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« Dead trees or pixels? | Main | A bright kind of proposal »

April 23, 2007

Earth Day . . . again?

We used to call them MEGO stories: My Eyes Glaze Over.

For reporters, stories marking holidays and anniversaries are among the most dreaded assignments in the newsroom, right up there with the weather and the interview with the nursing home resident who's still spry at 111. What can you say about Valentine's Day, Halloween or the 50th annniversary of a big tornado that hasn't already been said?

Unfortunately, the Earth Day story is often a MEGO. Too many of the Earth Day stories that ran over the past weekend fit a tired pattern: Environmentalism, once a fringe countercultural movement, has gone mainstream, with everyone from oil companies to corner coffee shops taking up the cause. Green is cool. It's everywhere, influencing the arts, entertainment, fashion, religion, education, restaurants, travel, sports. Lots of celebrities are green. Al Gore made a movie about it. There's more than one kind of green. Here's what you can do to help.

From this year's digital stack of Earth Day clippings, here are a couple of hard-hitting exceptions – all the more welcome coming from California, where it lately seems like the only environmental story considered worth covering involves a cigar-smoking, Hummer-driving politician. Both are multimedia packages that show how well suited environmental reporting is to the new technology of online journalism.

• Douglas Fischer of the MediaNews chain (Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News) looks at a different anniversary: It's been 10 years since Bill Clinton signed an executive order directing federal agencies to base environmental decisions on what's best for children's health. The order was hardly noticed at the time, but Fischer quotes influential policy makers who say it was the beginning of a sea change in the focus of environmental health that has spread worldwide.

Unfortunately, as Fischer notes, "All is not roses." In a sidebar, he recounts how bisphenol A, a chemical used in plastic bottles and the linings of food cans, has not been banned despite evidence that it causes birth defects. Says EWG's Sonya Lunder: "There's no margin of safety for the typical person who eats one canned food product a day."

• The Sacramento Bee showcases an ambitious investigative series, six months in the making, that details the extensive toxic legacy of the state's military installations and defense plants. "Wastes of War" by Russell Carollo begins:

Time bombs lurk beneath California, from the Mexican border to the Oregon state line, under hills, valleys and coastlines – poised to contaminate wells, pollute waterways, jeopardize property values and endanger human lives.

Hundreds of locations already have been polluted, and how much more of the state is at risk, no one really knows.

What is known is that more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected military sites, the largest number in the country, are spread across California, covering 7.5 percent of the state – an area more than twice the size of Connecticut. Many were abandoned decades ago but may still be contaminated with toxic chemicals, bombs and other munitions or even radioactive waste.

The problem is vast, completely overwhelming the resources available to protect public health. Do the champions of free-market environmentalism really think the marketplace can clean up 1,000 military toxic waste sites? Can it protect kids from a toxic chemical the public never even knew about?

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