Cascadia Scorecard Weblog

Montana to Insurers: Cover The Pill

Late last week, Montana required that any insurance plan that covers prescription drugs generally may not exclude coverage for prescription contraceptives such as birth control pills. The Helena Independent Record reports.

 That’s big news because couples whose insurance covers contraceptives are more likely to choose the most effective forms (which tend to be expensive): pills, for example, rather than condoms alone. And better contraception means fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions. It also means that more children will be born wanted.

Among Cascadian states, California and Washington already require equal treatment for prescription contraceptives: California, by law; Washington, by ruling of the state Insurance Commissioner. In Montana, the action came in a binding legal opinion issued by the state’s Attorney General. Excluding contraceptives from prescription drug plans is sex discrimination, AG Mike McGrath concluded. The rule has the force of law unless it’s overturned by the legislature or a state court. The legislature is unlikely to do so: the state senate approved a bill to ensure equal coverage for contraceptives last fall, although the state house did not join them. It’s unlikely, therefore, that both houses would pass a law that reversed the AG’s ruling.

Wolf Millennium

New wolf numbers released this afternoon from US Fish and Wildlife: Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming now host an estimated 1,020 wolves, a stunning 21 percent increase in just a single year. Since reintroduction in the mid-1990s, gray wolf numbers have grown at an astonishing pace, faster even than the most optimistic prognostications. Idaho continues to shelter more wolves than any other state in the West with about half the total. The rest are split almost evenly between Montana and Wyoming.

In recent months, nearly every day seems to bring new rumors of federal de-listing, an action that would leave gray wolves in a much more precarious position. Idaho officials, for example, have already stated their intent to kill wolves that are preying on elk.

The sheer absurdity of Idaho's position is almost mind-boggling. Wolves are already killed for attacking livestock--but elk, on the other hand, are the wolves' natural prey. In any case, credible biological studies actually show a negligible reduction in elk numbers that can be attributed to wolf predation. Until wolves become vegetarian, they're not likely to have many friends in state government. In the meantime, their best chance lies in establishing a large and sustainable population that can weather squalls of bad policy.

Ironically, the best ally of the wolves at the moment may be anti-wolf forces in Wyoming. State officials there have so far refused to draw up a recovery plan for wolves that doesn't allow unregulated killing outside of Yellowstone National Park (where, incidentally, the wolves draw millions of dollars in tourist revenue). Until Wyoming has a suitable recovery plan--as Idaho and Montana already do--the federal government will likely not de-list wolves. And with each year bringing double-digit population growth, gray wolves just need time to keep their numbers booming.

UPDATE 3/10/06: Article in today's New York Times that details some of the issues around de-listing, including the desire of ranchers to have unregulated wolf killing, including aerial killing.

Accounting for Endangered Species

In the Washington Post today, an ominous headline for endangered species: "The True Cost of Protection?"

Dust off your sense of outrage, fellow taxpaying Americans, because as the article informs us, protecting endangered species cost $1.4 billion in 2004. So magnificent is that figure that the writer sneeringly suggests that king salmon are so called because recovering them cost the princely sum of $160 million in '04. By the tenor of the piece we are supposed to feel that spending $5 million on gray wolves is magnanimous, while spending $11,000 on a rare species of beetle is the height of absurdity.

What's truly outrageous is the intimation that somehow the species themselves are to blame for their costly predicament. Like lazy welfare queens, these imperiled animals should pony up. Never mind that wild Columbia River king salmon are perhaps 1 percent of historical abundance because a welter of industries were given free rein to destroy them. Clearcuts, dams, voracious fisheries, nuclear plants, pesticides... the list of culprits is long and it is to them that the $160 million bill should be assessed. The cost is not of "protection" as the writer asserts, it is instead the cost of heedlessly trampling ecosystems.

It's apropos that the headline editor added a question mark because, in truth, none of the dollar figures cited in the article actually amount to the "true cost" of protection. Like a blinkered accountant tallying only expenses but not revenues, the article utterly fails to mention any of the monetary benefits of species recovery. (And I won't even mention the inestimable non-monetary ones). Study the "costs" of protection for a moment and you'll see that the figures just don't add.

In the Yellowstone region, University of Montana economists have estimated that gray wolves have generated $23 million dollars in tourism to gateway towns. Add to that the many millions of dollars in central Idaho and the Upper Midwest, where gray wolves are also rebounding, and it turns out that wolves not only pay for themselves, they pick up the tab for those good-for-nothing salamanders, and still return a hefty dividend to taxpayers.

In Idaho, fully functioning sport salmon fisheries have been valued as high as $544 million per year. Though that estimate is disputed, it's for just one year for one of the several states where that $160 million was spent in 2004 to assist king salmon.

I could go on and on. The point is, the "true cost" of endangered species protection is much lower than the greenbacks that the US Fish & Wildlife Service lays out. It's even possible that the investment is actually a net benefit for the economy, if one bothers to factor in the revenues of wildlife-based tourism, ecosystem services, and sport (and commercial) fisheries. And that's just the dollars and cents, which is a lamentably poor way to value our natural heritage.

Even if they never do hold steady jobs and pay back what they rightfully owe us taxpayers, protecting and restoring endangered species is worth the price. When I consider the meaning of those species, their uniqueness in geography and history and their symbolism of wildness, $1.6 billion just doesn't seem like very much money to me. Especially when I remember that it's spent on species across the entire country--from Florida manatees to Northwest salmon.

Where I live, in Seattle, officials are just about to plunk down $3.5 billion in tax dollars to build a 2 mile long tunnel. Enough said.

Pipe bombs

Another plot to cripple the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was foiled recently, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer (via Reuters). A Montana judge gets credit for apprehending the plotter, in Idaho, although Oregon and Washington are the main consumers of oil from Alaskan oil.

A year ago, we released the 2005 Cascadia Scorecard, which detailed the profound vulnerability of Cascadia's energy infrastructure (pdf), including the Trans-Alaska pipe.

The latest plot--which involved blowing up propane trucks along the pipeline, among other acts of sabotage elsewhere--doesn't seem to have been as far along as one in 1999 or one in late 2003. (Both described here (pdf), on pages 30-31.)

The larger story, of course, is that Cascadian officials have done little to secure its energy system in the past year. Pending energy security measures in Washington and Oregon may be bright spots on the horizon.

Prince(ss) of Tides

Since last Friday, I’m proud to announce, the venerable Cascadian news website Tidepool has been a project of NEW. Yep, we’ve completed a friendly takeover!

Since 1997, Tidepool has been highlighting the most significant news that’s shaping Cascadia. Every morning, Tidepool’s editors scan dozens of news sites and assemble the stories that will actually matter in Cascadia a few years hence—the slow news (pdf). It’s an essential service, and it’s one that thousands of Cascadians use every day.

Tidepool was seeking a new home, and its service is a natural complement for this blog and NEW’s other analyses of key trends in Cascadia. So both organizations are excited about the transfer. We think it’ll lead to big improvements all the way around—in the news digest, in the blog, and in our website.

Tidepool has long been a community asset—something kept healthy through the active support of its thousands of readers. This new phase in Tidepool’s development won’t change that fact; to the contrary, NEW will soon introduce more ways to participate in Tidepool’s evolution. If you’re not already a member of that community, please join by signing up for a free subscription.

For more information on NEW’s ownership—really, stewardship—of Tidepool, read this letter to its subscribers.

And meet the new NEW editor of Tidepool: Princess of Tides Kristin Kolb-Angelbeck.

Do Poverty Numbers Lie?

Poverty rates are higher in Mississippi than in Massachusetts. But it's easier to make ends meet in the deep south, where the staples of existence generally cost less. So which place really has worse poverty?

Among the more annoying problems with US poverty rates--and the problems are legion--is that comparisons between states can be spurious because the rates do not account for differences in the cost of living. So in an attempt to straighten things out, I did a little back-of-the-envelope calculation today to find out where poverty hits the hardest. (Assuming that median household income is a decent proxy for the cost of living, I adjusted state poverty rates by incomes. This has been done before, in lots of more complicated ways, but I wanted to figure out something specific.)

As it turns out, the worst states are still the worst--Mississippi, Washington, DC, and Texas have the highest rates of poverty by either accounting. Same for the best--New Hampshire, Minnesota, and the northeast states are the best in the nation using either method. But in the Pacific Northwest, things get interesting--and Washington is the biggest loser.

By official statistics Washington's and Oregon's poverty rates are fair to middlin' (their average 2002, 2003, and 2004 rate was 11.7) and the two states are tied for the 27th lowest rate in the US. But when you adjust for income levels, Oregon's poverty gets a teensy bit better, climbing to 24th place, while Washington drops like a rock into 37th place--slightly worse than the national average and tied with economic powerhouses like Kentucky.

California takes a page from Washington's playbook and plummets from 36th place to 48th--behind Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Idaho and Montana, meanwhile, both rise substantially in the rankings as their poverty rates are balanced out by their lower costs of living (at least as it's reflected by median income).

Now obviously, there's at least one big flaw with my little made-up methodology. By adjusting poverty by income, I'm essentially favoring states for having low incomes. Still, income is something of a proxy for the cost of living. Moreover, some of the worst effects of poverty--crime, violence, poor health, etc--may actually be the effects of income inequality in disguise. So my poverty adjustment tells us which states are most severely amplifying poverty through income inequality (cough, cough, Washington and California).

It's telling, I think, that most states' rankings don't change terribly much with my adjustment. But a few states with average poverty rates and higher incomes may have some real--and hidden--economic problems to sort out. Because problems of equity often manifest themselves in other ways, the federal numbers may not tell us even half the story about how we're really doing.

Up With Poverty

New state-level income and poverty data just released today by the US Census Bureau. I've just begun playing with the numbers. But before I get too immersed in the spreadsheets, here's a look at how Cascadian states have fared over the last years for which data is available.

The skinny is that incomes are up, but poverty is up too. (As far as I can tell, the income figures are not adjusted for inflation, so they may not represent real gains.) Of course, these figures are just stats-based estimates, so it's wise not to draw too many conclusions.

Nevertheless, it is telling that all 5 states mimicked the national trend: rising incomes and rising poverty.

Median household incomes

	2002	2003
California	$            47,323	$        48,440
Idaho	$            38,242	$        39,859
Montana	$            34,105	$        34,449
Oregon	$            41,796	$        42,593
Washington	$            46,399	$        48,185
United States	$            42,409	$        43,318

Poverty rates

	2002	2003
California	13.3	13.8
Idaho	11.7	11.8
Montana	14.0	14.2
Oregon	11.3	12.0
Washington	10.3	11.0
United States	12.1	12.5

A River Runs Free

A spot of good news from Montana: the Bonner Dam on the Blackfoot River was removed with a minimum of problems. For the first time since at least 1884, that river of literary and cinematic fame is unfettered.

Other dam-removal projects in the Northwest are certainly more ecologically important, but there's something poetically fitting about the Blackfoot running free again. As Norman Maclean explained, "the river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time." And now it does once more.

Public lands: Mine, All Mine

In an ominous new development, Congress may soon authorize private "patents" of public land, a wildly outdated and abused provision of an 1872 mining law. The patents are functionally equivalent to fee-simple purchases of the land, which raises the distinct possibility that private individuals and corporations could stake mining claims--and then buy the land--in national forests, wilderness areas, and even national parks.

Mining, as it is currently practiced, is so ecologically disastrous that there are too many examples of environmental degradation to mention here. But the new Congressional legislation would actually worsen matters. Not only would it make it easy for mining corporations to snatch up public land at bargain-basement prices--and never pay royalties on their profits--but there's nothing preventing the buyer from dropping plans to mine and then re-selling the land as real estate. If mining doesn't pencil out, there's always the possibility of ski areas, amusement parks, condos...

At risk are roughly 20 million acres of public lands. Already, nearly 900 patents have been staked inside national parks and that number is almost certain to rise under the new legislation. It's hard to imagine a worse deal for the American public, not to mention our ever more fragile natural heritage that public lands safeguard.

Read the coverage in the Christian Science Monitor and the Seattle Times.

UPDATE 11/14/05: Excellent coverage of this issue in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Biofuels Bonanza

Three stories around Cascadia mark the spread of biofuels: biomass for heating schools, biodiesel for heating homes, and a new cross-border biodiesel project for trucks.

Brush fires in the school
The AP recently reported on a Forest Service program, Fuels for Schools, that sends the slashed brush and limbs from forest thinning to heat schools in several states including Idaho and Montana. Replacing oil furnaces, biofuels reduce cost, air pollution, and dependence on foreign oil. I'm all for finding new uses for waste products. But is this really a good idea?

We keep hearing that decades of fire suppression have built up dangerous amounts of fire-prone underbrush in the region's forests. That's probably right. Still, it's not too implausible that thinning could get out of hand, leading to a different sort of ecological imbalance. Rampant thinning may also remove soil nutrients that forests needs to thrive.  And, as we've seen with Oregon's and Washington's school funding, using wood to heat schools could create perverse incentives to thin excessively in order to give schools cheaper heat.

Still, on a limited scale, Fuels for Schools' proven benefits likely outweigh the uncertain costs.

Biodiesel for your home
The Seattle PI reports that local biodiesel fans can now put "powered by biodiesel" bumper stickers on their homes. Two Seattle companies are offering 10 to 30 percent biodiesel heating oil. As expected, it doesn't save you money and hasn't been completely proven not to damage regular furnaces, but the companies say customers are very interested.

Cross-border biodiesel
A new cross-border biodiesel project called Bio-49 Degrees will replace some of the diesel in Puget Sound Energy and BC Hydro utility trucks with biodiesel from waste vegetable oil. Much of the biodiesel will be processed and distributed by students learning the trade at two technical colleges in Bellingham and Burnaby. The cross-border collaborative is another example of governments realizing that environmental issues follow bio-geographic, not political boundaries. Air quality in Bellingham, for instance, is affected more by Vancouver than by Seattle.

Lewis & Clark Go Digital

Lewis & Clark's contact with the natural world just entered the digital age. Courtesy of Oregon State University, their natural history findings are mapped, archived, clickable, and zoom-able. Thomas Jefferson would be so envious.

A complete day-by-day map of Lewis and Clark's route across the western United States allows users to chart their progress from St. Louis to the Pacific and back. More importantly, each day's record includes a count of the wildlife they saw, animals they killed, human settlements they encountered, and even the vegetation that they passed through.

200 years ago yesteday, for example, on the Columbia, just below the mouth of the Walla Walla River, they recorded 40 dog kills (I presume this means they killed 40 dogs?), saw grouse, and also saw occupied lodges, but found no wood except for small willows.

Even today, the Corps of Discovery's journals are an important resource for biologists establishing the historical abundance and distribution of wildlife. They can also be an important reference point for understanding the current conditions of our natural heritage. Today, for instance, sage grouse no longer inhabit the regions of Washington where Lewis recorded them "in great abundance."

Wolf Numbers Up Again

Wolf populations are continuing to grow in the northern US Rocky Mountains. New wolf census data shows a steadily rising population, especially in Idaho where remote habitat-rich wilderness is ideal for expanding wolf numbers. After being extirpated in the early 20th century, wolves were reintroduced into central Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s. (A few wolves had also begun re-colonizing Montana.)

I'm always inspired simply by the raw data of wolf recovery, especially because the returning wolves have frequently acted as agents of ecological restoration. So when wolf populations are expanding rapidly, their ripple effect on ecosystems is even more positive. The return of the wolf--happening much faster than even the most Pollyanna wolf-lovers predicted--reminds me that, at least in some instances, we still have a chance to repair the harm that we've done to wild places.

Here's the state-by-state breakdown.

Read the full story in today's Idaho Statesman.

Poor Reasoning

The US federal poverty line is not a good measure of real life poverty. Most researchers agree that the standard method of computing poverty is outdated, overly simplistic, and probably drastically undercounts the number of poor. (Here's a quick summary from Dan Staley; here's the longer version of the same story.) Still, despite its glaring flaws, the poverty rate remains the most widely reported gauge of how many poor people there are.

Enter a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). The report develops a more meaningful poverty rate--they call it a "basic family budget." EPI adjusts for geographic differences in prices--a huge oversight in the federal poverty calcuations--and makes realistic but frugal cost estimates for housing, food, transportation, child care, health care, other necessities, and taxes. Based on these costs, EPI calculates how much money families need to earn just to get by (assuming they don't save money, go on vacation, or even have renter's insurance). 

You can play with EPI's handy calculator to get a sense of what their basic family budget is like. A family of 2 parents and 2 children in the Seattle metro area, for instance, needs to earn $45,516 to make ends meet. On the other hand, a family of 1 parent and 1 child in rural Idaho needs just $26,988 per year.

EPI's report gives an entirely different sense of poverty--and not just because the numbers are much, much higher.

According to the Census Bureau, for example, Idaho has the lowest poverty in the three Northwest states (WA, OR, ID), with just 9.9 percent. But EPI's more detailed and accurate assessment of economic conditions, makes Idaho by far the worst with fully 37.5 percent of people living in families without enough money for a basic budget. 

So not only is Idaho's "true" poverty situation 3 to 4 times worse than federal estimate suggests, it's skewed with relation to its nearest neighbors. What's the explanation here? Does Idaho have a smaller share of very poor people (below the federal poverty line), but a larger share of people who can't really make ends meet? Or is there something else going on?

Whatever the explanation, I find the comparison troubling, partly because poverty rates are often used to allocate scarce resources.

Washington, on the other hand, has an undistinguished poverty rate for the Northwest, but boasts the smallest share of people unable to earn a basic family budget (see table below). Could this have something to do with Washington's most-generous-in-the-nation minimum wage?

Here's a fuller account of federal poverty rates compared to basic family budgets in the Northwest.

	Federal poverty rate, 2004	Percent below basic family budget
Alaska	9.2	28.2
California	13.3	33.7
Idaho	9.9	37.5
Montana	14.1	40.3
Oregon	11.7	29.9
Washington	11.5	26.9
United States	12.7	28.3

Flame On!

Dumb headline (unless you're a Fantastic Four fan), but a serious subject.  A new chemical analysis, being released today by California EPA scientists at an international scientific conference in Toronto, shows that 30 percent of Northwest moms tested in NEW's 2004 toxics study had higher levels of the toxic flame retardants PBDEs in their bodies than of well-known chemical threats PCBs.  This study is a follow-up to the PBDE study of Northwest women that we did last year.

The study provides pretty unambiguous evidence that PBDEs have emerged as a major toxic menace.  And it suggests that, if recent trends continue, PBDEs could soon overtake PCBs as the most dominant "organohalogen" pollutant in people's bodies.

And an interesting -- and probably significant -- side note to the study was that there was no correlation between PCB and PBDE levels.  This suggests that they may get into people's bodies through different pathways.  At this point, the principle source of PCB contamination in people is food, particularly fish.  For PBDEs, nobody is sure; but a recent exposure modeling study from Canada suggests that ordinary housedust, containing minute quantities of PBDEs sloughed off from furniture and the like, may be the principle route of exposure in people. (More here.)

Some context is in order.  PBDEs are fire retardants that are added to furniture foams, industrial fabrics, consumer electronics, and a number of other products.  They're pretty good at preventing fires. But in recent years, scientists have noticed an alarming rise in the concentration of PBDEs in peoples bodies -- in their blood, in fatty tissues, and in breast milk alike.  Concentrations of the compounds appeared to be doubling every two to five years.  Ecologists have found similar rises in marine sediments and wildlife.  As it turns out, PBDEs didn't stay put in consumer products; minute quantities would leach out into the environment and ultimately wind up sequestered in living things, including people.

At the same time that this rapid rise was detected, new evidence was uncovered that PBDEs may have similar health effects as their close chemical cousins, the PCBs.  Tests on laboratory animals showed that a dose of PBDEs during a critical phase of early development could cause memory deficitis and behavioral aberrations -- effects very similar to those caused by PCBs.  The two chemicals may actually work together, either additively or synergistically, to cause harm.

Last year, Northwest Environment Watch commissioned an analysis of 40 breastmilk samples from Northwest moms, 10 each from Washington, Oregon, BC, and Montana.  The study found that the moms had among the highest median PBDE levels on record.  (Yoiks!) 

The problem isn't breastmilk per se; we tested breastmilk just because it was the most convenient way to get a biological sample that's high in fat, since PBDEs adhere to fat.  As far as I know, every epidemiological study that has looked at the issue has concluded that, except in extremely rare cases of PCB poisoning, breastfeeding is by far the best and healthiest choice for infants.  The major risk of PCBs appears to be during fetal development; and the benefits of breastfeeding may actually mitigate the potential harms caused by PCB or PBDE exposure in utero.  So, seriously, if you're a nursing mom, keep breastfeeding.  Please.  Really.

The bottom line of this study is that, even though PCB levels are still higher than PBDE levels, we may soon be approaching a point at which PBDEs are more of a concern than PCBs.  And from this I draw 3 lessons.  First, we should be paying close attention to PBDE levels in the coming years, to see whether PBDE levels continue to rise in people.  Second, we should be looking at ways of removing PBDE-laden products from people's homes. 

And third, we need to learn our lesson about the risks posed by untested chemicals.  In retrospect, it should have been obvious that PBDEs posed some risk -- their chemical structure is very similar to that of PCBs, dioxin and DDT.  So that alone should have triggered some elementary testing requirements before the compounds were used widely commerce.  But it didn't.  At some point, we've got to learn the lesson, and take steps to make sure this sort of chemical fiasco -- releasing potentially harzardous compounds without adequate testing -- doesn't keep happening again and again and again.

Obesity Grows

Obesity rates are growing in every state but Oregon, according to a new report by Trust for America's Health based on data from the CDC. (Read the Seattle Times article here.) While Oregonians can be proud of their accomplishment last year, they are not the trimmest state in the country, nor in the Northwest.

Interestingly, every Northwest state has lower rates of obesity than the national average. Montana residents are least likely to be obese; Alaskans are most likely. As Jessica pointed out recently, it's worth paying attention to obesity trends, not only because of their health consequences, but because it can absorb a lot of money.

Here's the skinny on obesity in the Northwest states...

Percent of state residents who are obese, 2004

	Percent of residents who are obese, 2004
Alaska	23.5
California	21.5
Idaho	20.9
Montana	19.1
Oregon	21.0
Washington	21.7
United States	24.5

Do Kids Count in Cascadia?

Things are looking up for Cascadia’s kids. Well some things. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count Data Book, released yesterday, teen birth rates in the Northwest states have steadily declined since 2000, and regional rates of infant mortality, and child and teen deaths are all down from 1990. But child poverty is up.

In the report’s 10 measures of child well-being, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington fared better than average for the country overall, ranking 18^th, 16^th, and 14^th, respectively. Montana slipped to number 34 this year.

But for Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, the number of children living in poverty is up from 2000–2003 and is above the national average, perhaps reflecting some of the economic woes the Northwest has seen in recent years. In Oregon, 41 percent of all kids in the state live in low-income families. Oregon and Washington tied at 36^th nationally in the percentage of children who live in families in which no parent has full-time, year-round employment.

Childhood poverty and parental unemployment can be factors in a host of other problems from lower school performance to higher crime rates and teenage pregnancy. Tracking trends such as child poverty and the teen birthrate--in projects like Kids Count and NEW's Cascadia Scorecard--helps raise awareness of the issues, the first step to creating change.

As a next step, the Northwest could make reducing child poverty a major goal for the decade ahead by implementing policies that emphasize personal responsibility while giving working families a way to develop assets that appreciate, not just income (see p. 12 in NEw's report, Population Reprieve). For example, government matching funds for low-income families who save for college or put money away for a down payment on a home.

P.S. The incredibly useful Kids Count website lets you compare trends regionally and by year, create charts, and download the raw data. Check it out.

Something Wildlife

If you've been following Eric's pieces on sage-grouse, goats, wolves, orcas, salmon, caribou, and other Northwest critters, you may have gathered that NEW is doing research on wildlife in Cascadia--and what it tells us about the health of our natural heritage.

In fact, as we described in a Cascadia Scorecard News article this week, NEW is introducing a wildlife index as part of the Cascadia Scorecard project. The index tracks population counts of five key indicator species--gray wolves, woodland caribou, greater sage-grouse, orcas, and Chinook salmon--and will be released in complete form in Cascadia Scorecard 2006.

As research is completed, we will post articles, maps, and charts from the index both on the wildlife pages of our website and in the wildlife section of our weblog.

The index will measure population counts because they are the most basic assessment of a species' prospects and may reveal how the larger ecosystems that sustain the species are functioning. We're comparing current numbers to historical levels (see chart above); and we'll depict habitat loss through maps that track species’ current and historic ranges. The index may also help identify the policies that are most effective in protecting these species. Here's a bit on each of the five:

• Gray wolves in Idaho and Montana. Wolves--reintroduced in the mid-1990s--are flourishing and helping to re-balance their native landscapes by, for instance, pressuring the elk herds that formerly browsed on streamside saplings. This, in turn, improves beaver and trout habitat.
• Woodland caribou of the Selkirk Mountains, a remote region in northeast Washington, northern Idaho, and southern British Columbia. They are the last remaining caribou to visit the continental US and their continued existence hinges on repairing fragmented landscapes, such as forest clearcuts.
• Greater sage-grouse in Oregon are sensitive to alterations in the vast “sagebrush sea” of the inland Northwest, including ranching, fencing, and invasive species.
• Chinook salmon returning as adults to the Bonneville Dam, the lowest dam on the Columbia River. These mighty fish are a proxy for the Northwest’s once-prolific salmon runs and for the health of the vast river system that binds British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
• Southern resident orcas that inhabit the inland seas of Washington and British Columbia. For much of the last century, these orcas were under siege. Now, although they are still in jeopardy, conservation efforts have paid off.

We'd love to hear feedback on the index as we develop it, so please add your comments below.

Man Himself is a Visitor

In recent months, the Bush administration's undoing of roadless area protection--by devolving the authority for them to the states--has generated a renewed burst of concern over the fate of the last unprotected wilderness-quality lands in the US.

Wilderness protection is, at least arguably, no longer center stage for most environmental organizations. Nevertheless, land (and water) protection remains critically important for the continued existence of countless species and, I'd argue, for human sanity. It also has a strong intuitive appeal: you can see the results on a map (here's one of my all-time favorites). Plus there's something deeply satisfying about drawing boundaries around a chunk of the earth, however small, and saying, "there, that's protected for good. Whatever else we do, we won't screw up that piece."

I was reminded again today of the importance of wilderness conservation--and also of the power of good biography--by an excellent article in the Los Angeles Times (free registration req'd) profiling storied conservationist and architect of the federal wilderness act, Stewart Udall. I wish I encountered more good story-telling like this about conservation successes and the people involved with them.

Udall, now 95, is nothing if not a compelling writer. Here's a sample:

We need to preserve places where nature can maintain her own balance, set her own pace. These natural places, completely untouched by the hands, the machines, the tools of man, are absolutely essential as laboratories of life — yardsticks against which to measure our efforts to improve the environment, as well as our dismal successes in destroying it.

It's hard to read Udall and not suspect that something is completely different today.

In fact, in today's Idaho Statesman, a cri de coeur to protect Idaho's roadless areas. Reading the column (it's good) I was reminded that today's arguments for conservation often rely heavily on economics--establishing the market value of ecosystem services and recreation, for instance. By contrast, in Udall's era, the arguments were primarily spiritual and nature-centric.

Has the conservation movement has lost its "soul" and perhaps thereby its gut-level appeal to people? Or were conservationists of Udall's era simply not able to develop economic arguments, and so relied on whatever reasoning they could conjure?

Post-script: By coincidence there's a newly proposed wilderness area in Montana. As the Missoulian reports, the wilderness is the longtime dream of a Montana rancher and geologist, Winton Wedeymeyer. Another good chance for biography, I suspect.

A New Chapter in an Old History

This summer marks the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark's arrival in the Pacific Northwest. The expedition is storied, but almost exclusively by white historians. Enter a new book with a new perspective on the expedition and its consequences for the native peoples they encountered, The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Here's a portion of the book description:

For the first time, a Native American community offers an in-depth examination of the events and historical significance of their encounter with the Lewis and Clark expedition... What makes The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition a startling departure from previous accounts of the Lewis and Clark expedition is how it depicts the arrival of non-Indians—not as the beginning of history, but as another chapter in a long tribal history. Much of this book focuses on the ancient cultural landscape and history that had already shaped the region for millennia before the arrival of Lewis and Clark. 

In the same vein, the Bellingham Weekly has an excellent article by one "Alan Durning" on the sesquicentennial of the Washington treaties of 1855. An earlier version of his article appeared in this blog.

BC's Resource (In)dependence II

In January 2005, we published a piece by guest contributor and University of Montana economist Thomas Michael Power that took issue with a report by BC research center Urban Futures on the importance of natural resource exports to the province's economy. Power disagreed with Urban Futures' position, arguing that true economic development has little to do with exports and everything to do with creating a web of local economic relationships.

A lively debate over the role of natural resource exports has ensued. In May, Urban Futures responded to Power's piece with a report titled "An Introduction to Regional Economic Analysis" (pdf). Power then clarified his position with this most-recent piece, "Thinking About the Regional Economy" (pdf).

Here are a few excerpts from Power's rebuttal:

There are two alternative paths open to us to protect our access for the full range of goods and services we desire. We can expand exports so that we can increase our imports or we can develop locally-oriented activities that efficiently displace some of those imports. If we are successful at the latter, our dependence on exports declines.

For a half-century economists have been puzzling over the fact that some of the most successful and dynamic economies are found in nations with very limited natural resource endowments while some of the economies that have very rich natural resource endowments are mired in persistent poverty. Empirical analysis of worldwide economic development patterns repeatedly has revealed that substantial natural resource endowments are associated with depressed economic development. . . .

The function of exports is to fund imports, not to fund internal economic activities. Schools and health clinics can be operated through the very normal specialization and division of labor that takes place within communities. The baker, butcher, and carpenter indirectly support the teacher, doctor, and preacher. Currency that does not enter into foreign trade can facilitate that complex specialization and exchange. It does not rely on exports. . . .

In making the case for the importance of exports in supporting the American economy, Urban Futures points to the apparently insatiable appetite of Americans for fossil fuels imported from other countries, an appetite that has to be paid for with American exports. But, again, the wrong lesson is drawn. There is no economic law that dictates the extent of America’s addiction to oil and natural gas. . . . Public policy could dramatically reduce our dependence on energy imports and reduce their export cost. That would simultaneously reduce the environmental and military cost too. To the extent that only efficiency measures and renewable resources that were cost effective (when all costs were taken into account) were pursued, Americans would enjoy the same standard of living with dramatically reduced dependence on imports and exports. The point is that the degree of dependence on imports is partially a matter of public policy choice, partly a matter of how the local economy develops, and partly a matter of what our buying habits are. All of these are malleable, not things dictated by economic law.

Question of the Day

This blog now has a readership of several hundred impressive, smart, and informed people. Together, we know a tremendous amount about a lot of things. I'm hoping we can turn it into a collaborative research tool: a rudimentary "wiki." (Wikis: defined and exemplified.)

Today's New York Times has a revealing article on the gasoline additive MTBE. This chemical was a much-heralded air pollution preventer: it makes gas burn cleaner. Unfortunately, it also proved a pernicious polluter of water. It finds even tiny holes in fuel storage tanks, leaks out and quickly permeates aquifers. At just 1 part per billion, it gives water an awful taste. It's also a suspected carcinogen.

The NYT article has information on MTBE in much of the United States, but nothing on the Northwest. The question of the day is, How big an issue is MTBE in Cascadia? How many water supplies are contaminated? How badly? What are the trends? Is it getting better or worse? How many people are affected? How? What about wildlife? What are Cascadians doing about MTBE? What's the history of MTBE in the Northwest? What, specifically, is going on in each part of Cascadia: southeast Alaska, British Columbia, northwest California, Idaho, western Montana, Oregon, and Washington? What are the appropriate policy responses? What's the true cost of MTBE, counting all the clean up? Bonus points for supplying not just links to relevant information but concise summaries--and for summarizing others' comments into a single overview.

In a real wiki, everyone could edit a shared main text, with each iteration saved for future reference. Here, we'll have to do it within the constraints of typepad's comment function. Sorry. If this Question of the Day proves successful, maybe we'll launch a "real" wiki with the right software. (Speaking of which: anyone know an online wiki service where we could set up such a thing?)

10th Birthday for Yellowstone's Wolves

Next Monday will mark precisely 10 years since wolves re-appeared in Yellowstone National Park, from where they had been absent since the 1920s. The re-introduction program was a smashing success, far exceeding even optimistic predictions.

On March 21, 1995, federal biologists finally opened the acclimation pens holding 14 gray wolves, sometimes called timber wolves, brought from Alberta. Earlier that year an additional 14 wolves had been set free in central Idaho's mammoth wilderness. And the following year, 17 more wolves were released into Yellowstone and 20 more into Idaho.

A decade later, Yellowstone's wolf population has grown more than five-fold and expanded into adjacent areas of Wyoming and Montana. Idaho's wolf population expanded even more spectacularly--by thirteen-fold--with an estimated 452 animals in the Gem State at last count in 2004. All told, over 850 wolves now roam the US Rocky Mountains. It's only a matter of time until they begin returning in numbers to Washington and Oregon, where they are now only rare visitors. [Click on the chart at left for state-by-state trends.]

Even better, the return of the native wolf has meant a return to healthier ecosystems. (Perhaps the best study of the effects of wolves on Yellowstone's ecosystems appeared in the Journal of BioScience in 2003.) Because wolves are a dominant predator, the effects of their presence or absence are felt on many levels--biologists call this effect a "trophic cascade." For example, wolves preying on beavers can mean more streamside trees--because beavers are fewer in number and fear to linger in the open--which in turn means more shady habitat for trout.

Prior to European contact, wolves ranged across almost all of North America. But by mid-century ill-advised and relentless programs of hunting, trapping, and poisoning extirpated wolves from their entire American range, with the exception of Alaska and a small remnant population in the wilderness of northern Minnesota and Isle Royale, Michigan. (The wolves in the upper Midwest are actually a different subspecies of Gray Wolf, the Great Plains Wolf, from the Canis lupus of the western US and Canada, which are Rocky Mountain Wolves.)

But wolves are tenacious creatures, and by the 1980s a few wolves had crept back over the Canadian border and had begun recolonizing parts of northwestern Montana. By the early 1990s, wolves were reported in remote areas of northern Washington, also Canadian immigrants. Then, in the mid-1990s the US Fish and Wildlife Service began a reintroduction program that catapulted wolf populations to viable sustaining numbers and also into the limelight.

The US National Park Service estimates that over 100,000 visitors to Yellowstone have observed wolves there; and visitors continue to throng the park in the hopes of glimpsing a wild wolf. But wolves have also bred a f