FEDERAL JUDGE FINDS SAN FRANCISCO BAY'S GHOST FLEET POLLUTION ILLEGAL ~ COURT RULES THAT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS ILLEGALLY POLLUTING THE BAY FROM DECAYING SHIPS -- Judge Garland Burrell’s ruling handed a major victory to environmental groups Natural Resources Defense Council, Arc Ecology and San Francisco Baykeeper, the original plaintiffs in the case, and to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, which joined the suit after it had been filed. The environmental groups sued MARAD, an agency of the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 2007 to force it to stop discharging toxic heavy metals into San Francisco‘s Suisun Bay and to clean up more than 50 large ships abandoned and decaying in the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet site, near Benicia > read more @ http://www.nrdc.org/media/2010/100121b.asp

SAVING AMERICA'S 1,000 MOST ENDANGERED SPECIES -- In recognition that 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, the Center has launched a campaign to protect the 1,000 most imperiled species in the United States by winning them a spot on the endangered list, obtaining critical habitat protections, and ensuring timely development of a recovery plan during the Obama administration. There’s no better tool for saving these 1,000 species than the Endangered Species Act. Research published by the Center found that the longer species have been listed under the Act, the more likely they are to be recovering; species with designated critical habitat are twice as likely to be recovering as those without critical habitat; and species with recovery plans are more likely to be recovering than those without plans > read more @ http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/1000_species/index.html
 

BIG WIN FOR BEES:  BEE TOXIC MOVENTO PULLED FROM MARKET FOR PROPER EVALUATION – A pesticide that could be dangerously toxic to America’s honey bees must be pulled from store shelves as a result of a suit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Xerces Society. In an order recently issued, a federal court in New York invalidated EPA’s approval of the pesticide spirotetramat (manufactured by Bayer CropScience under the trade names Movento and Ultor) and ordered the agency to reevaluate the chemical in compliance with the law. The court’s order went into effect on January 15, 2010, and makes future sales of Movento illegal in the United States > go to: http://www.nrdc.org/media/2009/091229.asp

CALIFORNIA ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROTECTION SOUGHT TO SAVE MOUNTAIN YELLOW-LEGGED FROG FROM EXOTIC TROUT, HABITAT DESTRUCTION, AND DISEASE — The Center for Biological Diversity recently petitioned the California Fish and Game Commission to list all populations of the highly imperiled mountain yellow-legged frog as endangered under the California Endangered Species Act. Mountain yellow-legged frogs inhabit high-elevation lakes, ponds, and streams in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Transverse Ranges of California and are on a rapid trend to extinction. Their rapid decline is due to predation by introduced trout, spread of diseases that may be exacerbated by exposure to pesticides, and habitat alterations caused by climate change, drought, and livestock grazing > source: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2010/mountain-yellow-legged-frog-01-25-2010.html

IMPERILED DELTA FISH ONE STEP CLOSER TO REGAINING ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTION — A lawsuit settlement won by the Center for Biological Diversity will require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit the politically tainted 2003 Bush administration decision to strip the Sacramento splittail, a critically imperiled fish species native to the Central Valley and San Francisco Bay-Delta, of Endangered Species Act protections. The Service agreed today to make a new finding on whether listing the splittail as a threatened or endangered species is warranted by September 30, 2010 > source: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2010/sacramento-splittail-01-22-2010.html 

<>
A GOOD DAY FOR POLAR BEARS! -- Victory for Polar Bears! The Department of the Interior recently agreed with more than 6,000 Care2 activists who supported a proposal to end the international polar bear trade. That means the U.S. will take the lead in getting stronger polar bear protections at an upcoming meeting of the international body that regulates internationally endangered species > go to: http://www.care2.com/causes/environment/blog/a-good-day-for-polar-bears/