epee e Ue Oey BLOeNe Be Ug Lake Tel oN 3 
conservationists began a legal battle which resulted in a court order over- 
turning a Federal Power Commission ruling supporting Consolidated 
Edison. The battle is making headlines in the East ... The National 
Park Service of the Dept. of Interior is celebrating its 50th anniversary. 
Stephen Tyng Mather, a Chicago businessman, was one of the early and 
great Directors of the National Park Service ...A recent newsletter by 
Congressman Sidney Yates points out that the Great Lakes, including 
Lake Michigan, “is suffering pollution to an appalling degree.’ Yates points 
out that in building industrial might, “America’s natural beauty, its 
streams and rivers much too frequently became casualties.” ... Many 
inquiries have come into the offices of Outdoor Illinois (Benton, Ill.) since 
Jack Benton, past president of the Decatur Audubon Society, wrote his 
stimulating article on the “Recreation Total in County Conservation 
Districts.” The I. A.S. 1967 Annual Meeting will explore this topic further. 
A new magazine, “Appalachian South,” a quarterly published in Charles- 
ton, West Virginia, has placed a more adequate spotlight on the problems 
and potential of the Appalachia region ... The Internal Revenue Service 
has threatened the Sierra Club with elimination of its tax exempt status 
because of the club’s opposition to the construction of Bridge Canyon and 
Marble Canyon Dams in the Grand Canyon. The Sierrans say they will 
not be intimidated ... Hearings have recently been held over the proposal 
to build a huge road through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 
The road threatens the wilderness aspects of the park, which was first 
established in the 1930’s. Some conservationists complain that the National 
Park Service often abandons high standards and capitulates too easily to 
road builders and concessionaires ... 
Montana conservationists are battling the Bureau of Reclamation and 
the proposed Sun Butte Dam in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which would 
eliminate 55,000 acres of wilderness, destroy elk herd migration routes 
and damage wild trout fisheries of the Sun River ... The John Burroughs 
Memorial Association has been working to preserve and maintain the 
famous home of the naturalist-author. Known as “Slabsides,” it is located 
near Poughkeepsie, New York ... The Sierra Club and the Illinois Citizens 
Committee for Nature Conservation have taken strong stands on the 
“population explosion” issue. Both groups have passed resolutions in- 
dicating that unless human population is checked in the U.S.A. as well 
as in the rest of the world, the effort to preserve natural areas and wild- 
life, as well as wilderness concepts and wilderness areas, will become in- 
creasingly difficult. The birth control movement is celebrating its 50th 
year. The world population has increased by more than 35,000,000 since 
last September. Congress is considering a bill to make birth control in- 
formation freely available in the U.S.A. and abroad. It is sponsored by 
Senators Ernest Gruening and Paul Douglas ... 
Lusk Creek Canyon in the Shawnee National Forest is threatened 
by a dam. Canoeists are protesting this proposal to the U.S. Forest Service 
in Washington, D.C. . . . Illinoisans are mourning the sudden passing of 
Virginia Eifert, author and well-known editor of “The Living Museum.” 
She died of a heart attack in early summer... The Illinois Nature 
Preserves Commission (819 N. Main St., Rockford) has dedicated two new 
nature areas. One is Beall Woods (sometimes called the Forest of the 
Wabash) in Wabash County, and the other is Langham Island in the 
