States Struggle to Control Ash Borer

  • The emerald ash borer is killing ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Ontario... and scientists say all the ash in North America is at risk if the beetle can't be stopped. (Photo courtesy of USFS)

A tiny green beetle is killing millions of ash trees. And so far nobody’s
found a way to stop it in its tracks. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports cities and states are struggling to find money to keep the beetle from spreading:

Transcript

A tiny green beetle is killing millions of ash trees. And so far nobody’s
found a way to stop it in its tracks. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams
reports cities and states are struggling to find money to keep the beetle
from spreading:


Once emerald ash borers chew their way into your ash trees, there’s
pretty much only one thing you can do.


(Sound of chainsaw and tree cracking and falling)


Crews here have been sawing down and chipping up trees six days a
week. In some places, crews are cutting down both dead and live trees.
Dead trees are a safety hazard. Cutting live trees near infested areas can
help contain the beetles.


The emerald ash borer is native to China. Scientists think it got in on
wood packing crates more than ten years ago. The emerald ash borer eats
through the living part of the tree just underneath the bark. The beetles
cut off the tree’s water and food supply… so it starves to death. 15
million ash trees are dead or dying in Michigan. Hundreds of thousands
are dying in Ohio, Indiana and Ontario, and it could spread to other states
soon.


Some cities have been hit really hard. For example, some of the trees in
Ann Arbor, Michigan have been dead for a couple of years. Kay
Sichenader is the city’s forester. She says she’s worried about limbs
breaking off trees, or bark falling off in 80 pound chunks.


“There’s some terrifically bad ones out there. Nothing will make me
happier than when those trees are down, I gotta tell you.”


This isn’t the first time cities have lost big shade trees. Dutch elm
disease almost wiped out American elms in the 1960’s and 70’s. It’s a
little ironic: people planted ash trees to replace the elms because they
thought ash trees were invincible.


That love of ash trees means cities are losing 20 or 30 percent of their
trees, and they’re spending millions of dollars to take trees out.


Forester Kay Sichenader says her city normally takes out a thousand old
trees a year. Now, she’s got ten times as many trees to cut down.


“If I never bumped it up, and we just remained with our thousand a year,
we would never change because it would take me ten years to get the ash
out. In the meantime I’d have 10,000 more dead trees to deal with. It’s
sobering.”


Sichenader says the city’s trying to get the dead ash trees out as fast as
they can. She’s contracted five extra crews to saw down trees. She
hopes they’ll be done by the end of the year, but it might be longer.


Many homeowners are getting impatient. They’re worried about big
branches falling on their cars or homes. Or worse, falling on their kids.


Laura Lee Hayes lives in a cul-de-sac with four infested ash trees. She
points out a big branch on her neighbor’s dead tree.


“This whole piece is just laying here, ready to pull off, and there are
small children that play in this yard. That’s why I look to my city to get
over here and get these trees down. There’s a real frightening aspect to
that.”


Hayes says she tried to pay to take the trees down herself, but she found
out it would’ve cost more than a thousand dollars.


In Indiana, homeowners now have to spend their own money to get rid of
dead trees in their yards. State officials say they can’t afford to keep
cutting down live ash trees to slow the infestation. The state won’t be
giving money to help cities cut down dead trees either. That could mean
the emerald ash borer will spread unchecked.


At first, the federal government sent states several million dollars to fight
the beetle, but now the money’s just trickling in. In 2004, Michigan
Governor Jennifer Granholm asked President Bush to declare the state a
federal disaster area. That request was denied. Recently, officials in
Ohio and Michigan said they’ll have to cut back on containing new
infestations.


These trends worry scientists.


Deb McCullough is a forest entomologist at Michigan State University.
She says states barely have enough money to monitor how far the beetle’s
spreading, and she says a lot more money’s needed for ad campaigns to
tell people to stop moving firewood. The beetle spreads fastest when
campers or hunters move infested wood.


“You have to look down the road, and either you spend millions of
dollars today to try to contain emerald ash borer or we’re going to be
looking at losses in the tens of billions of dollars in the future, and it’s not
too distant of a future.”


McCullough says if more funding doesn’t come in states might need to
have timber sales to take ash out before the beetle kills it. And cities will
still be paying millions of dollars to take out dead trees. That means
people who live in those cities might see cuts in other programs or have
to pay higher taxes.


Deb McCullough says the economic impacts are serious… but the
environmental impacts could be even worse. She says it’s hard to know
how wildlife might be affected if we continue to lose millions of ash
trees.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Maggots: Reviving an Ancient Medical Treatment

  • Maggots can be used as a medical treatment. Specifically, to help treat wounds. (Courtesy of the National Institutes of Health)

An ancient medical treatment is starting to be used again to treat wounds. But for many people, just the thought of the treatment is stomach-turning. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has the story:

Transcript

An ancient medical treatment is starting to be used again to treat wounds,
but for many people, just the thought of the treatment is stomach turning.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells has the story:


Ray Peterson has already lost one leg to diabetes. On his remaining foot
there’s a deep wound, and it’s not healing. It’s not getting better because
of the diabetes. He could lose his second leg.


His doctor is taking the dressing off Peterson’s wound. The wound…is
ugly. It looks like someone drilled a quarter-sized hole deep into
Peterson’s foot. The wound smells bad, and then the doctor finds
maggots. The blowfly larvae are squirming around in there. The doctor
is not surprised, though. He put the maggots there a few days ago. It’s
part of the treatment to save Ray Peterson’s leg.


They’re not exactly the kind of maggots you’d find in your garbage can,
but they’re similar. Last summer the FDA approved maggots as medical
devices.


The maggots eat the dead tissue, not the live flesh. In a process
researchers don’t completely understand… the maggots actually clean
and disinfect the wound much better than a surgeon could. Apparently,
they’re attracted to the bacteria in the dead tissue.


Ray Peterson is in his doctor’s office, trading in some big, full maggots
for some new hungry ones.


The old, fat maggots are washed off with saline. The doctor has to dig around
with the tweezers to get a few strays out.


Ray Peterson says he doesn’t mind seeing the process.


“I enjoy watching them, truthfully.”


The doctor cleans the wound a bit more and then places tiny, new maggots on
it with a small spatula.


(Sound of office)


There are plenty of maggot jokes as Dr. Dowling and the nurses work on
Peterson’s foot. Dowling says that his staff has become comfortable with
the maggots, but many health care professionals are not.


“Actually the patients react much better than the doctors. Every patient
I’ve done it on has been very excited and enthusiastic. I can’t say that’s
always the case for the medical community at large. I’ve had some
doctors tell patients if you have maggots on your foot, don’t come in my
office, but I think that will go away with time the more it’s accepted.


The new maggots start moving around as soon as they feel warmth and smell
food. Dr. Dowling and his nurses quickly contain them with a bandage.


“We build a cage around the wound to hold the maggots in, we’ll put the
maggots in, cover up the cage, and leave it there for two to three days,
and during that time the maggots will increase in size two to three times.
And then, when they come in we’ll take the cage off and wash the maggots out
with saline solution, and look at the wound and decide if it needs another
application or not.”


Several clinical studies have been conducted on the maggot treatment.
The results have been overwhelmingly good, but because the idea is so
repulsive to many patients or their doctors, the practice is still not
widespread.


Robert Root Bernstein is a professor of physiology at Michigan State
University. He co-wrote the book “Honey, Mud, Maggots and other Medical Marvels.”


“Taking a maggot or a bunch of maggots and putting them in a wound and watching
them crawl around in there is not something that most people find appealing, and
usually okay for the patient – the patient doesn’t actually have to look. It’s the
practitioners who have to deal with these squirmy little things and have to put
them in and take them out who seem to have most of the problem with the therapy.”


Root Bernstein says maggot therapy might catch on. That’s because doctors are seeing
more and more diabetic wounds as the rate of diabetes keeps going up in the U.S.
When medicines such as antibiotics don’t work on the stubborn wounds,
patients and doctors sometimes turn to the maggot therapy as their last hope for
recovery.


Ray Peterson found out about maggot therapy when his daughter saw an
article in a local newspaper. He says at first his friends were a little put
off, but then started kidding him about the procedure.


“They call me maggot man. Just for a joke. I go along with them. You’re a pretty
good sport about this. You gotta be.”


And Peterson says the good-natured ribbing is sure a lot better than the
alternative. Peterson also thinks if people can get past the “ick” factor…
more people’s limbs might be saved by maggot therapy.


For the GLRC, I’m Melissa Ingells.

Related Links

Beetle Threatens Anishinabe’s Ash Trees

  • Emerald Ash borer is a type of beetle that is threatening black ash trees. (Photo courtesy of USFS)

American Indians have been making baskets from the wood
of black ash trees for hundreds of years. Now, they see that tradition threatened by a beetle. The emerald ash borer has killed millions of ash trees in Lower Michigan over the past few years, and Indian basket makers are preparing for the day when their grandchildren may no longer find black ash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bob Allen
reports:

Transcript

American Indians have been making baskets from the wood of black ash trees
for hundreds of years. Now, they see that tradition threatened by a beetle. The
emerald ash borer has killed millions of ash trees in Lower Michigan over the
past few years, and Indian basket makers are preparing for the day when their
grandchildren may no longer find black ash. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Bob Allen reports:


(Sound of museum)


The Anishinabe believe the black ash tree is a gift to their people, and they say
its carried them through many hard times. The story of the baskets is part of a
display in the Ziibiwing Center at the Saginaw Chippewa Reservation in
central Michigan.


Judy Pamp is assistant director of the Center, and she remembers how
important baskets were when she was growing up.


“If we ate it was because there were baskets to sell or trade, and it went from
that being the thing that sustained us to where now it’s more of a an art and a rare art,
and that you do in limited quantities.”


Pamp comes from a long line of basket makers, and she’d like to pass on the
skills to her granddaughter, but she says the baskets aren’t the most
important thing… rather it’s a sense of connection among the generations.


“You know the whole family pulling together, the whole community pulling
together to help one another out… that everybody was important and
everybody had their role.”


Some family members may be good at one part of the basket making, and
there’s plenty of work to divvy up. First, there’s going into a swamp to find a
black ash tree, cut it down and haul it out.


(Sound of pounding)


Then, there’s peeling off the bark, and pounding the wood into strips, called
splints, for baskets. All that can take 25 hours of hand labor. Then, it’s
another 6 or 8 hours to weave a basket. Without the trees, basket makers worry
they may lose that closeness of working together.


The emerald ash borer isn’t on tribal lands yet, but it’s in
two neighboring counties. Scientists say it’s only a matter of time before the
beetle invades the reservation and wipes out the ash tree. The invasive pest got
to the U.S. in cargo shipped from Asia. Despite quarantines the bug continues to
spread because people move infested firewood, timber or landscape trees.


Deb McCullough is an entomologist at Michigan State University. She
concedes ash trees in Lower Michigan are goners.


“Took me a while to get my mind around that. You know we’re going to see
somewhere probably in the neighborhood of four hundred million ash trees in the forests
of lower Michigan that eventually are going to succumb to emerald ash borer
unless something really amazing happens in the next few years.”


McCullough says they’re looking for a way to help trees resist the insect, or a
predator to keep it in check, but it might be years before a solution is found.
So, the tribes are looking at their own ways to deal with the ash borer.


(Sound of splint pulling)


One idea is to harvest a whole bunch of black ash splints for baskets and freeze
them to use later. That would keep basket making going for a while.


(Sound of basket maker)


Another plan is to collect and save seeds from black ash trees.


Basket maker Renee Dillard says someday maybe trees can be replanted from
seed, but she says that means forty or fifty years before any wood is
harvestable, and she doesn’t think she’ll be around then to teach her
grandchildren how to choose the right tree and pound out the splints.


(Sound of pounding)


“As a people, we’re pretty resilient and we can adapt to change. It’s just that we’re
losing an important part of that whole black ash process, and I don’t want my great
grandchildren to just make baskets. They need to understand the whole process because
it’s done carefully and prayerfully.”


Dillard follows the old ways. She lays down tobacco as an offering of thanks for the tree,
and she believes this calls her ancestors to witness her use of the gift.


The Anishinabe don’t know why the emerald ash borer is taking their trees at
this time, but their tradition teaches for every hardship there will be an answer
and something to balance the loss.


For the GLRC, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Trash Burning Can Threaten Human Health

  • Burning trash smells bad and it can create the conditions necessary to produce dioxin. If livestock are exposed to that dioxin, it can get into the meat and milk we consume, creating health risks. (Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance)

For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the curb. But not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… that choice could be affecting your health:

Transcript

For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the
curb, but not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn
their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… that choice could be affecting your health:


(Sound of garbage trucks)


It’s not been that long ago that people everywhere but in the largest cities
burned their trash in a barrel or pit in the backyard. That’s not as often
the case these days. Garbage trucks make their appointed rounds in
cities, small towns, and in some rural areas, but they don’t pick up
Everywhere, or if they do offer service, it’s much more expensive
because the pick-up is so far out in the country.


Roger Booth lives in a rural area in southwestern Illinois. He says
garbage pick-up is not an option for him.


“Well, we burn it and then bury the ashes and things. We don’t have a
good way to dispose of it any other method. The cost of having pick up
arranged is prohibitive.”


He burns his garbage in the backyard. Booth separates bottles and tin
cans from the rest of the garbage so that he doesn’t end up with broken
glass and rusty cans scattered around.


A lot of people don’t do that much. They burn everything in a barrel and
then dump the ashes and scrap in a gully… or just burn everything in a
gully or ditch. Booth says that’s the way most folks take care of the
garbage in the area. No one talks about the smoke or fumes put off by
the burning.


“I haven’t ever thought much about that. So, I don’t suppose that I have
any real concerns at this moment. I don’t think I’m doing anything
different than most people.”


And that’s what many people who burn their garbage say.


A survey conducted by the Zenith Research Group found that people in
areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota who didn’t have regular garbage
collection believe burning is a viable option to get rid of their household
and yard waste. Nearly 45-percent of them indicated it was
“convenient,” which the researchers interpreted to mean that even if
garbage pick-up were available, the residents might find more convenient
to keep burning their garbage.


While some cities and more densely populated areas have restricted
backyard burning… state governments in all but a handful of states in
New England and the state of California have been reluctant to put a lot
of restrictions on burning barrels.


But backyard burning can be more than just a stinky nuisance. Burning
garbage can bring together all the conditions necessary to produce
dioxin. Dioxin is a catch-all term that includes several toxic compounds.
The extent of their impact on human health is not completely know, but
they’re considered to be very dangerous to human health in the tiniest
amounts.


Since most of the backyard burning is done in rural areas, livestock are
exposed to dioxin and it gets into the meat and milk that we consume.


John Giesy is with the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at
Michigan State University. He says as people burn garbage, the dioxins
are emitted in the fumes and smoke…


“So, when they fall out onto the ground or onto the grass, then animals
eat those plants and it becomes part of their diet, and ultimately it’s
accumulated into the animal and it’s stored as fat. Now, particularly with
dairy cattle, one of the concerns about being exposed to dioxins is that
then when they’re producing milk, milk has fat it in, it has butter fat in it,
and the dioxins go along with that.”


So, every time we drink milk, snack on cheese, or eat a hamburger, we
risk getting a small dose of dioxin. Beyond that, vegetables from a
farmer’s garden, if not properly washed, could be coated with dioxins,
and even a miniscule amount of dioxin is risky.


John Giesy says chemical manufacturing plants and other sources of
man-made dioxin have been cleaned up. Now, backyard burning is the
biggest source of dioxins produced by humans.


“So, now as we continue to strive to reduce the amount of dioxins in the
environment and in our food, this is one place where we can make an
impact.”


“That’s the concern. That’s the concern, is that it’s the largest remaining
source of produced dioxin.”


Dan Hopkins is with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says,
collectively, backyard burning produces 50 times the amount of dioxin as
all the large and medium sized incinerators across the nation combined.
That’s because the incinerators burn hot enough to destroy dioxins and
have pollution control devices to limit emissions. Backyard burning
doesn’t get nearly that hot and the smoke and fumes spread unchecked.


The EPA wants communities to take the problem of backyard burning
seriously. It wants state and local governments to do more to make
people aware that backyard burning is contaminating our food and
encourage them to find other ways to get rid of their garbage.


“(It) probably won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, but by exchanging
successful efforts that other communities have had, we should be able to
help communities fashion approaches that have a high probability of
success.”


But public education efforts are expensive, and often they don’t reach the
people who most need to hear them. The EPA is not optimistic that it
will see everyone stop burning their garbage. It’s not even a goal. The
agency is just hoping enough people will find other ways to get rid of
their trash that the overall dioxin level in food is reduced.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Farmers Wasting Water?

  • A farm in Manistee County, Michigan using an irrigation system. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Land Use Institute)

In the Great Lakes region, farmers are one of the biggest users of water. They
pump water from underground aquifers or from lakes and streams to irrigate their
crops or water livestock. Agriculture has been criticized for its large withdrawals
of water. Farmers say they want to be recognized in a Great Lakes water use
agreement as efficient water users, but as Erin Toner reports… it’s unclear
whether that’s true:

Transcript

The series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is now looking at the threat of water withdrawals from the Great Lakes. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He says a lot of businesses and homes use water from the basin, but one group says its use is especially efficient.


In the Great Lakes region, farmers are one of the biggest users of water. They
pump water from underground aquifers or from lakes and streams to irrigate their
crops or water livestock. Agriculture has been criticized for its large withdrawals
of water. Farmers say they want to be recognized in a Great Lakes water use
agreement as efficient water users, but as Erin Toner reports… it’s unclear
whether that’s true:


Scott Piggott is the sixth generation to grow up on his dad’s cattle farm in a small
town in central Michigan. He says not everything on the farm is perfect, but he
says he grew up knowing that you have to do things right to protect the
environment.


“If we don’t begin to stand up and say, look, this is what we’re doing to protect
the environment, I think more people will continue to say, hey, they’re not telling
us what they’re doing, they must be doing something wrong.”


Piggott also works for the Michigan Farm Bureau. He says his goal is to make
sure every farm in his state is doing everything it can to protect the environment,
including conserving water they use for irrigation.


But Piggott and the farm bureau oppose broad regulations for large water users,
such as farmers. That’s proposed in a draft of a Great Lakes regional water use
agreement. Piggott argues the agreement should treat farmers differently because
the water they use goes right back into the ground.


Piggott said in a Farm Bureau press release that, “95 percent of the water that
touches a farm field seeps into the soil providing aquifer recharge.”


Later, he qualified his statement.


“It is estimated that 95 percent of the water that touches an open, pervious space
seeps into the soils and a portion of that, which I would infer that, it does provide
aquifer recharge, but necessarily does all 95 percent of it go towards aquifer
recharge. I think that might be debated. The quote could probably be stronger in
a given direction, but I stand by it.”


Piggott says his information is based on Environmental Protection Agency
estimates. But is his 95 percent figure true?


Jon Bartholic is with Michigan State University. He’s done research on water
use on farms. He says of all the water that falls on a farm – that’s rainfall and
irrigation – about 70 percent of it evaporates.


“So the remaining part, 30, 40 percent depending where you are. It might be
almost 0 percent, if you’ve got clay soil and it’s all run off, is there to potentially
to go back and recharge the aquifer.”


Bartholic’s estimate is that 30 to 40 percent potentially flows back into the Great
Lakes basin and its aquifers – that’s nowhere near 95 percent. Bartholic says farmers
do consume water.


“Clearly, farmers are being very conscientious about their water use, but, yes, if
you use water for crops and have economic value, there is some consumptive
usage of that water.”


Other water experts in the region say the issue is complicated. A lot of factors
effect how much water used to irrigate crops actually gets back to the aquifer.
Although one expert says at best the 95-percent estimate is “theoretically
possible” if conditions were perfect.


Conditions are rarely perfect.


Mark Muller is director of the Environment and Agriculture Program with the
Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. Muller says it’s
generally agreed that right now there’s plenty of groundwater in the Great Lakes
region, but he says there is still reason for concern. That’s because in other areas of the
country, aquifers thought to be plentiful have gone dry.


Muller says managing Great Lakes water resources is important for the close to
40-million people who rely on the basin for their drinking water. He says
managing that water correctly is also crucial to sustaining the region’s farming
industry.


“Industry and agriculture is going to look at the Great Lakes basin as a place
where they should set up shop. So, I think we should realize that we have a very
valuable resource that’s only going to become more valuable in future years.”


Muller adds that public opinion is very important to shaping the Great Lakes
regional water use agreement. He says any misleading information, from any of
the stakeholders, is just not helpful. That’s why the farm bureau’s claim that 95-
percent of the water used for irrigation recharges the aquifers is more important than
just an optimistic viewpoint. It’s seen by some as a public relations spin.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Coaster Brook Trout

  • A close up look at a Coaster Brook trout. (Courtesy of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

A lot of native fish have been hurt by pollution, invasive species and changes we’ve
made on the lake, but one fish stands out. For anglers, the Coaster Brook trout might have
been the greatest Great Lakes fish. It was abundant, fun to catch and lived in the cleanest
water, but throughout the 20th century, its populations declined just as the health of the
lakes did. Now, slowly, a diverse group of people is trying to save the fish in an effort
that could improve the Great Lakes too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris
McCarus reports:

Transcript

We’re continuing our look at Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Lester Graham is the
series guide. He says one of the threats is a disappearing species.


A lot of native fish have been hurt by pollution, invasive species and changes we’ve
made on the lake, but one fish stands out. For anglers, the coaster brook trout might have
been the greatest Great Lakes fish. It was abundant, fun to catch and lived in the cleanest
water, but throughout the 20th century, its populations declined just as the health of the
lakes did. Now, slowly, a diverse group of people is trying to save the fish in an effort
that could improve the Great Lakes too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris
McCarus reports:


(Sound of river waterfall)


Hundreds of feet above Lake Superior, the Salmon Trout River flows fast and falls hard
onto a rocky bottom below. Much of the river lies within a large tract of private woods
and hills. It’s been untouched for about a century.


Peter Dykema and his family are part owners of the land. He speaks with affection about
fishing for coaster brook trout here as a kid.


“Well as you can tell it’s a beautiful river and there’s nothing a 14 year old boy would
rather do than get his feet cold and wet and throw flies into trees. So, I did it every
chance I had.”


Dykema is nostalgic because those days are long gone for almost everybody. He’s part
of a group of activists trying to restore the coaster brook population.


Coaster brook trout have sparkling colors. They’re even more colorful than Rainbow
trout, and they grow a lot bigger. They can reach 2 feet and 4 pounds. These indigenous
fish used to live in 200 streams around Lake Superior. People came from all around the
nation to fish for them. Presidents Roosevelt and McKinley came to Michigan to catch
them, and they were caught by the boatload.


Over fishing was one of the biggest reasons why they were nearly wiped out. Their
habitat was damaged from mining and road building. Silt filled in the rock bottom where
they like to lay their eggs. That also hurt the fish.


Logging damaged the coaster brook’s habitat. Scott Libants is a fish and wildlife
researcher at Michigan State University. He says loggers dammed up streams to flood
them. Then they packed them with logs. When they had enough, they broke the streams
back open so the logs would float down to the lake to be sold.


“You knock the dam out and send all the trees down. You scour the watershed. It’s like
flushing a toilet.”


The fish haven’t recovered since. They just couldn’t take the abuse.


The Salmon Trout River still has them because the private landowners banned fishing
and didn’t alter the land. It’s one of only a handful of streams in the U.S. and Canada
that still has the coaster brook trout.


(Sound of people walking in the woods)


Downstream on the way to Lake Superior, Peter Dykema and state environmental
officials walk to the spot where they have equipment that counts the numbers of coaster
brooks going up river to lay their eggs. Dykema says they counted more than 80 fish last
season. The population seems to be slowly increasing here, but the stream still isn’t
perfect. There’s too much sand and not enough gravel for laying eggs.


“Most of the sediment problem we are looking at is a creature of the last 40 or 50 years.
So if we can stop the input, I’m hoping that the river will be able to cleanse itself.


The sediment Dykema is talking about comes from the points where roads cross the river.
People and cars jar soil loose and it fills up the riverbed. This is the fish’s current
challenge. Coaster brook trout are sensitive and susceptible to pollution. Conservation
officials use brook trout as indicators of high water quality. Coaster brooks will die if
they don’t have nearly perfect conditions.


(Sound of Lake superior waves lapping on rocks.)


Few anglers alive today have seen coaster brook trout, but if they could this would be the
place. It’s where the Salmon Trout River meets Lake Superior. For a diverse group of
conservationists, this place symbolizes what people did to the land and water of the
region.


Laura Hewitt is visiting from Trout Unlimited in Wisconsin.


“This is a fish that presidents came to fish for, that Hemingway wrote about. It’s
something that captures the imagination, it touches the soul. It’s a fish that we care
very much about and think it can be sort of a rallying point for action in the basin.”


Those working to preserve the last few hundred coaster brook trout say we should feel
lucky that they’re not all gone. They say now’s the time to keep what’s left, build it up,
and use the eggs from this small population to start the fish in other streams of Lake
Superior. Then perhaps within our lifetime, our children can enjoy the fish that our great
grandfathers did, and in doing that, they’ll know the water’s clean.


For the GLRC, I’m Chris McCarus.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Sewage in the Lakes

  • Workers build Toledo's wet weather treatment system. The system is expected to go online next fall. It will treat water in the event of a storm. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Point source pollution means just that. It’s pollution that comes from a
single point; usually out the end of a pipe. It’s easy to identify. Since
the passage of the Clean Water Act more than 30 years ago, most of that kind
of pollution has been cleaned up, but today, there are still some pipes dumping
pollution into lakes and rivers, but Mark Brush reports stopping that remaining
pollution isn’t that easy:

Transcript

We’re continuing our look at Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. Lester Graham
is our guide through the series. He says the next report is part of coverage
of a threat called point source pollution.


Point source pollution means just that. It’s pollution that comes from a
single point; usually out the end of a pipe. It’s easy to identify. Since
the passage of the Clean Water Act more than 30 years ago, most of that kind
of pollution has been cleaned up, but today, there are still some pipes dumping
pollution into lakes and rivers, but Mark Brush reports stopping that remaining
pollution isn’t that easy:


(Sound of the Maumee)


We’re on the banks of the Maumee River near Toledo, Ohio. Sandy Binh
brought us here to describe what she saw in the river several years ago when
she was out boating with some friends.


“When there was a heavy rain maybe five years or so ago this is where we saw
a sea of raw sewage in this whole area. It was like, I mean it was like chunks
everywhere. It was just disgusting.”


Binh reported it and found that the city couldn’t do anything about it. That’s
because Toledo’s sewage treatment plant is at the end of what’s called a combined
sewer system. These systems carry both storm water from city streets, and raw
sewage from homes and businesses. If too much water comes into the plant, a
switch is flipped, and the sewage goes straight into the river.


(Sound of treatment plant)


Steve Hallett manages engineering at the wastewater treatment plant for the
city of Toledo. He says a rainstorm can bring twice as much water as the
plant can handle.


“And when hydraulically you can only take about 200 million of it – where’s
the other 200 hundred million go?”


“Where does it go?”


“Uh, it’s by-passed. Limited treatment possibly and then it would be
by-passed to the Maumee River”


Toledo is not alone. More than seven hundred cities across the country have
combined sewer systems that often overflow, cities such as Milwaukee,
Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, and Cleveland. Every year billions of gallons of
raw sewage are dumped into the Lakes from cities with these old combined systems.


The sewage can cause problems for the environment, but the biggest concern
is that people might get sick. Some of the bugs found in sewage can cause
liver problems, heart disease, and can even cause death.


Dr. Joan Rose is a microbiologist with Michigan State University. She’s
been studying sewage in water for more than 20 years. She says sewage
contains viruses and other nasty microorganisms that can hang around in the
environment.


“Up here in the Great Lakes region with the cool temperatures we have –
these organisms can survive for months, and also these organisms
accumulate.”


Rose says what’s unique about the microorganisms in sewage is that it only
takes a few of them to cause diseases in humans, and once contracted they
can be contagious.


The Ohio EPA sued the city of Toledo. It wanted the city to clean up its
act. After a long battle, the city and the state reached a settlement, and
officials agreed to spend more than 450 million dollars to try to do
something about the problem.


(Sound of construction)


Back at the wastewater treatment plant we’re standing on the edge of a deep
pit. Down at the bottom sparks are flying as welders climb over towers of
green rebar. They’re building a new system that’s designed to treat water
quickly when there’s a heavy rainstorm. The water won’t be fully treated,
but the solids will be settled out and the water will be chlorinated before it’s
released into the river. It’s a compromise the city and the state EPA agreed
upon.


Steve Hallett says to fully treat every drop of water that comes to the
treatment plant in a big storm would require a project four times this size.


“You’d need massive amounts of storage to hold every drop here. You know, that’s
extremely costly and I think, uh, is deemed not feasible.”


Toledo’s project will mostly be paid for by a steady hike in water and sewer
rates over the next fifteen years. The increase was approved by voters
three years agom, and officials plan to go after federal grants and loans
to help defray the costs, but federal dollars are getting scarce. Big cuts
have been made to the federal low interest loan program many cities use to
finance these projects.


The demand for financing is likely to increase. The cost of upgrading the
nation’s combined sewer systems will cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
The question is, who will pay to stop one of the biggest sources of water
pollution left in the country?


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Defending Against Ash Borer

The Emerald Ash Borer is being found in new places. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jeff Bossert reports officials are emphasizing different way to stop the small metallic-green bug:

Transcript

The Emerald Ash Borer is being found in new places. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jeff Bossert reports officials are emphasizing a different way to stop the small metallic-green bug:


The emerald ash borer is killing ash trees throughout much of Michigan, and it’s spreading. It’s been discovered in parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario.


Michigan State University entomologist David Smitley suggests homeowners work to stop the spread of the insect by treating the ash tree while they’re still healthy.


“That’s really critical. You need to start with a healthy tree, and that’s why we’re trying to get the word out.”


Smitley says homeowners in Michigan should consider applying insecticides
this fall and every subsequent spring, but University of Illinois
entomologist James Appleby says that’s not enough. That’s because too many don’t know about the emerald ash borer, and will fall back on spraying when it’s too late.


“I hate to get that kind of publicity out. I think the main thing
here is that we just be aware that we not bring any firewood from Michigan
into Illinois or Indiana or any other state.”


Appleby says a recent survey in Michigan revealed fifty percent of those
questioned had never heard of the emerald ash borer.


For the GLRC, I’m Jeff Bossert.

Related Links

Researchers Call for Hydrilla Hunt

Great Lakes researchers are looking for volunteers to help search for an invasive aquatic plant that can choke out native vegetation, and make it tough to fish or boat. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Great Lakes researchers are looking for volunteers to help search for an invasive aquatic
plant that can choke out native vegetation, and make it tough to fish or boat. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


Universities and Sea Grant programs throughout the region want people to search bays
and inland lakes for a non-native plant called hydrilla. It’s been found in waterways in
southern states and on the East Coast. Researchers want to make sure hydrilla doesn’t
gain a foothold in the Great Lakes.


Howard Wandell is an inland lakes specialist at Michigan State University. He says
hydrilla forms a net of vines at the surface of the water.


“It’s difficult to motorboat through and obviously trying to cast fishing lures through it is
very difficult if not impossible. And of course then just the idea of even trying to swim
in it, people are very repulsed by the idea of trying to go out and try to recreate in this
tangled mass of vegetation.”


Wandell says hydrilla also blocks sunlight, which can kill native water plants.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Building for Disasters

  • People rarely build a house with tornadoes in mind. Some think that developers and homeowners should be more aware of potential natural disasters. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)

There’s a whole category of disasters people think will probably never happen to them. Major floods, landslides, and earthquakes happen sometimes decades or centuries apart. So, people don’t think about them or they ignore the risks. And, some experts say, that’s why we build or buy houses
in places that really aren’t safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Melissa Ingells reports:

Transcript

There’s a whole category of disasters people think will probably never happen to them. Major floods, landslides, and earthquakes happen sometimes decades or centuries apart. So, people don’t think about them or they ignore the risks. And, some experts say, that’s why we build or buy houses in places that really aren’t safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells reports:


Disasters happen. It’s only a matter of when. The problem is, we prepare for things like tornadoes that happen every year, but we aren’t prepared for a major flood that might only happen once a century. Donald Hyndman is with the Department of Geology at the University of Montana. He’s an expert on disasters.


“People just do not understand the scale of events, they also don’t understand that if in their lifetime there hasn’t been a really major event, that there won’t be a really major event.”


So Hyndman has co-written a new textbook on disasters. He says there’s a lot of pressure to build houses in places that are hazardous. Maybe it’s just a great view, so people build there despite warnings. Or, they think they can stop the ground from moving with retaining walls, or think they can stop floods using levees. Donald Hyndman says that even well built projects just can’t stand the power of nature.


“There is increasing pressure to build in the same lowlands, the same flood plain areas, and the developers say, well, the Army Corps of Engineers has built a major levee or dyke here, that protects people on these floodplains. The problem is, levees break and they always break.”


Donald Hyndman’s co-author is his son, David Hyndman, a geologist from Michigan State University. David Hyndman, says even when a place is a known area for disasters, demand for housing means buildings go up all over again in the same spot.


“There’s always development pressure, and the developers even fairly soon after large floods like some that occurred in California, they keep pushing and the public has forgotten what has occurred and then often the development will be allowed, which causes a disaster afterwards.”


Donald and David Hyndman both say developers don’t help the situation when they build in dangerous areas.


But folks in the housing business say there are plenty of laws to warn potential homeowners, before a house is even built. Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Homebuilders. He says that people often ignore the regulations because they want to live where they want to live.


“Consumer desire – consumer interest and desire is the primary reason, even though there are state regulations and federal regulations to put people on notice and protect against the risk for insurance, to locate where they want to locate, which is a property right.”


Egbert says that real estate people and lenders are supposed to let property owners know of the risks. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes people don’t know to ask. And sometimes people think that despite the risks, a disaster just won’t happen to them. Donald Hyndman says we don’t respect how powerful the earth really is.


“Basically, some people feel that they can control nature, or improve on nature, and I’ve actually heard some politicians say we can improve on nature. We can not only not affect the results, those results are typically – they typically backfire. So we really cannot control nature.”


The Hyndmans are hoping their new textbook will help build awareness of all kinds of disasters—but especially the ones that could happen right in our own backyard.


For the GLRC, I’m Melissa Ingells.

Related Links