Nonprofit Land Bank Amasses Billions

Some of these companies face pressure from more confrontational environmental groups and from government regulators.

A recent study of utilities by the Natural Resources Defense Council and others named American Electric the largest U.S. air polluter. American Electric's operations in Cheshire, Ohio, have turned that quaint river town into a ghost. Sulfur dioxide emissions from one of the company's plants have at times enveloped Cheshire, prompting the utility to buy out most of the 221 residents, who agreed not to sue. A utility spokesman said the plant is clean, but its operations were encroaching on the community.

Elsewhere, the utility is fighting a lawsuit filed by the Environmental Protection Agency alleging Clean Air Act violations.

American Electric has joined the Conservancy in an $11 million forest preservation initiative in Bolivia. If the concept were approved by federal regulators, the project one day would supply the company with "pollution credits." That would lessen its need to install costly emissions controls at its U.S. plants.

Opponents of the Conservancy's approach argue that corporations have seized control of the charity from within.

"The Conservancy brings in corporate board members who don't know much about conservation -- or even care that much about it," said Huey Johnson, the former head of the Conservancy's western U.S. operations and a founder of the Trust for Public Land. Two years ago, he won the United Nations' top environmental award.

The Conservancy offers corporations seats on its International Leadership Council for $25,000 and up. Once there, executives can "meet individually with Nature Conservancy staff to discuss environmental issues of specific importance to the member company," Conservancy literature states.

Council members include Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which paid $333 million to settle claims that its plants polluted water and caused cancer among nearby residents, a legal battle dramatized in the film "Erin Brockovich."

Another member is Dow Chemical Co., owner of Union Carbide. Last year, the Conservancy's Louisiana chapter gave Dow its conservation leadership award for expanding a greenbelt bird sanctuary around its plant in Plaquemine, La. The plant also has drawn the attention of a grand jury investigating vinyl chloride contamination of area water, Dow officials recently confirmed.

Avoiding Controversy

Sometimes, the Conservancy's nonconfrontational approach puts it on the sidelines of the major environmental issues of the day.

In Alaska, the Conservancy has stood silent as environmentalists battle proposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The decision to skirt the fight followed intense debate in 2001 by the Conservancy's board, which yielded in the end to the wishes of its Texas and Alaska chapters, senior Conservancy officials said.