Region’s Timber Cutting on the Rise

  • The demand for timber has increased in the past year and is expected to continue to rise. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The sale of timber from national forests in the upper Midwest is expected to be up ten percent this year. That follows a ten percent increase last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette Reports:

Transcript

The sale of timber from national forests in the upper Midwest is expected to be up 10 percent this year. That follows a 10 percent increase last year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette Reports:


Two years ago, the six national forests in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota sold 230 million board feet of timber. Next year the industry expects sales to top out at more than 300 million board feet.


The forest service has been drafting new management plans. Altogether those plans propose an increase in the amount of logging in the forests. Jim Crouch is a consultant for the Lakes States Federal Timber Purchasers.


“All six plans are either complete or at least in draft form, and so there’s new clear direction on what the forest should be doing and that equates to substantial increases in what we’ve seen happen in the past.”


Environmental groups have fought the new management plans in every state. They say the forests are already being harvested at unsustainable rates and the new plans will make things worse.


For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

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The Costs of Eagle Poaching

  • The Bald Eagle and the Golden Eagle are both protected by federal law. (Photo by Jeremy Henderson)

The eagle has long been treasured as a national symbol, but the bird is also prized by poachers. Pow-wow dancers, new age shamans, and European trophy collectors are paying top dollar on the black market for eagle parts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:

Transcript

Eagles have long been treasured as a national symbol, but the bird is also prized by poachers. Pow-wow dancers, New Age shamans, and European trophy collectors are paying top dollar on the black market for eagle parts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:


Eagle heads, feet, wings, and feathers are prized for costumes, artwork, and ceremonies. Some collectors are paying roughly a thousand dollars for a golden or bald eagle carcass.


Mary Jane Lavin is a special agent with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says the birds are protected by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. Violators can land up to a year in jail and
pay a $100,000 penalty.


Lavin says a better way to get eagle parts is through a federal repository program. The program sends out carcasses and parts from eagles that have died in the wilderness or in zoos.


“The demand is greater than the supply, and there is a waiting list but we’re doing our best to make sure that we can provide those things, that were acquired and died naturally so that
people don’t have to feel that they need to go out and shoot eagles.”


Special permits for possessing and gathering feathers can also be given to those with government-issued Certificates of Indian Birth.


For the GLRC, I’m Brian Bull.

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Diversion Debate Focuses on Bottled Water

  • Some consider shipping bottled water to areas outside the Great Lakes basin a form of water diversion. (Photo by Cris Watk)

Governors throughout the region are talking to their constituents about proposed Great Lakes water rules. They hope to have the so-called Annex 2001 rules ready to go by the end of the year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports that bottled water has entered into the diversion debate:

Transcript

Governors throughout the region are talking to their constituents about proposed Great Lakes water rules. They hope to have the so-called Annex 2001 rules ready to go by the end of the year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports that bottled water has entered into the diversion debate:


Michigan just concluded its final public hearing. The state’s grappling with the potential impact of a growing bottled water industry, and the question of whether shipping bottled water should be considered a diversion of Great Lakes water.


Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak’s district touches on three of the Great Lakes. He says the simplest solution would be to simply ban any use that allows significant amounts of water to be moved out of the Great Lakes basin, whether that’s by ship, pipelines, or bottles.


“As we move towards a growing population worldwide, by 2025, water will be the most sought-after commodity in the world. We’d better have our act together, have one standard, and let’s ban the sale or diversion of Great Lakes water.”


But business groups are lobbying for less restrictive rules. They say water bottling has a tiny impact on the Great Lakes, and tight restrictions will hurt business development in the region.


For the GLRC, I’m Rick Pluta.

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States Work to Reduce Emissions

  • States in the Northeast are trying to set an example for other states by reducing power plant emissions. (Photo by Lester Graham)

A recently uncovered document reveals that Northeast states plan pollution reductions beyond federal requirements. Many of these states have already sued Midwestern states over power plant pollution. Their new effort might put even more pressure on the region’s utility industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A recently uncovered document reveals that Northeast states plan pollution reductions beyond federal requirements. Many of these states have already sued Midwestern states over power plant pollution. Their new effort might put even more pressure on the region’s utility industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


A document brought to light by the New York Times revealed that nine Northeastern states are working on an agreement to reduce power plant emissions – including greenhouse gases – beyond the federal government’s restrictions.


Besides making significant reductions in pollution, it’s believed the Northeast states are trying to set an example for other states such as those in the Midwest where there are a lot of power plants. Doug Scott is the Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. He says they’re working on the problem.


“We’re trying to work with the other twelve states in the Midwest Governors Association on long-range plans to try to reduce emissions. That really isn’t much different in concept than what the Northeastern states are doing.”


Scott says reductions might not reach the same levels as the Northeast states’ plan because of greater economic impact on the industrial Midwest.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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‘Water Trails’ Mark Region’s History

  • Dave Lemberg from Western Michigan University envisions not only opportunities for water sports, but also opportunities to see historical sites along waterways. (Photo by Tamar Charney)

If you traveled this summer, you might have noticed more and more cars with canoes or kayaks on top. Recreation associations say paddle sports are growing in popularity. And so are efforts to give paddlers places to go. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports some of these places benefit more than just the person in the boat:

Transcript

If you traveled this summer, you might have noticed more and more cars with canoes or kayaks on top. Recreation associations say paddle sports are growing in popularity and so are efforts to give paddlers places to go. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, some of these places benefit more than just the person in the boat:


It just stopped raining, which has made the air even more thick and humid than it was before. But there’s a slight breeze coming off the water.


(Sound of splashing, scraping, and paddling)


Dave Lemberg from Western Michigan University slides his yellow kayak into the St. Joseph River in Southwest Michigan.


“There’s a heron off to the right.”


We’re at the beginning of a water trail he’s helped to create. It is one of two pilot trails for The Michigan Heritage Water Trail Program.


His idea is that mapped-out water trails will lead you to places where you can put in and take out your boat, places to stop and stretch your legs for a moment, and places where you might want to stop and check out a historical bridge or museum you pass by. Lemberg wants to see these kinds of
water trails created all across the state.


“We are looking at this as a type of heritage tourism. Every river, every piece of coastline in the Great Lakes has a story to tell.”


As we paddle down the river, signs guide us from point to point. Along the way the signs tell about the history of the area, and refer to a trail guide that contains even more information.


“The country was settled on water trails; we just didn’t call them that.”


Water trails are popping up all over the country. Paul Sanford is with the American Canoe Association. Last month, the organization launched an on-line database of trails. There are more than four hundred of them. He says people new to the sport like them because they tell you where to go. And he says these days you don’t just find water trails in beautiful areas.


SANFORD: “You see more and more trails being developed in urban areas as a way to change public attitudes about a waterway that might have historically been pretty industrialized, pretty uninviting to local citizens as a recreational resource that folks are saying, ‘Hey wait a minute, we can have fun on this river.'”


LEMBERG: “Let’s see, let’s back up and go over there this channel seems to have disappeared.”


On the St. Joseph River, the water trail passes ruins of bridges, old mills, and other remnants of early settlements dating back to the 1800’s. There used to be bustling communities along rivers like this, but many riverside towns were left behind when the interstates took a different route. Dave Lemberg thinks water trails can be a way to revitalize some of these bypassed communities.


“So the vision is people paddling from bed and breakfast to bed and breakfast, eating in local restaurants, browsing in local stores. There’s where well be eating, on the deck up there, overlooking the river.”


After a morning on the river, we arrive eight miles downstream from where we started. One of the signs directs us up a creek to the Mendon Country Inn.


(Sound of door)


Gerard Clark is the chef and owner of this historic inn. He says the water trail has been good for business.


“Since the inauguration which was in August last year, we’ve a seen a three-fold increase in our canoe business which has impacted on lodging and as well as our dining facilities. We have a lot of city folk who come in who are so stressed out you can’t believe it, after a couple days on river and good food they unwind.”


Clark says the trail is drawing people from all over the region, and the hope is, paddle trails like this one will become a tourist draw in other places as well.


For the GLRC, I’m Tamar Charney.

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RECONNECTING FARMERS TO LOCAL MARKETS (Part 2)

  • Many of the crops being grown in the U.S. don't end up in the produce aisle. In fact, they usually aren't even sold to people in neighboring areas. (Photo by Rene Cerney)

Some experts think farmers could do a lot better for themselves if they changed what they’re growing. They say growing corn and soybeans subsidized by the government doesn’t do much for the farmer and almost nothing for the local economy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports on efforts to change that:

Transcript

Some experts think farmers could do a lot better for themselves if they changed what they’re growing. They say growing corn and soybeans that are subsidized by the government doesn’t do much for the farmer and almost nothing for the local economy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports on efforts to change that:


It can be hard to find locally-grown broccoli, milk, or beef in most grocery stores, even in the middle of farm country. In some states, ninety percent of the land is farmed, but ninety-eight percent of food people eat is shipped in from other parts of the nation or other countries.


The local farmers are growing commodities: corn and soybeans harvested for cattle-feed or processed foods, not stuff that winds up in the produce aisle. But ag economist Ken Meter wants to see that change.


“Farmers have doubled their productivity since 1969, and yet, they’re not making more money, they’re actually losing more money after doubling productivity.”


Meter has studied the economics of farm communities. In one area, he found that nearly all of the farm fields there were used to grow corn and soybeans for the commodities market, but farmers were losing money. At the same time, nearly all of the food people bought there was shipped in from other places.


“The economy we’re in right now is extremely efficient at taking any money that you or I earn in our neighborhood or in our daily lives and basically pulling it into a big global network that very efficiently takes that money and helps other people elsewhere make some value from it.”


It hasn’t always been this way. Richard Pirog is food systems researcher at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Iowa. Eighty years ago, he says, most farms grew a lot of different
products and processed them to be sold locally or within the region.


“Iowa back in the 1920’s had fifty-four canneries. We were the canned sweet corn capital of the world in the mid-1920’s. Fast forward to today, there isn’t a single cannery in Iowa. So that infrastructure is gone.”


Pirog says you could tell similar stories in farm areas across the U.S. Back during World War Two, the federal government encouraged farmers to grow commodities, such as corn and soybeans. The government starting paying them subsidies to grow those crops.


These days, Pirog says a lot of farmers wouldn’t even think about risking those subsidies to grow something besides corn and soybeans. Economist Ken Meter says that might be a mistake. He says many farmers don’t realize there’s a growing market for local ag products.


“All of us get focused on whatever we’re paying attention to, and as a farmer you get focused on producing quite well. I’ve spoken with farmers who’ve told me that they really didn’t have any clue that that their neighbors would be looking for different foods, because they just haven’t heard of the tremendous increase in demand we’ve had for things like organic milk or higher quality meats or fresher produce.”


There has been an organic explosion of local farm markets in recent years, because customers want to buy fruit, vegetables, milk, and meat directly from the farmers who produce them. But government policy and farm subsidies mainly still support the commodity production of corn and soybeans.


Richard Pirog hopes that changes, but it’s unclear if growing produce for the new local markets is always economically viable. No one has studied the phenomenon.


“It has to make economic sense for a community and a region. We believe it will, which is why it’s spread so rapidly. But it’s sort of like, the real numbers, the quantification hasn’t caught up with all the growth and explosion and the interest.”


Pirog says he’d like to push the process along. He says it would make more sense for the government to shift subsidies from corn and soybean production to the farms that produce food for their local communities.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

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SCHOOL CAFETERIAS EMBRACE LOCAL FOOD (Part 1)

  • Many schools are finding that food that comes from cans... (Photo by Davide Guglielmo)

More and more schools, universities and other institutions with cafeterias are by-passing processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better, and they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

More and more schools, universities, and other institutions with cafeterias are bypassing the processed foods from multi-national corporations. Instead, they’re buying food from local farmers. Advocates say locally-grown fruits and vegetables are fresher. They say the food tastes better. And they’re finding kids sometimes ask for apples and tomatoes instead of candy and chips. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:


(Sound of cafeteria)


In this cafeteria, there are displays on the wall asking, “What is local food?” and answering, “Foods grown and raised where you are.” Well, that makes sense, but there’s more.


“Then when you get into the lines…”


Sociology professor Howard Sacks is director of Kenyon College.


“We have these menus that talk about all the things that are being served here and it tells exactly where they come from. So the pasta alfredo with tomato and basil features noodles produced by Mrs. Miller’s noodles in Fredericksburg, Ohio, and the cream is by the Broughton Dairy in Marietta, Ohio. As you can see this is about thirty lines long and it shows about thirty different local producers.”


As recently as the late 1990’s, only a handful of colleges and universities had programs to buy locally-produced foods for their cafeterias. Today, more than two hundred are looking for local farmers for their produce, dairy, and meat products. Most of those schools, such as Kenyon, Yale University, and the University of Wisconsin among the nation’s most expensive and elite.


But even some struggling public school districts are making it a priority to buy local foods. Ray Denniston is Food Services director of the Johnson City School District in the Catskills region of New York. He says a few years ago they served produce that had been shipped from California or Mexico, or they just opened cans.


“So your fruits and vegetables, kids weren’t taking them; it wasn’t a quality item. I’m not going to say we didn’t worry about it, but it got less attention then the other items on the trays. And now that’s changed. So, instead of getting a canned green bean, which I might as well put sawdust out there as far as nutrients, instead of that, now we would have fresh broccoli.”


Denniston used to sit in his office and look at price quotes from food distributors. Now he visits farms and negotiates the best prices for local products he can find in season. He says the change started with a few tomatoes.


“When I first met with Frank, the farmer, he stopped down and dropped off just some tomatoes. And the staff had some, we had some in the cooler and we brought some out and we cut them and there was a taste thing, and they said, ‘Don’t ever get any others but his.’ I mean, they were just so much sweeter, juicier, wonderful tomatoes and then it just kept going.”


Then came the rich green colored broccoli. It was a big change from what they offered their kids before.


Other schools say students love the taste of milk from local farms that don’t give their cows antibiotics. Johnson says cafeteria workers are excited by the fresher vegetables and meats. They like talking with the students about the food, and they like cooking again. Many schools don’t even have kitchens anymore; they only have heating trays for pre-packaged foods.


Deb Bruns is with the California Department of Education. She says those heated meals often don’t taste very good and she says they send the wrong message to kids.


“…that lunch is a time to grab something processed and hurry through it and get out to recess, and it doesn’t matter what we tell them in the classroom about nutrition if we’re not modeling that in their dining experience then we’re just missing such an opportunity to really teach them where their food comes from.”


Many schools start these programs because of nutrition and obesity concerns. By serving fresh, local food, the nutrition lessons continue when the kids line up in the cafeteria. Some schools say prices from local farms are actually lower then national distributors, but they often end up spending more money on fruits and vegetables. That’s because – believe it or not – kids are eating more broccoli, apples, and tomatoes.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Grant.

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Study: Home Births Safe for Low-Risk Moms

Only about one percent of North American babies are born at home. But a study in the British Medical Journal reports home births can be a safe alternative for low risk women. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Only about one percent of North American babies are born at home. But a study
in the British Medical Journal reports home births can be a safe alternative
for low risk women. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Researchers followed more than 5,400 pregnant women in the U.S. and Canada who were
planning a home birth with a professional certified midwife.


They looked at the death rate of newborns, the number of mothers who ended up in the hospital,
as well as the number of medical interventions used during labor.


They found low risk women who planned to give birth at home had the same likelihood of their
child dying as low risk women who went to the hospital. That’s fewer than two deaths out of
every 1,000 births.


Kenneth Johnson is an epidemiologist with the Canadian government.


“The participants experienced substantially lower rates of epidurals, episiotomies, forceps
deliveries, vacuum extractions, and cesareans.”


Home birth remains controversial in North America. While several Canadian medical societies
endorse home births, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists remains opposed
to them.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Researchers Call for Hydrilla Hunt

Great Lakes researchers are looking for volunteers to help search for an invasive aquatic plant that can choke out native vegetation, and make it tough to fish or boat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Great Lakes researchers are looking for volunteers to help search for an invasive aquatic
plant that can choke out native vegetation, and make it tough to fish or boat. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


Universities and Sea Grant programs throughout the region want people to search bays
and inland lakes for a non-native plant called hydrilla. It’s been found in waterways in
southern states and on the East Coast. Researchers want to make sure hydrilla doesn’t
gain a foothold in the Great Lakes.


Howard Wandell is an inland lakes specialist at Michigan State University. He says
hydrilla forms a net of vines at the surface of the water.


“It’s difficult to motorboat through and obviously trying to cast fishing lures through it is
very difficult if not impossible. And of course then just the idea of even trying to swim
in it, people are very repulsed by the idea of trying to go out and try to recreate in this
tangled mass of vegetation.”


Wandell says hydrilla also blocks sunlight, which can kill native water plants.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

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Development Triples in National Forests

One of the most comprehensive studies of development in and around national forests spells out the size of some potential threats. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

One of the most comprehensive studies of development in and around national
forests spells out the size of some potential threats. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison looked at a half century of
government census data on national forests. The results show the number of
housing units within national forest boundaries tripled between the years 1950
and 2000. There’s also been a big increase in development within a 30 mile
radius of the forests.


Researcher Volker Radeloff says development has brought in more invasive
species… and narrowed the wildlife corridors between forests. He says he realizes
many communities want to grow.


“The danger is if it’s not occurring in a consensus driven or planning process then the
decisions will be made for these communities… and what that means is increasing isolation of
these forests and strong environmental effects.”


Radeloff says in the Great Lakes region, much of the development in and around national forests
is from people building second homes or recreational housing.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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