In this February - March Issue:

SEGG - 20 Years - 1982 - 2002 Calendar:
Southeast Gateway Group Elections
From the Chair
Ansel Adams at 100... Group Trip
MRCC Schedules Power Plants Forum
The Case for Industrial Hemp
Power Plant Pollution

Southeast Gateway Group Twenty Years Old in March: 1982 to 2002
by Lila Berge, Group Historian

The First Decade: The Sierra Club is a national grassroots environmental
organization made up of Chapters and Groups which serve the individual
members with: outings, information on legislation, leadership training,
programs to protect or enhance the environment, community service
activities, newsletters such as this and environmental education. As we
look back over the Southeast Gateway Group’s first twenty years, it is
time to see what we have been doing…and to set future goals.

When our Charter was granted on March 16, 1982, as the Racine-Kenosha
Group of the John Muir Chapter, we hit the ground running under the
leadership of Joan Bennett, Elma Chapman, David Hewitt, Mary Ellen
Johnson, Richard Marciniak, Joe Matesa, Donna Peterson and Jim Pioja.
Donna soon had our Environmental Education program organized with school
programs “We Care About Eagles” and “The Truth about Wolves” plus a
teacher training workshop at Eagle Valley. Donna and her school programs
went on to win recognition and awards nationally.

Mary Ellen Johnson and Gary Zumach were elected Group Co-Chairs in 1983.
Chuck Erven and Dave Hewitt led the Conservation Committee. Several
issues that year involved threats to our National Parks and preserving
Chiwaukee Prairie. Interior Secretary James Watt wanted to sell off land
in the Apostle Islands to a private developer and to open the new
Alaskan parks to sport hunters. Locally, our interest in preserving
Chiwaukee Prairie was aided by then Public Intervenor Kathy Falk. The
Rad-Waste Board was looking for a place in Wisconsin to store high-level
nuclear waste. Acid rain and the Nuclear Freeze referendum were on the
Club agenda, and a phosphate ban was on the Chapter agenda.

Mary Ann Ortmayer led a white water canoe trip on the Flambeau River and
a flat water trip on the Fox River through the Horicon Marsh. Our first
winter weekend at the Wagon Trail resort in Door County had plenty of
snow for skiing. The first potluck/swim party was a splashing success.
Lila Berge wrote several articles for a special Ra-Scene section of The
Shoreline Leader to introduce our Group to the community. Sierra Club
calendars sold for $6 to $8 and we sold $789 worth! The 1984 officers,
Gary Zumach, Dick Chirstianson and Lynda Manning, continued to serve in
1985.

In 1985 we held our first planning retreat on a sub-zero January weekend
at Windhover on Lake Michigan at the Sienna Center. Our officers now had
196 memberships to plan for. (Compare that to almost four times as many
now.) We sold 1,688 John Muir t-shirts through the Sierra catalog.
Outings were led by Mark Hanson who took us down the Kickapoo River, to
Lulu Lake and to work on the Ice Age Trail. The John Muir Chapter had
raised enough funds to make a down payment on land adjoining Muir Park
where John Muir spent his boyhood. National Forestry Plans were opposed
by the Sierra Club in Wisconsin and across the country.

In 1986, we hosted the Chapter’s fall meeting at George William College,
added Walworth County Sierrans to our Group, changed our name to the
Southeast Gateway Group, worked for recycling, wetland preservation,
helped Donna hold the first Chiwaukee Prairie Gathering, and opposed the
expansion of Oakes Landfill. Lynda Manning was the Group Chair.

We had 320 members in 1987. Officers were Lila Berge, Lynda Manning,
Beverly Iverson and Dian Lewno. Donna brought Bill Volkert and Dan
Nedrelo to the Racine school children. State issues included “clean
sweep” collections, Great Lakes pollution, Peregrine Falcon
reintroduction and a Timber Wolf recovery plan. A raffle of a Tom Hanson
painting earned $1,066.

Dave Hewitt, Russ Welch, Jean McGraw and Don Lintner were our officers
in 1988. Bob and Betty Gericke led outings at the Horicon Marsh and the
Salmon River in Idaho. We had a hilarious weekend skiing in Black River
State Forest. We conducted an environmental issue survey of local
candidates for office and printed the results in our newsletter which
was now produced on a computer by Dave Hewitt and David Manning.

There was a Boundary Waters canoe trip in 1989, a raffle of Rick Beyer’s
beautifully carved loon, a series of Ryan Walden Environmental Education
programs on wetlands, and the Group opposed incinerators proposed for
Kenosha and Sturtevant. We won, too!

By 1990 our membership had grown to 450, Russ Welch served a second year
as Group Chair, and we took part in Earth Day’s 20th anniversary events.
Our Environmental Education programs received a $500 grant from the
Sierra Club and $600 from the John Muir Chapter. Programs for the school
included Rainforests and Soils.

The following year, Susan Michetti took over as Group Chair with Barb
Meyocks, Betty Gericke and John Berge the other officers. We continued
participation in the Ice Age Trail Hike-a-thon. Farming, water pollution
and wetlands loss were state issues. We began meeting monthly at Mary
Ellen’s house to write letters on state and national issues which
included: raising CAFE standards for automobile mileage, farm bill
conservation measures, protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
from oil development, Great Lakes and population issues. We started
doing the Highway 38 cleanup three times a year. We co-sponsored and put
up prize money for an Earthwrite Essay contest for older children.

Barb Meyocks and Dennis Flath were Group Co-chairs in 1992, the Sierra
Club’s Centennial Year. Donna received a $1,000 award which she donated
to the Environmental Education programs, and was named one of 100 Heroes
by the Sierra Club. Jean McGraw handled arrangements to host the Midwest
Regional Conservation Committee meeting in Wisconsin. The Gerickes led a
raft trip down the Grand Canyon which several of us enjoyed.

The Second Decade: John Berge served the first of three years as Group
Chair in 1993. Gary Zumach began, and still continues, as our newsletter
editor. We held the first flower sale, raising $1,240, held our second
Winter Weekend at Timber Lee near East Troy, and Bill Volkert’s program
took us on a slide trip to Lake Baikal. The following year we donated
$800 and arranged for a tremendous discount to buy two computers for
environmentalists at Lake Baikal.

Free Trade/Fair Trade emerged as an issue, joining world population,
ozone depletion, transportation funding and EPA drinking water standards
(remember crypto in Milwaukee?) on the Club’s national agenda. Exotic
species such as zebra mussels and round ruffes, PCB’s and mercury
tainted fish advisories raised awareness of water pollution locally and
statewide. The Crandon Mine issue appeared on the radar screens in 1994.
We also discovered that non-metallic mining was under regulated and so
made telephone calls and wrote letters in support of mining regulations
on all these issues.

In 1995, “Takings” bills and amendments kept us busy writing more
letters. We lost the Office of Public Intervenor and the Governor won
his fight to appoint the Department of Natural Resources Secretary
rather having it named by the Natural Resources Board.

In 1996 we turned out the troops to hang campaign literature on doors,
hoping to elect more environmentally friendly candidates endorsed by the
Sierra Club. The Anti-Sprawl campaign became a Sierra Club priority with
local importance. On the brighter side, we had successful canoe trips on
the Wisconsin and Root Rivers; set up displays at Earthfests and
collected signed postcards; built, installed and dedicated two Mary
Ellen Johnson memorial benches in Muir Park; helped form the
Kenosha/Racine Land Trust; co-hosted the JMC annual meeting; and our
membership continued to grow.

Barry Thomas was Group Chair during 1997 and 1998. We campaigned for
and celebrated passage of the Mining Moratorium bill, campaigned for the
election of the Garvey/Lawton gubernatorial ticket and Spottswood for
1st district congressional representative, brought Werner Fomos to
UW-Parkside speaking on population issues, and learned the evils of
“factory farms” (Confined Animal Feeding Operations). The United
Environmental Council was formed and we joined them to coordinate
environmental activities. Lenny Kohm and Bill Volkert spoke on the
Arctic National Wild Life Refuge and Latin America, respectively.

We cosponsored another Chapter Annual Meeting in 1999 while Nita Larsen
was our Group Chair. Stan Rosenstiel, Barry Thomas and Melissa Warner
were the other Group officers. A successful holiday wreath sale replaced
the former spring flower sales. Joan Bennett received a national Sierra
Club honor. In our Environmental Education program, David Kuckuk told
middle school students of his adventures hiking the entire Ice Age Trail
with his dog Yukon. We changed the Group’s annual Green Award from
recognizing the continued environmental activity of a non-Sierran into a
student grant for summer environmental education training or projects.
Conservation campaigns continued to be alphabet soup: CAFOs, ANWR,
NAFTA, WIS-DOT, and Sprawl.

While Lila Berge, Stan Rosenstiel, Barry Thomas and Dana Huck held
office in 2000, our Group accomplished a 3rd By-Law revision.
Sustainable Racine brought conservation developer John Arendt to town
and we set up an informational table with Sierra Club’s Anti-Sprawl
video at their conference. Donna created a “bat cave” at Root River 2000
in Racine’s Festival Hall. We used Hanat Grant money to plant native
forbs and shrubs at the Root River canoe launch site, enjoyed whitewater
canoeing and camping on the Flambeau River, and Donna was inducted into
the Southeast Wisconsin Educators Hall of Fame. John Berge was honored
with the “J.J. and Pat Werner Award” by the John Muir Chapter. And
Sierrans in Walworth County (all except those in Whitewater) rejoined
our Group after the Rock Valley Group folded.

Nita Larsen and Dana Huck shared Group Chair leadership in 2001. Other
officers were Stan Rosenstiel and Nancy Hennessy. A successful cranberry
sale that netted over $465 will be repeated in 2002. We co-sponsored a
well-attended Smart Growth Forum with 1000 Friends of Wisconsin on our
regular meeting night. We dedicated a memorial boulder to Mary Ellen
Johnson at a site along the Root River purchased with funds donated by
her family to the Kenosha/Racine Trust.

The new administration in Washington withdrew from the ABM Treaty and
the Global Warming Accord, reinstated President Reagan’s Mexico City
rules restricting International Family Planning funds, reopened comments
on roadless areas in National Forests, is going ahead with “Star Wars”
development, blocked campaign finance reform in the House, and insists
on opening ANWR to oil drilling. The future looks like environmentalist
will have plenty of work to do…and redo. The Southeast Gateway Group has
at least 750 members now. We can truly make the next decade an
environmentally friendly one if we all work together!


Calendar Items:

Important Notice: This calendar was prepared before the Southeast
Gateway Group’s planning retreat on January 19 and the appointment of
all of the committee chairs, therefore it is incomplete. Please contact
any member of the Group Executive Committee for any missing information.


Southeast Gateway Group Elections…
At the meeting of the Executive Committee on December 13, new officers
of the local group were elected. They are: Dana Huck, Chair Dian
Sorenson, Vice-Chair Nancy Hennessey, Secretary

The office of Treasurer was not filled at that meeting. It is not
necessary that the Treasurer be a member of the Executive Committee, and
nominees will be sought from the general membership. Anyone interested
individuals in nomination is asked to contact Dana Huck, (262) 639-0465
or by email at dana_1@execpc.com


From the Chair
by Dana Huck

As I write this, our annual planning meeting is still in the future, but
by the time it reaches all of you, we will have made many of our plans
for the year. I hope, however, that if you did not have a chance to
attend the planning meeting, you will communicate your ideas for
programs, outings, and projects to any of the members of the ExCom.

My email address is dana_1@execpc.com and I would be very happy to hear
what our group can do to be more responsive to your interests.

Even though our plans are not finalized, this year promises to be a very
exciting one. It is the Southeast Gateway Group’s twentieth year as a
chartered group. Lila Berge, John Berge, Donna Peterson and Dian
Sorenson have volunteered to be our “Twentieth Anniversary Committee”
and will be planning a very special program for our March meeting. In
addition, there are a number of local, state and national issues that
are reaching the critical stage, and now more than ever,
environmentalists need work together to protect those valuable resources
that are in jeopardy. It’s also an important election year when we have
an opportunity to participate in our political future.

As everyone knows, organizations are only as good as their members, and
the Sierra Club has proven itself to be an extremely effective one due
to the number of its members and their willingness to act. Your
membership in Sierra Club is evidence that you care about environmental
issues. I hope that this year each of you will find a way to act upon
your convictions by participating in local group activities, by
responding to calls for letters to governmental officials and by
spending some time enjoying those things we are trying to protect.


Ansel Adams at 100...

On Saturday, March 16, 2002, our group will sponsor a trip to the Art
Institute of Chicago to view Ansel Adams at 100, an exhibition
commemorating the centennial of the birth of this famous photographer
and Sierran. The exhibition consists of 114 prints representing Adam’s
best photographs, one-third of which have never been published.

Online Exhibition: Click here to preview the Web site created by the 
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
We will meet at the Kenosha METRA station located at 5414 13th Avenue at
approximately 8:30 a.m to catch the 8:47 a.m. train to Chicago. Weather
permitting, we will walk to the Art Institute to view the exhibition, as
well as any of the many other areas of interest. The Art Institute
cafeteria will be open for lunch, and the museum shops will offer a book
commemorating the exhibition. We will return by the 4:35 p.m. train
which will arrive in Kenosha at approximately 6:15 p.m. METRA fare is
$5.00. Art Institute admission is $10.00. Lunch is on your own. Please
call Dana Huck, (262) 639-0465 for more information and to sign up.

MRCC Schedules Power Plants Forum
by John Berge

Debbie Neustadt, delegate to the Sierra Club’s Midwest Regional
Conservation Committee (MRCC) from Iowa, announced that the MRCC will be
holding a meeting on March 16-17 in Chicago on the topic of Coal Power
Plants. Such meetings are generally open to all interested persons. One
of the issues to be discussed is a provision of the Clean Air Act that
requires industry to install up-to-date pollution controls whenever old
plants are significantly upgraded. What is “significantly” is now in
litigation. Last spring, President Bush’s energy plan called for a
review of the way government was enforcing that provision and talks have
dragged out since then.

For additional information on this meeting and to reserve a place there
contact Debbie Neustadt, debbieneu@earthlink.net, (515)-265-2018, 1261
E. 23rd St., Des Moines, Iowa. Or contact the John Muir Chapter Delegate
to the MRCC and its current Chair, Barbara Frank,
bdfrank@centurytel.net, (608)-788-3914, N1965 Valley Rd. La Crosse, WI
54601-7149.


The Case for Industrial Hemp
by Tommy Linstroth

One of the most environmentally friendly actions our government could do
to help our nation and our planet without having to go into the
regulation of government-friendly but earth-destroying industries such
as autos and oil, is the legalization and cultivation of industrial
hemp. Now let’s clarify something. I am not proposing the legalization
of marijuana, but of industrial hemp. Industrial hemp and marijuana are
both classified by taxonomists as Cannabis sativa, a species with
hundreds of varieties. C. sativa is a member of the mulberry family.
Industrial hemp is bred to maximize fiber, seed and/or oil, while
marijuana varieties seek to maximize THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol,
the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana). Industrial hemp has a
THC content of between 0.05 and 1%. Marijuana has a THC content of 3% to
20%. To receive a standard psychoactive dose would require a person to
power-smoke 10-12 hemp cigarettes over an extremely short period of
time. The large volume and high temperature of vapor, gas and smoke
would be almost impossible for a person to withstand. Now that we have
clarified the difference between a Schedule I drug and a harmless plant
that has endless potential, let’s see why industrial hemp would be such
a great alternative.

Hemp grows well in a variety of climates and soil types. It is naturally
resistant to most pests, precluding the need for pesticides. It grows
tightly spaced, out-competing any weeds, so herbicides are not
necessary. It also leaves a weed-free field for a following crop.

Hemp can displace cotton which is usually grown with massive amounts of
chemicals harmful to people and the environment. 50% of all the world’s
pesticides are sprayed on cotton. Hemp fibers are longer, stronger, more
absorbent and more mildew-resistant than cotton, warmer than linen, and
more absorbent than nylon. Fabrics made of at least one-half hemp block
the sun’s UV rays more effectively than other fabrics as well.

Hemp can displace wood fiber and save forests for watershed, wildlife
habitat, recreation, oxygen production, carbon sequestration (reduces
global warming) and other values. Clear-cutting of old growth forests
would decline. Greenhouse gases and air pollution would drop. Threatened
species’ ecosystems could be left in tact. Hemp can yield 3-8 dry tons
of fiber per acre, which is four times what an average forest can yield.
Hemp can be made into fine quality paper. The long fibers in hemp allow
such paper to be recycled several times more than wood-based paper.
Because of its low lignin content, hemp can be pulped using fewer
chemicals than with wood. Its natural brightness can obliviate the need
to use chlorine bleach, which means no extremely toxic dioxin being
dumped into streams. A kinder and gentler chemistry using hydrogen
peroxide rather than chlorine dioxide is possible with hemp fibers.

European and Asian nations have been benefiting from hemp and its
products for years. Canada recently passed legislation for the
production of industrial hemp as well. Why should everyone else get to
benefit from this wonderful plant except us? And there are numerous
other uses for hemp we are missing out on as well, such as producing
fiber for fiberglass, insulation and particleboard stronger than wood
for housing, essential oils for both nutritional and industrial uses,
and conversion to biomass fuels to generate electricity. Not to mention
all the revenue going to the farmers who can easily grow acres of hemp
with little effort. With all these benefits and no ramifications, what’s
the problem?

Please contact our congressmen and let them know that we want industrial
hemp legalized to help save our planet.
(The Sierra Club has not adopted a position one way or the other
concerning industrial hemp, —Ed.)


Power Plant Pollution
by John Berge

With the proposed mega-expansion of the Oak Creek power plant, even into
Racine County, and numerous regulatory laws for power plants being
proposed at the state and national levels, it would seem appropriate to
review some of the basics of electrical generation pollution.

Up to now, cleaning up air pollution has been attempted one pollutant at
a time. Great strides have been made over the last twenty or thirty
years in some areas, but one pollutant at a time is very inefficient for
the electric utilities industry. According to a recent article in
Chemical and Engineering News, “The Bush Administration, Congress,
environmental groups, and utilities all agree in principle that a
multiple-pollutant approach to regulating air emissions is a good idea.
And they agree that at least three substances—sulfur dioxide, oxides of
nitrogen, and mercury—should be the focus of such an approach. Beyond
that wrangling begins.” Some also would include carbon dioxide in that
list because of its affect on global warming.

Burning any fossil fuel produces carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen.
Coal-fired power plants produce the most mercury and most CO2 plus large
amounts of NOx and SO2. Oil- and natural-gas-fired plants generally do
not emit mercury, but do produce significant amounts of NOx, CO2 and
sometimes SO2, but less per unit of energy produced than coal. Burning
natural gas produces the least CO2 per unit of energy because it
releases much of its energy by converting the four hydrogens per carbon
atom into water (H2O). Fuel oil has less hydrogen per carbon atom and
coal has the least. The oxides of nitrogen occur from the high
temperature burning of nitrogen in the air. Coal has the advantage of
being cheaper than the others and doesn’t require new pipelines leading
to the power plant through farms, wetlands or under the lake. And
“cheaper” is not only important to the power company but to their
consumers to whom all price increases are passed.

It should also be mentioned that if we generate our needs for electric
power locally, there will be less (or no) need for the transmission line
from Duluth to Wausau and beyond and thus no need to import power from
Manitoba Hydropower which has been condemned for its flooding of Cree
land and causing major social, ecological and economic disruption to the
local tribes.

Sen. James Jeffords (I-VT), chairman of the Senate Environment & Public
Works Committee has held hearings on his bill, S. 556, that would reduce
power plant emission of NOx and SO2 by 75% from 1997 levels and that
which is required by the national acid rain standards, respectively. It
would require each plant to cut mercury emissions by 90% from 1999
levels and CO2 would be cut back to 1990 levels. All this to be done by
2007. I do not have the requirements for new and enlarged plants such as
Oak Creek, but I assume that they would be consistent with the above
standards. There is a four-pollutant companion bill in the house, H.R.
1256, co-sponsored by 100 Representatives, but this will have
difficulties getting passed the Republican leadership.

The Bush administration opposes S. 556. They calculate that the Jeffords
plan would increase the cost of electricity by 33% or 2 cents per kWh,
cause a switch from coal to natural gas which would increase the price
of natural gas to home users, and drop the use of coal by 25 to 30%.
Most of the electricity cost increase would be to remove CO2, with only
4 or 5% resulting from the reduced SO2, NOx and mercury. Much if not all
of the cost of removing sulfur can be recovered by the sale of gypsum
(hydrated calcium sulfate) for plaster board, wallboards, Portland
cement, etc. Calculations of the savings in health costs by removing
these pollutants have not been published if they have been made…what
price to put on a retarded child or a shortened life.

A 90% reduction in mercury emissions is important because of the direct
entry into the food chain and the known effects of mercury on the human
nervous system and brain development. But a 90% reduction will be quite
different for a coal-fired generator producing a ton of mercury per year
and a gas-fired generator producing less than a pound per year. The
administration advocates a nation-wide cap on mercury emissions, divided
up among the power companies, and a system of selling or trading of
exceeded reductions. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups
oppose any cap-and-trade program since this could lead to some plants
increasing their mercury emissions, which they call “unconscionable”.

Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chairman of the House Science Committee,
one of the co-sponsors of H.R. 1256, testified before the Senate
Committee by saying, “We ought to be attacking our dependence on foreign
oil primarily by becoming more energy efficient and developing
alternative fuels, not by blithely ignoring the long-term environmental
and economic costs associated with our continued dependence on coal.” It
should also be noted that New York does not mine coal and coal mining
states are over-represented in Congress.

Greater energy efficiency is one way the individual citizen, Sierra Club
member or not, can reduce the pollutant emissions of power plants.
Fluorescent lights, increased insulation, high efficiency water heaters
and furnaces, lowered discretionary power usage and numerous other
savings are where you can start. Supporting new and more effective
regulations are a must also.

Much of the information for this article was taken from the
aforementioned article in C&EN, November 19, 2001, pp 57-59.