Environment

In a special election Tuesday, voters in Toledo said yes to a ballot measure that amends the city charter to include a Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR). With about 8.9 percent turnout of eligible voters, the ordinance was approved by just over 61 percent. 

According to the unofficial vote count from the Lucas County Board of Elections, over 16,200 ballots were cast.

Next Tuesday, Feb. 26, the residents of Toledo will have the chance to vote on an unusual (some might even say radical) proposal: whether to give the fourth largest lake in the United States its own Bill of Rights. If the ballot measure passes, it would be a win for the small but growing “rights of nature” movement, which aims to deter activities that pollute the environment by granting legal rights to ecosystems.

There are approximately 14,000 “orphaned” oil and gas wells across the state of Kentucky, according to state officials.

Abandoned by the original operators, these wells litter forests and fields, limiting where farmers can grow crops and presenting environmental and human health hazards. Many have been left uncapped to bubble gas and leak oil for decades.

Now, after five years of stakeholder meetings between environmental groups and the oil and gas industry, Kentucky lawmakers have introduced House Bill 199 to plug orphaned oil and gas wells and abandoned storage tanks that threaten health, safety and the environment.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul introduced an amendment granting authority to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to sell off an unspecified amount of Daniel Boone National Forest near the border of Tennessee.

The amendment called for the sale of forest lands along U.S. Highway 27 from Burnside, Kentucky, to where the highway crosses the state line.

It didn’t describe exactly what lands would be included, it didn’t define what “along” meant and it didn’t prescribe a specific acreage, said Jim Scheff with Kentucky Heartwood, a public lands advocacy organization.

Once the traditional holidays of Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over, some Americans look forward to another tradition: the annual Christmas Bird Count.  

Since 1900 birders have picked one day — sometime around Christmas — to survey as many birds as they can find in a 15 mile diameter circle.  

Birder Mike Edgerton, a member of the Greater Akron Audubon Society, says it’s been a valuable form of crowd sourcing.