Tag: recreation

Turning Brownfields Into Greenfields

  • A former industrial site is being redeveloped with parks, wetlands and homes. Residents have high hopes the new development will boost the local economy. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

As the American economy shifts away from heavy industry, each closed factory risks becoming a brownfield. That’s a site that contains potentially hazardous materials. For the past decade, the federal government has provided help in assessing and cleaning these properties. It has proved to be one of the most popular environmental programs. It’s giving hope to small towns that need help in remaking their landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

As the American economy shifts away from heavy industry, each closed factory
risks becoming a brownfield. That’s a site that contains potentially
hazardous materials. For the past decade, the federal government has provided help in assessing and
cleaning these properties. It has proved to be one of the most popular environmental programs. It’s
giving hope to small towns that need help in remaking their landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:


When a Rust Belt city loses another factory, the townspeople don’t suffer
just from the loss of jobs. They’re often stuck with crumbling buildings or even polluted land. Not to mention, the local economy isn’t strong enough to fix them up.


It’s a dilemma familiar to East Moline, a small Illinois town that sits
along the banks of the Mississippi River. Since the early 80s, the town’s lost thousands of jobs in the farm machinery
industry. Rich Keehner is the City of East Moline’s assistant administrator. He says
there is a plan for the industrial riverfront.


“Right now there’s a movement to relocate or pull industrial uses from the
river. And then of course turn that riverfront property into bike paths or some
recreational activities to improve our quality of life. And that’s exactly
what we’re doing here.”


It’s a simple idea: move industry away from the river and work with
developers to make it an attractive place to play or even live. But it’s just not that easy. Keehner says developers won’t build on these sites until it’s clear what kind
of pollution, if any, might be there.


Testing the area’s soil and water can get expensive, so sites can remain
empty for years. Meanwhile, developers look for greener pastures. Really, they can just build on farmland instead.


During the past decade, the U.S. EPA’s paid for pollution testing at hundreds
of sites. The agency also funds some cleanup and other costs. East Moline’s used several grants to develop eighty acres of riverfront donated
by the John Deere Company.


With the Mississippi riverbank at his back, Keehner points out some new
houses developed on the site.


“It’s got some great amenitities, located next to the bike path. You
can just wake up any time night or day and look out at the river. And your
neighbors are very limited; it’s very peaceful.”


The district also boasts a small light house, a lot of park space, and some
wetlands areas. Keehner says brownfields grants funded about six percent of the project’s
total cost. That doesn’t sound like much, but the money’s played a key role. He says private money couldn’t be secured until there was progress on the
environmental front.


A lot of environmentalists and civic groups applaud the program even though
a lot of credit goes to someone they often criticize. Namely, President
George Bush. His critics admit the brownfields program is one of the brighter spots of
his environmental policy.


In 2002, President Bush signed legislation that expanded the program’s
funding and breadth. Alan Front is the vice president of the Trust for Public Land, a
conservation group.


“The administration, ever since signing that bill, has budgeted about 200
million dollars a year to make this program really vibrant and so not only
have they created the wallet, but they’ve filled it in a way that really
benefits communities around the country.”


Front says the expansion’s brought a tighter focus on the environmental
needs of smaller towns. Apart from the grants, there’s another reason for the program’s popularity. The EPA trains city administrators to use federal brownfield money to
leverage private dollars.


Charles Bartsch has been teaching such courses for ten years.
He says, to compete with larger cities, smaller towns need to show they
understand their local economies.


“I suggest to towns what they should do first of all is to decide what their
competitive economic niche is.”


That means, developing around a community asset, like East Moline’s tried
with its attractive riverfront. Bartsch says, for all the progress small town administrators have made, they’re still pretty isolated. He says they need to cast a wide social net, so
they can find the best advice.


“The key thing is less knowing how to do it yourself, but more knowing who to
reliably call to walk through ideas and walk through options.”


The brownfields program does have its critics. They say it’s tilted in favor
of land development over open space and they worry about how much oversight
there is of environmental testing.


Back at the East Moline site, it’s easy to see why small towns are
participating. Residents there now have more access to the river, bike paths, parks, and,
for some people, new homes. East Moline, and a lot of other small towns like it, are seeking even more brownfields money.


They’ve got a lot of other sites that want a chance at a new life.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Re-Using Land to Meet City’s Changing Needs

  • Don Mikulic with the Illinois Geological survey hunts for the fossilized brachiopods and snails available in the quarry. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Some of America’s grandest city parks were built when urban areas still had room to grow. But today, older cities wanting new parks face shortages of space, money, or both. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one major city’s development of a park … from below ground
level:

Transcript

Some of America’s grandest city parks were built when urban areas still had room to grow. But today, older cities wanting new parks face shortages of space, money, or both. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee looks at one major city’s development of a park from below ground level:


At first blush, an old quarry site doesn’t seem to be a good candidate for a new city park, especially this one.


For the past fifteen years, the city of Chicago has used this quarry as a landfill. The site, called Stearns Quarry, lies off the beaten track, in Chicago’s Bridgeport neighborhood, more than two miles southwest of downtown.


Right now it’s kind of ugly. Tractors are patting down a mound of debris and dirt that’s piled up thirty-feet above the nearby street.


(Sound of trucks)


I find the project manager, Claudine Malik inside the site’s construction trailer. She’s hovering over a map of what the park might look like by next year.


“It’s a twenty-seven acre site. It’s roughly a square and if you think of it as broken up into about four separate areas, that helps you map it out mentally. As you come in, there’s an athletic field, It goes down to a pond, which will be stocked for fishing. The majority of the section is a sledding mound. And along the back wall, which is a long preserved quarry wall, is a series of wetland cells that lead down into the pond.”


That’s a lot of different uses to cram into the site’s 27 acres. It’s hard to imagine a stone quarry turned into a landfill and then turned into a city park. To get a better idea of how it will be transformed, Malik and her team take me on a ride around the site.


(Sound of truck starting)


The plan puts every inch of ground to use because there aren’t many chances to put new parks in the city. Malik says rising land values in Chicago make even small land purchases pricey. And everybody seems to have ideas for the park.


Local residents, the state of Illinois and the city gave designers a tall order to fill. Since they’re all putting money into the five million-dollar project, everybody gets something they want.


Soon we spot Don Mikolic, a scientist with Illinois’ Geological Survey. He’s checking the quarry walls before the park’s complete.


(Sound of tapping)


“There’s part of a snail right there.”


Turns out, the quarry’s produced some of the best aquatic fossils in the Midwest.


“In fact you can probably find specimens from this specific quarry sitting in some of the biggest museums around the world.”


And some of the limestone exposed by quarrying will be left for park visitors to view. These walls offer more than just natural history though. Stearns Quarry is part of the region’s architectural history too. The quarry opened in 1833, a few years before Chicago became a city. Its limestone strengthened Chicago harbor and can be found in historic Midwestern churches.


Malik says the site’s history will find its way into the design as well. Just another thing for the planners to work into the park. Which makes you wonder, what’s driving a park to be all these things at once? To get some perspective, I head to the offices of the American Planning Association.


The APA is a professional organization for urban planners. Megan Lewis researches parks for the APA. Lewis says parks like Stearns Quarry face bigger challenges than the grand old parks designed in the 19th century.


“Now, you can’t really approach park planning especially in a city in the same way, because you don’t have the luxury of having all of that land available to you. So you sort of have to see what is there that can become a park and what do we do with it?”


Lewis says the mix of recreation, open space, even history, has a lot to do with the demands from so many competing interests. To see how thing have changed, she gives the example of Frederick Law Olmsted. He’s most famous for developing New York’s Central Park, a hundred and fifty years ago.


“The planning was sort of done in isolation. He would come up with his grand idea and he maybe only had a few people involved. But I think that now, so many people are empowered to say, This is what I want this place to be like, that planning doesn’t really happen in isolation anymore. Which is good, because you want it to be a democratic process.”


(Sound of quarry)


Back at Stearns Quarry, you can see just how those demands are being incorporated. Meeting all those different needs in a relatively small area with a relatively small budget is played out in each square foot.


This new use of the site is again reflecting the city’s needs. The little piece of land has evolved as the city has evolved. First it provided stone for building the city. Then it was a dumping ground. And now it’s a break from the asphalt and concrete, a place to play and rest in a bit of nature.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Greenways to Garner Green for City?

  • Proposals to build greenways in Detroit are raising interest, hopes, and concerns. (Photo by Val Head)

Many cities looking to revitalize their urban centers
have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:

Transcript

Many cities looking to reviatlize their urban centers have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:


This abandoned rail line twenty-five feet below street level might not be many peoples’ first choice for a walk or a bike ride. But Tom Woiwode thinks soon it might be. Woiwode is the director of the GreenWays Initiative for all of Southeast Michigan. When he takes a look down this former Grand Trunk Western Rairoad line in Detroit, he doesn’t see the fast food wrappers, tires, and crashed and rusting shopping carts. He sees trees and grass and benches. And more importantly, he sees people, and places for people to spend their money.


“So maybe a bike repair shop, restaurants, some opportunities for music venues and those sorts of things, so people can ride their bike on down to the riverfront and along the way either stay here for lunch, or along the way stop and rest and enjoy the ambiance, or take their food and go on down to the riverfront where they can enjoy the extraordinary natural resources of the river as well.”


We’re standing near the city’s sprawling open-air produce market. It’s one of the most popular draws for people from inside and outside the city limits. When it’s complete, the greenway will link the market to Detroit’s greatest natural asset: the Detroit River. Greenways are a new redevelopment concept in Detroit. But elsewhere, Woiwode says, they’ve proven a well-tested urban redevelopment tool.


“In fact, back in the late 90’s, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Denver – two municipalities that are roughly similar in size to Detroit – both characterized their greenways programs as the most important economic development programs they had within the city.”


Minneapolis is another city that’s had success with greenways. In fact, backers of the greenway plan in downtown Detroit say they were inspired by a similar project there. Last month, Minneapolis completed the second phase of what will eventually be a five-mile greenway along an abandoned rail line much like the one in Detroit. It’s called the Midtown Greenway. And it’ll eventually link the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River thruogh neighborhoods on the city’s south side.


Eric Hart is a Minneapolis Midtown Greenway Coalition board member. He says even the greenway’s most avid supporters joked that people might continue to use it as a dumping ground for abandoned shopping carts like they did when it was just a trench.


“Since then, since it was done in 2000, there’s been a lot of interest in the development community to put high-density residential structures right along the edge of the greenway. And it’s viewed more like a park now.”


Since the first phase was completed in 2000, one affordable housing development and a 72-unit market-rate loft project have been completed. And five more housing developments – mostly condos – are in the planning stages. Hart says people use the greenway for recreation and for commuting by bicycle to their jobs.


Colin Hubbell is a developer in Detroit. He says he’s all for greenways, as long as they’re not competing for dollars with more pressing needs in a city like Detroit: good schools, for example. Or safe neighborhoods. Hubbell says the question needs to be asked: If you build it, will they come?


“I’m not sure. I’m not sure, if, given the perception problem that we have as a city, how many people on bikes are going to go down in an old railroad right away, I’m not sure even if that’s the right thing to do, given the fact that – I mean, we have a street system. And just because there’s a greenway doesn’t mean if somebody’s on Rollerblades or a bicycle that they’re not going to stay on a greenway.”


Hubbell says Detroit already has a lot of streets and not much traffic – leaving plenty of room for bicyclists. Hubbell says it might be cheaper to paint some bike lanes, and put up signs. But he says connecting the city’s cultural and educational institutions, the river, and commercial districts with greenways is a good idea – as long as they’re running through areas where people will use them.


Kelli Kavanaugh says that’s exactly what’s happening with greenway plans in the city. Kavanaugh is with the Greater Corktown Economic Development Corporation in southwest Detroit.


“You can’t just stick a greenway in the middle of a barren, abandoned neighborhood and expect use. But when you put one into a growing neighborhood, a stabilizing neighborhood, it really works as another piece of the quality of life puzzle to kind of support existing residents, but also attract new residents to the area. It’s another amenity.”


Greenway backers say for a city struggling just to maintain its population, Detroit can only benefit from safe, pleasant places to walk and bike. And if other cities are any indication, they say greenways should also help bring another kind of green into Detroit.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Groups Sue Bush Administration Over Wildlife Rule

  • The Bush Administration has decided to make some changes on the National Forest Management Act, and many environmental groups are not pleased about it. (photo by Stefan Nicolae)

Environmentalists are suing the Bush administration for repealing rules that protect wildlife in national forests. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Environmentalists are suing the Bush administration
for repealing rules that protect wildlife in national
forests. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:


During the Reagan administration, regulations were
put in place that required the Forest Service to
ensure non-timber resources such as water, wildlife
and recreation were given due consideration and that
the wildlife be managed to maintain viable populations.
Tim Preso is a staff attorney for Earthjustice, one of
the groups that filed the lawsuit in federal court.


“Now, through a quiet rule-making, the Bush
administration is proposing to strip that protection
away and make it legal to drive wildlife toward
extinction in the national forests. We don’t think
that’s right and we don’t think that’s what the
majority of Americans support and we’re going to
seek to overturn it in the federal courts.”


Without public notice or public comment, the Bush
administration set aside the rule in favor of a less
restrictive guideline that relies on what’s called
“best available science.” One Forest Service official
says it doesn’t change things that much.


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

Related Links

Dilemmas for Wastewater Treatment Plants

  • Water contamination from sources that might include some wastewater treatment plants closes some beaches. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

Municipal sewer plants are sometimes blamed for high E. coli bacteria counts
that close beaches to swimmers. Some cities are working to find better ways to treat the
water and put it back into nature. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus
reports:


(sound of cars moving along a small street and a few people talking)


A typical summer day by the lake: SUVs pull boats on trailers. People saunter from an
ice cream shop to the city beach. Jet skis and water skiiers slice through the waves.
Carpenters raise trusses on homes being built into the remaining lakefront lots.


Just a few years ago it seemed towns like this were just for loggers and locals. But now
people are flocking to the lakes around the Midwest and staying there. And that’s putting
a strain on local sewer plants.


(sound of machines inside the water treatment plant)


For 40 years, the treated waste water from the Boyne City, Michigan sewer plant has
been released into the big lake it was built on…Lake Charlevoix.


“It’s located right adjacent to a public swimming beach, park, marina and some valuable
waterfront property. We are only a block off the downtown district.”


Plant manager Dan Meads wants to stop mixing the end product with the water where
tourists and the locals swim and play. He tests daily for E. coli bacteria. He
doesn’t want anyone getting sick. But it’s still a concern, and there are other concerns.


In recent years, the United States Geological Survey has reported on new kinds of
contaminants that they’ve found in ground and surface water. The USGS says treated
wastewater from sewer plants can contain hormones from birth control pills, antibiotics,
detergents, fire retardants, and pesticides.


USGS microbiologist Sheridan Haack says the effects of all these compounds are still
unknown. Most are found in tiny quantities, but combined they could cause any number
of chemical reactions.


“There are many different chemical structures and it would be very difficult to state for
all of them what we would actually expect the environmental fate to be and how they
would actually be transported through the environment.”


Haack says the medicines people take don’t disappear. They eventually leave the body
and are flushed down the toilet. Those drugs have been tested for safe human
consumption, but the question is: what happens when those chemicals are mixed in with
industrial waste, accidental spills and nature’s own chemical processes? Haack says they
just might come back around to hurt humans, fish and wildlife.


The Boyne City solution is to build a new wastewater treatment plant two miles from the
beaches up the Boyne River. Officials say contaminants will be diluted by the time they
flow back down into Lake Charlevoix.


(sound of the Boyne River)


Larry Maltby volunteers for a group called “Friends of the Boyne River.” The group
doesn’t like the city’s plan to discharge treated wastewater directly into the river. It wants
them to consider some non-traditional methods. They say the new sewer plant could run
a pipe under a golf course or spray the treated water on farm fields… or let it drain into
wetlands to let nature filter it out.


“It will seep into the soils which are very sandy and gravelly underneath the golf course
and then the filtration through the ground will have a great deal of effect of continuing to
purify that water. Much more so than it would be with a direct deposit, straight into the
surface waters of Michigan.”


Lawyers for the Friends of the Boyne River have appealed to the state dept of
environmental quality and filed a lawsuit.


But wastewater treatment plant manager Dan Meads says the city doesn’t want to please
just one group and end up angering another…


“There isn’t any guarantee that you can satisfy everybody. We think we have the best
option available.”


As municipalities are short on funds and personnel, they don’t want to wait for decades
for the perfect solution. Still, nobody wants any amount of pollution to affect their home
or their recreational area.


Sheridan Haack with the USGS won’t take either side in this dispute. She says not only
are the dangers from contaminants unknown, the best way to deal with them is unknown.


“I am not aware of any consensus in the scientific community on the nature or types of
treatment for this broad range of chemicals.”


In the meantime… communities such as Boyne City have the unenviable task of trying to
dispose of their residents sewage without polluting the beaches, the fishing, and the
environment that brought folks there in the first place.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.

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Rare Warbler Makes Comeback

  • The Kirtland's Warbler is listed as an endangered species. Its numbers are up these days in Michigan, due to a devastating fire that had positive consequences for warbler habitat. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Natural Resources)

New census figures show the population of one of the rarest songbirds in North America is at a record high. Biologists say the tiny Kirtland’s Warbler is one of the lesser-known success stories of the Endangered Species Act. But the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sally Eisele reports that success has not come without a price:

Transcript

New census figures show the population of one of the rarest songbirds in North America is at a
record high. Biologists say the tiny Kirtland’s Warbler is one of the lesser-known success
stories of the Endangered Species Act. But the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sally
Eisele reports that success has not come without a price:


To find the bird at this time of year, there’s only one place to go—the pine forests of
northern Michigan.


“Hear anything out there yet? No, we may need to take a walk.”


Forest Service biologist Joe Gomola hikes off in search of a Kirtland’s Warbler. He’s
armed with binoculars and a bird watching scope that looks like a bazooka. But he’s
really using his ears.


(forest sounds)


He doesn’t need to go far.


Quietly, he sets up his scope and focuses on a small pine about twenty feet away. There,
a bluish-gray bird—head thrown back, yellow breast puffed out—warbles the loudest
song in the forest.


(Kirtland’s Warbler singing)


“He has to know we’re here… and he just sits unperturbed. Just gorgeous.”


This is the only part of the world where Kirtland’s Warbler are known to nest, drawn to
the scrubby young jack pine that reseed in forest fires.


Logging and fire prevention efforts brought the bird close to extinction. In 1987,
researchers counted only 167 singing males. Ironically, a tragic accident marked a
turning point for the warbler. In 1980, what had begun as a small controlled burn to
create nesting ground for the bird turned into a massive wildfire, killing a Forest Service
worker and engulfing the small village of Mack Lake. But Rex Ennis, head of the
Warbler Recovery Team, says the disaster eventually created 25,000 acres of ideal
warbler habitat. Unexpectedly the bird began to thrive.


“There was loss of life, loss of property which were all tragedies when you looked at
that… but the end result of that was it created an ecological condition we saw the warbler
respond to. Those things we learned from that wildfire made our current management
strategy very successful.”


That strategy involves state and federal agencies working together under the Endangered
Species Act to control predators and create warbler habitat by clear-cutting and
reforestation. The goal is to replicate conditions once created naturally by wildfire.


After the Mack Lake disaster, researchers realized much larger managed habitat areas
were needed. Today, 150,000 acres of state and federal land have been identified as
potential habitat. It’s a massive, multi-million dollar effort and not everybody likes it.


(store ambience)


Linda Gordert and her husband own Northern Sporting Goods in Mio, the heart of
warbler country. She says folks resent the warbler program because it restricts access to
the state and national forests.


“More complaints from hunters and just everybody… when they come in and say you
can’t go into this area because it’s Kirtland Warbler management area. They’re taking up
thousands and thousands of more acres of this because of the Kirtland management area
and that’s the complaints we hear.”


The bird supporters counter the warbler benefits the region. The forestry program
generates jobs and revenue and a yearly Kirtland’s Warbler Festival attracts thousands for
a glimpse of the rare, pretty songbird. But there will always be competition for the land.
And the recovery team says it needs more acreage, not less, to replace habitat as it
matures and becomes unsuitable for the bird.


(Warbler sings)


His scope still on the warbler, Joe Gomola says some worry about the danger of a fire
like the Mack Lake burn, happening again in the flammable jack pine they now plant.


“But it’s part of the ecosystem that was here before us…same with the Kirtland’s and
we’re charged with managing habitat for this endangered species. And that’s what we’re
doing. (SE: “Is that the same bird?”) Same bird. We’re probably close to the center of
his territory, he’s made almost a full circle around us.”


This year’s census found 1,340 singing males—a record that has started talk of eventually
changing the warbler’s endangered status. But the recovery program has become the
bird’s life support system. 90 percent of the birds were counted in man-made plantations,
indicating habitat management must also continue indefinitely if the bird is to survive.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sally Eisele.

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Parks Dig Up Sediment Solution

  • A crane dredges sediment from the bottom of the Illinois River. The mud is loaded onto a barge bound for Chicago - to turn a brownfield into a park. (Photo courtesy of Illinois Waste Management and Research Center)

Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic. But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers
and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the
waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic.
But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The Illinois River used to be an average of more than twenty feet deep. These days, the
river averages a depth of about two feet. The river stretches nearly from Chicago across
the state of Illinois and joins the Mississippi near St. Louis. The entire length of the
Illinois River is clogged with sediment that’s eroded mostly from farmland. Besides
blocking navigation, the sediment buries aquatic plants, destroying a food source for fish
and waterfowl.


(sound of a dredger)


A giant dredger is taking deep bites into the muck beneath the water’s surface that’s
clogging up the bottom of the river near Peoria. The bright orange clamshell bucket is
filling up barges that will take 100,000 tons of sediment to Chicago. There, it will be
used to cover up the remains of an old steel plant and create 17 acres of parkland.


Bob Foster is a project manager with the Chicago Park District. He says the steel mill
site is useless without the sediment from the Illinois River:


“What’s left there now is several foundations and forty feet of slag. It’s pretty hard to
plant trees in forty feet of slag. This project would not be happening unless we were
receiving this soil, this dredged material, because soil is our number one cost in park
development now.”


State and federal officials say this idea helps both the Illinois River by clearing out
sediment… and the city of Chicago by providing topsoil for a park. The program also has
the support of environmentalists, although they do sound a word of caution.


Marc Miller is an environmentalist who serves on the Illinois River Coordinating
Council, a group of public and private organizations trying to help the river. He supports
the dredging program, but says it would be better if the government, farmers and
developers would do more to stop soil erosion.


“That’s why the Illinois Coordinating Council has many irons in the fire in addressing
these issues. It’s going to take prevention in order to stop the kind of problems that have
been going on for decades.”


This kind of program won’t work everywhere. John Marlin is with the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources. He’s done a lot of studies on the possible uses for
dredged material. But, because some sediment is contaminated with pesticides or old
factory pollution, you have to test the muck and know where it’s going to be used.


“There are definitely places where the soil in the lakes and the Illinois River is too
polluted to use. But there are other places where it is clean, and one of our jobs is going
to be to find out where it is clean and safe to use and make judgments accordingly. There
will be a lot more questions as time goes on.”


But public officials behind this project are concentrating solely on the positives of the
project. Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn told supporters at a rally on the banks of the
Illinois River that the dredging program will be the beginning of a much larger program
that will benefit several states.


“This is a model, we want to replicate it, we want to do it elsewhere. We are open for
business. If you need topsoil somewhere, we got it. (laughter) And by digging up the
sediment and making the river a little deeper, we can help our fish, our wildlife, our
waterfowl, we can help our boating, our recreation.”


To have any significant impact on the Illinois River, this kind of dredging program will
have to be expanded exponentially. This first project will remove 100,000 tons of
sediment. Each year more than 14 million tons of sediment is washed into the Illinois
River basin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

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Rock Climbers Grapple With Cliff Preservation

  • A young climber makes her way up the sandstone cliffs at the popular Oak Park in Grand Ledge, MI. Climbers are struggling to balance the love of their sport with their love of the park. They're coming up with different answers to the question - when can nature and climbing coexist? (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Rock climbing has been considered a sport since the early twentieth century. And it’s becoming more mainstream in the U.S. and Canada. As rock climbers visit parks in growing numbers, some people are beginning to wonder… can nature and climbing always coexist? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports… one climbing guide thinks a Midwest park has reached its breaking point, and he’s giving up income to prove it:

Transcript

Rock climbing has been considered a sport since the early twentieth century.
And it’s becoming more mainstream in the U.S. and Canada. As rock climbers
visit parks in growing numbers, some people are beginning to wonder… can
nature and climbing always coexist? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams reports… one climbing guide thinks a Midwest park has
reached its breaking point, and he’s giving up income to prove it:


(clinking, rope sound) “You guys stretched out real good? Let’s get
climbing! Grab a helmet and let’s get climbing…”


Michael Hood’s climbing class is gearing up to scale the sandstone cliffs at
Oak Park… nicknamed the Ledges. It’s a popular seven-acre park in Grand
Ledge, Michigan.


Most of these kids have climbed here many times, and they get started
quickly.


“Let’s get you up here. Bug, you coming up here? Let’s do our commands..
“On belay?” “Belay on.” “Whoa, gotta feel the fish first, watch that break
hand…”


This class is special. It’s probably the last good day of the season. It
also might be the last time they’ll ever climb here.


Michael Hood has been coaching climbers at the Ledges for 19 years. He gets
most of his income from teaching here. And you can tell he loves his work.
But he says, after today, he won’t teach another class here.


“These sandstone, fragile sandstone cliffs, and all the plants and animals
that live on them, cannot share the rock with climbing. Because we
interfere with all the life processes that go on up there, no matter how
sensitive we are.”


Hood says over the past few years, he began to realize the impact decades of
climbing were having on the Ledges. He’s seen cliff swallow nests pushed
out to make way for better handholds. He says climbers have worn away the
topsoil at the cliff’s edge. And even the rock is vulnerable.


“You can do decades worth of damage in just one day very easily.”


Hood says the problem is that the Ledges are small, 150 yards long and 40
feet high. And there are lots of climbers. Visitor surveys show that
thousands of people climb at the park every year. It’s the only place to
climb outdoors in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. So climbers come from places
as far away as Detroit, Ohio and Indiana.


Michael Hood says there are some rules in place, but there’s no one to
enforce them. Hood recently asked the city’s parks and recreation
commission to consider banning climbing at the park.


That’s stirring up the climbing community.


At first, Hood says he got a lot of angry phone calls. Now, a group of
local climbers is asking the city to keep the park open.


Judy McGarry has been climbing at the Ledges for two years. She says if the
park closes, she’d have to drive to Kentucky or Canada to climb outdoors.


“It’d be really sad if they did close it. I know with a lot of people
coming down here there’s erosion. But if you think about it, who really
cares about this rock more than climbers? We want it here so we can climb
it.”


Climbers are fighting to keep parks open across the country. Shawn Tierney
is with the Access Fund, a non-profit group that advocates for climbers. He
says climbers called him when they heard about Michael Hood’s efforts to
close the park.


“I think his concerns are probably valid, he’s concerned about resource
impacts at the area, and instead of closing the area, which to me seems to
be a very extreme measure, there needs to be some management of the area.
And recruit climbers in the process of helping to take care of the area.”


But Michael Hood isn’t sure anything short of a permanent closure will work.


“Climbers want to believe they could put a few regulations in place and save
this place. But the problem is climbers are notoriously an unruly bunch,
myself included. We don’t like to be told what to do, how to do it, when to
do it.”


Experts say conflicts between rock climbers and park managers are fairly
common. Peter Kelly studies cliff ecology and climbing at the University of
Guelph in Ontario. He says one problem in these situations is that not much
is known about cliff ecosystems because they’re hard to get to.


“Obviously people have observed that damage has taken place. But what has
been lost there that people didn’t even know about?”


And that’s the big question. Michael Hood says he’s asked geologists and
botanists to take a look at the park. But he doesn’t want to cause more
damage while he waits to see if the scientists publish or the city makes a
decision. He’s convinced he can’t keep bringing people to climb at the
Ledges.


He says it’s the right thing to do for the park, even though it’s not a
decision he came to easily.


“I’m losing a lot. I’ve lost a lot of lifelong friends over this, I’m
losing most of my income, and my livelihood. And the love I have for
guiding and working with these young people. It’s really powerful for me to
be out here. I live and breathe this, and to give this up and walk away
from it is… I can’t even articulate what a sacrifice this is for me.”


(sound up of climbers packing up equipment, ropes being put into piles, etc)


The sun is setting, and it’s getting chilly. Hood and his staff take the
ropes down and pack the helmets into bags.


Hood gathers the kids in a circle.


“That we could share this last day together here, I will never ever forget
it. And we’ll climb together some more, in other places. But every time I
come here I’ll think of this last day with you guys and never, ever forget
it. It’s just wonderful.”


Michael Hood hopes his class will walk away understanding why he’s giving up
climbing in a place he loves.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Some Parks Reconsider Jet Ski Ban

The National Park Service says it’ll go ahead with a ban on water scooters at some National Park shores, but it might later reconsider the ban on some of them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:

Transcript

The National Park Service says it’ll go ahead with a ban on water scooters at some National Park shores, but it might later reconsider the ban on some of them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:

As part of a court-sanctioned agreement, the National Park Service will comply with a Clinton-era rule that banned Jet-Skis, Ski-Doos, Wave Runners and other such personal watercraft from 21 national park shores. Many of the parks, such as Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, will implement the bans immediately. Others will ban the small boats in September. Kristen Brengel is with the environmental group Natural Trails and Waters Coalition.

“That’s fine, but what was hidden in their announcement was the fact that three parks that had previously decided to ban Jet-Ski use are now going to be forced to study the issue more and potentially re-open their waters to Jet-Skis.”

Environmentalists say the water scooters are loud, dangerous, and polluting. The riders say they’re being singled out by the government just as the industry is beginning to manufacture quieter, more environmentally friendly models.

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

Winter’s Effect on Lake Levels Debated

There seems to be some confusion over how the mild winter will affect lake levels. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Amy Cavalier has the story: