The EPA is expected to release new rules aimed at cleaning up sulfur dioxide pollution. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
This week, the U-S Environmental Protection Agency will release much-anticipated new rules limiting sulfur dioxide in the air. As Tanya Ott reports, it’s almost certain to result in years of legal battles:
Transcript
This week, the U-S Environmental Protection Agency will release much-anticipated new rules limiting sulfur dioxide in the air. As Tanya Ott reports, it’s almost certain to result in years of legal battles:
When sulfur dioxide spews from smoke stacks and diesel engines it can cause
acid rain, but that’s just the first problem.
“It can cause asthma attacks in children. It can send people to hospital emergency rooms. It can even convert to other chemicals in the air that lead to premature death.”
Frank O’Donnell is president of the non-profit environmental group Clean Air Watch. He says existing rules, which have been around since the 1970s, have a loophole that allows high levels of sulfur dioxide over short periods of time. The new EPA rules will likely close that loophole and significantly restrict the amount allowed into the air.
The oil industry and coal-burning power plants have lobbied against the new rules. They don’t want to pay the billions of dollars it will cost to clean up their smoke stacks.
Right now, Congress is considering a bill that would give the FDA a lot more authority over imported seafood. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is looming over the seafood industry. Prices for things like shrimp and crab are going up. It might mean we’ll see even more imported seafood in the coming months. But as Tanya Ott reports, some people are questioning the safety of imported seafood:
Transcript
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is looming over the seafood industry. Prices for things like shrimp and crab are going up. It might mean we’ll see even more imported seafood in the coming months. But as Tanya Ott reports, some people are questioning the safety of imported seafood:
Tom Robey runs around like a mad man. Or maybe a mad scientist. His laboratory is the kitchen.
“This is the beginning of New Orleans barbecue sauce for our shrimp dish. So it’s brown garlic and black pepper and rosemary and beer.”
Robey is executive chef at Veranda on Highland in Birmingham, Alabama. His specialty is regional seafood: Louisiana crawfish, Florida crab, Alabama shrimp.
When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded last month spewing oil into the Gulf, Robey shelled out nearly 3-thousand dollars to stockpile 600 pounds of shrimp.
And it’s a good thing, because officials closed some of the fishing grounds. It’s not clear how extensive and long-term the damage to Gulf seafood will be. Early tests don’t show substantial chemical contamination, but monitoring might have to continue for decades. Meanwhile, industry officials expect a shortage of domestic seafood. And other countries are ready to fill the gap.
We already import about 80% of our seafood. But the oil spill is expected to drive that number higher.
Tom Robey says he’ll take seafood off the menu before he serves imports.
“I’m nervous about, like, how that seafood was handled, how it was fed, if it was farmed raised. I mean every day there’s some kind of recall one or another coming from China.”
He may have reason to be nervous.
“I think it’s really a buyer beware issue.”
Caroline Smith DeWaal is director of food safety for the Washington DC-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. She says when state regulators tested imported shrimp they found it was contaminated with antibiotics and other chemical residues that are illegal in the US. Dewaal says there’s evidence some imported shrimp are grown in contaminated ponds.
Supporters of the industry say – while some tests have caught problems – that doesn’t mean all imported seafood is bad.
Norbert Sporns say there’s no need to worry. He’s CEO of a Seattle-based company called HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries. They farm tilapia – mostly in China. Sporns says the US has an international certification process that is rigorous and will catch potential problems.
“Prior to export we are subject to a series of tests. Once a product lands in the United States there are other tests that can be administered by the FDA on a spot check basis, so there are multiple levels of security in place.”
But the FDA only inspects about 2 percent of imports.
Ken Albala is a food historian at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He teaches about food policy and environmental issues. He says the cattle industry has been tightly regulated, but:
“Fishing hasn’t been.. And when you’re talking about a several thousand pound cow versus a bass – let alone a shrimp. I don’t see how they could ever begin to inspect consistently what’s coming in from abroad. Definitely not.”
Right now, Congress is considering a bill that would give the FDA a lot more authority over imported seafood. So far, the bill has passed the house and is waiting to be picked up in the Senate.
So – consumers who want to eat shrimp – and boy do we love our shrimp! – are faced with two choices:
Trust that random spot checks find any problems with seafood imports…
Or pay more for domestic, wild harvested shrimp …
And that price could go even higher if the oil spill in the gulf contaminates a good part of the domestic supply.
The new coal ash clean-up project will take four years and cost 268-million dollars. (Photo courtesy of Brian Stansberry)
More than a year ago – when an earthen wall broke at a power plant in Tennessee, 500-million gallons of toxic coal ash and water were spilled. If you compare it to other environmental tragedies – it was 50 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Half of the coal ash spill’s been cleaned up, but crews are still working to get the rest of it. And as Tanya Ott reports there are concerns about a new plan to deal with the ash:
Transcript
More than a year ago – when an earthen wall broke at a power plant in Tennessee – 500-million gallons of toxic coal ash and water were spilled. If you compare it to other environmental tragedies – it was 50 times bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill. Half of the coal ash spill’s been cleaned up, but crews are still working to get the rest of it. And as Tanya Ott reports there are concerns about a new plan to deal with the ash:
The plan comes from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Clean-up crews would scoop up the ash and put it in the same pit it came from… but the pit’s been reinforced with concrete. What the plan doesn’t call for, though, is a liner to make sure no metals leach into groundwater. Tennessee law and even the EPA’s new proposed coal ash rules require liners.
Craig Zeller is the project manager for the EPA. He says because this pit isn’t new – or expanding – it doesn’t have to comply with the rules. Plus, he says, water testing in the area shows there’s no problem with leaching.
“If, in the future it does show that we need to add a groundwater mediation piece to this, we will!”
Adding a liner after-the-fact could be difficult and expensive. The new clean-up project will take four years and cost 268-million dollars.
Hurricane Rita in the Gulf of Mexico in 2005. (Photo courtesy of
Jeff Schmaltz, NASA/GSFC )
Hurricane season starts soon. Experts predict an active season with four “major” hurricanes. What happens if a storm hits while there’s still an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Tanya Ott reports.
Transcript
Hurricane season starts soon. Experts predict an active season with four “major” hurricanes. What happens if a storm hits while there’s still an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Tanya Ott reports.
If a tropical storm hits while there’s still oil in the water, it could disastrous for the coastline and several miles inland. Mark Wysocki is a Cornell University climatologist.
“All that oil would get into the marshlands and some of the homeowners’ properties and so forth and that would make it very difficult then to remove that oil from those types of locations.”
When Katrina hit Louisiana it destroyed some of the oil distributor piping, and they’re still cleaning up in some of the wetland areas.
Wysocki says the one upside is that oil makes it harder for water to evaporate. Tropical storms need evaporation to build strength. So an oil spill might actually keep storms smaller.
Volunteers are combing every inch of the shoreline, picking up trash and raking driftwood and sticks into the dunes. Normally they’d let the natural debris stay on the beach. But if it gets coated with oil it becomes hazardous waste and has to be shipped to a local landfill. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)
It’s been weeks since oil began gushing from
a broken underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico.
As BP continues to try to stop the leak, many
coastal communities are scrambling to
prepare for the oil that threatens their
shorelines. As Tanya Ott reports, volunteers in
Alabama are taking some low-tech steps to get ready:
Transcript
It’s been weeks since oil began gushing from a broken underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico. As BP continues to try to stop the leak, many coastal communities are scrambling to prepare for the oil that threatens their shorelines. As Tanya Ott reports, volunteers in Alabama are taking some low-tech steps to get ready:
Within days of the oil rig explosion, Casi Callaway’s phone started ringing off the hook.
“I have hundreds of volunteers calling every minute.”
Okay – well maybe not every minute. But Callaway’s group, Mobile Baykeeper, has been very busy organizing volunteers. In the past week more than 7-thousand people have flocked to the white sands of the Alabama coast hoping to help.
They’re combing every inch of the shoreline, picking up trash and raking driftwood and sticks into the dunes. Normally they’d let the natural debris stay on the beach. But if it gets coated with oil it becomes hazardous waste and has to be shipped to a local landfill. So volunteers are working round the clock to move the material. Tom Herder is with the Mobile Bay Estuary Program. He says they have to be careful because this is nesting season for wading birds like Plovers and Terns.
“You know we were the dumb transgressors the first day. I was throwing stuff in the dunes. And we were just moving stuff up and I wasn’t looking for Plover nests and the Audobon Society kinda got on my case – and it’s good, they educated us. And we’re educating our volunteers.”
They’ve been training volunteers on how to remove debris without disturbing wildlife. But Herder says the clock is ticking and there’s still lots of work to do. So they’re balancing the need to protect wildlife with the need to get the beaches ready. Herder says to do that they’ve been bending the rules a little bit.
“People have to be 18 years old to take part in our volunteer efforts. Shoot – that’s, that’s not necessarily the way people do things here. And we tell people, if you live on the Western shore of Mobile Bay don’t wait for us. Get down there and clean it up yourself. You know. And that’s not rogue.”
While volunteers work to get the beaches ready for oil, BP says it’s working to keep the oil from reaching the shore. It’s using what are called chemical dispersants – basically it’s industrial detergent – to break up the oil deep under the surface. But critics say the chemicals could kill off the larvae of fish that use the Gulf of Mexico for spawning grounds… fish like the Atlantic bluefin tuna. It could also hurt oysters and mussels. But BP’s Steve Rinehart says there’s always a tradeoff.
“Nobody wants an oil spill. We have an oil spill. You need to make judgments about limiting the damager where you can.”
Rinehart says a group of state and federal spill responders, including environmental scientists, has determined that dispersants pose the least risk.
“If the choice is oil going to shore or using dispersant off shore, using dispersant off shore causes less environmental impact. That’s not to say there won’t be some, but it’s less harmful to the environment than having the oil go to shore.”
So basically, it could be an “either/or” – protect the beach with dispersants and you might risk the fish. Tom Herder — with the Estuary Program — says it’s a no win situation.
“I’ve almost been making deals with God. And I can’t bribe God, but he knows I’ll follow through.”
Right now, Herder’s just praying for good weather – and more time – to get the coasts prepared.
The gulf region is the world's largest producer of oysters and shrimp(Photo courtesy of the NOAA)
When an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded last week, gulf coast officials knew they had a problem on their hands. But as Tanya Ott reports from Alabama, everyday they find it’s worse than they originally thought.
Transcript
When an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded last week, gulf coast officials knew they had a problem on their hands. But as Tanya Ott reports from Alabama, everyday they find it’s worse than they originally thought.
It’s estimated more than 200-thousand gallons of oil are spewing out of the well each day. Cleaning up using chemicals causes problems because it might make it easier for marine animals to eat the oil. Burning the oil on the water is not great either. Casi Callaway is with the environmental group Mobile Baykeeper.
“The air quality impacts from it and therefore the health impacts from it are great – and frankly unknown.”
It’s not just an environmental crisis. It’s an economic crisis. This area is the world’s largest producer of oysters and shrimp. And the pristine gulf coast beaches fuel a tourism industry worth 20-billion dollars a year.
Recent studies show about a third of all sea grasses have disappeared worldwide.(Photo courtesy of NOAA/Heather Dine)
The Gulf of Mexico is losing sea grass beds at an alarming rate. According to a new aerial survey, Mobile Bay has lost nearly 14-hundred acres of sea grass beds in the last few years. And as Tanya Ott reports, that could affect your dinner plate:
Transcript
The Gulf of Mexico is losing sea grass beds at an alarming rate. According to a new aerial survey, Mobile Bay has lost nearly 14-hundred acres of sea grass beds in the last few years. And as Tanya Ott reports, that could affect your dinner plate.
Americans love shrimp. And shrimp love sea grass beds. But as Tanya Ott reports sea grass beds are dying at an alarming rate.
Each American eats on average four pounds of shrimp a year. But a new aerial survey of the Gulf of Mexico finds the place where shrimp, crab and a lot of different fish find their food is disappearing. Scientists say agricultural runoff and sediment from development are killing off sea grass beds. Dauphin Island Sea Lab scientist Ken Heck says part of the problem is PR. Sea grass beds just are’t as sexy as some other ecosystems.
“Many people know about coral reefs and they know about tropical rain forests. But sea grass habitats are a bit under-loved and under-appreciated.”
Sea grass decline isn’t just a problem in the Gulf of Mexico. Heck is part of team doing a global sea grass census. He says worldwide a third of sea grass beds have disappeared.
Some are calling Alabama the future 'green hub of the South.'
(Photo source: Wikimedia Commons)
When Forbes Magazine ranked states
by their “greenness” the usual
suspects topped the list – Vermont,
Oregon, and Washington – all progressive
states known for their environmental
movements. Maybe not surprisingly,
seven out of the ten “least green”
states were in the South – the land
of coal mines and timber plots.
But as Tanya Ott reports,
there’s a growing environmental
movement down south and some of
its members might surprise you:
Transcript
When Forbes Magazine ranked states
by their “greenness” the usual
suspects topped the list – Vermont,
Oregon, and Washington – all progressive
states known for their environmental
movements. Maybe not surprisingly,
seven out of the ten “least green”
states were in the South – the land
of coal mines and timber plots.
But as Tanya Ott reports,
there’s a growing environmental
movement down south and some of
its members might surprise you:
(sound of cars driving past)
I’m standing in a vacant lot in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. I see overgrown weeds and closed businesses, but James Smith sees something entirely different. He’s President of an international company called Green Building Focus. When he looks at this lot, he sees an uptapped market. He wants to build an eco-industrial park here.
“There are many companies out there in other parts of the country who want to have access to the southeastern market, they realize it’s one of the fastest growing markets in the country. And if you draw a 500 mile radius around Birmingham you hit every major developing area in the southeast. It’s really the ideal location geographically to become a regional manufacturing hub for sustainable products.”
Alabama, a green hub of the south? This is the land of mega-churches and Republicans, not environmentalists.
“The federal trend over the last 10 years, longer than that, no doubt has been if you’re a Republican you can’t be an environmentalist.”
That’s Gil Rogers. He’s an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. He says nationally Republicans get a bad rap for denying climate change and trying to roll back the endangered species list. But at the state and local level, things are often different in the south.
“We have a lot of republican champions, as an example, in the Georgia legislature that are Republicans in terms of wanting lower taxes and less government intrusion into a lot of aspects of life. But then will go and realize that there needs to be more done in the way of environmental protection of water resources or of air quality. That those have real public health impacts.”
Rogers says these leaders often have strong ties their own piece of nature – maybe a stretch of land or a river.
“I’m a tree hugging, liberal – I mean a tree hugging conservative, Republican! (laughs) which I know some people may say is an oxymoron. But (laughs)”
But Charlie Houser loves Magnolia River.
(sound of boat motor)
He fires up his pontoon boat to give me a tour. Houser grew up here in Magnolia Springs, Alabama. When he moved back to retire, he worried about what he saw.
“I didn’t see the sea grass. We lost blue crabs, we lost pike.”
He blames agricultural runoff full of chemicals. So, Mayor Houser and the mostly republican town council passed really tough land use rules. All new buildings have to set back 75 feet from the river. New subdivisions have to keep their run-off on site. And it’s working. The brown pelicans are back and the river is less cloudy. The state has named Magnolia River an Alabama Outstanding Waterway.
Gil Rogers, with the Southern Environmental Law Center, says there are still big environmental threats in the south. Coal mining, timber, and other industries. But he’s optimistic.
“People have started to recognize that there’re some real threats from population growth, poor development patterns. So I think there is a movement here going on and it’s unique to the south, I think, in a lot of ways.”
Certainly, it’s creating some interesting alliances – like environmentalists teaming up with hunters. Rogers says, at least in the south, he’s seeing more cooperation than ever.
The government’s Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers to return a
certain amount of agricultural fields to their original wetlands. As Tanya
Ott reports, a new study finds those efforts might be paying off:
Transcript
The government’s Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers to return a certain amount of agricultural fields to their original wetlands. As Tanya Ott reports, a new study finds those efforts might be paying off.
Research ecologist Hardin Waddle and his colleagues at the U-S Geological Survey wanted to know how frogs and toads were faring in ditches and creeks on farmland versus restored wetlands. So they suited up and set out into the Mississippi Delta on a frog hunt.
“We went out there at night with flashlights and we captured any individual we saw. We measured them and we looked for any kind of growth abnormalities or things like that.”
They didn’t find disease, but they did discover significantly more frogs and toads on the marginal farmland that had been restored to wetlands. Waddle says amphibians are great indicators of the overall health of wetland conditions. So that means restored wetlands can be just as good for frogs and toads as preserved wetlands.
Last year in Alabama, timber thieves stole more than a half million dollars
worth of trees.
(Photo by Randolph Femmer, courtesy of the National Biological Information Infrastructure)
The construction slump has meant
less demand for two-by-fours, but
trees are still worth big bucks.
An individual tree can be worth
anywhere from a hundred dollars
to thousands. And Tanya Ott reports timber theft is up
because of the economy:
Transcript
The construction slump has meant
less demand for two-by-fours, but
trees are still worth big bucks.
An individual tree can be worth
anywhere from a hundred dollars
to thousands. And Tanya Ott reports timber theft is up
because of the economy:
(sound of timber truck)
Timber is an important revenue stream for some areas. But from New York to
Washington State, forest managers say timber thieves have been pretty
active. Last year in Alabama, they stole more than a half million dollars
worth of trees.
State forester Linda Casey says landowners might have
earmarked that money to pay off the mortgage or send their kids to college.
“If they have timber stolen they just lost the only chance that
they have to achieve whatever goal that they had designated to use this
money for.”
Foresters say reckless timber thieves also damage wildlife habitats.
States
are cracking down. This month, Alabama will decide on tough new rules that
would make it a misdemeanor to even step on private forest land without
permission.
The EPA is expected to release new rules aimed at cleaning up sulfur dioxide pollution. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
