Study: Mtbe Alternatives Pose Similar Threat

The Clean Air Act says gasoline must contain additives to help it burn more cleanly. But the common additive MTBE is a proven environmental threat. And a new study says the alternatives could be just as dangerous. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:

Transcript

The Clean Air Act says gasoline must contain additives to help it burn more cleanly. But the
common additive MTBE is a proven environmental threat. And a new study says the alternatives
could be just as dangerous. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:


Underground storage tanks at gas stations can leak. Fuel
additives like MTBE leak faster than the gas and can
cause groundwater pollution.


For that reason, seventeen states, including New York,
Michigan and Illinois have restricted or will restrict the use
of MTBE in gasoline.


That means other fuel additives intended to reduce air
pollution will have to be used instead.


Mel Suffet co-authored a new study published in the
journal Environmental Science and Technology.


He says some of the alternatives to MTBE can cause the
same problems.


They can be toxic and can make groundwater
undrinkable. Suffet says to solve the problem, leaks need
to be prevented.


“The first thing you have to do is develop a design of
underground fuel storage tanks to emphasize containment
leak detection and repair.”


Suffet says even modern tanks are prone to leaks. So he
says designers need to go back to the drawing board to
create a leak free tank.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.

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Ice Coverage Greater on Great Lakes

During the past several years, ice coverage on the Lakes has been below normal. Now, for the second year in a row…ice coverage is up:

Transcript

During the past several years, there’s not been as much ice on the Great Lakes. For the second
year in a row, there’s a lot more. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


With a colder winter this year, the Great Lakes are seeing more ice coverage. Ray Assel is a
physical scientist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. He outlines what he sees on
ice charts from the National Ice Center.


“Ice cover extent similar to the 30-year median ice cover. So, it’s really not that unusual.”


Last year also saw closer to average ice on the Great Lakes. But it seemed extraordinary because
of several mild winters before.


“I think what makes people think it may be unusual is because of the five winters previous to this
last winter, we’ve had below normal ice cover.”


Assel says for those who are looking for clues to global warming, year-to-year changes can vary
widely. Global warming has to be measured in decades.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Pilot Program to Help Protect Food Supply?

States around the region are taking measures to protect against terrorism against agriculture. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Maria Hickey reports on a pilot program that will begin tracking the food supply:

Transcript

States around the region are taking measures to protect against terrorism against agriculture. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Maria Hickey reports on a pilot program that will begin tracking the food supply:


States record the number of livestock and the amount of grain grown in each county. But it’s not clear which farms are raising the meat and produce. As a food security measure some states want to keep track of animal and produce movement. In Illinois, Department of Agriculture Director Chuck Hartke says a satellite tracking system will allow the state to pinpoint food producers, grain elevators, food processing facilities and distributors as well.


“Right now we don’t know exactly where things are going, and how much, so this tracking
system is a first step in identifying our resources in a given county and then we can do it
statewide.”


A computer program will allow the state to develop disaster plans. That will help the state deal with terrorism, diseases such as mad cow and natural disasters. If the one-county pilot program works, the project will be extended statewide in Illinois. Other Great Lakes states are looking at similar programs and trading notes on what works.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium I’m Maria Hickey.

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Satellite Transmitters Track Loon Migration

  • Scientists are starting to use satellite transmitters to learn more about the winter migration patterns of loons. (photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

A new program is using satellite transmitters to learn more about the migration patterns of loons. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A new program is using satellite transmitters to learn more about the migration patterns of loons.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Loons are well-known for returning to the same lakes each summer – year after year. But until
recently, scientists didn’t know much about the bird’s winter migration. That’s changing, as loons
from New York state make their way south, carrying satellite transmitters.


Nina Schoch is Coordinator of the Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program. It’s a joint venture
between private groups and government agencies. She says the information gathered will help
researchers understand and protect loon habitat across the country.


“In the winter, it’s unknown if they’re using the same spot each year or if they move around. So
we want to identify those locations, and once we know that, we’ll have a much better
understanding of things that impact loon populations on their wintering areas.”


Things such as acid rain, oil spills or a recent botulism outbreak in the Great Lakes.


Schock says once they know how these birds spend the winter, they’ll be able to develop plans
that help the loon population survive.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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State Falls Behind on Water Protection Law

Soon, every Great Lakes state could have a water protection law on its books. Only one state still hasn’t passed such a law in order to comply with a 1985 regional agreement. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:

Transcript

Soon, every Great Lakes state could have a water protection law on its books. Only one state still
hasn’t passed such a law in order to comply with a 1985 regional agreement. We have more from
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:


Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has called on the State Legislature to pass a water
protection law. She says the state is almost 20 years late in coming up with regulations on large
extractions of water from lakes, streams and underground wells.


“In fact, it’s an embarrassment for this state that we have not adopted a water protection statute.
We are the only state in the Great Lakes that has not adopted a system for regulating our greatest
natural resource.”


Her action was spurred by a controversial new spring water bottling plant that pumps about 200
gallons a minute.


She says it’s also standing in the way of negotiating regional standards for water protection –
standards that could also be used to protect the Great Lakes basin from efforts to treat its water as
a commodity available for export outside the region.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.

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President’s Address Neglects Environment

President George W. Bush’s recent State of the Union address was noted for not saying much about the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

President George W. Bush’s recent State of the Union address was noted for not saying much
about the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


After President Bush’s speech, environmental groups and others noticed the President barely
made a reference to the environment. Wayne Fields is a professor at Washington University who
studies State of the Union speeches. He says that’s not typical.


“Well, especially in the last 30 years, issues of air quality, water quality have been very high in
the State of the Union agendas for both parties.


Fields says since the State of the Union speech highlights a president’s accomplishments and
plans, no mention of the environment says a lot about President Bush’s priorities.


“The fact that it wasn’t there suggests that it’s not an issue that he thinks is terribly important to
his constituency nor terribly important to his reelection since this is an election year speech.”


The Democrats’ response to the President’s State of the Union address also failed to mention the
environment.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Ugly Bikes a Better Alternative to Cars?

  • Community bike projects are springing up in cities and college campuses across North America. The idea - ride a bike when you can avoid driving a car. They're old and made intentionally ugly so people won't steal them. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)

America is a cult of the automobile. We drive everywhere. You can pick up a donut and coffee in the morning, a burger in the afternoon and a six-pack of beer at night and never leave your car. But some environmentally-conscious people want us to leave the car in the garage. And they’re offering us old, ugly bikes instead. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:

Transcript

America is a cult of the automobile. We drive everywhere. You can pick up a donut and coffee in
the morning, a burger in the afternoon and a six pack of beer at night and never leave your car. But
some environmentally-conscious people want us to leave the car in the garage. And they’re offering
us old, ugly bikes instead. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports:


(bike bell)


These bikes are old, and they are ugly. But the Michigan
State University Bike Project isn’t worried about how its
bikes look. That’s unless they’re not ugly enough.


These kinds of creaky, old bikes were abandoned long
ago for bikes with gears, handle brakes and cool brand
names. Once they’re taken in, these old bikes are painted
a bright canary yellow – really ugly.


But that’s what the bike project’s organizers want. The
bikes just need to work, but not too well. They need to
stick out, but not in a good way.


Tim Potter says, the less desirable the better.


“We don’t want to make them look too good, because
we don’t want people taking them home and keeping
them. So we try to make them intentionally ugly and
very identifiable.”


Potter says they want people to borrow the bikes, but
they don’t want them to keep them. He helped launch
the project last May. They wanted to give Michigan
State students and professors a free and non-
polluting way to get across campus.


“We just want to encourage more people to use
bicycles to reduce traffic, to reduce pollution, and to
improve their health.”


At Michigan State, the bikes are leased to campus
departments and signed out for daily use.


Gus Gosselin rides one of these old yellow bikes in
the bitter cold of winter and the dead heat of summer.
He and Potter have been working on the bikes ever
since Gosselin brought the idea back from Canada.


“I was vacationing in a cabin in northern Ontario and
my neighbor was a bicycle shop owner from
Virginia. He told me that at his university when he
was a college student, they would take these
abandoned bikes and paint ’em some color, and then
just park ’em all around for people to just use as
needed.”


Similar programs have sprung up across North America.
At other campuses like Hampshire College in
Massachusetts and the University of Texas. And in cities
such as Portland, Oregon, and St. Paul, Minnesota.


Before the concept came to North America, there
were community bike programs all across Europe.
Most U.S. bike programs use yellow to distinguish
their bikes. Amsterdam and Copenhagen use white.
Regardless of color, the concept remains the same:
Use a bike when you can avoid using a car.


The Michigan State bike project is just getting
started.


Across Lake Michigan in Wisconsin’s capitol, the
Red Bike Project is approaching its sixth birthday.


The program here started when a bike shop decided
to donate free recycled bikes to the city of Madison.
Now the bikes are in for their winter repairs.
Dismantled red frames sit on the floor in the back of
the shop. They’re waiting for a new paint job and
wheels.


“For the first three years the bicycles were
completely free so they’d be launched as it were like
on Earth Day in April. And then as we repaired and
painted more, we launched more. They would go
people could hop on them, leave them anywhere.”


Roger Charly owns the bike shop that started
painting and distributing the bikes. He says the
University of Wisconsin students drive the program.
And he says Madison is a biking town. It was ripe
for a community bike project.


The project caught on, but in unexpected ways, says
Charly.


“You know at bar time down on campus you hear
people arguing about, ‘that’s my red bike or I’m
riding this red bike home.'”


And Charly says the arguments for the bikes weren’t
the only problem. He says sometimes, bikes would
end up in the nearby lake, or people would ride them
outside the city and abandon them.


So, he had to make riders put a deposit on their bike.
It gave them more responsibility. And Charly says
the program has flourished.


“Our fleet is about 300 bicycles right now which is
the most its ever been, so I suppose we could top out
at as many as 1000 bicycles.”


But there are 400,000 people in the Madison area.
So, a thousand red bikes might seem like a rather
pedestrian numbers to consider a success.


But these projects don’t have lofty goals of
converting an automobile society to one of bike
riders.


Back in Michigan, the yellow bike project has 25
bikes for a campus of more than 40,000. Terry Link
organizes the Michigan State Bike Project. He says
they would be happy to have 100 bikes by spring.


“Yeah, I think sometimes we look for the big changes
and we don’t tackle things because we such very
little in the ocean of change that maybe we feel we
need. But it’s individual actions that really start. I
think people that find themselves getting on bicycles
more, it changes the way they look at a lot of things.”


And Link thinks a community bike program can work
anywhere.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.

Hybrid Suvs Roll Into Showroom

For the past few years, people who have wanted to buy a more energy-efficient car have had to think small. That’s about to change. The floor of this year’s North American International Auto Show in Detroit offered a look at several new energy-efficient models due out later this year or within the next few years. The auto industry hasn’t sold very many of the cars carrying one type of new technology so far, but officials hope more choices will boost sales. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

For the past few years, people who have wanted to buy a more energy-efficient car have had to
think small. That’s about to change. The floor of this year’s North American International Auto
Show in Detroit offered a look at several new energy-efficient models due out later this year or
within the next few years. The auto industry hasn’t sold very many of the cars carrying one type
of new technology so far, but officials hope more choices will boost sales. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:


At the Toyota display at this year’s auto show, a small crowd formed around the newest version
of the gasoline-electric Prius. Toyota’s sold the car since 1997, and has made it bigger for this
year. What makes this car different is it’s powered by a gasoline-electric hybrid engine. A few
months ago, Denny Jones of Toledo, Ohio ordered a new Prius. He’s still waiting for delivery, so
he drove to Detroit to sit in one at the auto show.


“First of all, I’ve had other Toyotas, so I like the quality. They’ve made improvements on this
one. There’s hatchback. On the first style you couldn’t have a hatchback. They get better
mileage than the first one. And, overall it is a larger car.”


Gasoline-electric hybrid engines have lower emissions and get better mileage than cars with
standard gasoline engines. Toyota says the Prius gets about 50-miles per gallon. But the only
hybrids on the market so far have been small cars like the Prius and the Honda Civic.


Later this year and next, larger hybrids will roll into showrooms. Honda will offer a hybrid
Accord. And Ford will sell a hybrid version of its Escape SUV. Jerry Bissi braved an afternoon
snowstorm to come to the auto show, and was checking one out.


“I prefer to have an SUV-type vehicle for driving back and forth, all-wheel drive, the weather
conditions we have today outside. So I prefer something like that rather than the car.”


There will be several hybrid SUV’s available by next year. Toyota will sell a hybrid Highlander,
and its luxury division Lexus will offer its own model.


“Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce the world’s first luxury hybrid vehicle, the
Lexus RX-400-H.”


Denny Clements is a vice-president at Lexus. He says there seems to be a pent-up demand for
larger hybrids.


“Our dealers have taken a huge amount of orders just off word of mouth about Prius, I think. I
think what we have when you talk to our customers is there is a lot of very affluent people who
would like to make a statement about Middle East oil, would like to make a statement about who
they are, but they don’t want to make the sacrifices in terms of luxury amenities.”


Toyota says Americans bought about 21-thousand hybrid Priuses last year. But that’s a drop in
the bucket compared to the almost 16-million vehicles sold in the U.S. last year.


“If you added up all the hybrids that have ever been made since the beginning of time, they don’t
equal the production of one high-volume auto plant in one year.”


That’s David Cole. He heads the Center for Automotive Research. He says some people have
shied away from hybrids because they’ve only been available as small cars, and others have been
wary of the new technology. But mostly, Cole says a lot of people aren’t willing to pay more for
a hybrid.


“Where it is going to be in the future is dependant on one thing in my judgment and that is
economics. Can it be done at a cost that consumers will pay for?”


So far, Toyota, Lexus and Ford aren’t saying what their new hybrids will cost. Right now a new
hybrid Honda Civic costs about two-thousand dollars more than the most expensive gasoline
model. The federal government offers a tax deduction to hybrid-buyers to help close that gap, but
it is being phased out during the next few years. Some automakers and environmental groups say
it’s not enough anyway. They want Congress to pass a federal tax credit for people who buy
hybrids.


David Friedman is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says the automakers’ decision to
offer hybrid engines in more models is an opportunity for the country to become less dependant
on imported oil – if enough people can be persuaded to buy the vehicles.


“If automakers put some of their 10-to-15 billion dollars of advertising muscle behind this, and if
the government is willing to get these tax credits out there, I think we can see hybrids grow into a
significant portion of the market.”


Back at the auto show, Jerry Bissi says he’d consider buying a hybrid SUV. He says he thinks
others will too, if the price is right and they prove to be reliable.


“I think there are a lot of people sitting on the fence. They’re going to watch the first one, see
how it does. If it does prove to be good, they’ll jump on the bandwagon and be late joiners.”


Buyers might need some convincing, though. On this afternoon at the auto show, Ford’s hybrid
version of the Escape SUV drew only a few visitors compared to the crowds surrounding the
standard gasoline-engine Escape and the company’s larger Explorer SUV.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.

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New Lab to Help Farmers Identify Modified Seeds

A new lab in the state of Illinois will help farmers throughout the region keep genetically modified seeds out of conventional crops. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Maria Hickey reports:

Transcript

A new lab in the state of Illinois will help farmers throughout the region keep genetically
modified seeds out of conventional crops. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Maria Hickey
reports:


Marketing corn, soybeans, and other grains to European countries has been more challenging
since genetically modified crops were introduced. That’s partly because of a lack of confidence
among European consumers in bio-tech food products.


To ensure the purity of conventional seeds, the Illinois Department of Agriculture has a new lab
to analyze the genetic make-up of seeds.


Tom Jennings is manager of the state’s division of ag industry regulation. He says the lab will
help ensure farmers get what they expect.


“We want to make sure the label claims that are on seed bags out there, that they’re correct, that
they’re accurate, and that the people, the producers who are using that seed, are assured that what
is in the bag actually meets the label claims that are on the seed labels that are on the bags.”


The lab is able to provide test results within two days and is costing Illinois tax-payers more than
300,000 dollars.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Maria Hickey.

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Enviros Have High Hopes for New Prime Minister

Environmentalists are giving Canada’s new prime minister strong marks for his plans for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Canadian environmentalists are giving Canada’s new prime minister strong marks for his plans
for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Environmental groups see promise in the plans laid out by Canadian prime minister Paul Martin.
Martin has pledged an investment in new technology to meet Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto
Protocol. And he’s put a new emphasis on funding for cities.


Elizabeth May is Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada. She says a new deal for cities
could be a good deal for the environment.


“We hope to see better funding for mass transportation, better and smarter urban planning to
urban sprawl, reinvestments in a number of things that we really feel are environmental priorities,
but are seen through the lens of municipalities.”


Paul Martin has strong ties in the business community. May expects he’ll have a good rapport
with environmentalists, as well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.