Fall 2002

If you drive through Mesa Verda in the desert of southeastern California, you get the sense that not much has changed in a long time.

Open-government advocates and environmentalists say the San Francisco International Airport is illegally blocking access to draft studies on the environmental impacts of its proposal to fill San Francisco Bay with new runways.

The Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC), owned by the Fisher family that owns the Gap clothing chain, has obtained little-known development rights that boost the price of over 3,000 acres of timberland sought by Sonoma County for open space, Terrain has learned.

Luxembourg-based World Water SA has become the first multinational to seek water rights to northern California rivers, setting up a key test of local sovereignty in the face of international trade agreements, say public interest advocates.

Chevron Richmond Refinery has illegally avoided environmental review of its plans to build storage tanks for highly explosive liquid petroleum gas (LPG), said Oakland-based Communities for a Better Environment (CBE).