Dutchtown, MO, March 20, 2008 -- Areas remain under flood water. Much of Missouri has been affected by recent flooding. (Photo by Jocelyn Augustino, courtesy of FEMA)
Spring floods are hitting some parts of the country,
and the National Weather Service predicts high waters might hit
more states. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Spring floods are hitting some parts of the country,
and the National Weather Service predicts high waters might hit
more states. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
There were record snowfalls in some northern, eastern and western states during the winter. Soil
moisture in some areas is very high. With the potential for spring rainstorms, the National
Weather Service says conditions are above average for flooding. Deputy Director Vickie Nadolski
says the threat will last a while.
“As you see the temperatures start to warm up in the summer, then certainly the ground will start
to dry out a bit more, but right now it’s quite saturated.”
Nadolski urges the public to listen to warnings of flash floods and river flooding. She warns
against driving or walking into flood waters.
The National Weather Service says soil moisture is not as high in states with prolonged droughts,
and that a lot of rain or snow there will bring temporary improvement to local reservoirs.
Hawaiian Monk Seal on Sandy Beach (Photo by Ann-Marie Kirk)
Hawaiian Monk Seal (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:
Transcript
This story is about Chester. Chester is one of the
most endangered marine mammals in the US. He’s a Hawaiian
Monk Seal. This year, Chester decided his annual molt will
take place on a popular beach. Anne Keala Kelly
reports:
Chester is among only 1200 Hawaiian Monk Seals alive today. Most of them live in the
Northwest Hawaiian Islands.
They’re called Monk Seals because they’re solitary animals.
They prefer their own company to socializing with each other, especially during a
molt. Molting is a process that renders them weak and vulnerable.
“This animal is on the beach because it is going through a huge physiological change
right now.”
That’s David Schofield. He’s the marine mammal response coordinator in Honolulu for
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“It’s shedding all of its skin and fur in a relatively short period of time, keeping
his behavior very minimal. So he is actually not getting into the water, he is not
swimming; he is not expending a lot of energy.”
He says Chester has
chosen to molt on Kailua, an East Oahu beach that attracts thousands of visitors. It’s not a very safe place for a defenseless seal. Because of budget cuts, NOAA relies almost
completely on volunteers to help protect seals when they come on shore. They keep
curious people and their pets away from Chester.
Chester is known here. He’s been seen on a number of Oahu beaches over the years.
Usually he stays along isolated stretches. But he’s never been seen on the busy east side. In
fact, he is the first Monk Seal anyone recalls seeing on Kailua Beach.
DB Dunlap coordinates volunteers for NOAA. He says this is not the first time he’s seen
Chester.
“I met Chester in 2002. And he was emaciated and skinny, I didn’t think he was gonna
make it through the day he was so pathetic looking. Now I realize that he had just
finished a molt, just exactly like he’s doing here and during that process they lose a lot of
weight.”
The molt takes a while. About two weeks into his molt, Chester went missing. He’d rolled into the water. He
probably went into the ocean to eat. A couple of hours later he was back on the beach
about half a mile farther down. The volunteers quickly reassembled the yellow crime
scene tape around him fifteen feet in each direction.
Now, going into day 19, he appears even more lethargic. And… he smells bad if you’re
downwind. Half of his fur is hanging in dying patches on his now loose skin. David
Schofield, with NOAA, describes where Chester is in his molt.
“His belly and his face are pretty much done. That nice silvery coat is the new fur and
the brown stuff on the back is the old molt. So we’re saying right now he’s at about the
50% mark.”
One of the volunteers watching over Chester is a Hawaiian man named Eric Poohina. He
says though the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian
creation chant, native Hawaiians have spiritual ties to seals like Chester. Poohina refers to him as Kalaheo.
“I’m not naming him, I’m just referring to him as a Kalaheo, a Kalaheo is a verb, it’s not a
noun. Kalaheo is a proclamation, a urgent global proclamation. That animal is doomed.”
As Poohina explains the Hawaiian cultural relationship to this animal, he’s also
expressing the frustration many feel over political and economic values that have brought
the Monk Seal to the brink of extinction.
In the main Hawaiian Islands, military and real estate interests have over-developed the
coastline. They’ve been taking over the seal’s habitat. And in the Northwest Hawaiian
Islands where most of the seals live, young seals become easily entangled in fishing
industry debris. The young seals often drown. And, military maneuvers disrupt normal
breeding and nursing of healthy pups.
Schofield: “If this population is gonna recover, it’s gonna take all of us. We need 2900
of them for 20-years to get them off the endangered species list.”
(chanting)
Volunteer Eric Poohina is chanting about the sacredness of Chester’s ordeal. 26-days after
he started, Chester has finished his molt. It’s a process that has remained virtually
unchanged in his species’ genetic code for more than 15 million years. Imagine, once a
year, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, nature demands that you just have to
stop and let it all go.
Poohina: “What the chant means is we acknowledging the laws of the universe, yeah.”
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.
Mary Morran at Avalon International Breads in Detroit (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
Wheat harvest on the Palouse. (Photo courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)
Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:
Transcript
Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:
Jackie Victor is sitting on a stack of 50-pound bags of organic wheat flour inside the
bakery she co-owns. And these days, it’s a pretty expensive seat.
Victor says in the last year, what she pays for those bags of flour has doubled.
“So it’s a very scary time, and I don’t think just – really for the industry, although it is
scary for us – it should be a warning sign for the country that something here is amiss.”
In the fall, Victor raised her retail prices at Avalon International Breads in Detroit.
So a loaf of bread that comes out of this batch getting mixed by baker Kevin Boyer will
cost you 50 to 75 cents more today.
“This is the multigrain bread. This is our Motown Multigrain.”
Soon, one of those loaves will probably cost even more, because the price of flour keeps going up.
(forklift sound)
Avalon Bakery buys its flour from Dawn Food Products. Inside one of its central
warehouses, forklift operators move pallets of baking ingredients into tractor-trailors. It smells like a kitchen pantry. And that’s basically what this is: a gigantic
pantry full of baking ingredients that will be shipped all over the world.
Miles Jones points out a pallet full of wheat gluten, which is used in most commercially-produced baked goods.
“That’s vital wheat gluten there. The price of that vital wheat gluten, just as an example,
has about tripled here in the last six months.”
Jones is co-chairman of the board at Dawn Foods. He’s been in the baking industry for close to four decades, and he says he’s never seen prices so high.
There are several reasons for the spike in wheat prices. Drought and other bad weather
wiped out a lot of the global wheat crop over the past two years. And fast-developing countries like China
and India are consuming more food made from wheat.
And then there’s the ethanol factor. More farmers are planting corn to sell to ethanol
refineries. Jones says that’s gobbling up land that used to be planted with wheat and other
crops. And he says it’s put us on a dangerous path.
“The end results are in the paper every day. You can see the skyrocketing food prices. And when you start trading food for energy, that’s not a good trade long-term.”
With wheat prices at record levels, more farmers might decide to plant it this year. That would boost supply and bring prices down.
Bruce Babcock is an economist, and he heads the center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. He says the test for that theory will be the amount of spring wheat that gets planted in April and May.
“The problem of course, for farmers, it’s not really a problem, it’s a great thing for farmers, is that they can pick wheat or soybeans or canola or any crop and the price is out of this world. So because the price of everything else is up so high, I don’t think we’ll see wheat increase as much as we would hope.”
Babcock says there is some good news on the global supply front. Australia and Argentina are expected to harvest a normal amount of wheat this year. Those are two major wheat producers that had a couple of years of terrible crops.
A big question will be whether farmers in the US and Canada will get the kind of weather they need and a bumper wheat crop this year.
Wolverine display at Arctic Interagency Visitor Center at Coldfoot. (Photo from the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:
Transcript
The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:
A federal court ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take a fresh look
at whether the wolverine should be listed. After the review, the agency
announced that it would not propose a listing for the animal.
Shawn Sartorius is the wolverine expert for the Wildlife Service.
He says the wolverine’s future is not dependant on the estimated 500 animals
that live in the lower 48 states.
“The healthy part of the population, the real genetically diverse and well connected population, is in Alaska and
Canada.”
Sartorius says between 15 and 20 thousand Wolverines live in Alaska and
Canada.
Wolverine numbers are down in the lower 48 states because they have been trapped for fur and
pushed out by development.
A former director of the US Fish Wildlife Service called the decision
“irresponsible.”
Logging truck. (Photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The next time you curl up with your favorite book,
you might think about where the paper in the book comes from.
Mark Brush reports on a new trend for the pulp industry that
isn’t fiction:
Transcript
The next time you curl up with your favorite book,
you might think about where the paper in the book comes from.
Mark Brush reports on a new trend for the pulp industry that
isn’t fiction:
It’s estimated that only a small amount of paper in the average book is made up of
recycled content. Experts say a lot of the paper comes from sensitive forests in Canada,
the southeastern US, and Indonesia.
But a new report says publishers are beginning to use more recycled paper.
Tyson Miller is the Director of the Green Press Initiative – one of the groups that commissioned the report. He says some major book publishing companies are doing their part:
“Random House’s policy says that they’ll move from a 3% recycled fiber use rate to a
30% recycled fiber use rate by 2010. That alone will save about a half a million trees a
year.”
Some companies don’t want to use more recycled paper because it’s more expensive. But
Miller says their research has shown that people who buy books are willing to pay a little
extra to save a few trees.
There’s another possible downside to the national
boom in the production of corn-based ethanol. A new
study says increased ethanol production would further
pollute the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
There’s another possible downside to the national
boom in the production of corn-based ethanol. A new
study says increased ethanol production would further
pollute the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:
Most of the ethanol currently made comes from corn grown in the central part of
the US.
Chris Kucharik is part of a team of researchers that has been studying
what agricultural fertilizers do to the Mississippi River Basin. Kucharik says,
based on his study, ramping up the growing of corn for ethanol would increase
nutrient pollution in the river by 10 to 20%.
“That pretty much will make it impossible for us to reach a goal of reducing
nitrogen export by the Mississippi River.”
Kucharik says nitrogen pollution already contributes to a huge dead zone in the
Gulf of Mexico. The area is depleted of oxygen. He says his prediction of more
problems may not come true if a lot of ethanol production is switched to crops
that don’t need much artificial fertilizer.
In the US, the market for biodiesel was more
than 450 million gallons in 2007. But new research shows
not all biofuels are created equal. Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports:
Transcript
In the US, the market for biodiesel was more
than 450 million gallons in 2007. But new research shows
not all biofuels are created equal. Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports:
The American Chemical Society study tested 19 biodiesel samples
from states like California, Massachusetts, and Indiana. It found the
majority, almost 90%, didn’t meet federal requirements for B20 grade
fuel – 20% biodiesel, 80% petroleum. Some samples
contained as little as 2% biodiesel, while others exceeded the
20% limit.
One of the study’s authors is Christopher Reddy. He says biodiesel
above 20% could damage engines, while anything below 20%
reduces the environmental benefits.
“So perhaps the results of my small study will help people take a step back and
reevaluate things and put in some safe guards and such.”
Reddy’s says his study shows the blending inconsistencies found by
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2004, still haven’t been
addressed.
For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.
Melting glaciers as seen from aboard the Fairweather Express II in Glacier Bay, Alaska (Photo by John Ryan)
Glacier Bay, Alaska (Photo by John Ryan)
Steller’s sea lions on a rock in Glacier Bay (Photo by John Ryan)
A National Park might not be the first place
you’d expect to turn into a crime scene. But John Ryan
found one – of sorts – on a boat touring Alaska’s Glacier
Bay National Park:
Transcript
A National Park might not be the first place
you’d expect to turn into a crime scene. But John Ryan
found one – of sorts – on a boat touring Alaska’s Glacier
Bay National Park:
(music)
Scene of the crime. Glacier Bay National Park. 9 o’clock on a sunny Saturday morning.
The crime: Global warming. You know: ice caps melting. Sea level rising. Deserts and
disease spreading. Scientists say it’s big, very big.
(music)
Intergovernmental investigators have ID’d the perpetrator: it’s us. Emissions from fossil
fuels like coal and oil have started heating the earth.
But here on the Fairweather Express II, you’d never know it. Park ranger Kevin Richards
is at the mic, entertaining passengers as we cruise past mile-wide glaciers
in the sun.
“That snow fell when Thomas Jefferson was signing the Declaration of
Independence.”
Richards tells the crowd how the glaciers have retreated 60 miles in the past 200 years.
But he hasn’t once mentioned global warming.
In the audience, Anchorage pathologist James Tiesinga smells a rat.
“The rangers seem very reluctant to say the words ‘global warming’, they skirt
the issue of why the glaciers are receding. I can’t help but wonder if the Park Service
has communicated the message to its employees, ‘don’t bring this up, it’s a hot topic’.”
And I notice the visitors’ newsletter put out by the park talks in depth about the changing
glaciers, but fails to mention that the climate is being changed by humans.
During a break in the naturalist’s stand-up routine, Tiesinga asks why there has been no
mention of global warming? Are we witnessing a coverup?
(music)
As huge chunks of ancient ice tumble into the bay, the Park Ranger, Kevin Richards, says, no,
there’s no censorship of climate science.
“Until very recently, yeah, if you’re working for the government, you
probably didn’t talk a lot about it. But now it’s okay, it’s an open forum right now.”
He says he’ll get to the connection
between melting glaciers and a warming earth near the end of his talk, but it’s a lot more
complicated than you might think.
“We just can’t talk about tidewater glaciers the same way we do about
terrestrial glaciers. It’s not the same process.”
Here’s why it’s not the same: tidewater glaciers have snouts that stick out into the ocean. Terrestrial glaciers are
land-locked. Richards goes on to say that land-locked glaciers in the mountains above
Glacier Bay are shrinking under a warming climate. But he says the dramatic loss of 60
miles of ice from Glacier Bay itself is not a sign of global warming.
(music)
To fact-check the on-board nature talk, I called up Roman Motycka.
He studies glaciers at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks’ Geophysical
Institute. He confirmed that global warming is hitting most Alaskan
glaciers hard.
“90% of the glaciers in South-Eastern Alaska are wasting away, and that’s
complicated, but primarily due to global warming.”
So why aren’t tourists in Glacier Bay hearing that when they witness fall
ice chunks fall into the ocean?
“It’s really complex there. Here’s what happened when all
that ice got lost.”
Motycka explains that tidewater glaciers have their own cycles of
advance and retreat. In a nutshell, when the snout of a glacier ends up floating in deep water, it becomes inherently prone to calving – that is, dropping icebergs – independent of the climate. And that’s what’s happened in Glacier Bay. So, in other words…
“Your naturalist was right, the terrestrial glaciers are the
ones that are more important to look at in terms of straight climate
change.”
(music)
Back on the Fairweather Express II, Park Ranger Kevin Richards
finishes his day at the mic talking about global energy consumption and
making a plea for people to protect the environment back home,
wherever they come from.
So in the end, park rangers are still the nature lovers in funny green outfits you might
remember from your childhood. And as this episode of Thaw and Glacier comes to a
close, all is well in Glacier Bay. Except for a little thing called…
In San Diego’s suburbs, the homes on the outer edges of developments and in close proximity to the surrounding countryside are the first to burn. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
Shannon Denton says even though dozens of homes were lost in her neighborhood, the natural amenities it offers outweighs her home’s risk of fire. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
In San Diego, fire can float from house to house on the wind. The more current a homes building codes, the greater chance of its survival. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
Most wildfires across the nation begin in wilderness areas and spread to urban development, but man’s presence usually brings the spark, typically in the form of a downed power line. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
More and more Americans are building homes closer to wilderness. Natural surroundings offer amenities like hiking trails, within walking distance of front doors. But living closer to nature increases the risk of a natural disaster, for both man and the wilderness. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
Active flame front of the Zaca Fire, the second largest fire on record in California. (U.S. Forest Service photo by John Newman)
During the past 20 years, we’ve been building
homes closer to nature. Whether it’s near coastal areas
or in the wilderness, homebuyers want to live in more
natural settings. But… Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports
often that means putting people and property in the path
of floods or fire:
Transcript
During the past 20 years, we’ve been building
homes closer to nature. Whether it’s near coastal areas
or in the wilderness, homebuyers want to live in more
natural settings. But… Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports
often that means putting people and property in the path
of floods or fire:
2007 was the second worst in history for wildfires in the U.S. Nine-million acres were
scorched and Southern California bore the brunt of it. Most of the property damage was
in San Diego where wildfires in wilderness areas spread to suburban neighborhoods. Half a
million people were evacuated and Shannon Denton was among them. She says her
neighborhood was cleared out at 4 in the morning.
“We were scared. ‘Cause we didn’t – luckily we had all our pictures organized, so we just took most of our pictures and our video stuff, grabbed our kids at the last minute and left within a half-hour. It was scary, very
scary.”
(construction sound)
These days, Denton’s subdivision is busy. There are bulldozers demolishing the burned
out remains of old houses. And construction crews are building new ones on every single
street.
Denton’s thankful her house was spared. But she says even if it had burned down, she’d
take the risk of it happening again, because she likes living here.
“It’s pretty close to nature. There’s a lot of walking and hiking, a lot of mountains that you can take trails and different things.”
Despite the risk of fire, people like Denton don’t want to leave. Some of the 18-
thousand homes lost in San Diego last fall were built in places where wildfires had
burned only four years earlier.
That’s not unusual. The US Fire Administration says nearly 40% of new home
development across the country is in places where residential homes and wilderness meet,
and thus, are more prone to fire.
“They have a right to build that single family home.”
That’s Jeff Murphy of San Diego County’s Department of Planning.
“As a jurisdiction its our responsibility to have codes and ordinances that are
in place to make sure that there’s minimal structural damage as the result of wildfire and minimize
the risk of loss of life.”
Murphy says people are going to live where they want to, all government can do is
require smart development. And San Diego’s building codes are the most restrictive in
the California. They were reevaluated after the 2003 wildfires, when seven percent of the
homes were destroyed.
In the 2007 wildfires, Murphy says the new codes reduced that loss to one-percent.
“Even though we had a lot of structure loss during these fires, what these
numbers are showing us is that our codes are working.”
And Americans aren’t just building in areas at risk of fire. We build in flood zones, too.
FEMA estimates around 10 million people in the US are at risk of flooding. And
according to the United Nations, we saw the most floods of any country last year.
Roger Kennedy is a former director of the National Park Service. He says this kind of
“risky living” costs US taxpayers about two-billion dollars a year in firefighting and
rebuilding costs. The total in property damage hovers around 20 Billion.
Kennedy says people are choosing to build and live on land that’s in danger-prone areas
because they’re not responsible for the true costs. Insurance, guaranteed mortgages, and
federal disaster relief have reduced the personal financial risk.
“People wouldn’t settle in places from which they knew they would not be
rescued and where the taxpayers wouldn’t pick up- or the insurance company which is
essentially the same thing- wouldn’t pick up the tab.”
Kennedy says knowing about a home’s potential risk might reduce the material cost of
fires and floods. And, it might save lives.
But he says, people have to want to know their risks. And even then… they might choose
to ignore it. Because for many, the enjoyment their property brings far outweighs the
occasional “Act of Nature.”
For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.
Dutchtown, MO, March 20, 2008 -- Areas remain under flood water. Much of Missouri has been affected by recent flooding. (Photo by Jocelyn Augustino, courtesy of FEMA)
