The Environment Report

Michigan beekeepers are continuing to lose huge numbers of bees. They join beekeepers from around the country – and the world – who have been dealing with what’s called Colony Collapse Disorder. It’s been around for five years now. Julie Grant visited with some beekeepers, and reports that scientists and the government don’t agree on what should be done to help them:

(sound of bees buzzing)

Ted Elk is checking out some of his hives. They’re on the backside of a corn field, tucked away in the brush. The colorful boxes are stacked on top of each other.

Some hives are buzzing with activity. He pulls out a comb and scrapes the side:

“And that is all goldenrod honey. See how yellow that is?”

I want to eat it. It’s almost irresistible. But not all the hives look this good.

“Here’s one that’s not gonna make it through winter. It’s light, there’s no bees, there’s no weight to it.”

There’s honey on the comb. But almost no bees.

Elk suspects this hive has colony collapse disorder. There aren’t dead bees around. They’re just gone.

Elk has seen this before. Last winter, he lost 250 hives – and thousands of dollars. When Elk first started keeping bees, he might lose five or six percent in the winter. But nationwide, a 30 percent winter bee loss is average nowadays.

Researchers still aren’t sure exactly what’s causing Colony Collapse Disorder. But they do know there’s a lot of stress on bees. Beekeepers take their hives all over the country – to Florida to pollinate oranges, to California for almonds, to New York for apples, and elsewhere. The beekeepers take the bees honey, and often feed them cheap high fructose corn syrup, or nothing at all. Plus, they can have mites and bacteria. And there are 28 viruses that can affect bees.

Michael Hansen is the Michigan state apiarist. He says all these problems are cumulative.

“It’s like when you get a cold. And then there’s another virus takes over and then there’s a fever, but maybe you had problems with lungs or heart, and all these things start to build up.”

Beekeepers manage for these things. But the bees are not getting better.

Some research is starting to show that the problems of bees may be largely beyond the beekeepers control: people are using more chemicals that are toxic to bees.

James Frazier is an entomologist at Penn State University. He and his team have found the average hive has seven different pesticides.

Frazier says a few years before the collapses started, chemical companies started selling a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. And they’ve become really popular. They’re safer for human health than the older chemicals, and they do a good job killing unwanted insects on farm fields and home lawns. But he says they also kill bees.

“ Just because it’s safer for humans doesn’t mean it’s necessarily safer for bees or other pollinators. And that’s where this particular class of neonicotinoids has surfaced to the top, because they are exquisitely toxic for honey bees.”

Frazier says neonicotinoids and other pesticides interfere with the bees ability to learn, to navigate, and to fight off disease. He says that might explain why the bees disappear.

Some researchers and activists are calling on the U.S. to limit these chemicals. France, Germany, Italy and other countries have all put restrictions on the use of neonicotinoids.

Kaplan: “The problem is – based on what evidence?”

Kim Kaplan is the lead spokesperson on Colony Collapse Disorder for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She says the USDA did a major survey of honeybee colonies and looked for pesticides.

“No class of pesticide is correlating with the incidence of CCD. How do you prove that a class of pesticide should be banned or more regulated for causing CCD?”

But a number of university researchers say the federal government might be overlooking the interaction of new pesticides with older bee diseases. New research in France shows that synergy can kill bees.

For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Asian carp have been making their way up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers toward the Great Lakes for decades. Bighead and silver carp are the species people are the most concerned about.

Government officials are trying to keep the carp out of Lake Michigan. One of the main methods they’re using is electrical shock. There’s a man-made canal near Chicago that connects the Mississippi River system with Lake Michigan. And on that canal is a system of three underwater electric barriers built by the Army Corps of Engineers.

I recently had a chance to visit the electric barriers. You can’t see the actual barriers, because the electrodes are underwater. But the Army Corps invited me into the control room of Barrier 2B. It looks about like you’d guess – lots of computers and gauges. There are a couple large mounted Asian Carp on the shelves.

Chuck Shea is a project manager with the Army Corps.

He says the barriers repel fish by emitting very rapid electric pulses into the water… which, if you’re a fish, is not a whole lot of fun.

“The idea is, as a fish swims in, the further it goes it’s getting a bigger and bigger shock and it realizes going forward is bad, it’s uncomfortable, and it turns around and goes out of its own free will and heads back downstream.”

The electric bill for this barrier runs between $40,000 and $60,000 a month.

Next week, the Corps is planning to crank up the juice on two of those barriers. They’ll be increasing the voltage, the pulse rate and how long those pulses last. They’re doing this to try to keep smaller Asian carp from getting through the electrical field.

“I think people sometimes think off the bat that big fish are tougher ones to deal with but actually with this electrical technology, bigger fish are easier to scare away than smaller fish.”

So… smaller fish are less likely to be bothered by the electrical shock… and theoretically… they could get through the barrier more easily than big fish.

The Corps said in a press release that they haven’t detected any small Asian carp near the barriers, but they want to turn up the settings to try to stop those smaller fish, just in case.

Chuck Shea says they’ve tested the higher settings on fish as small as two inches long.

So… the question is… whether really tiny Asian carp could get through the barriers even at the higher settings.

Jim Garvey is a fish ecologist at Southern Illinois University.

“It should block fish that are two inches or bigger. The big issue is when a carp is a juvenile they become free swimming at about half an inch or so. At that point, yeah, they could potentially move through. Now will they? We basically need to do a lot more ground work to figure that out.”

The other big question is whether there are already live Asian carp in Lake Michigan.

The Army Corps and scientists from the University of Notre Dame have repeatedly found DNA samples from silver and bighead carp above the electric barriers in the Chicago waterway.

David Lodge is a biologist at Notre Dame. He says these findings indicate the presence of carp near and possibly in Lake Michigan.

“The most troubling result we’ve had so far is finding DNA in Calumet Harbor. Which is depending on how you define it that’s either Lake Michigan or the Calumet River, we’re splitting hairs at that point. To that extent there’s evidence fish have certainly had access and perhaps there are some individuals in Lake Michigan.”

He says the presence of DNA does not necessarily mean there’s a live carp nearby. But he says it’s the most likely explanation.

The electric barriers on the Chicago canal system are getting a lot of attention – and money right now. But the Army Corps is also looking at 18 other possible waterways that Asian carp might use to get into the Lakes.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Charter fishing in Michigan represents a $20 million a year industry. But the number of charter trips on Lake Huron declined by almost 50 percent in the last decade – as the salmon fishery on the lake took a dive. And now the state has decided to end Chinook salmon stocking in most rivers along Lake Huron. Starting next spring, Chinook, or king salmon, will be stocked in just a few places in the northern part of the lake. Tom Kramer has more:

Salmon are not native to the Great Lakes.

They were introduced from the Pacific Ocean in the late ’60s and quickly became the most popular sport fish in the region.

Dramatic changes in the food web in Lake Huron caused by too many salmon and other exotic species like invasive mussels brought about the demise of the fishery around 2003.

That has been a huge economic blow to tourist towns along the coast but state officials say there’s nothing they can do to bring it back at this point.

One place the state hopes to keep a decent sport fishery for kings is in the Cheboygan River.

Todd Grischke manages Lake Huron for the Department of Natural Resources.

He says there might be more food for salmon out in the Straits of Mackinac.

“So there is a possibility that those fish that are planted there are finding forage that is not available to other parts of the lake to the south.”

But while Lake Huron is seeing the continuing collapse of its salmon fishery, it’s shaping up to be a banner year for salmon fishing in Lake Michigan.

Anglers are catching more big fish – a sign that there is more food for the salmon in the lake this year.

Boat launches on Betsie Bay, in Benzie County, are full of empty trailers; anglers are standing side-by-side on bridges over the Betsie River; and bait shops are bustling.

Jerry Kekal works at the Frankfort Tackle Box.

He’s looking at the results from this year’s Benzie Frenzy fishing tournament.

“See, so they had a lot of big fish, big fish. Look at that. 28. 28.”

As in 28 pounds.

That’s just the kind of year it’s been.

Dave Clapp is the manager at the Charlevoix Fisheries Research Station for the DNR.

They keep track of fish caught in Lake Michigan.

“A good number of 20-plus pounders and a few thirties thrown in around the lake. It’s definitely been a better year for bigger fish this year.”

Clapp says the bigger fish in Lake Michigan are thanks to a strong alewife hatch in 2010.

Alewives are an invasive fish that salmon like to eat.

Until this summer alewife numbers had been on the decline.

Those big salmon being caught now, they have been feeding on that strong class of alewives since last fall.

An Environment Report/Michigan Watch series: The Collapse of the Salmon Economy

Transcript

“When there’s food like that around the fish really take advantage of that quickly. And they can put on the weight.”

Clapp says the size and health of salmon are closely tied to the alewife population. And he says it’s difficult to predict when another strong alewife year will come around again.

What helps set this year apart is how bad the fishing was for most people last year.

According to the DNR, 2010 was the lowest harvest of Chinook and Coho from Lake Michigan in the last decade.

So as word spread of the numbers and size of fish being caught this year, anglers from around the state have been heading north.

Mike Henry is up from Waterford.

He came north with some friends after hearing from his boss how good the fishing is this year.

Mike doesn’t consider himself to be a serious fisherman, but his boss gave him some advice that makes catching salmon on the Betsie River sound easy.

“He just told me to fish where he fishes, do everything he does and I’ll catch fish.”

As far as totals for the year, the DNR still has employees, creel clerks, they’re called, visiting boat launches and counting the salmon coming in.

And though it may turn out to be a good year for salmon fishing on Lake Michigan, experts who watch the fishery closely say what’s happening on Lake Huron could be a warning of what might happen throughout the Great Lakes.

For the Environment Report, I’m Tom Kramer in Benzie County.

Officials in Mason County have given the green light to the first large scale wind farm near the Lake Michigan shore. Consumers Energy wants to have fifty-six turbines built and running before the end of next year. But some residents say in its rush to get going Consumers and the County are downplaying a serious threat to public safety. Bob Allen reports:

Natural gas pipelines run through the site of Consumers Energy’s wind park south of Ludington.

A group of residents says at least half a dozen of the windmills are within falling distance of a gas line. And they say if a turbine falls it could cause a pipeline to break with the risk of an explosion.

The pipes are buried four feet deep. Each turbine is nearly fifty stories tall. And it has a gear box, called a nacelle, that by itself weighs something like eighty tons.

Evelyn Bergaila is a member of the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Renewable Energy.

“These turbines they can fall flat out. And having an eighty ton nacelle fall on top of a gas line would be a disaster for our community.”

Mason County approved a permit for the wind farm a couple of weeks ago.

The citizens’ group then sent out a package of material asking the governor, state lawmakers and regulators for help.

One of the pipelines moves sour gas that contains hydrogen sulfide. It’s a hazardous chemical.

If you inhale enough of it, it can kill you.

An engineer who installed sour gas pipelines for Dow Chemical says it wouldn’t even take a direct hit of a turbine onto a gas line to cause a rupture.

John Kreinbrink told Mason County officials in a public hearing the shock wave alone could split open a weakened pipe that operates under high pressure.

“From the e-mails that I’ve seen I think that sour gas pipeline operates at 900 psi. And the concentrations of sour gas in that line are immediately lethal.”

Gas pipelines are regulated by the Michigan Public Service Commission. But the agency says it hasn’t run across this situation before. It doesn’t have a standard that says how far away wind turbines have to be from gas lines.

Dave Chislea is manager of gas operations for the MPSC.

He says he has searched around and hasn’t found any recommended setbacks in other states either. But he thinks the risk posed by a falling turbine is being exaggerated.

“I would say there’s a concern to some degree. But I’m not sure to the level that everyone else has made the concern.”

Chislea says it’s up to local governments to figure out how close turbines can be to existing gas pipelines.

Mason County doesn’t have a rule to specify that distance.

The County did say Consumers Energy had to relocate three of its turbines to get a permit. That was after the gas pipeline company complained.

In an e-mail obtained by the citizens group, the manager of the pipeline company said Consumers was steamrolling the project through and he would rather see more scrutiny than to sacrifice public safety.

Consumers declined to respond on tape for this story.

But County officials and Consumers, after a closed door meeting with pipeline engineers, say all the parties are now satisfied.

All except the citizen’s group.

Evelyn Bergaila agrees it’s a long shot that a turbine would topple over.

But she points out that it does happen.

“While the odds may be small, it doesn’t make any sense to be betting on the lives of the people in our community.”

Consumers Energy needs to get its Lake Winds Energy Park up and running to qualify for tens of millions of dollars in federal tax credits that are expiring at the end of next year.

The Citizens Alliance is considering whether it can afford to take the issue to court.

For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Two species of Asian carp, bighead and silver carp, have been swimming their way north toward the Great Lakes for decades. A lot of people are trying to keep the carp out of the Lakes.

Yesterday, attorneys general from around the country announced they’re putting more pressure on Congress to speed up action on Asian carp.

Some people think one solution is to create a market for the fish.

There are a couple of companies working to sell Asian carp to China… where the fish are considered a delicacy.

But winning over the American palate is much harder. Carp have a bit of an image problem…and they are full of bones.

“We are spoiled here, we like convenience. Everybody expects to have fish without bones, right? And that’s the issue.”

This is Chef Phillipe Parola. He’s from Baton Rouge and he wants you to learn to love Asian carp.

Parola is one of the chefs who tried to get Americans to eat nutria. Nutria look like oversized rats. So that didn’t go over so well.

Two years ago, Chef Parola found his new calling. He was out fishing in Louisiana, where the Asian carp are thick.

“With ten minutes, this fish started jumping everywhere. I’m like, what in the heck! Two of them, one after the other, landed right at my feet.”

He kept the giant carp, put them on ice, and took them home.

“To my surprise, when I saw the meat, as a professional chef, I knew right on that there’s no way that this fish could be bad, literally. When I went and cooked it, I’m going to tell you, it tasted between scallops and crab meat, there is no doubt.”

He’s learned to steam the fish to remove the bones. He’s working with his business partner, Chef Tim Creehan, to launch a processed Asian carp product to sell in grocery stores. They’ve even changed its name to make it more appealing. They’re calling it Silverfin.

(sound of cutting fish)

At the Dragonfly Mandarin restaurant in Chicago, the chefs are filleting a bighead carp for an audience of reporters.

(Phillipe: Can you hear the bones… crack crack crack, that’s the bones.”)

“And you’ve got the best, most beautiful flesh, it’s white, it’s appetizing! It’s a fish!”

And Chef Tim Creehan talked us into eating some carp.

“We went ahead and mixed these with béchamel French cream sauce, a little bit of cheese in it, used it to bind the cake, simply coated it with bread crumbs, and pan fried it, we’re serving it with a little spicy béarnaise sauce.”

So… the verdict?

It was pretty good. It didn’t taste fishy… it was similar to a crabcake. I’m not sure if it was the pan frying, or the buttery sauce… but it was surprising… and not in a bad way.

Now, to be clear, the chefs don’t see this as a way to get rid of the Asian carp. In fact, Chef Parola believes the carp are here to stay… which of course, could be good for business.
And this is where environmentalists and many scientists want to tread with caution.

David Lodge is a biologist at the University of Notre Dame.

“It’s always reasonable to make lemonade out of lemons. We have to be careful about how that’s described. It can at best be a contributor to a solution, it can’t be the solution.”

He says if a commercial harvest of Asian carp takes off… and people build an industry on the fish… there could be incentives to keep the carp around.

“Markets are not always compatible with the goal of eradicating a fish. So to drive the populations to a low abundance, there will have to be something other than purely a profit driven program.”

So even if Chefs Parola and Creehan can win over picky Americans with their silverfin cakes and fillets… it won’t be the end of the story of our Asian carp invasion.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

It’s been more than a year since a pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy ruptured. More than 840,000 gallons of tar sands oil spilled into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River.

The Environmental Protection Agency says much of that oil has been removed from the creek and the river. But the EPA says there are still close to one hundred areas of submerged oil on the bottom of the river. Enbridge is now working to remove that oil.

The company recently missed an EPA deadline to clean up all of the submerged oil and contaminated soils.

Jason Manshum is an Enbridge spokesperson.

“Well, you know, while we have focused on completing that directive by that deadline, we have not been willing to sacrifice that work quality solely in order to meet a specific date on a calendar.”

Manshum says they ran into a number of obstacles… hot weather, storms, and a shortage of the special equipment they need. And the biggest challenge: those areas of submerged oil expanded.

“Keep in mind, the river is obviously a moving body of water, nothing stays constant, nothing is the same. So we found some of those submerged oil locations had shifted and some had expanded.”

Both Enbridge and the EPA have previously stated that it’ll be impossible to clean up every last drop of oil.

“It’s pretty common, most people think it should be easy to get it all out, and it’s just really not.”

Mike Alexander is with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. He’s one of the incident commanders on the cleanup site.

“When you get down to smaller quantities, they get harder to get, just the nature of how the river’s different at different locations, it gets trickier, it’s not an easy project, it’s going to take time.”

The spill happened smack in the middle of some of the most sensitive wetland areas in the state.

Mike Alexander says the workers have to be careful not to damage the wetlands as they clean up the oil.

(buggy sound)

We take a marsh buggy ride out to the area where the pipeline ruptured, near Talmadge Creek. We travel over mat roads… they’re special temporary roads that are set up to limit the impact on the wetlands.

Todd Losee is a wetlands specialist with the DEQ.

“The spill occurred just upstream here, it’s a bowl shape as you can see, so it basically filled up with oil.”

He says this area is slowly coming back, with a lot of help.

“What we’re trying to do is restore a native wetland plant community, and the yellow flowers you see are a type of beggar’s tick, an annual plant that comes in pretty quick.”

Losee says it’s a good start… but trying to bring a wetland back takes years, even decades. He says the DEQ will hold Enbridge accountable for damage to these wetlands.

“Throughout the area where they’re impacting wetlands, we want them to put back wetlands and try to make it the best wetlands possible. Knowing that they may never be able to replace what they took, or what was impacted.”

And… he says there are some very special wetlands right in the heart of the spill zone. We climb back in the buggy and move to another site near Talmadge Creek.

Transcript

(stream sound… with digging sound starting up)

On this site, Enbridge contractors are collecting soil samples.

Todd Losee points out an area of wetlands to our right.

“This wetland has extreme botanical qualities – it’s going to support similar diversity of insect life, migratory birds and bats and some of the mammals that live in that type of system.”

He says this kind of wetland is considered to be rare and imperiled. He says before the oil spill, this was one of the highest quality wetlands in southern Michigan.

“The spill went right through it, basically.”

State and federal officials are working on a damage assessment to find out how much of these rare wetlands have been lost after the spill. And they’ll determine what Enbridge might be able to try to replace.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Detroit’s water department has been under federal oversight for almost 35 years. Recently, the city tried to get that oversight lifted. But the federal judge who monitors the department shot that effort down, and he ordered stakeholders to find a way to fix the system’s decades-long problems–within two months. Some people wonder about that short timeline—and whether some of the Judge’s suggestions hint at a possible takeover. Sarah Cwiek has the second of a two-part series on the future of Detroit’s water:

Judge Sean Cox’s September 9th order regarding the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has raised more than a few eyebrows. It has raised some tempers as well.

“There has been no public vote to give away, transfer, or dismantle the water department. We must stand and fight and sue if necessary.” [wild applause]

That’s the reaction Detroit City Council member JoAnn Watson got last week, when she vowed to take a stand against perceived attempts to “take over” Detroit’s municipal water system.

Detroit’s water department has been a source of controversy and argument for many years. But everyone agrees on a few basic things.

The first is that the system—one of the nation’s oldest and largest—provides millions of people across southeast Michigan with safe, high-quality drinking water. But on the other end—the sewage treatment side–it doesn’t always do so well. They’ve been cited many times for releasing too much waste into the Detroit River. That’s why the department has been under a federal consent decree since 1977.

The city recently tried to get out from under that longstanding oversight—over the objections of its suburban customers. But U.S. District Judge Sean Cox denied Detroit’s effort, and ordered officials to come up with a comprehensive plan to fix the system’s problems—all within two months.

Transcript

John McCulloch is the Water Resources Commissioner for Oakland County, one of the suburban counties that successfully protested Detroit’s efforts to end federal monitoring.

“Detroit’s well aware of what their problems are. So I don’t believe the 60 days is unrealistic.”

McCulloch says Judge Cox appropriately gave officials what he calls “a blank sheet of paper” to really fix them.

“And by that I mean he indicated they did not have to worry about any restrictions… city ordinances, city charter, or any contracts provided.”

But it’s that language that has raised many people’s hackles. Some Detroiters are already upset about a newly reconfigured water board that gives suburban officials some say in how the system is run. And they see this new order as a step toward even more regional control—and maybe, eventual privatization.

Lynna Kaucheck is with the group Food and Water Watch. She calls Judge Cox’s order a “heinous attack from the outside” on Detroit’s water system. Kaucheck says the order’s emphasis on ignoring city ordinances provides a back door route to private ownership.

“It’s really also the only way, at this point, that they can privatize the system… because of the current city charter, selling off an asset requires a vote by the people. That’s not gonna happen.”

But longtime department critic John McCulloch says the system belongs to Detroit. And he doesn’t necessarily favor privatization, either.

“I think privatization is always an option, but it’s not the panacea that some people make it out to be. I don’t think it’s in the best interest of Detroit and certainly of the region.”

But McCulloch says Detroit will need input from the whole region as it works to upgrade the system—both now and in the long run.

And that’s another thing everyone agrees on—there will need to be lots of upgrades. Detroit’s water infrastructure is among the nation’s oldest—in some cases, almost 200 years old. How the region chooses to deal with it may well set a precedent for other parts of the country.

For the Environment Report, I’m Sarah Cwiek.

Detroit’s water department is also under the spotlight for another reason.

Federal officials allege former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and others manipulated the system for profit over many years. A trial is slated for next year.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

If you live in southeast Michigan, chances are you get your water through Detroit’s municipal water system.

Detroit owns and operates the system that serves more than three million people. That’s long been a major source of tension between the city and suburban communities.

Some recent events have pushed questions about system’s long-term future into sharper focus. And it’s shaping up to be a battle.

Sarah Cwiek has the first of a two-part series:

In 2006, the state government and county governments got federal money to build a state-of-the-art, real-time drinking water monitoring system that serves more than million people in southeast Michigan.

But those funds have dried up, and no one set up a long-term funding source for the system, which costs about a million dollars a year to operate.

So, do some quick math. If everyone the system serves chipped in another 33 cents a year, everything would be fine, right? In theory, yes, says Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel.

“I’ve heard everything from 25 cents a year to a dollar a year per household. Whatever that might be, it’s very minimal.”

BUT—here’s the catch. All water rate hikes have to go through the city of Detroit. But some suburban officials don’t want to raise rates at all—they think Detroit sets the rates too high already.

And there, in a nutshell, is the reason a region blessed with an abundance of water still fights over it. The Detroit Water and Sewerage Department was built to serve—well, Detroit. But over the past 50 years, its service area has changed dramatically—Detroit’s population has plummeted, and the metro area has sprawled. And that’s become a problem.

[sound of people yelling]

One didn’t have to spend long at this week’s Detroit City Council to get the sense that Detroiters are passionate about maintaining control over their water department. Many call it one of the city’s remaining “jewels:” something the city has built and managed over nearly 200 years—one which Detroiters still disproportionately bear the legacy costs of. And they see increasing evidence that suburbs want to take control away.

At least, that’s how Detroiter Lee Gaddies sees it.

“Oakland and Macomb counties don’t want to build their own water department. They can’t afford to do it. They have attached on to the city of Detroit’s asset that the city of Detroit has built. Therefore, they are customers. They have no right to ownership.”

But suburban officials have long contested that view, and an agreement reached earlier this year reflects that. It re-organized the Water Board to provide for some suburban representation—though Detroit continues to oversee day-to-day operations.

Transcript

But even bigger changes may be in store. The department has been under federal oversight since 1977 for intermittent wastewater violations. Recently, a federal judge ordered stakeholders to come up with a plan to fix those ongoing problems—all within the next 60 days.

Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh is one of the people tasked with crafting that plan. He says it’s important for Detroit to keep control of the system.

“We will fight to the death to make sure that the city maintains control of the water and sewerage department. But at the same time, we want to be in compliance. We want to get out from under this judge’s order, and we want our water to be safe.”

Pugh doesn’t think the end goal is to wrest control away from Detroit.

“I don’t think that’s even an issue…that we lost ownership or control.”

But others see things in a more sinister light. They warn of impending moves to completely take over the water system—and possibly put it in private hands.

Those issues are set to be decided over the next two months—two months that will be crucial in shaping a water system that serves millions of people.

For the Environment Report, I’m Sarah Cwiek.

Many observers see red flags in a federal judge’s order to craft a plan for fixing the Detroit water department in the next 60 days. They read the Judge’s suggestion that officials ignore the city charter and union contracts as a warning—that the system will be regionalized, and possibly handed over to a private corporation. We’ll hear more about this on Tuesday on the next Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Grand Rapids, Adrian and Ann Arbor are taking part in a tree study that could help other Michigan cities assess their own urban forests. Lindsey Smith reports the study will make a tree assessment more accurate and affordable for cities:

Grand Rapids spent tens of thousands of dollars to find more information about the city’s trees. They came away with valuable information like how much greenhouse gases and water runoff the trees absorb. But city owned trees make up only a tiny portion of the overall urban forest in Grand Rapids.

Tyler Stevenson is the city forester. He says they discovered more than half of Grand Rapids’ trees are maples.

“Is that true for the entire community – we don’t know. And it’d be interesting information and it would also help to increase the awareness of the public on how valuable the trees on their property are.”

Federal officials will use the data from the study to enhance existing software. Other communities in Michigan will be able to use that software for free to calculate data about their own trees.

(music sting)

This is the Environment Report.

Here in Michigan, we have the world’s largest collection of dead fish. At least, the world’s largest collection that’s based at a university.

There are about 3.5 million fish in this collection. It belongs to the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan.

“I’m Bill Fink, I’m the director of the Museum of Zoology and curator of fishes.”

He’s offered to take me on a guided tour. We take the elevator to the basement… where there’s row after row of shelves full of glass jars… full of fish.

(glass jars clinking)

“These specimens are from Japan and they were collected in 1920s – we have specimens that are well over a hundred years old now and they look fine.”

Bill Fink says these fish have been collected from all over the world, sometimes at great risk to the scientists. He points out the box of jars from Vietnam.

“They were collecting during war, the Mekong River Survey, they were shot at and captured and escaped and there were lots of adventures.”

Bill Fink is not just the curator here… he also goes out in the field. He says some of the fish themselves are dangerous for the collectors.

“We also have a huge collection of piranhas right here…”

(rolling of trunk)

“I’ve been there when people have been bitten but I personally have not been bitten. I’m really careful.”

Fink shows me some amazing fish… like the tiny anglerfish with its appendage that glows in the dark at the bottom of the ocean.

Transcript

And there’s a special sort of vault here.

(keys jingling, opening lock)

“This room contains what are called type specimens. When new species is described, a single specimen is taken to be the name bearer – so there’s never any question about what that name applies to.”

So these fish are especially valuable.

Bill Fink holds up a jar with a red label. It’s a sucker from Arkansas collected in the 1890s. This species is now extinct. So Fink says he couldn’t dissect the fish specimen to study it. He took this very special fish to the University of Texas to use their CT scanner to study the fish’s skeleton.

“I hand carried it with me to Texas before the days they stopped you and frisked you – RW: ‘that’s more than 3 fluid ounces’ – it is! Probably I wouldn’t be allowed on the plane with it.”

A number of these fish represent species that are extinct. Fink says that makes the collection irreplaceable. And in fact, it’s a lending library. Scientists around the world can literally check out fish – or their tissues – and use them to ask questions about genetics, evolution, climate change.

“The fact we have these materials, we have them archived, we have them documented means can go back and apply new technologies to ask new questions we couldn’t even have imagined when specimens were being collected. It’s really cool.”

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

A few months ago, reports started coming in that an herbicide made by DuPont was hurting and killing trees. The Environmental Protection Agency recently ordered DuPont to stop selling the herbicide Imprelis. DuPont had suspended sales shortly before that. The herbicide was used by lawn care companies to kill weeds on lawns and golf courses starting last fall.

Bert Cregg is an associate professor of horticulture at Michigan State University.

He says Imprelis can cause a range of different injuries to blue spruce, Norway spruce and white pine.

“You might see like in a big white pine, you might see a little bit of top growth doesn’t look quite right, you’ll see the twisting and curling, stunting of the top of the tree, in other cases, yeah we’ve seen the tree killed outright.”

This week, DuPont announced a program to process damage claims from property owners. DuPont declined an interview. But in a statement, the company said property owners with approved claims will receive replacement trees – or cash compensation.

DuPont’s also facing a number of lawsuits.

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This is the Environment Report.

Decades ago, residents sued to stop a fish hatchery in northern Michigan from polluting a lake. More than thirty years later, the legal battles have ended and the pollution has been greatly reduced. Here’s more from Peter Payette:

Northern Michigan is home to some of the clearest blue lakes in the world, like Torch, Glen and Crystal.

Once upon a time Wilfred Sweicki says Platte Lake in Benzie County was in that league.

“It was extremely clear, never quite as clear as Crystal or Glen but nearly so.”

Unfortunately for Sweicki and other homeowners on Platte, fishery biologists did something nearby that changed the Great Lakes dramatically.

They planted Pacific salmon in the Platte River.

That was in the late sixties and soon a billion dollar fishery was born.

A hatchery was built and animal waste from millions of fish began pouring into Platte Lake. The waste contained the nutrient phosphorus.

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Phosphorous caused algae to bloom, clouding the water and killing a variety of aquatic animals and plants.

It even caused chemical changes in the sediment of the lake bottom that produced milky clouds of a clay-like substance that collects on stones and docks.

Swiecki remembers the change.

“I spent my summers up here when I was a kid…I knew this lake like the back of my hand…went to college…came back up and oh my gosh, it was 1969 and we lost the lake.”

A few years later homeowners sued.

They won but getting the problem under control has been a slow and contentious process.

Over the years, the state has reduced the amount of phosphorous going into the lake and it has cleared up.

Recently, the state and the Platte Lake Improvement Association have made great strides.

For the last year and a half the amount of phosphorous escaping the hatchery has been close to zero.

Gary Whelan oversees the state’s hatchery system for the Department of Natural Resources. Whelan says they didn’t think it was possible to get the discharge levels this low.

“We’re as low as any place I’m aware of in North America.”

The other notable thing about all this is that the dispute ended on a friendly note.

Wilfred Swiecki says the fight was nasty at times. He compares the DNR in the seventies to automobile companies fighting against rules for tailpipe emissions.

But he speaks highly of Gary Whelan. He says under Whelan the state even hired the lake association’s expert witness to be their consultant.

“They had enough faith in his scientific abilities…he’s now our implementation coordinator.”

But the work isn’t entirely finished. Under the settlement agreement the state still has to pay for monitoring of the hatchery for at least another four years.

For the Environment Report, I’m Peter Payette.