UPDATES.

SURF'S UP

There is good news for clean water activists and beachgoers across the country. This past October, President Clinton signed the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act, an amendment to the Clean Water Act that will require coastal states to regularly monitor their beaches and notify the public when contamination occurs. Although only 11 states currently do such monitoring, an alarming 6,100 closings and advisories were posted during 1999, indicating the presence of bacteria and viruses from polluted waters. Fever, chills, vomiting, respiratory illness and diarrhea are just a few of the unpleasant consequences.

"People get sick when they go to the beach, and the real problem is that some states don't even monitor their water," Kelli McGee, California director for the American Oceans Campaign, told E in May of 1999 (see "Our Beleaguered Beaches," Currents). Now the tide has finally turned. About $150 million will be funneled over the next five years to help states create and maintain comprehensive monitoring systems. CONTACT: American Oceans Campaign, [phone], www.americanoceans.com.

--Jennifer Bogo

ALL WASHED UP

The outlook for freshwater ecosystems, however, is not quite so optimistic. According to World Resources Institute (WRI), almost 60 percent of the world's largest 227 rivers are strongly or moderately fragmented; more than 20 percent of the world's 10,000 known freshwater fish species have recently become extinct or been threatened; and four out of every 10 people live in river basins that experience water scarcity. At least 3.5 billion people (more than 50 percent of the world's current population) will face scant water supplies by 2025. Habitat destruction, dams and canals, non-native species, pollution and over-exploitation continue to be powerful sources of stress (see "Water, Water Everywhere," September/October 1998).

The freshwater Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems report was the first of five assessments of the state of the planet's ecosystems--others will take in-depth looks at global agricultural ecosystems, coastal areas, forests and grasslands. "No one had thought to give the Earth a physical," says Jonathan Lash, president of WRI. "But it's very important for people who depend on ecosystems to begin to pay for and understand their value." CONTACT: WRI, [phone], www.wri.org.

--J.B.

STOPPED IN THEIR TRACKS

Snowmobilers in Yellowstone and Grant Teton National Parks will have to recreate elsewhere following a ban on the privately owned vehicles announced by the National Park Service this fall. Already outlawed in more than two dozen national parks, snowmobiles have been found to disrupt the natural behaviors of wildlife, fill the air with background noise and hydrocarbons, and imperil the health of park employees. Admittance booths in the west entrance of Yellowstone had even resorted to pumping in fresh air from a nearby lodgepole pine forest (see "Leaving Tracks," Currents, November/December 2000).

Although some businesses fear that the local economy will suffer, the 65,000 or so annual snowmobiles won't be missed by environmentalists when the ban fully kicks in by 2003. "Snowmobiling in Yellowstone has been a problem since it was first allowed in the 1960s," says Hope Sieck, associate program director for the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. "This rule has been a very long time in coming." CONTACT: National Park Service Air Resources Division, [phone], www.aqd.nps.gov/ARD/.

--J.B.