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COMMON GROUND VOL. 14 NO. 3 JULY-SEPTEMBER 2003 11 Banrock Station Winery of Australia has The group (hydro . org) honored the energy teamed up with The Conservation Fund to company for its preservation work in the create a $75,000 grant program to stimulate Clark Fork River basin. To fulfill its hydro wetland conservation in the United States . relicensing obligations, Avista worked with The company (banrockstation. com) already The Conservation Fund last year to pur- has undertaken a large-scale wetland restora- chase a 716-acre parcel along the Bull River, tion project in Australia . The new Banrock a tributary of Clark Fork River in Montana Wetlands Conservation Program will provide (see CG 13 : 3 ) . The land includes several seed grants ranging from $ 1 ,000 to $5,000 to miles of riverfront and provides habitat for The new nonprofit groups that are planning and three endangered species—bald eagle, bull implementing local wetland conservation trout and grizzly bear . Avista and the Fund Banrock Wetlands Conservation or restoration projects . The Conservation jointly own the property, which is being- Fund is developing grant criteria for the managed for conservation purposes . Program will program, which it will also administer . provide seed grants Applications will be solicited later this year, ® United Technologies Corp . (www . utc . ranging from with the first grants distributed late next com) has cut its cost for water usage by 34 % spring or early summer . and energy consumption by 27% in just four $ 1 , 000 to $ 5, 000 years, and now plans to reach a 40% reduc- to nonprofit groups ® PacifiCorp, which operates 55 hydroelec- tion by 2007. The company also has joined that are planning tric dams in the Northwest, has agreed to the Climate Leaders program at the Envi- and im lementin dismantle a six-megawatt dam on the Hood ronmental Protection Agency (epa . gov / p g River in Oregon beginning in 2010 . As part of climate leaders) , an industry-government local wetland a multiparty agreement, the utility will trans- partnership of 40 companies that encourages conservation fer 465 acres at the dam site to the public and businesses to develop climate change strate- or restoration establish a $ 150,000 trust fund to maintain gies and set reduction goals for greenhouse the lands . Until 2010, the utility will close the gas emissions . UTC has lowered its green- projects . dam for two months each year to allow juve- house gas emissions by 15 % since 1997. rile salmon and steelhead to migrate down- Other Climate Leader members include stream. The federal license for the dam ex- Bank of America, BP Corp . , Eastman pired in 2000, and the utility opted to close it Kodak Company, General Motors, IBM, rather than meet tighter operating conditions International Paper, Johnson & Johnson and make investments to keep the dam oper- and Lockheed Martin . ating for the next 30 to 50 years . In 1999, the utility agreed to dismantle the 123400t tall ® The outdoor recreation industry recently Condit dam in Washington near the junction flexed its muscles in Utah by threatening to of the White Salmon and Columbia rivers . move two trade shows worth $24 million out of state to protest the state 's settlement R Americans will scrap 3 billion pieces of of a lawsuit with the federal government electronic equipment by 2010, including 1 bil- that could open potential federal wilderness Americans will lion units of computer apparatus and 200 to development (suwa . org) . In the settle- scrap 3 billion million TVs . The International Association ment, the Interior Department agreed to of Electronics Recyclers predicts a boom in drop interim wilderness protection for mil- pieces of electronic recycling, with the industry at least quadru- lions of acres of federal land in Utah and equipment by pig by the end of the decade . Currently, across the West. " [I] t is time to consider 2010, including more than 400 U . S . companies employ 7,000 pulling these [trade shows] out of Utah in people that process 1 . 5 billion pounds of elec- protest of the message the state has sent the 1 billion units tronic equipment and generate $700 million outdoor industry and community, " said Of computer in revenue each year. Included are 40 million Peter Metcalf, CEO of Black Diamond apparatus and pieces of computer equipment that help the (blackdiamondequipment. com) , an outdoor industry recover an estimated 900 million equipment company in Salt Lake City . 200 million TVs . pounds of recyclable materials each year, Metcalf' s remark, contained in a May 4 according to "Electronics Recycling Industry OpEd piece in the Salt Lake Tribune, helped Report, " (www . iaer . org, $59 .95 , members, prompt a meeting in June of Gov . Michael $99 . 95 non-members; 888 / 9894237) . Leavitt, Metcalf and other members of the Outdoor Industry Association, a 1 , 100- ® For the fourth straight year, Avista Corpo - member trade group (outdoorindustry . org) ration ( avistacorp . com) has received an Out- that represents the $ 18 billion outdoor recre- standing Stewards of America's Rivers award ation industry. The association called the from the National Hydropower Association . meeting a good first step to mend fences .