Some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage. Here is a high-speed train in Taiwan.
(Photo source: Jiang at Wikimedia Commons)
Today, August 24, is a deadline for
states competing for eight billion
dollars in federal stimulus money
for higher speed rail. Shawn Allee reports, this stimulus could
run in slow-motion:
Transcript
Today, August 24, is a deadline for
states competing for eight billion
dollars in federal stimulus money
for higher speed rail. Shawn Allee reports, this stimulus could
run in slow-motion:
Federal Railroad Administration staff are staying late tonight – August 24 – to accept hundreds of applications for higher-speed rail funds.
FRA spokesperson Rob Kulat says the agency wants to give out stimulus money quickly, but, just in case, it’s announced there might be two rounds of applications – not just one.
“It would be a delay, but the idea is to have successful projects, to have them work cost-effectively. If a state isn’t ready financially or technically to implement their plan, then they need to go back to the drawing board a bit. We’re not going to throw good money after bad.”
Kulat says some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage.
It could be years before they clear the track for faster trains.
Shrimpers have seen their catches dwindle down from thousands of pounds of shrimp a day to very little due to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Of course, the bigger the zone, the further out shrimpers have to send their boats. That means a lot of wasted time, fuel, and wages. (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Every summer, thousands of
square miles of the Gulf of
Mexico die. The Dead Zone is
caused by pollution that flows
down the Mississippi River. It’s
runoff from factories, sewer
plants, and farms. And it causes
a lot of problems for fishermen
in the area. This year, the Dead
Zone is projected to be huge –
maybe the largest ever. Samara Freemark explains:
Transcript
Every summer, thousands of
square miles of the Gulf of
Mexico die. The Dead Zone is
caused by pollution that flows
down the Mississippi River. It’s
runoff from factories, sewer
plants, and farms. And it causes
a lot of problems for fishermen
in the area. This year, the Dead
Zone is projected to be huge –
maybe the largest ever. Samara Freemark explains:
Imagine for a moment you’re a shrimp fisherman. Every day you send out your fleet to the same waters you’ve fished for decades. And your boats pull in a lot of shrimp- thousands of pounds a day, millions a year. And then one day, a normal summer day, you send the boats out, and they come back empty.
“You go from about 5000 pounds to nothing. It’s dead. That’s why they call it the dead zone.”
That’s Dean Blanchard. He runs the largest shrimp company in America- Dean Blanchard Seafood.
Blanchard started seeing the dead zone about five years ago, but it’s not a new phenomenon. For a long time, nutrient fertilizer from upstream has run into the Mississippi River and from there, into the Gulf. It fertilizes big algae blooms– and when the algae decays, it sucks oxygen out of the water, making it impossible for fish to live there.
What’s new is how much fertilizer there is now.
“It’s not natural.”
Nancy Rabalais is a marine biologist at LUMCON. That’s Louisiana’s center for marine research. She says that over the past several decades there’s been a surge in fertilizer use in the Corn Belt states. That eventually ends up in the Gulf.
“We’re having 300 times more than we did in the 1950s. And it’s just over loaded the system.”
Rabalais predicts this year’s dead zone will be almost three times as big as it was twenty years ago – more than 8000 square miles.
Of course, the bigger the zone, the further out shrimpers like Dean Blanchard have to send their boats. That means a lot of wasted time, fuel, and wages.
And the zones might mean even bigger problems. Don Scavia is a professor at the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan.
“There’s a half a billion dollar shrimp industry in the gulf. And the shrimp depend on that habitat. And what we’re concerned about is that if the dead zone continues or even grows, that fishery may collapse.”
Congress is taking some measures to address the problem. Conservation programs in the Farm Bill work to reduce how much fertilizer farmers use, and how they apply it.
But there’s something else in the Farm Bill too – a lot of subsidy programs. Those pay for ethanol production. Which means more corn. Which means a lot more fertilizer.
“And what is debated every 5 years is how much funding will go into those conservation programs, relative to funding going into subsidy programs. And, by far, the subsidies win.” (laughs)
Scavia says for every $1 spent on conservation programs in the Corn Belt, $500 go to subsidizing crops.
Shrimper Dean Blanchard says he’s not sure how long he can live with that balance, especially as he watches the dead zone grow.
“How big is this thing going to get? If we kill the oceans we have problems. We have serious problems.”
But Don Scavia is hopeful. He says we know exactly how to reduce nutrient runoff – in fact, the basic programs are already in place. It’s just a matter of Congress choosing the right funding priorities.
A 1.4 ton geothermal heat pump unit at an elementary school. Stimulus credits did boost sales of geothermal systems – the most efficient systems out there. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
The Cash for Clunkers program is
not the only government incentive
for energy efficiency. The stimulus
package has incentives to make homes
more energy efficient. Mark Brush
took a look into the bigger part of
the tax credits – new home heating
and cooling systems:
Transcript
The Cash for Clunkers program is
not the only government incentive
for energy efficiency. The stimulus
package has incentives to make homes
more energy efficient. Mark Brush
took a look into the bigger part of
the tax credits – new home heating
and cooling systems:
Homeowners can get 30% of the cost of a new heating or cooling system refunded on their taxes. For most systems the government caps the refund at $1,500.
Trade groups say the credits didn’t do much for air conditioning sales this summer. They say the types of air conditioning systems eligible for the credit are just too expensive.
But energy efficient furnaces cost a lot less – so trade groups do expect the tax credits to boost furnace sales.
Francis Dietz is with the Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. He says the credits did boost sales of geothermal systems – the most efficient systems out there.
“That was a bright spot. That is a 30% uncapped tax credit. So basically a homeowner who has a geothermal heat pump installed can get back, as a credit, 30% of the cost of that.”
That’s a big help – because geothermal systems can cost between $15,000 to $28,000 to install.
The study found that differences in architectural style stuck out most, but after that, height.
(Photo source: Brendel at Wikimedia Commons)
There are some ugly terms used
to describe big, grandiose homes.
Critics call them “Garage Mahals,”
“starter castles,” or “McMansions.”
These insults are flung around
in towns where people worry big
houses are sapping the character
out of neighborhoods full of smaller,
older homes. Shawn Allee
met a researcher who hopes to tamp
down the heated rhetoric:
Transcript
There are some ugly terms used
to describe big, grandiose homes.
Critics call them “Garage Mahals,”
“starter castles,” or “McMansions.”
These insults are flung around
in towns where people worry big
houses are sapping the character
out of neighborhoods full of smaller,
older homes. Shawn Allee
met a researcher who hopes to tamp
down the heated rhetoric:
Jack Nasar studies city planning at Ohio State University.
He got interested in the term “McMansion” because it was used in his own neighorhood in Columbus.
“A realestate agent was befriending older people so that when they died she’d be able to get their properties, tear down the house, and then build a much larger house. I started to wonder whether this was happening elsewhere.”
Nasar says teardowns, and the insults used to describe them, are common in many towns. And some local governments are restricting how big these homes get or even what they look like.
Nasar says, with governments stepping in to the debate, there’s more at stake than just name-calling.
“You’re talking about controlling what goes on on somebody’s private property. So, you would want to have good evidence to use as a basis for that decision.”
Nasar recently studied just what it takes for a house to get big enough or different enough for people to say, “yuck” or hurl an insult like “McMansion.” Nasar and a research partner created computer models of streets with rows of houses.
For each test, they made most houses normal, but changed up something about one of them – stuff like the architectural style, the height, or maybe distance between the house and the street. Then, they showed these models to people.
“We had them rate these streets in terms of compatibility, we had them rate them in terms of visual quality or preference.”
Differences in architectural style stuck out most, but after that, height.
“The effect started to be most noticeable when the in-fill house was twice as large as the stuff around it. So, in terms of regulations, it suggests maybe a community could get by saying, ‘you could do a tear-down replacement that’s twice as big as what’s around it,’ but you wouldn’t let it get any larger than that.”
This is a controversial finding.
Some communities keep height range much lower than “twice as big” figure and sometimes they restrict width, too – something Nasar found doesn’t matter so much.
I thought I’d bounce some of his findings off someone involved in the teardown issue.
“This also was a demolition of a small home.”
Catherine Czerniak drives me around Lake Forest, a Chicago suburb. She’s the community development director, and she gets the praise or blame about how teardowns get done.
Czerniak says Nasar’s findings make sense, especially the idea that style matters most.
“We often say height and size aren’t necessarily the key roles -it’s how the design is done.”
But for Czerniak, there’s a hot-button issue Nasar did not measure.
Lake Forest has lots of tree-lined streets and people like how the trees obscure the houses.
“And really, the landscaping really defines the character of the community. Even the estates on the east side, were not there to shout from the street, here I am, look at me.”
To make the point she drives past a mix of old homes and replacements.
I can hardly tell which is which.
“As we go down the street, take note that even though there are some big homes back here, you still feel you’re in a country lane.”
Czerniak says Nasar’s research might quiet down some debates but people will always fight over specific details. After all, Nasar’s test subjects gave quick judgements on computer models.
She says, in the real world, critics spend years nit-picking every little thing they hate about a teardown replacement home and whether it’s going to ruin their neighborhood.
A national survey of home builders found 59% are already building smaller homes or planning to build smaller homes in the near future.
(Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
This week, the US Department
of Commerce announced new
construction for single-family
homes increased 1.7% since June. Lester Graham
reports… what the announcement
didn’t say is that, on average,
those new homes are smaller:
Transcript
This week, the US Department
of Commerce announced new
construction for single-family
homes increased 1.7% since June. Lester Graham
reports… what the announcement
didn’t say is that, on average,
those new homes are smaller:
For the past 35 years, houses have gotten bigger and bigger. The square footage has increased 53%.
But, starting in the second half of 2008, that changed. And the trend to smaller houses is continuing this year.
Steve Melman monitors trends for the National Association of Home Builders.
He says, during past recessions, new house sizes decreased because smaller was more affordable. As soon as the economy recovered, the trend toward larger homes continued.
He says that might not be the case this time.
“This could be a change in that the homes might incorporate better design, better energy features, green features, but not necessarily increase in size.”
A national survey of home builders found 59% are already building smaller homes or planning to build smaller homes in the near future.
Brian Hickey runs Teardowns.com, a real-estate marketplace
for teardown properties. Some communities complain that
the teardown market encourages the growth of so-called
'McMansion' replacement homes that are seen as too large
and out-of-place for their neighborhoods. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Your home may be your castle,
but, for some people, too many
homes are as big and grand as
castles. Critics call these homes
‘McMansions,’ and they complain
they’ve ruined neighborhoods
filled with older, smaller houses.
The McMansion fad fizzled during
the real-estate bust. Shawn Allee looks at whether it could
return:
Transcript
Your home may be your castle,
but, for some people, too many
homes are as big and grand as
castles. Critics call these homes
‘McMansions,’ and they complain
they’ve ruined neighborhoods
filled with older, smaller houses.
The McMansion fad fizzled during
the real-estate bust. Shawn Allee looks at whether it could
return:
I head to a Chicago suburb called Hinsdale to understand the hub-ub about McMansions. Over the past twenty years, one in three Hinsdale homes got torn down to make room for mostly bigger ones.
Brian Hickey drives me past one-story brick and wood houses.
Then there’s a huge one, with stucco and Spanish tile.
Hickey: “This is an example of something where someone would go, this is more Florida-like.”
Allee: “It looks like it walked off the set of Miami Vice or something like that.”
Hickey: “Yeah.”
Bigger, mis-matched homes sprouted up in Hinsdale during the real-estate boom, and for some, Brian Hickey’s partly to blame.
He runs tear-downs dot com. Hickey finds and sells homes to tear down, and maybe replace with McMansions … or ‘replacement homes’ as he calls them.
Anyway, during the housing bubble, teardowns increased … and so did complaints.
Allee: “Some of the arguments I’ve heard against the teardown phenomenon is that we’re basically tossing perfectly good houses into landfills.”
Hickey: “See, that’s not accurate. To take some of these homes and bring it up to what people in this community would expect in terms of housing amenities, it doesn’t make sense to renovate when you can build new for less.”
The big-home trend faded recently, but if the soft real-estate market improves, you gotta wonder: will people build big again, or will they keep smaller, older homes?
Hickey thinks old homes might lose.
Hickey: “At some point a buyer simply won’t pay that price to live there.”
Allee: “In that one story …”
Hickey: “In that one story, two-bedroom, small kitchen – that the land will be where the value is.”
Some real-estate pros say Hickey’s right: people want big, and they’ll build what they want, where they want.
Others say, the game has changed.
Local governments in Dallas, Denver, and other cities are starting to regulate teardowns, like Hinsdale did.
(sound of a printer)
Robert McGinnis prints me 60 pages of Hinsdale’s zoning codes.
“Hot off the press, it’s still warm.”
McGinnis runs Hinsdale’s building commission. He says the code got up to sixty pages partly because of teardown complaints.
McGinnis: “Pollution issues, the loss of sunlight in some cases.”
Allee: “Loss of sunlight? What do you mean by that?”
McGinnis: “Some of these houses are so tall they end up physically blocking out some of the sunlight.”
McGinnis says it’s hard to stop teardowns – you can just delay or improve them.
“I would like to think, at some point, Joe Q. Public says, ‘I’d really like to live in Hinsdale, but I can’t afford to heat and cool a McMansion,’ so they’re going to look at building a smaller home.”
But McGinnis says this could be wishful thinking.
So, I thought I’d ask some Hinsdale homeowners about the small-home idea.
Just outside McGinnis’ office, I find Greta Filmanaviciute. She’s stuffing official demolition signs into her car.
Filmanaviciute: “I was getting permits. We’re going to tear down old house and building the new house.”
Allee: “Are you guys looking at a house that’s bigger than what you have now?”
Filmanaviciute: “No, actually, we are sizing down, but that’s because we’re a three-person family and I don’t want to have a huge house and then we have high utility bills. This is perfection for us, actually.”
Filmanaviciute says preservationists might not like that she’s tearing down her place, but her neighbors are glad she’s keeping things modest.
She says she’d be proud to start a small-home trend.
President Barack Obama speaks at a townhall meeting on healthcare reform. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy, courtesy of the White House)
Big industry is planning to target several
key US Senators who’ll vote on a climate
bill this fall. Lester Graham reports an
industry-funded group plans to hold 19
rallies at Senators’ townhall meetings:
Transcript
Big industry is planning to target several
key US Senators who’ll vote on a climate
bill this fall. Lester Graham reports an
industry-funded group plans to hold 19
rallies at Senators’ townhall meetings:
Rallies on health insurance reform can be pretty rowdy at times. It looks like you can expect the same over climate change legislation.
The American Petroleum Institute, and other big industry types formed a group called “Energy Citizens.”
They say the current climate change bill will mean higher energy prices and the loss of millions of jobs. A video on their website portrays everyday folks opposed to the idea.
“The principle of the government trying to help the environment is a good thing, but I don’t think this legislation is the best way to go about it.”
A memo from the American Petroleum Institute to oil company execs encourages getting those kind of people to townhall meetings. Environmental groups say it’s a fake grassroots movement.
A spokesperson for the Petroleum industry says oil companies are not against climate change legislation, just the climate legislation being considered by Congress.
Mark Murray, with the nonprofit Californians Against Waste, says that in the space of one month, October 2008, the price for mixed paper on the global market plunged from $100 a ton to less than $30. (Photo by Erin Kelly)
If you want to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing, look outside your window the night before garbage and recycling day. Last fall, you’d have seen trucks full of cardboard circling the neighborhood. By winter, the cardboard poachers had disappeared. That’s because wastepaper – like other recyclables – feeds into a multi-billion dollar global commodities market that rises and falls just like housing prices and stocks. Amy Standen has more:
Transcript
If you want to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing, look outside your window the night before garbage and recycling day. Last fall, you’d have seen trucks full of cardboard circling the neighborhood. By winter, the cardboard poachers had disappeared. That’s because wastepaper – like other recyclables – feeds into a multi-billion dollar global commodities market that rises and falls just like housing prices and stocks. Amy Standen has more:
Last winter, Carolyn Almquist had a problem. Carolyn’s in charge of exports for APL transportation in Oakland, California. It’s her job to move shipping containers full of American exports, like wastepaper, to factories over in Asia. The problem was, the factories in Asia didn’t want them.
“There was no buyer. It would arrive at our terminal, say, in Jakarta, and no one would pick it up.”
Asian paper mills were canceling deals with the ships halfway across the Pacific. And Carolyn – who’s in charge of APL’s exports – was the first to hear about it.
“I’m getting an email saying, ‘what are you people doing? Don’t send stuff without a buyer.’”
Waste paper is the country’s number one export, by volume, so when prices fall, it’s not just Carolyn who’s in trouble.
“Hey, Alex, good morning! Steve Moore calling.”
Steve runs a company called Pacific Rim Recycling, 40 miles north of San Francisco.
“Got any updates for me on the marketplace?”
Every day, he calls around to see how much people are paying for things like newspaper, water bottles, old envelopes.
“What about corrugated?”
Most of our recycled cardboard, and a lot of our plastic ends up at Asian factories where it’s turned into iPhone boxes, polyester shirts, that are then shipped right back to the US market.
Until, that is, we stop shopping.
“When people stop buying those goods and products – the VCRS and the TVs from China – there’s no need for the boxes to go around them.”
That’s Mark Murray, with the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. He says that in the space of one month, October 2008, the price for mixed paper on the global market plunged from $100 a ton to less than $30. In two months, plastic water bottles dropped from $500 a ton, to less than $100.
“What recycling experienced in the last six months is really the same thing the entire global economy has been experiencing.”
So, when the economy falters, recyclers suffer. Some shut down entirely. Others were forced to simply dump unsellable paper into local landfills.
Steve Moore hunkered down to wait it out.
“We couldn’t sell anything for six weeks. All this material was backing up, I had to rent space next door. I had to sell it at $10 a ton, just to get rid of it.”
By February, prices had started to recover, as demand for consumer goods began picking up a bit – but they’re no where near the highs of a year ago.
“And a ton of paper today is worth $100 a ton. Last year, it was worth $200 a ton. It’s a very volatile market, so the economics of that are pretty severe.”
One reason the market’s so volatile is that with recyclables, the supply never stops. No matter how much or how little those Asian factories want our cardboard and our plastic water bottles, we are going to keep putting them out on the sidewalk.
Oil manufacturers can turn down the spigot when demand drops, to control supply so it keeps pace with demand. But bales of paper and plastic just take up too much space. And here at Pacific Rim recycling, the trucks keep rolling in.
(sound of bottles and cans at Pacific Rim)
“The volume of this material is huge!”
But at least it’s moving. Prices for our recyclables might be lower than their peak a year ago, but Steve Moore can relax again.
And, over at the Port of Oakland, Carolyn’s no longer getting angry emails.
“Things are picking up again. Financing has freed up. The banks are a little less nervous, If we had a ship here today, she’s be sailing Oakland full. Life is a little bit easier.”
And Carolyn Almquist knows as well as anyone in this industry to enjoy it while it lasts.
The Energy Information Administration projects that in 2009 we'll cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 5%. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
The recession doesn’t have a lot of upsides,
but there is an environmental silver lining.
Carbon dioxide emissions are down. But,
as Tamara Keith reports,
greenhouse gas emissions are expected to
rise as the economy improves:
Transcript
The recession doesn’t have a lot of upsides,
but there is an environmental silver lining.
Carbon dioxide emissions are down. But,
as Tamara Keith reports,
greenhouse gas emissions are expected to
rise as the economy improves:
The Energy Information Administration projects that in 2009 we’ll cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 5%. Emissions were down in 2008 too.
Elias Johnson is an energy analyst. He says the economy is expected to pick up next year. That means coal, natural gas and petroleum use will pick up too.
“It’s not all going to happen at one time, so that will be gradual. And then visvis the emissions from that energy consumption will probably increase gradually.”
In 2010, Johnson says emissions are projected to rise 0.7%. Not much, really. And emissions will still be lower than they were when the economy was booming.
“For one thing, the economic activity is not going to be getting back to those levels.”
DDT was banned in 1972, but traces of it are still all over the place - including in Great Lakes fish. (Photo courtesy of Tony Arnold)
Scientists have known for a long time
that a lot of wild-caught fish have
dangerous contaminants. People
who eat fish have to weigh the health
benefits against the risks of consuming
those pollutants. Now, some research
could make that balancing act even
trickier. Gabriel Spitzer has more on
the link between diabetes… and an
infamous old chemical many assumed
was long gone:
Transcript
Scientists have known for a long time
that a lot of wild-caught fish have
dangerous contaminants. People
who eat fish have to weigh the health
benefits against the risks of consuming
those pollutants. Now, some research
could make that balancing act even
trickier. Gabriel Spitzer has more on
the link between diabetes… and an
infamous old chemical many assumed
was long gone:
In the early morning hours, anglers gather on Navy Pier in downtown Chicago.
Ray Penn is practically within casting distance of the city’s skyscrapers.
He dips his line in the waters of Lake Michigan, hoping to pull out something tasty.
“I filet ‘em, and I fry ‘em, yeah. They got a little bit of bones in ‘em, but – oh yeah. Oh, yeah, baby! I felt that!”
It’s looking like a good morning for rock bass.
“See, there’s a bass on the end of this. This is a small bass, now this guy here, he’s edible.”
Penn says he eats fish a couple of times a week, without giving it a second thought.
Down the pier, Patrick Duhan has the same attitude.
“This is the Great Lakes! It’s such a big body of water. It’s almost like the ocean. They throw tons of crap in the ocean, and there’s just too much of it to screw up.”
But, scientists say, people have managed to screw up the Lakes a fair amount.
Epidemiologists have been studying a group of sport fishers, like these guys, and charter boat captains, who eat a lot of Great Lakes fish.
Mary Turyk of the University of Illinois at Chicago measured the contaminants in their blood, and tracked their health over the years.
“We found we had 36 cases of new diabetes. And what we found was that DDE, the metabolite of DDT, was related to diabetes incidence.”
DDT.
That’s the pesticide made famous by Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring.”
The chemical was banned in 1972, but traces of it are still all over the place – including in fish.
And like mercury or PCBs, it concentrates as it moves up the food chain.
So you don’t have to eat much.
“The captains were eating, I think, on average, a meal a week. One meal a week? Yeah. That doesn’t seem outlandish or anything. No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t at all. In fact, recommendations from the FDA for eating fish, based on mercury levels, are two meals per week, for pregnant women.”
So just half that much fish was linked to about a 33% increase in diabetes cases.
Turyk says it’s not clear how DDE or DDT might contribute to diabetes.
It may have to do with effects on hormones or the immune system.
“We really need more basic science to determine mechanisms that might be responsible for this.”
Another unknown is just how dangerous might this be, and when does it start to outweigh the advantages of an otherwise healthy food?
Tamara Duperval is a family doctor at a West Side Chicago clinic.
She says she still tells people to eat more fish.
“In our population, it’s really a wonder and a challenge to try to present fish as an option, when primarily the staple of diet is either chicken or beef.”
That population is mostly low-income and minority.
She says about half are overweight or obese.
From a nutrition point of view, those are exactly the people you’d want to be eating a lean, healthy protein like fish.
So Duperval is concerned about sending mixed messages.
“I do think it is confusing. And, it’s in part, I think, how we communicate crisis in this country, especially when it comes to food safety. They miss the overall preventative message, that fish is good food, and it actually provides a lot of important nutrients that are lacking in their diets.”
Health authorities often issue advisories about certain fish that have a lot of pollution.
Duperval says understanding those warnings can help people avoid some of the hazards.
But the diabetes research shows we may still have a lot to learn about these chemicals, so what’s safe to eat is getting harder to know.
Some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage. Here is a high-speed train in Taiwan. (Photo source: Jiang at Wikimedia Commons)
