaii's Miriam Stark, a professor who specializes in Southeast Asian archaeology. "We need more professional and systematic archaeological work done on the European period across Southeast Asia."

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Is used nuclear reactor fuel headed for the reservation?

from the February 23, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0223/p01s03-uspo.html

By Faye Bowers Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

SKULL VALLEY GOSHUTE RESERVATION, UTAH - It's a question that has dogged the nuclear industry since the 1970s: What can it do with spent fuel rods?

The radioactive waste, eventually slated for permanent storage at a still unfinished site in Nevada, has been piling up, mostly at the nation's 65 commercial nuclear power plants. Late Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) gave its blessing to a solution: a storage site on a barren patch of a reservation in Utah that's home to some 25 native Americans, next to a proving ground for chemical and biological weapons, and near an Air Force bombing range.

The NRC licensed what would be the nation's largest - and only private - nuclear-waste storage facility. A consortium of utility companies would store for up to 40 years some 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel for an industry rapidly running out of space.

But the plan has powerful opponents, including Utah's entire congressional delegation and its governor, who have developed a multipronged attack plan to try to beat back this latest effort.

"Our position is this represents public policy at its absolute worst," says Mike Lee, general counsel to Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. "What these people want to do is take spent nuclear fuel and put it above ground in casks in a valley that's located 40 miles immediately upwind from Utah's only population center. To make matters much worse, this aboveground, open-air facility lies immediately under the low-altitude flight path of 7,000 F-16s a year en route to a bombing range."

But it is precisely those conditions that make the reservation land unfit for most anything else, says Leon Bear, chairman of the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation. In addition, Utah has outlawed gambling in the state, so the Goshutes can't open a casino. That is one reason the tribe leased 840 acres of its sprawling reservation for an undisclosed sum to Private Fuel Storage (PFS), the consortium that would house the nuclear fuel rods.

"What do they think we can do, sell bottled water?" Mr. Bear asks.

Standing on a hill, where small mounds of snow-covered Great Basin sage and rabbit bush stretch as far as the eye can see, he explains his vision. It includes the return to this 18,000-acre reservation of many of his small band of 123 Goshutes. They would join the 25 or so who currently live here because the deal would provide enough money for decent housing, education, a cultural center, and healthcare - and spin off several jobs as well.

The tribe's efforts to land a nuclear storage facility date back to the late 1980s, when Mr. Bear's father, Richard, and uncle, Lawrence, began to look into the process and the risks involved.

Mainly with grants from the Department of Energy, and financial backing from PFS, which is also paying most of the tribe's legal fees for pushing this project, Bear and a few others from the tribe have toured spent nuclear storage facilities in England, France, Sweden, and Japan.
They've also visited the two federal aboveground storage facilities, in Idaho and Minnesota.

But the state's public servants say they worry that, with all the delays and problems involved with opening the permanent storage site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, the proposed temporary storage site at Skull Valley may become a permanent one. And they are pursuing multiple options to derail the project.

For example, Rep. Rob Bishop (R) of Utah was able to include a measure to declare lands around the reservation national wilderness area in the Defense Authorization bill that passed in December. That effectively stops PFS from building a rail spur into Skull Valley Reservation from the main railroad parallel to Interstate 80, about 33 miles north of the reservation. That will force PFS to find an alternative transportation method, which will require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issue rights of way. The governor's office plans to lobby the BLM so it won't issue them.

Moreover, the state has one more chance to stop the effort by appealing to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, according to Mr. Lee of the governor's office. The BIA must approve the lease agreement between PFS and the reservation.

Such moves are only the latest by opponents, which include environmentalists and even members of the Goshute tribe. They have waged a protracted nine-year battle to prevent the reservation from taking possession of the dry-storage casks containing spent nuclear fuel, and don't plan to give up their fight anytime soon.

The Bears, for their part, say they are patient, and that this effort is only a continuation of the Goshutes being good neighbors, good hosts. When they've been asked to host other government projects, such as a rocket motor testing program, or the storage of solid waste from Salt Lake City, they've done it.

"Whenever we've been asked to go to war for this country, or to host something, we have been willing to help as long as they have asked," says Tomy Bear, Leon Bear's wife.

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Backstory: The eagles have landed

from the February 23, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0223/p20s01-sten.html

By Brad Knickerbocker Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

LOWER KLAMATH NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, CALIF. - Against the brilliant, crystalline sky, the leafless willow and cottonwood trees stand black and skeleton-like. They appear lifeless in their winter dormancy, waiting out the brittle cold and dry, dry snow for the warmth of spring.

But high in their twisted, arching branches is evidence of life and a significant comeback story. Four bald eagles, unmistakable with their white heads and tails, perch with a nonchalant fierceness, eyeballing the bird-watchers stopped along the gravel road here to eyeball back at these iconic national symbols.

Not long ago, bald eagles in the contiguous 48 states had dwindled to a relative handful. They'd become victims of habitat lost to agriculture and development, lead poisoning from buckshot and fishing sinkers ingested through the birds and fish they ate, and the chemicals of modern life - mercury, PCBs, dioxin, and especially DDT, which made eggshells thin and weak. Their numbers had plummeted from an estimated 100,000 during the American Revolution to fewer than 1,000.

But over the past 40 years landmark legislation and treaties, a captive breeding program, and habitat conservation have brought the bald eagle back from the brink. As a result, this year will see its removal from the official endangered species list. "The population has grown astronomically," says Cindy Hoffman of Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group.

The numbers are dramatic, according to the US Fish & Wildlife Service, which oversees the designation and recovery of endangered species: From 417 nesting pairs in 1963 to an estimated 7,066 today. Every state but Vermont has nesting bald eagles, and urbanites in New York and St. Louis can drive out along the Hudson or Mississippi rivers to see the birds in the not-so-wild.

Here along the Oregon-California border at the six Klamath Basin National Wildlife Refuges, as many as 1,000 eagles from as far north as Glacier National Park and Canada's Northwest Territories - the largest recorded gathering in the contiguous United States - spend the winter months along with snow geese, tundra swans, and myriad duck and other bird species totaling more than 1 million individuals.

At first light, they leave their night roosts in the big timber of Bear Valley several miles away, sweeping out by the dozens, headed for marshes, irrigation canals, and open water where migratory waterfowl congregate at one of the most important spots along the Pacific flyway. As scavengers, eagles feed mostly on dead ducks and other birds that have succumbed to disease or the harsh high-desert weather. Some stand along canal banks or on the ice, some perch in trees, some soar hundreds of feet above.

They're not flocking birds, so they tend to keep their distance from one another. As the nation's official symbol, they're apolitical of course. But they do seem to hold to "traditional" values - mating for life, remaining monogamous, and returning year after year to the same neighborhood (sometimes the same nest) to breed and raise offspring. Yet they exhibit modern, more liberated sensibilities as well; the males (typically smaller than their mates) share the housework chores and child-rearing responsibilities.

Because of the bird's dramatic comeback, federal officials last week issued draft guidelines for the continued care of eagles and their habitat once they're officially "delisted" under the nation's most sweeping environmental protection law, the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
"You have to recognize success when it's staring you in the face and move on," says Chris Tollefson, spokesman for the US Fish & Wildlife Service. "The Endangered Species Act wasn't intended to be a perpetual care ward."

That doesn't mean bald eagles will be without official protection. They're still covered under the 1940 Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, which prohibits shooting, poisoning, trapping, molesting, or disturbing eagles. Together with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia, the US is obliged under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to prohibit the killing, transportation, and importation of eagles.

The Endangered Species Act went further than that in specifically protecting habitat while requiring a recovery plan for bald eagles. Recovery now is considered sufficient so that captive breeding and release are no longer required. Habitat conservation monitoring will shift to state agencies and private organizations.

The 1972 banning of DDT for most uses, as well as the phasing out of lead shot for waterfowl hunting during the 1990s, were major factors in the bald eagle's recovery. But the Endangered Species Act, with its emphasis on habitat protection, has played a major role as well.

One critter's habitat, though, can also be a landowner's property, and the ESA remains controversial because it can crowd what some see as property rights. Environmentalists and other supporters say the eagle's good-news story is proof that the law works and has prevented many more species from going extinct. Critics, including many conservatives, note that just a handful of more than 1,200 listed plant and animal species have totally revived under costly recovery plans that can take years to implement or even to design. The US House has passed a bill that changes several fundamental elements of the law, including protection of wildlife habitat and the reimbursement of property owners.

Throughout history, the bald eagle has always engendered its share of controversy. Even though the Continental Congress approved its image for the national seal in 1782, Benjamin Franklin, for one, considered it a bird of "bad moral character." "He does not get his living honestly," Mr. Franklin declared, referring to the eagle's propensity for stealing fish from hawks.

While admitting that his choice for national symbol, the turkey, was "a little vain and silly," Franklin saw it as a bird of courage that would "not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on." Congress disagreed.

Two centuries later, the eagle had become revered enough that then-US Attorney General John Ashcroft, an amateur baritone, composed a patriotic song titled: "Let the Eagle Soar."

But it's not political warblers that are on the minds of those who come to what's been called "the Everglades of the West." "There's always something going on that's exciting to a naturalist," says Frank Lang, a retired Southern Oregon University biology professor. He comes back again and again - to take in the waterfowl and songbirds that pass through every year, to hear the hawk's whistle and the coyote's yip, to stand in the shifting light of the high desert.

What it comes down to, says Dave Eshbaugh, executive director of Audubon Oregon, is "something that connects people to a feeling they have deep inside themselves, a feeling of connection with wildlife and nature."

But it's the eagles that are the top attraction. And exotic as they may be, some feel they're a lot like us. "We're at the top of the food chain and eagles are too," says retired state biologist Ralph Opp. "They do have some habits that people look down on. They are scavengers, but no different than people. We go where it's easy, and if we have to work for our food we will."

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A test of US authority over waterways

from the February 21, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0221/p02s02-usju.html

A high court case Tuesday probes which bodies of water fall under the Clean Water Act - and federal oversight.

By Warren Richey Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

When June Carabell and her business partners decided to build condominiums on wetlands in Michigan's Macomb County, they knew they were in for a challenge.

But they had no idea their project would take them all the way to the US Supreme Court in what could become a landmark case over the scope of federal power to protect the environment.

The dispute is one of two cases consolidated for oral argument Tuesday examining just how far upstream the Clean Water Act (CWA) extends federal jurisdiction. Is it limited to lakes and rivers? Or does it include remote wetlands with no link to them? At stake: how broadly the clean water law will be applied nationwide and, potentially, whether a broad application of the law is consistent with the proper constitutional balance of power between the federal government and the states.

At the center of the dispute is a discrepancy between the words Congress used when it wrote the CWA and the regulations the US Army Corps of Engineers and Environmental Protection Agency wrote later to enforce the clean water law.

Congress said US jurisdiction would extend over all "navigable waters." EPA and Corps of Engineers regulations interpret the law as extending far upstream, even to waters with no hydrologic connection to a tributary of navigable waters.

"Through this authority, the Corps will effectively exercise a wide-ranging federal police power over all kinds of land use," writes Carabell's lawyer, Timothy Stoepker, in his brief to the court. "A saturated portion of a residential lawn, which is near a storm drain ... will come within the scope of the act, and the owners of such land will have to obtain permits from the Corps before making a variety of ordinary land-use decisions."

Upstream properties should be governed by state environmental and land-use regulations, Mr. Stoepker argues. The CWA, he says, covers only "navigable waters" and adjacent waters that are hydrologically connected.

Lawyers for the US government say the CWA imposes federal restrictions not just in navigable waters but upstream throughout the watershed. Its regulations reflect a reasonable interpretation of the CWA, says Solicitor General Paul Clement in his brief.

Environmentalists stress that if pollution, like water, flows downstream, federal jurisdiction should extend far enough upstream to control it or prevent it. "This is like saying you cannot cut down a tree but you are free to poison its roots," says Jim Murphy, wetlands counsel at the National Wildlife Federation.

The issue is being closely followed by environmentalists, sportsmen, and ecologists who favor maximum federal control over environmental issues as the best way to protect America's water resources. On the other side are developers, farmers, and various industry groups who complain that federal agencies are issuing sweeping regulations that have no relation to the law Congress passed.

The case is also important because it potentially extends to the constitutional balance of power between the states and the federal government.

Lawyers for developers say states have traditionally exercised primary power over land and water use. Environmentalists counter that Congress has the power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause to set national policy to protect the entire watershed.

Should the court address the constitutional issue, the matter might indicate whether the high court's newest members - Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito - will vote with the conservative wing and potentially revive the federalism revolution led by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who emphasized states' rights.

"We would really see a radical shift in environmental regulatory schemes if that Commerce Clause ruling did come down," says Mr. Murphy of the Wildlife Federation.

The two cases the court will hear Tuesday are Carabell v. US Army Corps of Engineers and Rapanos v. United States.

The Carabell case involves an effort to build a condominium project on a 19-acre site classified as a wetland. Michigan officials were reluctant to allow Ms. Carabell to develop one of the last pieces of undeveloped property in the area. After Carabell agreed to reduce the size of the project and set aside nearly four acres as a wetlands-water retention area, state environmental officials approved the plan.

Federal officials disagreed. They moved to block the project, arguing that the land fell within federal jurisdiction and could not be developed without a CWA permit. They refused to issue a permit.

Carabell sued and lost at both the trial court and appeals court levels.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, lawyers for Carabell argue that there is no flow of water from the Carabell tract. Water is retained on the property in part because of a man-made berm between the tract and a drainage ditch. Because there is no flow to a tributary of a "navigable water," there is no federal jurisdiction, her lawyers say.

The Rapanos case involves efforts by developers John and Judith Rapanos to build on three tracts in Michigan. Like Carabell, they challenge the assertion of federal authority over their land. The EPA claims CWA jurisdiction because each tract drains into a tributary that leads to "navigable waters."

"Congress did not intend the term 'navigable waters' to be given the broadest possible constitutional interpretation," writes M. Reed Hopper in his brief to the court.

The Supreme Court has addressed similar issues twice in the past 20 years. In 1985, it ruled 9-to-0 that CWA jurisdiction extends to wetlands adjacent to navigable waters. But it added that the justices were not expressing an opinion about whether jurisdiction extends to wetlands "not adjacent to bodies of open water."

In the second case, in 2001, the court ruled that the CWA does not cover an abandoned sand and gravel pit that had filled with water. The Corps of Engineers had claimed authority over the site, saying migratory birds used the ponds as habitat.

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New Orleans port is back in business

from the February 21, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0221/p03s03-sten.html

But the future of a key canal - suspected of funneling the storm surge into the city - is uncertain.
By Ron Scherer Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW ORLEANS - Mark Blanchard built his cold storage plant on the Inner Harbor waterfront, where large, deep-water ships had easy access. He felt confident they would always be able to dock at his plant because it was located not on the Mississippi River itself, but rather near a canal, 36 feet deep, that Congress had specified should be maintained at that depth.
But hurricane Katrina has changed all that.

The canal - part of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO), called Mr. Go by locals - may have acted as a giant funnel, transporting the hurricane's storm surge over the levees and into eastern New Orleans, experts suggest. Now the US Army Corps of Engineers is studying whether to dredge the channel - which is filling in, blocking access to Mr. Blanchard's facility - or to abandon Mr. Go altogether.

Debate over the canal's future is already cooking up a Louisiana gumbo of money and politics.
The Port of New Orleans is asking that the state or federal government spend $360 million to move Blanchard's operation and eight other companies to the banks of the Mississippi River. If not that, then the port wants the government to pay some $600 million to enlarge the locks that currently connect the Mississippi to another canal that serves the Inner Harbor, allowing ships to access the nine businesses.

The issue is one that has come to the attention of President Bush, who met last month with Blanchard. Other influential political donors have a financial stake, too, including Donald "Buddy" Bollinger, who gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2004 and who owns a shipyard that would be affected by Mr. Go's closure.

"That 18-month [Army Corps] study will cause those nine companies to relocate to other states, other ports," says Gary LaGrange, port president. "We cannot afford to lose one job."

MRGO critics do not oppose a bailout, so long as the canal is permanently closed. "Let's pay them off," says Oliver Houck, professor of environmental law at Tulane University. "We're not safe unless we pay them off." He and others argue that the MRGO is an egregious example of corporate welfare.

Some 289 ships use the canal each year, according to the port's Mr. LaGrange. The US government spends $7 million to $8 million a year to maintain it, amounting to significant subsidy for the users.

"Despite the ... hundreds of millions spent maintaining it, the canal never lived up to its potential. Less than 3 percent of New Orleans ship traffic is using Mr. Go," says critic Robert Verchick, professor of environmental law at Loyola University New Orleans.

New Orleans Cold Storage, Blanchard's company, is one of those users. Poultry companies ship to his plant, where their products are frozen and then loaded onto ocean-going freighters destined for places like the Ukraine. With its blast freezers and storage rooms next to the water, NOCS had a cost advantage over competitors. Orders soared, and the firm planned to expand.

But with the MRGO now silting in, the big freighters dock on the Mississippi River. The frozen chicken is loaded onto trucks for a 15- to 20-minute ride to the riverfront. "Every one-quarter of a cent per pound extra is important," says Blanchard. He might move his operation to another port in another state if something is not done, he says. Meanwhile, he's repairing damage to his facility from the storm surge.

In January, Blanchard was one of four businessmen who met with Mr. Bush to talk about Katrina's effect on their businesses. After explaining his situation, Blanchard says, the president told him, "That's not right. We need to do something about that."

Houck, though, is not so sure the port has a case that the government owes businesses anything. "There is no legal requirement to maintain [MRGO]," he states.

MRGO construction started in 1956 and was finished in 1963. Impetus for the channel dates from the 1940s, when proponents said the Mississippi River - with its propensity to silt up - could not be counted on as a shipping lane. The argument won over President Dwight Eisenhower and Congress, which authorized a channel that would be maintained at 36 feet deep.
For more than 20 years, critics have warned that the canal might funnel a storm surge into New Orleans. The risk has become greater over time, as saltwater incursion killed off vast swathes of swampland that had protected inhabited areas. The Jefferson Parish Council recently voted against reopening the channel. Privately, port officials say they expect MRGO to be closed.

Despite the hubbub over Mr. Go, the port has bounced back. In the past two weeks, shipping activity is back to pre-Katrina levels - even with Mr. Go closed to deep-keel ships, says LaGrange. The port is the largest receiving point for imported steel, rubber, and plywood. It's the second largest destination for coffee. Cruise ships are expected to return to New Orleans by fall.

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