Blazing New Atv Trails in Parkland

  • Advocates of special trails for ATV riding say the trails would reduce environmental damage from uncontrolled use. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Managers at state parks across the country are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a
rising demand for trails for All-Terrain Vehicles. Stephanie Hemphill reports park
managers are finding it’s not easy to satisfy both fans who have fun on four wheel drive
vehicles and people who want a quieter time in the park:

Transcript

Managers at state parks across the country are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a
rising demand for trails for All-Terrain Vehicles. Stephanie Hemphill reports park
managers are finding it’s not easy to satisfy both fans who have fun on four wheel drive
vehicles and people who want a quieter time in the park:


As the name suggests, All-Terrain Vehicles are built to travel rough. ATVs power over
rocks and logs. Their go-anywhere knobby tires grip the land and take their riders just
about anywhere they want to go, and a lot of them want to go to public parks.


Whether it’s forests, dunes, bogs or a desert, riders say four-wheeling can be a fun way to
get out into nature. The vehicles are popular. Dealers are selling close to a million ATVs
every year, and sales are growing steadily. With that many people looking for a place to
play, states are scrambling to accommodate them.


In Minnesota, the state decided a long ATV trail might be a good way to attract tourism
dollars to a struggling rural area in the state.


Ron Sluka jumped at the idea. He’s the trail coordinator for a local ATV club. He’d been
wanting for years to build a trail in his area. Then he heard the state would pay for a
“destination” trail so well-built and attractive, people would come from all over to ride it.
Sluka thought it would be great news for his area.


He and county officials worked up a plan, but when it hit the local news, Sluka says a
few people raised a ruckus:


“The way it was presented to the people, eminent domain would take over in cases if
need be, and there were going to be up to 20 feet of your land taken for this trail. None
of the above is true, totally none of it is true, absolutely zero. But it’s too late: once
things are rolling, it’s rolling.”


Sluka says now, it’s hard to get a rational discussion of the issues. Beyond property rights
issues and worries about the ATVs being too loud, there are other concerns:


“The residents have kind of been left out of the loop.”


That’s Deb Pomroy. She lives near the proposed ATV trail.


Pomroy says most of her neighbors don’t mind the local ATV riders. It’s that idea of
drawing ATVs from all over the state that freaks them out, and Pomroy has her own reasons
for opposing a trail here, where the Cloquet River has its beginning: wood turtles.
Pomroy is a biologist. She says this area is a refuge for the turtles. They’re endangered in
most of their range, and listed as a threatened species in Minnesota.


Wood turtles bury their eggs in sandy soil. Pomroy says they would love to bury their
eggs in soil disturbed by ATVs, but the eggs wouldn’t survive:


“Even stepping on a nest, which is buried in soil, don’t know there are eggs there, is
enough to destroy the eggs.”


The trail is on hold for now, while county officials and ATV riders try to come up with
an alternative. Concern about damage to sensitive environmental areas is one of the chief
reasons many environmentalists don’t like the idea of letting ATVs into parks.


Jason Kiely is with Wildlands CPR, a national non-profit group that works to prevent off-
road vehicle damage on public land. He says fights over ATV trails are inevitable, as
long as public agencies don’t involve all park users in a comprehensive planning process.


“Primarily because off-road vehicles affect every other use of the forest so significantly.
So we advocate for doing comprehensive travel and recreation planning, not just trying to
carve off the ATV piece, but multi-stakeholder planning efforts that offer something to
everyone.”


Kiely says the US Forest Service and many state agencies have a lot of work to do, to
find the right balance between preserving nature and allowing ATV riders to have their
fun on public land


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Windmills Generate Jobs and Power

  • A windmill blade nearly 150 feet long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

U.S. demand for clean energy is growing fast. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they’re running into a supply problem. Windmill manufacturers overseas have been shipping their products to the booming U.S. market. That’s already created some jobs, and now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills here. It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

U.S. demand for clean energy is growing fast. In fact, wind energy developers are ordering so many windmills, they’re running into a supply problem. Windmill manufacturers overseas have been shipping their products to the booming U.S. market. That’s already created some jobs, and now there are plans to build factories to produce windmills here. It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. Stephanie Hemphill reports:


At the Duluth Port Terminal, the BBC India is tied up to the dock. Two giant cranes slowly lower a silvery propeller onto a waiting truck. The blade is half as long as a football field. The extended bed of the eighteen-wheeler isn’t long enough to hold the entire length. A padded steel structure cradles the narrow end above the ground. There are 66 blades on the ship, three blades for each of twenty-two towers.


“The three blades will bolt into a hub, and then the hub attaches to the nacelle, the generator package, that’s the actual turbine, and the nacelle sits on top of the tower.”


Andrew Holdrup is the port captain for the shipping company. He was here in Duluth a year and a half ago, when the port handled its first ever shipment of windmills.


Holdrup says the demand for windmills is huge in the U.S.


“We have four ships; all they do is run from Denmark to Houston with Siemens windmills. We discharge them in Houston, the ship sails back empty to go pick up the next lot. Multiply that by all the other ports, and all the other windmill manufacturers, and it’s a huge business.”


It’s great business for Duluth’s port. Unloading the windmills requires iron workers to cut the steel where the pieces have been welded to the ship, and crane operators, and longshoremen. And truckers are staying in town waiting to pick up their loads. They’ll haul the windmills to wind farms being built in Mower County, Minnesota, and Oliver County, North Dakota. The port has also handled equipment for wind farms in Manitoba.


The boom in wind was primed in the early 1990s, when Congress set up a production tax credit for wind power. It allows a 1.9 cent-per-kilowatt-hour tax credit over ten years, for electricity produced by wind.


But the tax credit only runs for two years at a time. Ron Johnson is in charge of marketing for the Duluth Port Authority. He says that on-again, off-again approach has made it hard for businesses involved in wind energy to plan and grow.


“It’s kind of start up again, stop, start up again, stop. If you’re a trucking company with these specialized trailers, you don’t want to go out and buy fifty more of them if there’s a chance your whole fleet’s going to sit until Congress decides what to do.”


Johnson says there’s a lot of support in Congress for the tax credits, and he expects them to be renewed.


Steve Stengel works for FPL Energy, the company building the wind farms where these windmills are headed.


“It is part of the business, we understand that. And it does cause kind of starts & stops, if you will.”


But he says it’s possible to work around the periodic breaks in the tax credit because it takes a long time to plan a wind project anyway.


“Permitting issues, land lease issues, transmission issues. We have to plan as if the tax credit is going to be there.”


In fact, wind is growing dramatically in spite of the iffy nature of federal support. Several states now require utilities to invest in renewable energy, or offer incentives for wind power development. And as the cost of fossil fuels goes up, the relative cost of wind goes down.


It all adds up to a lot of demand, and recently, tight supplies.


The American Wind Energy Association’s Susan Sloan says orders are already in place for 2008 and beyond.


“Because of this boom and bust cycle but also because of this new acceptance of wind, we are seeing a tighter supply, and we need to have the manufacturing capabilities catch up.”


And that’s what’s happening.


It took two weeks for the Siemens windmills to sail from Denmark to Duluth. Now the company is building a factory in Fort Madison, Iowa. Siemens says it will employ 250 people, and start producing in the first half of 2007.


And in Pipestone, Minnesota, Suzlon, a company based in India, is about to start producing three blades a day, and the nosecones to go with them. The company plans to manufacture the electronic controls, and eventually employ up to 300 people. Suzlon says it has orders for the next two to three years.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Windmills Generate Jobs and Power (Wrap)

  • A windmill blade nearly 150 long is slung gently onto a flatbed at the Duluth port. A modified trailer is needed to transport the blade. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

US demand for clean energy is growing so fast, supplies of generating systems are getting tight. Stephanie Hemphill reports on a challenge that could lead to more jobs in the US:

Transcript

US demand for clean energy is growing so fast, supplies of generating systems are getting tight. Stephanie Hemphill reports on a challenge that could lead to more jobs in the US:


Overseas manufacturers of wind generating systems are shipping them here as fast as they can. Now, several companies are building wind generator factories in the US.


Siemens is building a plant in Iowa. Suzlon is about to start production in Minnesota. Plants in Texas produce blades and towers.


It’s all happening in spite of inconsistent federal support. A production tax credit is in place, but it expires every two years.


Ron Johnson is with the port of Duluth, which handles windmill imports. He says the on-again, off-again support makes it hard for companies to plan and grow.


“Well, the deadline’s coming at the end of next year, and people are planning their projects, so we’re all anxious to see what Congress does.”


The American Wind Energy Association says producers are installing enough wind power this year to power the entire state of Rhode Island.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Storm Water Gardens: Good for City Growth?

Cities around the country are trying to figure out how to encourage economic growth, and protect the environment at the same time. Stephanie Hemphill reports on one case where both could be winners:

Transcript

Cities around the country are trying to figure out how to encourage economic growth, and protect the environment at the same time. Stephanie Hemphill reports on one case where both could be winners:


Like a lot of cities, runoff from this city’s streets – polluted with salt, oil, and fertilizer – flows into a waterway. In Duluth, Minnesota, the waterway is Lake Superior.


A local group wants to turn some vacant land near a popular downtown park into a storm water garden that would clean up runoff.


But city councilor Jim Stauber says by state law, the publicly-owned land must be used for economic development.


“We have been very, very clear, and our city attorney staff has been very clear, you can’t put it here.”


Advocates such as Jill Jacoby say that’s a narrow view of economic development.


“Tourism is economic development, and what we’re creating is recreation and tourism.”


And increasingly, experts say environmental benefit often also benefits the economy.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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The Direction of U.S. Energy Policy

  • Jamie Juenemann invested in equipment to produce energy at his home in northern Minnesota. He says the government should offer more consistent incentives for renewable energy. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Americans are thinking more about energy. We’re facing higher prices. There’s worry about climate change, and there are questions about whether our need for foreign oil is forcing the country into wars in the Middle East. Even former oilman President Bush says we have to kick our addiction to oil, but what’s the government doing about it? Stephanie Hemphill looks at our national energy policy and its priorities:

Transcript

Americans are thinking about energy more. We’re facing higher energy prices, there’s worry about climate change, and there are questions about whether our need for foreign oil is forcing the country into wars in the Middle East. Even former oilman President Bush says we have to kick our addiction to oil, but what’s the government doing about it? Stephanie Hemphill looks at our national energy policy and its priorities:


This winter, a handful of people around the country won’t have to worry about oil or gas prices. Jamie Juenemann is one of them. He lives out in the country in northern Minnesota, and he’s installed his own energy plant.


Behind the house, there’s a pole reaching above the trees. At the top, a modern windmill turns as it catches the wind. There’s also a solar hot water heater, and a geothermal heat pump, that brings underground heat into the house.


“This was the final phase in our goal to become carbon neutral; essentially producing as much energy as we’re consuming.”


Carbon neutral means not using fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide, believed to be a greenhouse gas, and warming the planet.


Of course these systems aren’t cheap. Juenemann took out a second mortgage to pay for them. It was a big decision, but he says he’s doing what he can to make sure his young daughters will inherit a livable world.


“It’s all about choices. We have the choice to either purchase a Chevy Suburban, or we can use that same outlay, that same expense and put in some renewable energy systems.”


Eventually these systems will pay for themselves, and the Juenemann family will have free hot water, electricity, and heat.


The government helps pay for some of these systems; as much as three-quarters of the cost can be covered by tax-breaks and rebates. The trouble is one of the major federal subsidies ends next year, and others are limited to the first few buyers in a fiscal year. Businesses that sell renewable energy systems say that on-again, off-again subsidy approach by the government makes it difficult to stay in business to provide the alternative systems.


Politicians have been sending mixed messages about energy. Last year’s energy bill offered subsidies for nearly every energy source, without sending a clear message favoring one over another. Congress even offered subsidies for fossil fuels.


And that makes sense to John Felmy. He’s chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute. He says the country depends on traditional sources — including the 40% of our total energy budget that comes from oil. He says the government should subsidize exploration and research on fossil fuels.


“You have to say where can you get the biggest impact from encouraging additional supplies, and those numbers of 40% clearly dwarf what you have from the alternatives.”


He says to keep the economy strong, the government should make it easier to drill for oil and gas, and to bring energy to where it’s needed.


Another government approach to the challenge of energy is to reduce the demand. Some groups predict conservation could cut energy needs as much as thirty percent.


J. Drake Hamilton is a scientist with Fresh Energy, a non-profit organization. She says conservation is cheaper and cleaner than producing more energy.


“Every time you cut energy use, you cut pollution. Every time you increase it, you increase pollution.”


And some people regard pollution as a hidden cost of traditional fuels. They say if consumers directly paid for the environmental and health costs of burning coal and oil and gas, the prices would be a lot higher. Economists call these “external costs,” and they argue over how to set a price on them.


Environmentalists say we should start charging an extra tax on fossil fuels because they contribute to global warming. At the same time, we could reduce the income tax, so the shift would be revenue-neutral, but the idea is still likely to be politically unpopular. A higher tax on fossil fuels would mean higher prices, which would make renewable energy systems more competitive.


There’s nothing new about taxing things that are bad for us, and subsidizing things that are good. But so far, when it comes to energy, Congress hasn’t been able to agree on what to discourage, and what to encourage.


For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Cleaning Up Coal-Fired Power Plants

  • Tom Micheletti (right), and Excelsior Energy Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Bob Evans (left). They are locating where the proposed power plant will be built near the town of Taconite, Minnesota. (Photo by Bob Kelleher)

Acid rain, mercury pollution, and huge amounts of the heat-trapping gas carbon-dioxide are the down sides of burning coal in electric power plants. And yet, some energy experts are saying America should be using more coal. They say new coal technology can produce electricity with few of the pollution problems of traditional coal power plants. Bob Kelleher reports:

Transcript

Acid rain, mercury pollution, and huge amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are the down sides of burning coal in electric power plants. And yet, some energy experts are saying America should be using more coal. They say new coal technology can produce electricity with few of the pollution problems of traditional coal power plants. Bob Kelleher reports:


Coal has a well deserved bad reputation. Typical coal burning power plants release mercury, sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and lots of carbon dioxide. Those releases mean toxins in the air, soot, acid rain, and many believe global warming. But Tom Micheletti says there’s a way to use coal with very little pollution.


Using heat, steam, pressure, and oxygen, coal can be broken down to a relatively clean gas, and a handful of other chemical products. The gas is burned, to turn generators and produce electricity. The technology is called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle. Micheletti says, the technology isn’t new, but applying it this way is.


“All we’re doing is marrying the gasification technology, with a technology that’s been well established, the combined cycle gas technology – power plant technology. And all we’re doing is simply putting those two technologies together.”


Micheletti is Co-President of Excelsior Energy, a company formed to build the nation’s first large scale coal gasification electric power plant in northeast Minnesota. At 600 megawatts, it would dwarf demonstration plants now online in Indiana and Florida.


Some experts say coal gasification is not only promising, it’s more practical than nuclear power, natural gas, solar or wind. Daniel Schrag is a climatologist and head of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.


“We have a lot of coal in the US. We’re very fortunate that way. The problem is that coal produces more carbon dioxide per unit energy than any other fossil fuel. And so, when we burn coal and make electricity, it’s really bad for the climate system.”


Schrag says there’s more carbon dioxide around us now than humans have ever experienced. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Most scientists believe it blankets the earth, forcing temperatures higher.


Schrag says, when used to generate electricity, coal gasification has big advantages over conventional power plants, because it can capture CO2.


“You get more energy for the amount of coal you put in, and that’s good for carbon emissions. The other thing is that it seems to be cheaper in an IGCC plant, or a gasification plant, to capture the carbon dioxide after one extracts the energy from the coal, and then makes it much easier to capture it and inject it into a geological reservoir.”


The key, Schrag says, is a process called sequestration. You capture, and then sequester it, or lock that carbon dioxide away, where it won’t escape into the atmosphere. It’s already being done.


This is the Dakota Gasification Company, just outside Beulah, North Dakota. Here they turn coal into a burnable gas and almost a dozen other products. They also produce plenty of carbon dioxide, but the CO2 is not vented into the air; it’s trapped and compressed. That’s the noise.


The CO2 is piped more than 200 miles into Canada where it’s pumped into oil wells, forcing the last oil out and leaving the CO2 underground. Near oceans it can be pumped under deep ocean sediments, where it stays put.


And that’s all very good, but others say even good power plants might be a bad idea.


Ross Hammond is with the Minnesota based organization Fresh Energy. Hammond says gasification’s proponents are overlooking conservation and the opportunities for clean energy.


“When we’ve exhausted all the clean options including biomass and photovoltaics, and wind and the other options, then we need to look at coal.”


But Harvard’s Daniel Schrag says it’s not as simple as pushing money toward pollution free energy.


“And the answer is complicated. The answer is perhaps not. It may be that coal is so cheap that even the extra cost of capturing the carbon and storing it underground may still make it cheaper than the alternatives, than wind and solar.”


Schrag says we’ll need it all – nuclear, hydro, wind and biomass. But to satisfy the nation’s hunger for energy, he says we’ll need coal – best used in coal gasification.


For the Environment Report I’m Bob Kelleher.

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Defense Dept. To Clean Up Military Mess?

The Defense Department will be paying for a study to find ways to remove ammunition barrels the military dumped into Lake Superior during the Cold War. For 30 years, environmentalists have been asking the government to clean up the mess. Mike Simonson reports that the federal government is now paying for a study to find ways to remove the barrels:

Transcript

The Defense Department will be paying for a study to find ways to remove ammunition
barrels the military dumped into Lake Superior during the Cold War. For 30 years,
environmentalists have been asking the government to clean up the mess. Mike
Simonson reports that the federal government is now paying for a study to find ways to
remove the barrels:


The Red Cliff band of Lake Superior Chippewa will study ways
to remove the barrels of munitions. Documents show that between 1959
and 1962, the Department of Defense had 1,437 drums dumped into Lake
Superior. It amounts to about 400 tons of munitions containing toxic chemicals such as
PCBs, mercury, lead, chromium, benzene and even uranium.


Patricia DePerry is the Red Cliff Tribal Chairwoman. She says the barrels must be
removed:


“Not only the time is of essence, it’s the not knowing what the contaminants have been
doing at the bottom of the lake.”


DePerry says not only is the ecology of the lake at risk, but the barrels of munitions lie
within a quarter mile of Duluth, Minnesota’s drinking water intake.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mike Simonson.

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Wetlands to Slow or Grow Global Warming?

  • John Pastor is trying to figure out how climate change will affect bogs and fens like this one. (Photo by Bob Kelleher)

In northern Minnesota, a researcher says wetlands like bogs could be key to how fast the climate changes worldwide. And the areas like the upper United States and Canada in the bull’s eye for rapidly changing temperatures and rainfall. The GLRC’s Bob Kelleher reports:

Transcript

In northern Minnesota, a researcher says wetlands like bogs could be key to how fast the
climate changes worldwide. And the areas like the upper United States and Canada in the
bull’s eye for rapidly changing temperatures and rainfall. The GLRC’s Bob Kelleher
has more:


What have wetlands, like fens and bogs, got to do with global warming? John Pastor says,
plenty.


Pastor is a professor and researcher with the Natural Resources Research Institute of the
University of Minnesota-Duluth. When Pastor straps on his hip waders, he goes where
almost no one else dares to go: into northern Minnesota’s fens, where water can be
several feet deep, and onto the bogs, where the mass of plant material is so thick it floats
on standing water.


A seven year-long study has revealed that fens and bogs can either help slow global
warming, or accelerate it. Pastor says all cards are off the table if temperatures keep
rising:


“The one problem in science that has the most ramifications throughout all of science – it’s
global warming.”


We’re in a swamp north of Duluth, Minnesota. Actually, it’s a fen, and it borders some
higher landscape nearby that’s a bog. What fens and bogs have in common is water and
peat, the not quite decomposed stuff left over when plants die. Pastor says peat lands are
one of the world’s significant bank accounts for carbon. They keep carbon out of the
atmosphere.


“Peat lands cover only 3% of the earth’s surface, but they contain 30% of all the carbon
that’s in all the soil in the world, locked in that partially decomposed organic matter, that
peat.”


Minnesota has vast peat lands that have been storing carbon for 10,000 years, but even
the size of Minnesota’s peat lands pales compared to those further north – around
Canada’s Hudson Bay, or in the Russian republics – all regions Pastor says that are facing
higher temperatures.


“All of the global climate models, one thing they all agree on, is that the greatest amount
of warming will occur in areas from Minnesota northward, and then inland – mid-
continent areas. So here we are. We’re sitting right now, right in the bullseye of the
greatest amount of warming that will happen on the face of the earth.”


This is the question: Will higher temperatures help trap more carbon in bogs, or force
more carbon into the atmosphere?


In this bog, Pastor’s been trying to figure out how warmer weather will affect bogs and
fens, and, in turn, what role the wetlands will play in global change. One thing he’s
found: the results depend largely on the water table, and that’s going to depend on
rainfall.


In some combinations, say with additional heat and additional rainfall, bogs could thrive,
trapping more carbon. That would be good. In other conditions, say with more heat but
less rainfall, bogs and fens could die and decompose, releasing even more carbon into the
atmosphere. That, Pastor says, would be bad:


“Now we have kind of a double whammy. Not only are we putting carbon dioxide from
fossil fuel into the atmosphere, the warning from that could cause the carbon from the
peat land also to go into the atmosphere and accelerate the warming.”


Predicting an outcome becomes mind numbing. Pastor’s working with new mathematical
theory to try to determine at what point global warming has gone too far.


“And so what seems to be happening is the temperatures of the earth have crossed some
kind of a threshold, where all the sudden, before that they crossed that threshold, the old
earth that we grew up with was stable. Now, it’s becoming very unstable, and ice sheets
are collapsing, birds and plants are migrating – everything’s happening very, very
quickly. And we’re going to enter into a new kind of earth that has a different kind of
stability – a different stable endpoint.”


Pastor says there’s no more complicated problem in all of science than global warming,
and no more important problem. Global warming, he says, changes everything, from the
forests to the wetlands. Pastor’s hoping the new mathematical models will provide more
definitive answers in time to do something about the outcome.


For the GLRC, I’m Bob Kelleher.

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Feral Pigs Take States by Storm

Feral pigs are a big problem in many states, and while many are escapees from farms, some are actually let loose by hunters. The
GLRC’s Brian Bull reports on how the problem is playing out in one area:

Transcript

Feral pigs are a big problem in many states. And while many are escapees
from farms, some are actually let loose by hunters. The GLRC’s Brian Bull
reports on how the problem is playing out in one area:


Feral pigs have appeared in several states including Oregon, California, Indiana, Illinois
and Wisconsin. Recently they started showing up Minnesota. It was first thought wild
swine might’ve crossed frozen waterways from Wisconsin. Wisconsin wildlife biologist
Dave Matheys says the growing problem is more likely due to hunters using pigs for
hunting practice:


“Some bear hunters who train their hounds, train them on
pigs, and don’t recapture the pig. It escapes, or the hounds aren’t
trained thoroughly enough or they just don’t want to recover it, so
the pig or pigs remain out in the wild.”


Feral pigs damage the habitat of ground-nesting birds, kill
small deer, and despite their shy nature, have even attacked people.
Matheys says the wild pigs are prolific, and eat almost anything, making them hard to
monitor and control. In some states wildlife managers have declared an open season on
the pigs.


For the GLRC, I’m Brian Bull.

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Life After a Forest Fire

  • Biologist find signs of regeneration shortly after a forest fire. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

Forest fires capture a lot of attention and concern. Loggers worry about lost resources. People who hike and camp in the forest worry they’ll see nothing but ugly, blackened vistas for years to come. But a big fire this summer in the northwoods gives people a chance to see just how fast the forest can recover. Even as the fire still burns, foresters see signs of life. The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Forest fires capture a lot of attention and concern. Loggers worry about lost resources.
People who hike and camp in the forest worry they’ll see nothing but ugly, blackened vistas for years
to come. But a big fire this summer in the northwoods gives people a chance to see just
how fast the forest can recover. Even as the fire still burns, foresters see signs of life.
The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The Cavity Lake fire started in mid-July this summer. It turned out to be the fire people have been
worrying about for seven years. In 1999, huge straight-line winds knocked down millions
of trees. They toppled into an impassable tangle of drying fuel in and near the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. Locals call it “the
blowdown.”


The Cavity Lake fire gobbled up the blown-down trees. It roared across lakes,
threatening homes and resorts.


(Sound of boat motor)


Two forest service workers hop in a small boat to document the fire and its aftermath. In
places, the fire seems to have consumed everything, down to the soil, but these two are
looking for life.


Black, powdery ash covers the ground. Burned snags, limbless trees the color of
charcoal, stand against the sky. But even here, biologist Lissa Grover can find signs of
life.


“If you look around, you can see the 20-foot tall trees that took off after the blowdown,
and a lot of them still have cones on the top, and those cones are open now, and the seeds
will fall from them into the bare soil and germinate.”


In fact, some seeds, such as Jack Pine, wait for fire to open:


“There’s a seed bank in the soil, just waiting for a disturbance like this. There’s one plant
called Bicknell’s geranium that sprouts after fire, produces flowers the second year, sets
seed. Those seeds will stay in the soil until the next fire, even if it’s 200 years from now.”


And some plants aren’t waiting for the next generation. Grasses are already pushing
green shoots through the blackened dirt.


(Sound of motor)


Our next stop is a big island. After the 1999 blowdown in northeastern Minnesota, the
Forest Service purposely burned some areas near homes and resorts. The idea was to
reduce the amount of fuel available for wildfires. Crews set this island on fire four years
ago.


Wilderness ranger Tim McKenzie says that intentional burn saved the island, and the
resorts, from the Cavity Lake fire:


“It was traveling pretty good distances and spotting on these islands. As soon as it hit
here it just lay down.”


The blowdown fuel was already burned, and the young trees were too small and green to
keep the fire going.


Animals here are also adapted to fires. Bears, wolves and moose can walk away from a
fire. Birds can fly away or take refuge in the water.


Grover does worry about the young eagles, still in their nests and unable to fly.


“The trees are still there, the nest is still there, the adult eagles are still here, but it’s
unlikely that the juveniles in the nest survived the fire.”


But a few minutes later, we hear a sound that gladdens Grover’s heart: a young eagle
screaming for food.


(Sound of eagle)


At least one young eagle survived the Cavity Lake fire.


This land has been swept repeatedly by fires. They start, grow, move, and burn out in a
patchwork pattern. A fire last year burned until it ran into an area that had burned thirty
years ago. And here, in a thirty-year-old burn, is a picture-perfect Boundary Waters
portage.


(Sound of walking)


Young balsams scent the air with their clean, northwoods smell. Young birches lean
across the path. The moss is soft underfoot. The air is moist, and the mosquitoes are
buzzing.


Tim McKenzie fought that fire, thirty years ago. He says whenever fire burns, it’s nature
at work:


“People are used to seeing a snapshot in time. But the landscape that they’re used to
seeing became that landscape because of this process.”


And canoe outfitters here are busy planning routes that will show that landscape changing.


For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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