Keiko the Killer Whale Prepares For Return to the Wild
PAWELSKI: Welcome back. Diesel fuel is under fire for its contribution to pollution. The EPA is calling for changes that would help clear the air, and maybe help save a few lives. But the oil companies say the government is asking for too much, too fast. Maria Hinojosa reports.</s>MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Out of a small storefront in the South Bronx, Yolanda Garcia is waging a battle for clean air.</s>YOLANDA GARCIA, COMMUNITY ACTIVIST: Our children would like to play baseball. They can't because they can't breathe.</s>HINOJOSA: In the windows, students model gas masks. Extreme, perhaps, but Garcia lost her 24-year-old son to asthma.</s>GARCIA: My legacy to my son is to help try to mitigate what's wrong, so that no other children or young people have to die the way he did.</s>HINOJOSA: Far from the South Bronx, men and women in suits discuss the same issue at an EPA hearing in Manhattan.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It would be accurate to refer to New York as the asthma capital of the world.</s>HINOJOSA: Activists from doctors to lawyers testified the exhaust from diesel fuel is polluting the air, contributing to rising asthma rates in U.S. cities.</s>MARGO OGE, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: Anyone that has ever driven behind a bus or a truck is familiar with the smell of the diesel fuel, and familiar with the cloudy emissions that come out from those trucks.</s>HINOJOSA: The EPA is asking for a 97 percent reduction in sulfur in diesel fuel by 2006.</s>RICHARD KASSEL, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL: Just as removing lead from gasoline was the key to cleaning up cars in the mid-1970s, removing sulfur from diesel fuel will be the key to cleaning up diesel trucks and buses in the coming decades.</s>HINOJOSA: Oil company executives asked for more time.</s>RED CAVANEY, AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE: We are concerned that the agency's diesel sulfur proposal risks too much by going too far, too fast.</s>HINOJOSA: And he warned the move would raise trucking costs, and as a result, consumer prices.</s>CAVANEY: This is going to be a very, very expensive adjustment.</s>HINOJOSA (on camera): New York City has good reason to be concerned about diesel emissions and their possible link to asthma. According to the New York Department of Health, hospitalization rates for asthma in the city are three times higher than the national average. And here in the South Bronx, that rate is eight times as high. (voice-over): Statistics with which Yolanda Garcia is all too familiar.</s>GARCIA: They're taking the breath away from us.</s>HINOJOSA: For CNN EARTH MATTERS, I'm Maria Hinojosa.</s>PAWELSKI: In Iceland, Keiko the killer whale is making longer and longer visits to open ocean. His keepers say it's just a matter of time before he leaves his enclosed bay for good. Rudi Bakhtiar reports.</s>RUDI BAKHTIAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's not unlike taking a dog for a walk. The Ocean Futures staff who is overseeing Keiko's return to the wild in the Westman Islands of Iceland have begun luring him out to the open seas. They call these ventures "ocean walks."</s>CHARLES VINICK, OCEAN FUTURES: We're continually adding new stimulation to him. We're adding new experiences for him. And we're letting him explore his own environment in a way that allows him to be comfortable in it.</s>BAKHTIAR: During these ocean walks, Keiko has been conditioned to follow this particular vessel. The longest walk so far was last week, 30 hours on the open seas. Keiko actually went off on his own for two hours, but returned when the staff gave the signal.</s>ROBIN FRIDAY, OCEAN FUTURES: Through the whole process, we've always allowed Keiko's response to dictate to us what our next steps are, and it will be the same thing through this.</s>BAKHTIAR: The walks are just another stage in expanding Keiko's horizons, as well as his swimming and hunting capabilities. He spends most of his time in a bay where his original holding pen is located. Already, his new lifestyle is changing his physiology. He's developed a lot more muscle, and his dorsal fin has changed positions from all of the swimming. (on camera): So far, Keiko has crossed paths with other whales but has not interacted with them. That will be the next step, getting Keiko to interact and integrate with other orcas. (voice-over): Ocean Futures says that when Keiko does eventually go off on his own, they will keep a small support group in the Westmans for up to two months in case he changes his mind. They have also equipped him with a satellite tracking device that will help them monitor his whereabouts for about another year. For CNN EARTH MATTERS, I'm Rudi Bakhtiar, in the Westman Islands, Iceland.</s>PAWELSKI: Later on EARTH MATTERS, big bugs battle in a championship wrestling match. But next, a dramatic landscape, a peaceful native community: efforts to protect this centuries-old culture.