Author: Katherine Glover

Crop Prices Cut Into Conservation

  • Corn production in Colorado. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

With grain prices hitting record highs, a lot
of farmers are removing land from the federal Conservation
Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to stop growing
crops on poor land and instead grow trees or grass cover.
That creates habitat for wildlife. The US Department of
Agriculture, which runs the program, says the CRP is still
in good shape. Katherine Glover reports some conservationists
disagree:

Transcript

With grain prices hitting record highs, a lot
of farmers are removing land from the federal Conservation
Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to stop growing
crops on poor land and instead grow trees or grass cover.
That creates habitat for wildlife. The US Department of
Agriculture, which runs the program, says the CRP is still
in good shape. Katherine Glover reports some conservationists
disagree:

When the Conservation Reserve Program started in 1985, David Schoenborn was among
the first on board.

He stopped farming some of his land and let natural cover grow. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture paid him. Usually land that wasn’t the best farmland or land that was prone
to erosion was set aside for the program.

Conservationists say CRP has been great for reducing soil erosion, improving water
quality and restoring wildlife habitat.

But this year, for the first time, Schoenborn is letting some of his CRP contracts expire.

“It’s not a bad program, but the payments have to be more to keep them in line with the
rest of the farming economy.”

Corn and other grain prices are at record highs. So a lot of farmers are taking land out of
CRP and plowing it up. The program lost more than two million acres last September.

It could have been much worse. Originally sixteen million acres were set to expire in ’07.
But, in 2006 the USDA offered landowners the option to renew their contracts. About 80
to 85 percent of the land was re-enrolled.

The USDA is focusing its conservation efforts towards environmentally sensitive lands
and critical wildlife habitat.

Perry Aasness is the state director for the USDA Farm Service Agency in Minnesota.

“We’re not enrolling whole fields of land anymore, but there are still conservation
programs which we call the continuous CRP and that primarily focuses on really
targeting buffer strips, waterways, and that sort of thing.”

The targeted programs pay more than the general CRP contracts, making them more
attractive to farmers. Schoenborn, for example, is reenrolling eligible lands in these
targeted programs.

Altogether, the various programs have about 34 million acres enrolled. This is slightly
above the average enrollment for the past ten years, but less than the 39 million acres
authorized by Congress. Aasness says the program is still in good shape.

“I think the overall percentage of land going into production from CRP is pretty
minimal.”

But conservationists have a different perspective. They want to see as much land as
possible enrolled in CRP.

Dave Nomsen is with the conservation group Pheasants Forever:

“Frankly I think the program is more in doubt than it ever has been. It’s great that
farmers are benefiting from record crop prices but it’s making it a real challenge to keep
conservation as part of that agricultural landscape.”

And political pressure is part of that challenge.

The American Bakers Association even asked the government to let CRP contracts expire
early so farmers can plant more grain. This would hopefully lower the price of flour.

But a huge reduction in CRP acres is unlikely. Both Republicans and Democrats support
CRP.

Dave Nomsen with Pheasants Forever says the problem is finding enough money to make
it worth it to farmers.

CRP payments do change over time depending on the market. But Nomsen says they
haven’t kept up.

“It’s been lagging behind by several years. We just don’t have the money to raise it up to
an equal basis, but if we can get those payments high enough the long-term nature of the
contracts, the many, many other benefits of the program will hopefully sell the program
for farmers and landowners.”

Farmer David Schoenborn says payments vary, but generally he gets between 75 and 90
dollars an acre. By planting corn, he thinks he could make at least $400 an acre. But he’d
stay in CRP if payments increased just 30 percent.

That’s not likely. So chances are that more farmers will be putting land that’s set aside
for wildlife back into crops.

For the Environment Report, I’m Katherine Glover.

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New Insulating Material Could Save Energy

  • From lighter, thinner ski boots and other cold-weather clothing... (Photo by Adam Fowler)

A new insulating material could cut down on home heating
costs and save on materials in construction. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover tells us about Aerogels:

Transcript

A new insulating material could cut down on home heating costs and save
on construction materials. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover
tells us about Aerogels:


Aerogels look like frozen smoke, and feel like styrofoam. Up to ninety-nine
percent of an aerogel is empty space. This makes it an excellent insulator. Last
year, the first aerogel jacket hit the market. And aerogel footwear inserts are used
by the U.S. military and the Canadian National Ski
Team. Ed Hogan is the marketing manager of Aspen Aerogels.


“Everybody knows how much cold feet can spoil an outing, right? And this stuff
is so thin, you can put it in a shoe or put it in a boot, and you hardly notice it.”


Because they’re new, aerogels are still expensive relative to other materials. The
company says once they gain in popularity and the price goes down, they could be used
as insulation in walls and the clear form could be used in windows. This could cut down
dramatically on heating costs. And, because aerogels are so thin, the company says
houses could be built with less lumber. That’s because less lumber would be needed
to make room for aerogel insulation.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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States Ready for Wolf Delisting?

  • Once hunted nearly to extinction, the gray wolf has recently rebounded under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to take the wolf off of the Endangered Species List and hand wolf management back to the states. (Photo by Katherine Glover)

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population
of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management
to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


(sound of wolves howling)


The image of the wolf has always had a powerful effect on people. Wolves seem dangerous,
mysterious, romantic. They are a symbol of the untamed wilderness. Before Europeans came
to America, wolves roamed freely on every part of the continent. In 1630, the colony of
Massachussetts Bay started paying bounties to settlers for killing wolves. Over the next
300 years, wolf killing spread across the country, until all that was left was a few small
pockets of surviving wolf packs.


When the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, the only wolves left to protect in the
Midwest were in Northern Minnesota. By some estimates, there were as few as 350 of them.


Today, Minnesota has a healthy wolf population of around 2400 animals, and smaller populations
are growing in Wisconsin and Michigan. Becaue of this success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
has proposed removing the animals from the Endangered Species List. This would mean wolves would
no longer be federally protected – it would be up to the states.


(sound of gate opening)


Peggy Callagan works with captive wolves at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. She’s the
Center’s co-founder and executive director. She and her staff research ways to minimize
conflicts between wolves and people. Callahan is looking forward to seeing the wolf taken off
the Endangered Species List.


“It’s a good thing for the Endangered Species Act, to take a wolf off or an eagle off or a
peregrine off when it has recovered. The act was not established to provide a permanent
hiding place. It was established to protect a species until such time that they could be
managed in a different way.”


Wisconsin and Michigan have wolves because young born in Minnesota have migrated east to start
their own packs. Callahan says how Minnesota manages its wolves will affect wolf numbers in the
Midwest. And she isn’t crazy about Minnesota’s current wolf management plan, which has different
rules for different parts of the state.


“Now, there’s a boundary; there’s a boundary called a wolf zone, and there’s a boundary that’s
called the ag zone. And nobody likes it. We went backward.”


In Northeastern Minnesota, where the majority of wolves are, landowners can only kill wolves
if they can demonstrate an immediate threat to pets or livestock. In the rest of the state, where
there is more agriculture and more people, the rules are more lenient. On their own property,
landowners can kill any wolf they feel is a danger, without having to prove anything to the state.


The Sierra Club is opposed to taking the wolf off the Endangered Species list, largely because
of Minnesota’s management plan. Ginny Yinling is the chair of the Wolf Task Force of the Sierra
Club in Minnesota.


“They’ve pretty much given carte blanche to landowners, or their agents, to kill wolves
pretty much at any time in the southern and western two thirds of the state; they don’t even
have to have an excuse, if a wolf’s on their property they can kill it. Instead of this being
what should have been a victory in terms of wolf recovery and the success of the Endangered
Species Act, instead we’re afraid it’s going to turn into something of a disaster.”


Yinling is also concerned with the protection of wolf habitat, such as den sites, rendezvous
sites, and migration corridors.


“The current management plan protects none of those areas; it leaves it entirely up to the
discretion of the land managers.”


But wildlife managers say these are not critical for a large wolf population
like Minnesota’s. Mike DonCarlos is the wildlife program manager for the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources.


“As you look at the range of species that are threatened by habitat change, ironically the wolf
in Minnesota is not one of them. As long as there’s a prey base that continues, wolves should
do just fine. The key is mortality rates and availability of food.”


In Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are fewer wolves, state laws will continue to protect
wolf habitat. Peggy Callahan says she has faith that the wolves will be fine, even if the
Minnesota state plan is not perfect. But at the Sierra Club, Ginny Yinling says they have
plans to challenge wolf delisting in court.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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A Legal Victory for ‘Rails to Trails’

  • Bicyclists enjoy Minnesota's Cannon Valley Trail. (Photo by Patricia Schmid, courtesy of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy)

Private landowners say their rights are being trampled on by hikers when the state implements “Rails to Trails” programs. The landowners claim the property should be theirs now that the railroad is finished with the right-of-way. One state recently won the court’s approval to keep its trail intact, including pieces that cross through private property. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover reports:

Transcript

Private landowners say their rights are being trampled on by hikers when the state
implements “Rails to Trails” programs. The landowners claim the property should be
theirs now that the railroad is finished with the right-of-way. One state recently won the
court’s approval to keep its trail intact, including pieces that cross through private
property. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover reports:


Mike Sandberg doesn’t want a public trail going through his backyard.


“Every time anybody goes down it the dogs are barking and I didn’t move out in the
country to hear all the stuff going on with everybody’s, you know, it’s kind of a pain.”


Sandberg bought the land he lives on from his brother a couple years ago. One thing he
liked about the property was that it had a dirt trail running through it, and he thought he
could pave it and use it as a driveway.


The trail used to be a railroad bed. The railroad company laid the tracks in the 1890’s,
after getting the rights to go through hundreds of different properties. Usually they only
had an easement to use the property, but every deed was a little different. There was no
standardized legal form, and most of the deeds were written by hand.


Of course, over the next hundred years, people stopped using the train so much. In
Minnesota, the railroad company sold a lot of its land rights to the Department of Natural
Resources in 1991. Similar deals were passed all across the country, and many states, like
Minnesota, used this land to build public trails.


The path that passes through Sandberg’s property is one of these trails, the Paul Bunyan
Trail. It’s popular with bikers, dog-walkers, in-line skaters, and in the winter,
snowmobilers.


Terry McGawhee is Executive Director of the Paul Bunyan Trail
Association, and he’s constantly lobbying the state legislature to expand the trail or pave
parts of it that are still dirt.


“Not every community embraces the trail, but those that have, have seen significant
economic influence on their communities. And the majority of the people along the 100
miles of the trail are eager to see the trail development.”


The state had held off on further work on the trail because of a lawsuit filed by Sandberg’s
brother and several other landowners. Sandberg said the railroad company didn’t own the
trail on his property, so they couldn’t have sold it to the state.


“The abstract states clearly in layman’s terms it was an easement that the railroad had and
when they quit using it for railroad purposes it should go back to the landowner.”


That’s the reasoning Sandberg’s brother and other landowners used when they blockaded
parts of the trail back in 1998. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources sued
them, and was initially successful. The landowners appealed, however, and the Appeals
Court overturned the decision. The state agency then appealed to the Minnesota Supreme
Court. On July 29th, the Court ruled in favor of the state trail.


Trail advocates across the country watched the case closely. Lawyers in trail land
disputes in every state could bring up this case as an example. For more than twenty
years, lawyers fighting for public trails have relied heavily on another case, also in
Minnesota. Dorian Grilley is the executive director of the Parks and Trails Council of
Minnesota. He says the Minnesota Supreme Court made the decision in 1983.


“In that case, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided that it was legal for that easement to
be transferred to a public agency for use as a trail because in the early 1900’s or late
1800’s, ‘railway purposes’ really meant public transportation, and that a trail qualified as
public transportation.”


In its recent decision, the court upheld the idea that a public trail serves the same kind of
purpose as a railway, moving people from place to place.


Now that the court has ruled in favor of the state, Mike Sandberg will be forced to
abandon plans to build a driveway along the old railroad bed. His brother is not sure
whether he’ll build his retirement home there as he’d planned, since bicyclists and hikers
will have access to the trail cutting across his property. But trail users can look forward to
seeing another section of the trail completed and paved.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

Related Links

Battle Lines Drawn Over Mississippi Locks

The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing spending billions of dollars to expand locks along the Mississippi River, but environmentalists say it’s a waste of money. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing spending billions of dollars to expand locks
along the Mississippi River, but environmentalists say it’s a waste of money. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has compiled a study that suggests the nation needs to
spend billions of dollars improving navigation on the Upper Mississippi River. It would
expand or add locks at dams on the Mississippi from Minnesota to just above St. Louis,
Missouri. The Corps has similar plans for the Illinois River, which stretches from near
Chicago to near St. Louis.


Tow boats push barges full of grain downstream, carrying 60 percent of the nation’s grain
exports. They use the Mississippi lock and dam system, which was built in the 1930’s.
The Corps of Engineers built the lock and dam system to ensure the water would remain
deep enough to keep barge traffic moving year round. The locks that allowed barges
through the dams were adequate for the time. But today, towboats are pushing groups of
barges twice as long as they were in the 1930’s. To get through the locks, they must
separate into groups and then reconnect on the other side.


Denny Lundberg is the project manager of the Corps’ navigation study. He says the
Mississippi River system is an important corridor for the grain trade and the aging current
locks could put Midwest farmers at a disadvantage.


“What the Mississippi River does is provides a transportation system for certain key
exports and helps the nation’s balance of trade and it does this by saving roughly 60 to 70
percent of the cost of shipping over that distance by rail… so the existing system out
there generates about a billion dollars annual transportation cost savings to the nation.”


Farmers are in favor of expanding the locks. Gerald Tumbleson farms in Southern
Minnesota. He attended a public hearing on the Corps’ recommendations.


“The problem of the system now is it is too slow. Now, you might say it delayed an hour
or two on a barge or something like that, but when you start adding those up over a
period of time that’s a lot of hours.”


Tumbelson says that delays lead to increased transportation costs, bringing down the
price he can get for his products. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal would
speed up the system by building seven new locks and five lock extensions, as well as
other smaller measures to speed river navigation.


The Corps’ proposal also includes money to help restore some of the ecosystems that
have been damaged by the Corps’ navigation projects in the past. But many
environmentalists are skeptical that anything will be done for the environment.


In a study called Twice Cooked Pork, a coalition of environmental and taxpayer
groups say they found major flaws with the Corps’ conclusions in its proposal. The
groups say that barge traffic on the river is declining, not increasing. They say there’s
more domestic demand for grain and other products, so there’s not as great a need to ship
it downriver. And the groups say the project will be the most expensive waterway project
in history, but will only benefit the barge industry. And they add… it will benefit the
Corps itself.


Mark Muller of the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy is skeptical that the
proposed project would have any benefit for people like farmer Gerald Tumbleson.


“I don’t think it really matters if we have longer locks or not, that doesn’t mean our
exports are going to increase, and unless we have an increase in exports we’re not going
to have any benefits to farm income.”


Critics say given the Army Corps of Engineers’ history, there’s plenty of reason to be
skeptical of the Corps’ findings. In 2000, a whistleblower within the Corps revealed he
was pressured to falsify statistics to justify spending billions of dollars on Corps projects
along the Mississippi. Further investigation by both the Pentagon and the National
Research Council revealed widespread flaws and corruption in the Corps’ research and
methodology.


But the Corps says the current proposal came after many public hearings, and extensive
consultation with other federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Army Corps of Engineers’ Denny Lundberg says those public meetings and
discussions had a role in developing the current proposal.


“And we have taken that and developed a combined plan to try to seek a balance out on
the river so this integrated plan really serves as a framework for being able to operate and
maintain the system both for navigation and for the environment.”


The Corps will continue taking public comments on the draft report until July 30th. In
the fall, they will present their final report to Congress, which has the final say on the
river’s future.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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Army Corps to Lay Out Plans for Upper Mississippi

After years of delay and scandal, the Army Corps of Engineers is getting ready to release its final report on how to best manage the Upper Mississippi River. The report will influence policy on the river for the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

After years of delay and scandal, the Army Corps of Engineers is getting ready to release its final
report on how to best manage the Upper Mississippi River. The report will influence policy on the
river for the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


It’s the job of the Army Corps of Engineers to help barges move up and down the Mississippi. The
Corps has channeled the river and dredged soil from the bottom to deepen it. It has built walls
along the sides, called levees, to prevent flooding. And its lock and dam system has converted the
river into a stairway of pools, allowing it to control the river’s flow.


The Corps has spent billions of dollars to build and maintain these systems. Critics say that these
expensive projects amount to huge subsidy for the barging industry. And they say these projects
are destroying the river’s ecosystem.


Dan McGuiness leads the Upper Mississippi River campaign of the National Audubon Society. He
says the damage to the river isn’t always obvious.


“People oftentimes think the river looks pretty good, and it looks not much different than it did 40
or 50 years ago, but most of the damage on the river is what you can’t see; it’s below the water.”


McGuiness is concerned that the Corps new plans will cause even more damage. But industry
groups want the Corps to build newer, bigger locks. Barges have doubled in size since the first
locks were built. To fit through, barges must now separate into two pieces and then reconnected on
the other side.


Chris Brescia is the President of MARC 2000, the Midwest Area River Coalition, a barge industry
group. During peak season, he says, the wait time at a lock can be over 24 hours.


“And remember, that’s at each lock. That’s not just at one lock.”


And there are 29 locks on the Upper Mississippi River.


In April, the Corps will release a study detailing how to improve the river. The Corps abandoned
an earlier version of the study after they were caught falsifying data to justify increased funding.
This time around, the Corps has promised to work with environmental groups and to look at
ecosystem restoration alternatives as well as navigation improvements. The study is sure to stir up
fierce debate about one of our country’s greatest water resources, and about how that resource, and
our tax dollars, should be used.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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Gps Treasure Hunting in Public Parks

A new outdoor game has park officials worried. Geocaching is a high-tech scavenger hunt: one person hides something and records its location using its latitude and longitude. They post the coordinates on the Internet, and others are encouraged to go and look for it. Often these hidden treasures, called caches, are put in parks. Some park officials worry that the sport threatens plant and animal habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

A new outdoor game has park officials worried. Geocaching is a high-tech scavenger hunt: one
person hides something and records its location using its latitude and longitude. They post the
coordinates on the Internet, and others are encouraged to go and look for it. Often these hidden
treasures, called caches, are put in parks. Some park officials worry that the sport threatens plant
and animal habitat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


A small tupperware container is hidden in the hollow of an old tree. The global coordinates of
the tree are posted on the Internet. Hundreds of individuals will download these coordinates and
then head out in search of this tupperware treasure. They will take one trinket from the
tupperware as a souvenir, and leave another in its place. This is geocaching.


Geocaching is an excuse to get outdoors. It’s a way to discover beautiful spots you might not find
on your own. And it’s a way to have fun using new technology. To find the hidden containers,
known as caches, you use a global positioning system, or GPS device.


Arol McCaslin is a park manager at Forestville Mystery Cave State Park in Minnesota. He
explains how global positioning systems work.


“There’s a bunch of satellites orbiting the earth, they relay a radio signal and your GPS unit
basically figures out where you are on the earth.”


GPS was originally set up for military use, but in 2000 the signal was made available to the
public. Within two days, the first geocache was hidden outside Portland, Oregon. Today there
are more than 67,000 caches hidden in nearly 200 countries. McCaslin discovered geocaching a
year ago when caches started turning up in State Parks.


“We weren’t quite sure what to make if it. We weren’t sure if a geocache hidden in one of these
areas would do damage to the resource, safety aspects, if these caches were being located at the
edge of cliffs or if they’d have to climb down – just a whole mess of stuff that we felt we had to
address before we could even think about letting geocachers into state parks.”


Minnesota was one state that banned geocaching in state parks shortly after learning the sport
existed. But in the next couple of months, they will begin issuing permits allowing a limited
number of caches to be placed once again within state park boundaries. Arol McCaslin was one
of three people who drafted the policy. He has also become a geocacher himself. We followed
him on a cache hunt just outside the park where he works.


“All right now, I’m looking at my GPS unit and it’s telling me we’re going in the right direction.”


McCaslin parked his truck a quarter mile from the cache. We strolled down a bike path along the
Rut River, following his hand-held GPS device.


AROL:
The Rut River is down on our right, highway and cliff is on our left. It’s hotter than heck today
and I’m sweating like a pig.”


Our search led us to a tunnel underneath the bike path.


“Well I would almost say that it’s through the tunnel here. (footsteps echoing in the tunnel) Oh,
this is cool, isn’t it? It’s actually cool in here!”


Once through the tunnel, McCasslin climbed up some rocks to look for the cache, but had a hard
time finding it.


We’ll return to his adventures in a moment, but first let’s look at how other states are handling
geocaching. In Wisconsin, some fans of the game formed the Wisconsin Geocaching
Association. T hey are working out their own geocaching policy with the Wisconsin DNR. Ken
Braband is President of the group. He says not everyone understands what geocaching is all
about.


“I think there are a lot of misconceptions on the part of some park officials. We knew that if we
wanted to keep from happening in Wisconsin what has happened in other states such as
Minnesota, where they’ve banned it in state parks, we needed to be proactive and work with our
local parks managers and let ’em know what geocaching is all about, let ’em know the value of it
for them.”


VOICE:
Braband says geocaching is a great way to draw more people into the parks. The majority of
geocachers, he says, enjoy nature and want to protect it. His group and similar groups around the
country promote responsible geocaching. Bryan Roth, who helps run the main geocaching
website, gives an example of what that means.


“You know, we’ve got a policy that’s called cache in, trash out. We encourage geocachers when
they go out geocaching to bring a trash bag and pick up some trash on the way out and leave the
park a little bit better than it was when you found it.”


Roth’s website is where people can post or download the coordinates of where different caches
are hidden. The website, geocaching.com, provides guidelines for hiding caches in ways that
won’t threaten the safety of the environment or of other geocachers. People are encouraged to ask
for permission before hiding caches in parks. They are also asked to remove caches if heavy
traffic starts to wear a trail to a spot where a cache is hidden.


“It’s more likely on this side of the tunnel than the other side (crunching grass in background)
Look out, I’m coming down here, no telling how quick!”


Back on the geocaching trail with Arol McCasslin, he was unable to find the cache near the
tunnel under the bike trail, but he was successful in finding another cache a quarter mile down the
river.


“Right now in the cache there’s, it looks like there’s some kind of decal, we’ve got all kinds of
pens, we’ve got a little, an NFL trading card with Moe Williams on it.”


He noted his success in the cache’s logbook and later plans to get more information from the
website and go back for the cache he missed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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