March 5, 1999
1) WildLaw Appeals ADEM's New CAFO Rules
2) Alabamian Wins National Solar Car Race
3) Southern Environmental Center Honored
4) Nature Conservancy Newest Preserve
5) What Is LWCF? Learn About This Important Campaign
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1. WildLaw Appeals New CAFO Rules - WildLaw, a regional
environmental law
firm based in Montgomery will be filing an appeal this week on
behalf of Wild
Alabama against the recently passed Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations
(CAFO's) ADEM regulations. According to WildLaw's director and
attorney Ray
Vaughan, the appeal will focus on the new CAFO rule's lack of
air and
groundwater monitoring and protection provisions, inadequate setback/buffers
(100 feet) and the lack of bonding and financial assurance requirements.
For
more information about WildLaw's appeal, call Ray Vaughan at 334-265-6529.
2. Alabamian Wins National Solar Car Race - Dr. Ed Passerini,
a longtime
Alabama environmental advocate and professor at the University
of Alabama
along with two student assistants, Mike Eddins and Julie Theobold
took home
the "first place" trophy at the recently held Tour de
Sol race in Orlando.
For more than 20 years Dr. Passerini has been building solar
cars and winning
regional and national races. The Tour de Sol is the most difficult
and
advanced solar car racing category (something like the Talledega
500 for
solar cars). This year's race began at Cape Canaveral and ended
at the
Disney World complex in Orlando. Along with winning the race,
the car also
won the first place award for design.
For more information about Dr. Ed Passerini's award winning
solar car call
205-348-4600 or e-mail epasseri@nc.ua.edu
3. Southern Environmental Center Honored - The Southern
Environmental Center
(SEC) at Birmingham Southern College was named Environmental Education
Organization of the Year at last week's Legacy statewide environmental
education conference held in Birmingham. This is the second time
that Legacy
has honored the Center having previously awarded the SEC with
its Outstanding
Education Project in 1993.
The SEC opened in the fall of 1998, a first of its kind on
a college campus,
5600 square ft. interactive environmental education center. Along
with the
"Ecoscape" gardens, a hands-on outdoor nature classroom,
the SEC expects more
than 20,000 school children and families to visit Birmingham Southern
College
in 1999. For more information about SEC and setting up tours call
205-226-4934 or e-mail Roald Hazelhoff SEC's director at rhazelho@bsc.edu
4. Nature Conservancy Celebrates New Preserve - Recently,
the Nature
Conservancy of Alabama (TNC) acquired two new adjacent tracts
to its Prarie
Grove Preserve located in Lawrence County near Courtland, Alabama.
This
preserve which is owned and managed by TNC now consists of 190
acres of
woodlands and openings (glades) on flat limestone outcroppings
amongst
shallow soils. It contains one of the largest intact cedar glade
systems in
Alabama. The site also includes 12 rare plant species.
For more information about the Nature Conservancy of Alabama
and their
acquisitions and conservation efforts across Alabama, call 205-251-1155
or
visit their website at:
http://www.tnc.org/infield/state/alabama/
5. LWCF: Learn More About This Important Campaign -
If someone told you that
a federal program called "LWCF" or the Land Water and
Conservation Fund was
one of the most important and successful conservation/recreational
programs
in the last half of the 20th Century, you would probably be very
perplexed
and puzzeled. Most people have never heard of LWCF, but since
it's passage
in 1965 more than 37,000 conservation and recreation projects
across the
country have been founded as a result of LWCF.
In Alabama, LWCF funds made possible the creation of Alabama's
only National
Park dedicated to a natural area - Little River Canyon National
Preserve.
Virtually every state park in Alabama has benefited from the fund
and
hundreds of local city parks ranging from Ruffner Mountain in
Birmingham to
McFarland Bottoms in Florence were created through support from
the LWCF.
Since the founding of LWCF nearly $93 million dollars has been
spent on
projects within Alabama.
A new national grassroots group of conservation, civic and
recreational
organizations formed Americans for Our Heritage and Recreation
(AHR) in 1997,
to launch a national campaign to revitalize LWCF and fully fund
the program.
The campaign needs your help! For more information about AHR and
LWCF call
Pat Byington (Yes, I am the Southeast Organizer) at 205-226-7739
or e-mail me
at pkbyington@aol.com
To learn more more about AHR visit our website at:
http://www.ahrinfo.org I
look forward to hearing from you!
Please share BEN with friends and fellow conservationists.
If you have any questions about BEN, contact Pat Byington at
205-226-7739 or pkbyington@aol.com
