Cure for Frog Killing Fungus?

  • A solution may have been discovered to save frogs from the chytrid fungus (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Frogs are in trouble. A nasty disease caused by a fungus is wiping out frogs around the world. But researchers might have found a solution. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Frogs are in trouble. A nasty disease caused by a fungus is wiping out frogs around the world. But researchers might have found a solution. Rebecca Williams has more:

A disease caused by something called chytrid fungus is sweeping through frogs. When the disease moves through a frog population it can wipe out 80% of the entire population. Scientists have been rushing to find something that might help.

Reid Harris is a biologist at James Madison University. He says he’s discovered there are friendly bacteria that live on some types of frogs. And they can kill the fungus.

“It does seem like the pathogen moves in this predictable wave, so you might be able to get out in front of that wave sort of like a fire line.”

Harris says it might be possible to give wild frogs extra doses of the bacteria to fight off the fungus. But first they have to make sure there won’t be side effects.

For The Environment Report I’m Rebecca Williams.

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New Polar Bear Rule for Oil

  • Oil companies are legally protected from any accidental harm caused by trucks, boats and experiments that alter the polar bear’s environment (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Just when you thought polar bears in the United States were safe under the Endangered Species Act… they’re facing a new threat. The Bush Administration has announced regulations that allow oil companies to harass polar bears while they explore for oil off the coast of Alaska. Richie Duchon has more:

Transcript

Just when you thought polar bears in the United States were safe under the Endangered Species Act… they’re facing a new threat. The Bush Administration has announced regulations that allow oil companies to harass polar bears while they explore for oil off the coast of Alaska. Richie Duchon has more:

Oil companies can’t kill polar bears. That still brings a penalty. But they are legally protected from any accidental harm caused by trucks, boats and experiments that alter the polar bear’s environment.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Bruce Woods says oil exploration is not much to worry about.

“Believe me, you won’t find more concern for the polar bear anywhere than you will in this office, but we just don’t really believe that this activity at this level poses any significant threat. The threat to the polar bear is the loss of sea ice.”

Environmental groups are furious. They say the loss of sea ice from global warming is a threat to the polar bear, but they say we need to minimize other threats with a moratorium on oil exploration.

For The Environment Report, I’m Richie Duchon.

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Grand Bridge Scaled Back for Birds

  • A tern chick at Mille Lacs Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats:

Transcript

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats.

Every year, millions of people cross the mighty Niagara River on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo, New York to Canada. And many of them sit for hours in a traffic jam. The border crossing and passport checks slow things down. But there are just not enough lanes for all the traffic.

Ice delivery man Tim Holliday is one of those who is fed up with hours and hours of bridge delays.

“Like, I gotta go to the duty-free here, and when I’m coming out of here I have to go through customs and they always ask, what were you doing in Canada?” said Holliday. “I’m just sick of the hassles, you know?”

Transportation officials say a new bridge is needed. The traffic problems will only get worse. Because of increased trade, about eleven million additional travelers are expected to be using the Peace Bridge over the next decade.

And that’s a headache for Ron Rienas. He manages the busy international bridge crossing. He says building a new bridge would help with the traffic delays and help with national security.

“This is a border improvement project designed to address redundancy issues, security issues, traffic flow, all of those things, maintenance issues…all of those are impacted by not being able to proceed with the project,” said Rienas.

A second bridge has been designed. It’s a cable-stayed bridge with towers as high as the Washington monument.

Brian Higgins is Congressman for the area. He’s pushing for federal approval of the impressive cable design. He says the region needs an iconic symbol of progress.

“We are in the eleventh hour of a project that’s been going on for fifteen years. We need additional capacity at the Peace Bridge to promote the efficient, predictable flow of commerce between the United States and Canada – we need an iconic bridge, a signature bridge,” said Higgins.

But that signature bridge is exactly the kind of design that is dangerous to many birds.

And the Niagara River is a virtual highway for nearly three hundred kinds of birds. The cables can be invisible to the birds and they can fly into them and die.

Among those birds is the Common Tern. It’s an endgangered species.

Terry Yonker knows these and other birds better than most.

“We probably documented somewhere in the range of half a million birds, and there’s a common tern right there.”

Yonker is a scientist and a former Ornithological Society president. He wrote an environmental study that recommended against the bridge’s cable design because it could kill hundreds of different kinds of birds, including the endangered tern.

Yonker says even if it avoided hitting the cables by flying over the bridge, the tern would be stressed by such a tall bridge design. That’s because it has to make eight trips over the bridge each day to feed its young. But he says it probably wouldn’t make that many trips if the new bridge is any higher than the Peace Bridge.

“You raise that structure and they’ll have to spend a lot of energy doing that. They’ll maybe make five or six trips a day and that means one or two chicks are going to get less food out there,” said Yonker.

The other concern is a food source for the tern.

Fishery experts say the enormous piers would change water currents, eventually killing off the Emerald Shiner. That’s the tiny fish the endangered bird feeds on.

So a new design is being recommended: A lower bridge with smaller piers to protect the tern and the emerald shiner.

Federal and state agencies are working to find a way to mitigate the threat to the birds and fish by altering the plans for the new bridge. But environmental experts say you can’t mitigate extinction.

Environmentalists and some biologists say the common tern is more than an endangered bird. They say it’s a warning, about what happens when sound science is ignored for the sake of progress.

But, try explaining that to the people stuck in traffic for hours because a second bridge is being blocked to save a small bird and a little fish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Big Plans for Big Livestock Farm

  • Bion's proposed project would consist of 84,000 beef cattle (Photo by Bill Tarpenning, courtesy of the USDA)

Corporations are taking a new approach to farming. They’re combining ethanol production with feeding animals. The corporations need land, water, and a willing community. They turn to economically depressed rural communities and promise jobs. But some researchers think these rural communities could end up with more problems than benefits. Kinna Ohman reports:

Transcript

Corporations are taking a new approach to farming. They’re combining ethanol production with feeding animals. The corporations need land, water, and a willing community. They turn to economically depressed rural communities and promise jobs.But some researchers think these rural communities could end up with more problems than benefits. Kinna Ohman reports:

Bion Environmental Technologies is just like a lot of big businesses trying to capitalize on the ethanol trend.

Over the past year, people from Bion have been working with local officials in St. Lawrence County, a rural area of northern New York. Bion plans to build their first project there. It’ll be a huge indoor feedlot for eighty four thousand beef cattle and a large corn ethanol plant.

They have everything accounted for – they’ll ship cattle and corn in from the Midwest. They’ll use distiller’s grain from the ethanol plant to help feed the cattle. And they’ll even use manure from the cattle to power the ethanol plant.

Jeff Kappell is a manager with Bion. He says this kind of scale and integration is the future of agriculture. And he thinks it’ll be great for the community,

“Establishing a brand and establishing the ability, the knowledge in a consumer marketplace that there is value associated with activity in St. Lawrence County is a tide that can rise all boats. So we see this as symbiotic.”

But not everyone agrees. They wonder how much water the project will need. And they wonder about pollution from all those cattle.

Shane Rogers knows a lot about pollution from factory farms. He’s a professor of environmental engineering at Clarkson University in St. Lawrence County. He tests for certain pollutants in the water and soil around factory farms. Rogers often finds antibiotic resistant E-Coli and other pathogens. He says that type of discharge can happen every day – even at the best run facilities.

”And these are from operations with good practices. Or what we would call good practice because they’re following nutrient management plans. Because they’re treating their manures the way they’re supposed to be before applying them to land. Because they’re collecting and doing things the way they’re supposed to be. But they still can contribute pathogens to the environment and those pathogens still affect us.”

Rogers says factory farms don’t need to remove these pollutants. But people at Bion say their system will remove a lot of them.

James Morris is one of their engineers. He says they’re motivated to keep environmental impacts low,

“A facility of this sort wants to have the minimum possible environmental liability. Because that lowers the risk and raises the probability of profits. And we’re in the business to make money.

But researchers are still unconvinced. And some think there are better ways to provide meat and dairy products for the country.

Doug Gurian-Sherman’s with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He’s the lead author of a new report critical of large factory farms. He says small and medium sized farms can provide what people need without the risks to those in rural communities.

“When you spread these animals out, and you have smaller operations you have benefits to rural communities in terms of not as many problems with the pathogens, or the odors or the nutrient problems. What we’re talking about are sophisticated, smart alternatives that work with nature rather than against it.”

But Bion insists their large integrated project will work. And they expect to receive millions in taxpayer subsidies to help make it work. It’s unclear what the costs will be to the community. In the meantime, the trend continues. Bion plans to build at least five more of these projects throughout the country.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

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Turning Garbage Into Gas

  • Jeffrey Langbehn beside one his family's hunting catches. He directs the Lake County Solid Waste Management District. His enthusiasm for the outdoors is one reason he says he supports the idea of finding landfill alternatives. The prospect of lower waste-handling costs is another. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Trash is usually out of sight, out of mind, but occasionally garbage grabs attention – especially when it starts costing a lot. Landfill fees are rising, and with higher costs to ship or truck garbage, a lot of communities are scrounging for alternatives to landfills. Reporter Shawn Allee found one community that hopes a trendy fuel might solve its garbage problem:

Transcript

Trash is usually out of sight, out of mind, but occasionally garbage grabs attention – especially when it starts costing a lot. Landfill fees are rising, and with higher costs to ship or truck garbage, a lot of communities are scrounging for alternatives to landfills. Reporter Shawn Allee found one community that hopes a trendy fuel might solve its garbage problem:

For most of us, there’s nothing less sexy than trash. But in part of Indiana, that’s changing.

“One second.”

“Take your time.”

I’m waiting for Jeff Langbehn. He heads a solid waste district in Northwest Indiana.

Lately, Langbehn’s phone is ringing off the hook – from reporters and colleagues. And why are they calling? Basically, it’s because Langbehn’s county is leaning toward doing something new with garbage – something that intrigues trash bureaucrats, maybe even the one in your town.

You see, Lake County Indiana is this close to letting companies convert most of its garbage into ethanol, you know, to run cars. Langbehn says his landfill costs are rising quickly. In his case, that would be 42 dollars per ton.

“The two garbage to ethanol providers were for $17.50 ton. Those savings alone made our board say, hey, we have to pay attention to this.”

And so Lake County Indiana sat down with the ethanol operators.

“And we asked the hard questions like, ‘are there any of these things operating in the country?’ All the standard questions you would ask.”

Shawn Allee: “Wait a minute, when you asked who else has done this and they said, no one, what did you think?”

“Well, the fact of the matter is that the components are being used, and have been used for a very, very long time.”

Sure, some components of garbage-to-ethanol technology have been around for a while. But, if you ask ethanol producers where they actually turn trash into ethanol, they say they can do it in labs, or in test facilities. That’s got some folks in the trash biz nervous.

“I guess I’d say I’m cautious and wary of using any new technology to process solid waste.”

Jeremy O’Brien researches trash for the Solid Waste Association of North America – a trade group. He’s seen landfill alternatives come and go.

“Early on in the 1970s we tried a number of technologies including composting the waste stream, anaerobic digestion, and then we also tried incineration.”

Of those, only incineration survived, but early incinerators had a nasty habit of spewing toxic pollutants, stuff like dioxin, out their smokestacks. O’Brien says incinerators are now cleaner.

His point, though, is that it takes time to improve technology. He worries some communities bent on turning garbage into ethanol could end up holding the bag.

“The facility could fail early on and they’d be stuck without having a place to put their waste.”

Indiana’s Jeff Langbehn says that won’t happen to his county. He says the ethanol companies will cover their own financing, and the county will have insurance as a backup. But speaking of backups, there already is another landfill alternative, right?

Shawn Allee: “Why can’t we just recycle all this and make it into stuff people buy again?”

“There are a number of people out there that could give a rat’s patoot about recycling. And that’s the waste stream we’re having to deal with. The other reality is, recycling is expensive, so I don’t believe it’s a realistic possibility for us to recycle everything, both from a cost standpoint and a societal standpoint.”

So, Langbehn says recycling helps, but ethanol might do more. He says he kind of wishes someone else would try trash-to-ethanol technology first, but it’s worth testing out.

And he says it might be so cheap he won’t even have to hold his nose.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Whooping Cranes’ Poor Parenting

  • Whooping cranes have been abandoning their nests, and eggs, in search of food (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The experiment to create a migrating flock
of whooping cranes in the Eastern US is having a
parenting problem. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

The experiment to create a migrating flock
of whooping cranes in the Eastern US is having a
parenting problem. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

About 70 whooping cranes now migrate between the Southeast US and the Midwest.
Wildlife experts have been hoping that more pairs of the birds would start hatching eggs
and raising chicks in the wild.

This spring, at their northern home in Wisconsin, several female cranes did lay eggs and
sat on the nests during cold weather. But when it warmed up, the adult birds abandoned
their nests to look for food.

George Archibald is co-founder of the International Crane Foundation.

“If there is a food stress, when it becomes warmer their drive to feed may increase much
more than when it’s cold.”

Some of the crane eggs were saved and hatched out by wildlife centers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Beekeeper Points Finger at Pesticides

  • One theory behind the bee loss is pesticides (Photo by Robert Flynn, courtesy of the USDA)

Honeybees are dying at an alarming rate.
Some beekeepers have lost their entire hives.
It’s been tough for food growers too. That’s
because honeybees pollinate up to a third of
the foods we eat. Mark Brush checked in with
a commercial beekeeper to see how pollinating
is going this year:

Transcript

Honeybees are dying at an alarming rate.
Some beekeepers have lost their entire hives.
It’s been tough for food growers too. That’s
because honeybees pollinate up to a third of
the foods we eat. Mark Brush checked in with
a commercial beekeeper to see how pollinating
is going this year:

“Well, there’s twelve months on the calendar and I think we’re busy for thirteen of ’em.”

That’s Dave Hackenburg. He trucks his bees year-round all over the country to pollinate
crops. He says, so far, there have been enough bees to cover most of the crops. But with
bees continuing to die – he’s not sure how much longer beekeepers can keep up.

Hackenburg is convinced that pesticides – known as nicotinoids – are behind the loss in
honeybees.

“I can lay down a road map where bees have been – that have been on these crops where
these products are used – within two to three months afterwards – we start to see the
colonies collapse. Bees that didn’t go to these crops, set out in the woods, away from pesticides, are doing fine.”

Researchers are investigating pesticides as one possible cause. They’re also looking at
viruses, stress, and a lack of genetic diversity as other possibilities.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Around the World in a Solar Plane

  • A computer-generated image of the solar plane (Photo courtesy of Solar Impulse/EPFL Claudio Leonardi)

A team in Switzerland is gearing up for
the first around-the-world flight of a solar
powered plane. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A team in Switzerland is gearing up for
the first around-the-world flight of a solar
powered plane. Rebecca Williams has more:

Bertrand Piccard was the first to fly a hot air balloon non-stop around the
world.

“You know a lot of people think something is impossible just before someone
else finds the solution to do it.”

Now he’s leading a team that’s building a solar powered plane to fly around the
world. The plane will have long skinny wings with solar panels, and room for
just one pilot.

“My greatest hope is that enough people will follow our adventure. These
people will say ‘Wow! If there was there a team that could do it in a solar
powered airplane, of course we should do it also ourselves in our daily lives.’”

Piccard says they have a lot to test out, especially how to fly at night.

If all goes well, the first real test flight is planned for next year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Mercury in Your Pearly Whites

  • George Washington's dentures (Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)

Some consumer advocate groups say there’s
another reason to fear a trip to the dentist. They
say dentists should stop using mercury to make some
types of metal fillings. Mark Brush reports the
groups recently settled a lawsuit with the Food and
Drug Administration:

Transcript

Some consumer advocate groups say there’s
another reason to fear a trip to the dentist. They
say dentists should stop using mercury to make some
types of metal fillings. Mark Brush reports the
groups recently settled a lawsuit with the Food and
Drug Administration:

Moms Against Mercury and several other groups sued the FDA. They said the agency
was failing to inform the public about the dangers of mercury in dental fillings.

Mercury can do damage to the nervous system. But people’s exposure from fillings has
long been debated.

Charlie Brown is a lawyer for the groups who sued the FDA. He says getting mercury
out of dental offices will protect those most at risk.

“It’s permanent damage to the developing brain. Not like a guy like me losing brain cells
everyday, but to the child whose potential is being destroyed by neuro-toxic damage.”

As a result of the lawsuit, the FDA changed its message about mercury exposure from
dental fillings. They now say the exposure might hurt the nervous systems in developing
children and fetuses.

The agency plans take a closer look at the science and issue a final rule next year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Tomato Ban Smashes Some Farmers

  • The tomato ban was really tough on some farmers (Photo by J. Beavers, courtesy of the USDA)

The Food and Drug Administration continues
to investigate the source of tainted tomatoes that
sickened more than 160 people. It’s narrowing down
the source of the salmonella bacteria, and has lifted
a ban on tomato sales in many states. Julie Grant
reports on how the ban has affected tomato growers:

Transcript

The Food and Drug Administration continues
to investigate the source of tainted tomatoes that
sickened more than 160 people. It’s narrowing down
the source of the salmonella bacteria, and has lifted
a ban on tomato sales in many states. Julie Grant
reports on how the ban has affected tomato growers:

It’s been a tough June for Florida tomato growers – who
grow 90% of the nation’s tomatoes. It’s not that they’ve
been working too hard – it’s that they haven’t been able to
work.

Lisa Lochridge is with the Florida Fruit and Vegetable
Association.

“Business pretty much ground to a halt for Florida tomato
growers. There were tomatoes out in the fields left, there
were tomatoes in the packing houses just sitting there, there
were tomatoes on trucks that were being turned away.”

Lockridge says Florida growers will have lost 500-million
dollars as a result of the ban. Now that the ban has been
lifted in Florida, she says growers are restarting business
and shipping tomatoes to the stores, cafeterias and
restaurants that want them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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