Month: September 2000

Zebra mussels have been a problem in the Great Lakes region for morethan a decade. The fingernail sized invasive species has threatenednative plant and animal populations. It has also wreaked havoc withwaterfront industries and commercial fishing. But the pest has recentlydisappeared from one of the main rivers in the region. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports scientists are trying to figureout why:

Transcript

Zebra Mussels have been a problem in the Great Lakes region more than
a decade. The fingernail sized invasive species has threatened native
plant and animal populations. It’s also wreaked havoc with waterfront
industries and commercial fishing. But the pest has recently disappeared
from one of the main rivers in the region. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports scientists are trying to figure out why:

(Ambient sound of the river)

It’s a cool summer morning on the banks of the Illinois River near
Havana. Water is gently washing up against a pile of rocks on this bend of
the river half way between St. Louis and Chicago. Just a few years ago,
these rocks were covered with Zebra Mussels. The bottom of the Illinois
River had a six inch deep carpet of the invasive species when they were at
their peak in the early nineties. But now there are only a few Zebra
Mussels stuck to these smooth rocks. Bob Williamson is the Director of
Commercial Fishing for the Illinois Department of Natural resources. He
says fishermen on the lower Illinois river stopped complaining about Zebra
mussels about a year ago:

“Prior to that if they put a net down for any
period of time, or any kind of gear or a boat or anything in the water, they
would be encrusted with these things. And I was getting reports from
everyone that it wasn’t happening anymore, that they weren’t seeing them.”

Williamson says he canvassed a twenty mile stretch of the river and only
found three live Zebra mussels. He says he was surprised by the results,
and doesn’t know why it happened. Researchers are trying to find out.

(Ambient sound in the lab)

Biologist Jim Stoeckel is working in his lab at the Havana Field Station.
It’s a weekend, but he came to work to check on the Zebra mussels housed in
two dozen aquariums in the less than spacious room at the state run
facility. Stoeckel is running tests to find out what could be reducing the
Zebra mussels population on the lower Illinois River. Stoeckel says so far
the research seems to be pointing at the large amount of sediment in the
river. He says since Zebra mussels eat by filtering food from flowing
water, a large amount of dirt and silt makes it very hard for them to eat:

“So they have to expend, in some cases have to
expend more energy separating out the food particles from the non food
particles. And that can result in a lower growth rate, or even death.”

Stoeckel says the warmer water temperatures in the Illinois may also be
adding to the disappearance of the Zebra mussels. Pat Charlebois is a
biologist with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant. She says if those
preliminary results hold up. the findings are troubling. That’s because if
sediment is the reason for the disappearance of the Zebra Mussel, then the
river has bigger problems than an invasive species.

“Some people may see it as we are controlling
Zebra mussels in this way, but that is not a final solution for the control
of Zebra mussels to heat up the water and add sediment. I don’t think most
people would look at that as a final solution.”

She says the discovery may lead to a better understanding of the invasive
species, but it doesn’t lead to a quick fix to the problem. Biologist Jim
Stoeckel agrees. He says sediment is also hurting native plants and animals
in the river, and is a much bigger problem than a proliferation of an
invasive species.

“So in the overall picture, it would be much
better to clean up the suspended solids problem and perhaps deal with higher
populations of Zebra Mussels in the future.”

Stoeckel says discovering relationship between sedimentation and lower
Zebra Mussel populations is, at best, a mixed bag. He says he wants to
continue his research on to see if a better understanding of these pests may
lead to a practical way to control the Zebra Mussel. For the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

A new housing movement, called co-housing, is beginning to establishitself in the Great Lakes region. Co-housing is chiefly a socialexperiment, a new way to build a community. But as the Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports, often co-housing alsoincorporates an environmentally friendly approach:

Transcript

A new housing movement called co-housing is beginning to establish itself in
the Great Lakes region. Co-housing is chiefly a social experiment, a new way
to build a community. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… often co-housing also incorporates an environmentally
friendly approach.

(Sound of crickets and steps on gravel)

Just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ruth Carey is showing us
two still
ponds nestled in the hill prairie meadows near her home.

“There’s a great blue heron that for the last two years has been in
the are for most of the summer. I’ve seen it several mornings during this
month down here in the larger pond.”

Carey’s home is one of forty townhouse-like units in a co-
housing complex
called sunward. Sunward is an intentional community. People
who want to know
their neighbors in a real and up close way buy homes here.
They also buy
access to a central common house and kitchen if they choose
to use them and
freedom to roam the woods and meadows around the housing
units. Ruth Carey
says preserving the land was important.

“Well, about use of land is probably one of the primary reasons that
we’re here, because this community thought carefully about the use of these
20 acres and purposely built housing on only about three-and-a-half or four
acres of it so the rest could be the woods and stay the woods and a lot of
it could be in open prairie and there could be open space. And it’s an
important consideration for my husband and me both in terms of where we live
and how the land is used.”

The use of the land was one of the first considerations in
planning the
co-housing units. Michael McIntyre is one of Carey’s
neighbors and was
involved in the early planning of the community.

“One of the key attractions of this site in addition to all of the
natural beauty of the woods and the ponds and the meadows that were already
here was that there was an existing abandoned gravel pit right in the middle
of the site which was sizeable enough to do our housing development on. So,
we actually built on the gravel pit, with a fair bit of earth moving on top
of that and we’re able to only very slightly on the woods and the meadows,
so while we recognize we’re certainly part of urban sprawl, being outside of
the city here, it was one way we could minimize the impact of that.”

While the environment is not the major focus of the co-housing
movement, most of the 50 or so, co-housing developments across the
nation like the one
in Ann Arbor do take special pains to tread lightly on the
land.

Kathryn McCamant is one of the principal architects of the
firm, the
co-housing company. The company has designed several co-
housing
communities.

“The definition of co-housing has– includes no definition about
environmental philosophy, but what we find is that the people attracted to
co-housing tend to have relatively strong environmental views.”

And McCamant says as planning discussions take place, those
views are
expressed.

“And because of that, they are quite intention in terms of how
the development, the design, and the lifestyle can reduce their impact on
the land. And so, you actually find that the consideration of environmental
issues is quite consistent among co-housing communities across the country.”

(Loud traffic sounds)

And that green ethic is not limited to the countryside. Here in
the heart of
Chicago. The acme artists housing cooperative is in the design
phase. A
group of artists has already purchased three connected
buildings. Laura
Wethered is coordinating the development effort. In a
warehouse section of
the buildings, she sees a bit of garden in the middle of the
concrete.

“By taking the roof and the floor off the center of it and
creating a village green, all of the units open out into this central
courtyard and the community, so it’s kind of a main thoroughfare for
pedestrian traffic.”

Weathered also notes the acme artists are tapping into
grants and subsidies
to be energy efficient. Over the long term the site will be
environmentally
friendly too. It’s right next to the el, Chicago’s elevated
train, reducing
the need for cars. The community is also making other green
plans. Batya
Hernandez is on the recycling committee.

“And so, we have arleady definitely decided, yeah, we will
recycle. We also have a green committee. And so, we’re planning, besides the
courtyard space and the rooftop deck, a rooftop greenhouse. So, we pretty
much has concensus on that. I mean, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.”

Co-housing planners say the intentional communities also help
the
environment in other ways. Instead of driving the kids to
daycare… many
co-housing communities offer day care. Many offer office
services, so people
can work from home instead of commuting. And sometimes
it’s a simple as
getting an onion from the community garden or borrowing a
cup of sugar from
a neighbor instead of driving to the supermarket.

For people who like the isolation of suburbs, co-housing
communities might
not be attractive, but co-housing advocates say in the long-
term, their
lifestyle choice goes a long way to substantially reduce
impact to the
environment.

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

Century-old logs that have rested on the bottom of lakes and rivers inthe Great Lakes region are finding new life as prized furniture,paneling, cabinets and picture frames. But the hottest demand for thelong sunken wood may be from musicians, as they discover the tone andresonance of water soaked wood. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s BobKelleherreports:

Transcript

Century old logs that have rested on the bottom of lakes and rivers in the Great
Lakes region are finding new life as prized furniture, paneling, cabinets and picture
frames. But the hottest demand for the long sunken wood may be from musicians, as
they discover the tone and resonance of water soaked wood. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bob Kelleher reports.

Scott Mitchen logs old growth timber, huge red and white pines,
cedar
and maples that are rarely seen anymore, except on the bottoms of
rivers
and lakes. Ten years ago Mitchen was looking for shipwrecks under Lake
Superior but found instead a fortune of sunken logs. Huge logs, some
several feet across … the remnants of the old growth pine and
hardwoods cut 150 years ago. Thousands of the logs waterlogged and sank as they
were floated outside waterfront sawmills. They’ve been preserved since on
the lake bottom, in cold, fresh water.

“This wasn’t meant to go to the bottom and stay there. This was meant to be utilized.”

{Sound of mill}

Mitchen’s discovery has grown into a bustling business, now housed in a
sprawling, and dank, manufacturing building in Ashland, Wisconsin. He
calls the recovered wood Timeless Timber. Its density and tight growth
rings make it popular for fine furniture, paneling and floors. But its
most alluring use might be on stage where it makes spectacular
musical instruments.

“Every instrument maker and musician alive today wishes they could
go back; a hundred to four hundred, five hundred years ago, and use the wood
Stradivari’s used.”

Mitchen says wood grown today is different from wood grown centuries
ago. The ancient forests grew slowly, in the shade of a canopy of needles or
leaves. This slow growth created narrow growth rings. Such rings make
beautiful wood, and might also help create the tone in a wooden musical
instrument. But the real key to the timber Mitchen is harvesting is the
lumber’s long soak in very cold water. The wood is amazingly
preserved, but the wood cells have become hollow.

“When dried you have a zillion hollowed out cell walls that act like
speaker cabinets that resonate the wood. In drums it’s thirty percent
longer; in guitars it’s fifty to seventy percent longer. It various per
instrument, from harps to flutes. Just about everything’s been made that
I know of outside of a piano right now.”

California-based Drum Workshop Inc. has sold Timeless Timber drum sets
to set the beat for bands like N’Sync, Aerosmith and Rush. A Waukesha,
Wisconsin Company expects to turn our two hundred Timeless Timber
guitars.

Eau Claire Wisconsin violin make Scott Hootman says the tight annual
rings and hollow fibers creates a pine with amazing sound qualities.

“You have some, absolutely wonderful sounding wood. You can take
the billets, when you quarter the tops out, and you can hold them and rap on
them, and they ring. It’s just fantastic.”

He’s been building with Timeless Timber since 1997, making violins,
mandolins, cellos, and dulcimers.

{Sound of violin}

Ashland Violinist Debra Powers says the water creates magic in a musical
instrument.

“There’s something about wood that’s been submerged in water, that
enlarges the cells of the wood. And it helps it capture the sound,
better. It’s exactly how Antonio Stradivarius made his violins, and his violins are the best in the world.”

The top of Power’s violin is carved from ancient spruce, and the bottom
and ribs from a wood called curly maple. Powers say the result is a violin
with a very resonate sound.

“It rings beautifully, just .. (pling, pling) … and, I … it’s
not like putting any effort into playing it. It plays itself. (plinks)
It rings for a long time, it just has a beautiful resonance to it.”

It’s been ten years since Scott Mitchen first pulled water soaked logs
from the bottom of Lake Superior. The business has always been a struggle
between bureaucrats and regulations. There’s never enough cash. But
the tide may have turned. Now merged with a publicly traded company called
Enviro-Recovery Inc., Mitchen’s Timeless Timber is beginning to sell.
A major chain store is ready to market products from cutting boards to
floor panels.

“They want you to be able to guarantee a certain amount of board
footage every month, of a certain grade, of a certain species. And we’ve
never had that opportunity until this year.”

Mitchen’s Timeless timber is now harvested in New York, Michigan and two
Canadian Provinces. But, It’s hard to maintain supply when northern
lakes
freeze. So the company has expanded to southern rivers and swamps
and all the way to South America, where they’ve acquired a Brazilian
firm with logging rights from under the Amazon river. Just the trees still
standing behind Amazon dams could provide years of ancient lumber.

“Um, we have a reserve down there that’s estimated at ninety
billion board feet, with the third most common species mahogany.”

(Sound of violin)

But most gratifying may be the musical instrument market where the
wood can be seen, and heard.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bob Kelleher.

A decision several years ago to bring power from Canada to the GreatLakes has led to major problems for a group of Native Americans livingin northern Manitoba. That’s because dams were built on their land tosupply that power. The dams, and the lakes they created, have altered alarge portion of the landscape. They’ve also adversely affected thetraditional lifestyle of many Cree Indians. Now, with soaring demandfor energy coming from the Great Lakes region, Manitoba Hydro isconsidering new contracts for yet more dams. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Mary Stucky reports:

Transcript

A decision several years ago to bring power from Canada to the Great Lakes
has led to major problems for a group of Native Americans living in northern
Manitoba. That’s because dams were built on their land to supply that power.
The dams, and the lakes they created, have altered a large portion of the
Manitoba landscape. They’ve also adversely affected the traditional
lifestyle of many Cree Indians living there.
Now, with soaring demand for energy coming from the Great Lakes region,
Manitoba Hydro is considering new contracts for yet more dams in Manitoba.
Opposition to the new dams is growing, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary
Stucky reports, there is disagreement over the new development
among the Cree themselves.

(Sound of water lapping)

Until not that long ago, life for the Cree First Nation in Northern
Manitoba was idyllic …surrounded by nature’s plenty, they were able to
sustain their indigenous way of life by living off the land. But that was
before the water projects began. Sandy Beardy is an 80-year-old Cree elder
who lives in Cross Lake, a community of 5 thousand and one of the hardest
hit by hydro development.

“All this land ever since the dam was built, all of
it’s disappeared, the game, the birds of the air just pass by, they used
to stop and feed, but they don’t anymore. The environment is
totally destroyed, that we used to enjoy.”

(Sound of generators)

Beardy says in addition to this high environmental price, the Crees,
received little economic benefit from all the current dam projects. So the
overall cost to the Cree has been immense.. But the price for U.S.
consumers in the Midwest has been small. That’s because hydro power in
relatively cheap. And with the demand for energy outstripping supply, new
dams in Manitoba are on the drawing board. …a boon to the Manitoba
economy, according to the provincial premier Gary Doer, who promises
Indians will finally share in the profits of any new hydro development.

“Our cabinet has decided there will not be any dams built
unless there is economic opportunity for aboriginal people. That’s a
difference. That’s a change and long overdue.”

Four of five bands of Cree Indians in Manitoba are cooperating with
Manitoba Hydro to share in the profits from new dams. Victor Spence is a
Cree from Split Lake, one of the bands negotiating with
Manitoba Hydro.

“We are doing it in a different way, more diplomatic,
negotiating instead of the ways of confrontation and conflict.”

However, unlike their neighbors in Split Lake, The Cross Lake Cree refuse
to negotiate any new deals with Hydro . They oppose new dams, and instead
are holding firm to a 1977 agreement. That agreement promised to clean up
the environmental damage caused by the dams and to compensate the Indians
for economic and social costs. Cross Lake Cree leader Tommy Monias says
that agreement has never been honored.

“Clean the debris, clean the standing dead trees,
stabilize the shorelines. We’re not asking for dollars, all we’re
asking is for implementation of that agreement.”

In the meantime, Monias says he can’t be bought off by promises of new
riches from the next round of dams.

“At the end of the day I’m pretty sure you cannot eat money.”

The Cross Lake Cree, meanwhile, have some powerful new allies south of
the border in the U.S.

(Protest sound)

This fall the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission will decide whether to
allow a new contract between the former Northern States Power — now called
Excel Energy — and Manitoba Hydro. Diane Peterson, is a Twin Cities
Quaker, she’s one of dozens of people from environmental and religious
groups who’ve been protesting every week in downtown St Paul
Minnesota. Peterson says they want to pressure the Commission into not
signing the deal.

“I’m incensed that Manitoba Hydro for short term monetary
profit is going to destroy the North American environment. It’s time
for North Americans to start respecting our red neighbors who were here
before us.”

But the best way to respect native people is to allow a new
contract, according to Joe Keeper a Cree from Manitoba who’s working with
Hydro.

“Right now the Split Lake Cree and others are trying to
work out an arrangement with Hydro so they can get some benefits from their
own land. Now if suddenly this is stopped, the people who are going to be
hurt in the final analysis are the northern Cree.”

But the Cross Lake Cree call cash from hydro development dirty money. For
them it’s a matter of right and wrong….part of a bigger conversation
about justice for native people and the environmental costs of hydro
electric power. But despite the protests, new hydro development is likely,
at least if Manitoba Hydro has it’s way….. It’s plentiful, cheap and so
far at least, it appears there’s nearly insatiable demand in the
U.S. Perhaps most importantly, many of the Indians say it’s finally their
turn to profit from nature’s bounty.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Stucky.

This fall, an ultralight airplane will take off from central Wisconsin with 14 sandhill cranes in tow. The ultralight will lead the cranes across the Great Lakes region and on to Florida – where the birds will spend the winter. This is the latest attempt to teach wild birds how to migrate. But the challenge lies in ensuring the birds don’t become tame. That’s exactly what happened to another group of sandhill cranes now living in New York. Their fate has led some to question whether the birds are being treated fairly. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

This fall, an ultralight airplane will take off from
central Wisconsin with 14 sandhill cranes in tow.
The ultralight will lead the cranes across the Great
Lakes region and on to Florida – where the birds will
spend the winter. This is the latest attempt to teach wild birds how to
migrate.
But the challenge lies in ensuring the birds don’t
become tame. That’s exactly what happened to another group of sandhill
cranes now living in New York. Their fate has led some to question
whether the birds are being treated fairly. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports.

Paul Tebbel knows first hand how wild sandhill cranes
react to the sight of a human. He’s the manager of Audobon’s Rowe Sanctuary for
cranes in central Nebraska.
Every spring, hundreds of thousands of the birds stop
there on their way north.
Tebbel says it’s an amazing spectacle – but it’s
impossible to witness it up close.

“To simply get out of a car 100 yards away from
those cranes, they will flush away from you and if you
were to walk towards them, they would leave the area
en masse.”

(Crane calling)

Which makes this crane at the Berkshire Bird
Paradise in upstate New York rather unusual.
He and another crane arrived a few weeks ago after a
wildlife biologist picked them up in Central New York
state.
Their long, thin beaks are as sharp as a dagger.
So, folks got nervous when the four foot tall birds
started hanging around their neighborhood.
Peter Dubacher runs the Berkshire Bird Paradise.
He plays with the crane as it tries to pull a ring off
his finger.

“Notice how docile this one is. This guy was
raised in captivity so he never had a chance to learn
the ropes of what it takes to survive.”

And this crane isn’t alone.
Reports have come in of four more wandering around
central New York.
The cranes were part of an experiment run by a
Canadian group called Operation Migration.
They work with researchers all over North America to
train wild birds how to migrate.
Their project was featured in the film, Fly Away Home.
These cranes were raised at the National Wildlife
Research Center in Patuxent, Maryland.
They were taught to follow an ultralight airplane from
Maryland to Operation Migration’s headquarters in
Ontario, Canada.
Once the experiment was done, they were released on a
refuge in New York.
But they didn’t stay there long.
And, according to New York conservation officer Ward
Stone, that’s when the trouble started.

“The bird had been acting very tame, eating out
of people’s hands, following kids around a school bus
wait. I think the lesson here is that some of these
experiments can go awry and I think this is one that
did.

But Heather Ray of Operation Migration disagrees.
She says, when they first started their experiments,
they did accidentally tame some birds.
Their goal was to tame the birds to the airplane, so
they would fly behind it.
But the birds got used to humans as well.
They learned to trust people and associate them with
food.
She says this time, the researchers used costumes so
the birds would not recognize them as human.

“Those birds never saw a human being, never heard
a human voice. The only human activity and things that
they saw were costumed figures that were wearing big,
flowing gray costumes that came down to the ankle.”

However, a recent study in the journal Conservation
Biology questions the use of costumes.
It reports condors raised by people wearing costumes
in California were inadvertently tamed.
Ray maintains the cranes were tamed by humans after
they were released.
But even when mistakes are made, she says the errors
are far outweighed by the importance of the group’s
task.
They’re using sand hill cranes as guinea pigs for
future experiments with the endangered whooping crane.

The two birds are closely related.
And the hope is to establish new populations of
whooping cranes by teaching them different migration
routes.
Paul Tebbell at Nebraska’s Rowe sanctuary says many
biologists agree that other animals might have to be
sacrificed for the whooping crane’s cause.
He says that’s because the situation is desperate –
there are fewer than 2 hundred whooping cranes left in
the wild.
But he argues scientists still have obligations to the
animals they work with.

“If you’re going to take sandhill cranes
and you’re going to tame them, there needs to be
someone to take care of those cranes for the rest of
their lives. That’s a must in my mind. I don’t think
any researchers have the right to use these birds and
then cast them out to be on their own when they
haven’t had the proper training in being a crane.”

(Sound of crane)
Despite the controversy, the work with migrating
cranes continues.
But for sandhill cranes like this one, living in
captivity in New York, there will be no more trips
south.
The winters will be spent in a greenhouse – a
sacrifice made in an attempt to save another crane
from disappearing altogether.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.