usda - The Environment Report

Banned Firewood for Sale

Logs from ash trees that had to be cut down after they were infested with emerald ash borer beetles. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
An adult emerald ash borer. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Department of Agriculture)

In more and more places, you can’t bring firewood with you when you go
camping. That’s because officials are worried about a destructive
beetle that people are spreading by moving firewood all over the
nation. Scientists say the best thing you can do is buy firewood where
you camp. But as Rebecca Williams reports, even then… you can’t
always know if the wood you’re buying is safe:

Transcript

(Sound of crackling fire)

There’s something sort of magical about a fire. Without it, there’d be
no roasted marshmallows, no ghost stories. And it would get pretty cold at
night. That’s why a lot of people toss some firewood in their car on
the way to camp out. It’s just habit.

But lately it’s gotten risky to move firewood. That wood could be
carrying tiny stowaways with big appetites. Especially a metallic
green beetle called the emerald ash borer.

The ash borer eats through the living layer of ash trees, so the trees
starve to death. It’s thought to have gotten into the States in wood
packing material from China. So far, it’s killed more than 20 million
ash trees in the upper Midwest and Ontario. That’s costing
millions of dollars in lost trees and wood.

People can move the beetle long distances unknowingly by moving
firewood, because the bug hides underneath the bark.

Elizabeth Pentico is trying to stop people from moving that infested
wood. She’s with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She supervises
USDA inspectors looking for people moving firewood out of quarantined
states:

“If someone has a shipment of logs that’s fairly easy to see, but 25
pieces of firewood in the back of a pickup truck with a camper is a
whole different issue. The firewood pathway is very difficult because
it is so low profile and because everyone moves firewood.”

Pentico says the best thing to do is buy firewood locally… and burn it
all up. But she says a lot of times, if you buy it from a gas station,
supermarket, or home improvement store, there won’t be any way to know
for sure if the firewood is safe.

Recently, that’s been a problem. Firewood from a company in Illinois
was shipped to Menard’s home improvement stores in 10 states. Illinois
is under a federal quarantine for emerald ash borer. So no hardwood
firewood can cross state lines, unless it’s been treated to kill
emerald ash borer larvae.

But somebody messed up.

Jane Larson is a spokesperson with the Wisconsin Department of
Agriculture. She says in this case, the firewood company had an
agreement with the federal government to ship firewood across state
lines:

“Part of that agreement is they’d sell wood that had the bark removed,
or it would be ‘debarked.’ And we were finding here that the wood was not
debarked.”

Larson says a nationwide recall was put in place. But she says a few
Menard’s stores were still selling the firewood a week after the recall
notice was issued.

In a written statement to The Environment Report, a Menard’s
spokesperson says quote – “Menard’s was in complete cooperation with
the USDA firewood recall and has obtained a new vendor.”

But officials say this incident shows how easily the ash borer can
spread.

USDA’s Elizabeth Pentico says even if you buy a firewood
bundle that says it’s from Texas, that doesn’t mean that’s where the
firewood came from:

“We had a distribution center here in Michigan. The broker for the
firewood was in Texas. The wood itself came out of Missouri and the
wood was distributed to Ohio and Indiana.”

So you can see, firewood can travel around a lot.

You can even buy firewood on eBay, by the semi-load. Pentico says her
inspectors have to watch the Net closely:

“They’ve even come across some firewood chatrooms that have firewood sales.
You can indicate that firewood is illegal. The officers stopped a sale
of Michigan firewood going to California by just typing in and saying
you know, that’s an illegal movement.”

But Pentico says officers do have to catch the wood actually crossing
state lines before the laws can be enforced.

Some people in the firewood industry agree it’s like hide and seek for
inspectors.

Jim Albring is a firewood dealer who’s been in the business for more
than 25 years:

“A lot of firewood business is done by little individuals, guys that
cut on the weekends and so forth, and you try to change the mindset of those people
and say you can’t cut ash, you can’t sell ash, well they’re going to
cut what they want to cut. They’re individuals… and if there’s ash in
it, so there’s ash in it.”

The inspectors say it’s very hard even for a trained eye to tell the
difference between ash wood that might be infested and any other kind
of wood that’s safe. So they say the best thing to do is to not move
firewood at all. Buy local and burn it up as soon as you can.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Corn Ethanol: Higher Food Prices

Some people are warning there are hidden costs
to the drive for ethanol. The demand for corn-based
ethanol for fuel has pushed the price of corn close
to the highest price it’s been in 10 years. In the
first of our two-part series on ethanol, Rebecca Williams
reports that economists say the push for more ethanol will
mean higher prices at the supermarket:

Transcript

(Sound of burger sizzling)

Everything in your classic American meal has one thing in common.

(Sound of soda can opening and fizzing)

The burger, chips, soda, even the ketchup. They all depend on corn.

Cows eat corn. Chips have corn oil in them. And your soda and ketchup
have high fructose corn syrup as a main ingredient. Supermarkets are
loaded with food that has something to do with corn.

And lately, corn’s been near its highest price in ten years. The price
has nearly doubled. Everyone from livestock producers to beverage
companies has been feeling the squeeze of more expensive corn. And
that’s been starting to show up at the grocery store.

The US Department of Agriculture predicts our food is going to get more
expensive this year, and maybe for many years to come.

Ephraim Leibtag is a USDA economist. He says we’ll probably be paying
between two and a half and three and a half percent more this year at
the store:

“That’s on average for your food bill. So if you’re buying an average
basket of products and you spend $100 when you go to the store, now
you’ll be spending $103. But you’ll see it first in products most
related to corn. In addition you’ll see some after-effects because if
more corn is produced that may drive up the price of other commodities
if the tradeoff in land is between, let’s say, corn and other potential farm
products.”

So if farmers plant more corn for ethanol instead of soybeans, that
will drive up the price of soybeans, and in turn, the food that’s made
from them.

It turns out that’s exactly what farmers are planning to do this year.
A recent USDA report says farmers will be planting 12 million more
acres of corn than last year… and less soybeans, and rice.

Leibtag says high corn prices have been great for corn farmers, but he
says it’s been rough on a lot of other people:

“If you use corn as a main ingredient you’ve already noticed your costs
go up quite a bit. Some companies have explored the possibility of
substituting or using other products. But certainly producers of livestock and
poultry have higher feed costs. They have to think about exactly how they’re
going to produce their product when one of their inputs goes up 20, 30,
50, 80 percent in price.”

Ethanol backers say it’s just a matter of time before the market will
adjust to more expensive corn. Bob Dinneen is the president of the
Renewable Fuels Association:

“Corn prices are indeed going up… Our own industry is paying more for feedstock for ethanol today. But
at the end of the day, as the marketplace adjusts, we’ll be able to grow
more than sufficient grain to satisfy the country’s demand for food,
fuel and fiber and rural America will be better for it.”

But others argue it won’t be possible to have it all forever. Lester
Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute:

“Usually in the past, rises in food prices come when we have a poor
harvest somewhere in the world as a result of weather and therefore is temporary. It usually
lasts a year or so and weather comes back to normal and we get a good
harvest again. What we’re looking at now is continuous pressure on
prices as far as we can comfortably see in the future, simply because in
agricultural terms, the demand for automotive fuel is insatiable.”

Brown says we’re at risk of trading food for ethanol fuel. And he says
it’s not just going to impact food prices in the US. It’s also going
to affect food supplies worldwide, especially in developing countries.

“The biggest effects are hitting people in other countries who consume
corn more directly, like Mexico for example, which has a corn-based diet and there
the price of tortillas has gone up about 60 percent.”

Brown says many US politicians have what he calls “ethanol euphoria.”
He’s called for a moratorium on licensing new ethanol plants. He wants
the government to think about whether it makes sense to keep
subsidizing ethanol made from corn.

Many people, even some in the ethanol industry, say ethanol from corn
is a limited solution. So researchers are looking for ways to make
ethanol from other sources, such as woody plants like switchgrass.

In the meantime, ethanol from corn is still the most viable option.
Economists say if corn gets diverted into ethanol on a large scale,
that might mean we’ll all be paying higher food prices for the next
several years.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Forest Service Breaks Bank Fighting Fires

A new report from the US Department of Agriculture’s Inspector General shows the US Forest Service is spending too much money fighting fires. It suggests the feds get some help paying the bills from state governments. Mark Brodie reports:

Transcript

The Inspector General report says the Forest Service went over budget four times in the last six years, spending more than a billion dollars in each of those years.

The service blames the cost increase in part on housing developments. They say more homes are being built farther into the forest.

Tom Harbour is the Forest Service’s Fire Chief.

“All of us treat protection of life as our certain first priority, and then treat the protection of communities and values on public lands as our second, and you bet it does make things more difficult.”

But some state foresters say the real difficulty comes from issues like changes in the weather and too much fire fuel on federal land. They say downed trees and excess brush make it difficult for the forest service to contain fires.

Both sides say they’ll bargain hard when it comes time to pay the bill for fighting fires.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brodie.

Great Lakes Fish “Quarantined” by Usda

Regulators are worried about a fish disease found in the lakes that could spread to other areas. Federal officials are trying to figure out the next step after banning certain shipments of fish in the Great Lakes Region. Dustin Dwyer has more:

Transcript

The disease is called viral hemorrhagic septicemia. It can cause fish to bleed internally and die.

The disease is harmless to humans, but federal regulators say it could lead to massive die-offs for up to 37 different species of fish, so they’ve stopped fisheries in the eight Great Lakes states, and two Canadian provinces from shipping those species over state lines. The ban only affects live fish.

Jim Rogers is a spokesman with the US Department of Agriculture. He says the ban is meant to stop the spread of the disease while officials figure out what to do next.

“Now eventually that federal ban is going to lift, and we are going to be allowing movement. But right now we just can’t do it with the threat of this disease hanging over us.”

The fishing industry in the Great Lakes has been valued at more than $4 billion a year.

For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Promoting a New Biofuel Crop

Most efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil have been focused on alternative energy sources like solar, wind, or corn-based ethanol, but some conservationists have another crop in mind: grass. Brad Linder reports:

Transcript

Most efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil have been focused on alternative energy sources like solar, wind, or corn-based ethanol. But some conservationists have another crop in mind: grass. Brad Linder reports:

Scott Singer is on a mission to promote switchgrass as an alternative to fossil fuels. Singer’s a wildlife biologist with the US Department of Agriculture. He says the tall grass grows in most parts of the US, even in harsh conditions such as when there’s a drought.

Most importantly, Singer says switchgrass can easily be converted to fuel that’s cleaner to burn than coal. He says it’s a good crop to grow, because it takes less time to plant and harvest.

“You also reduce energy use for farmers out there, saving them money and basically saving energy which is generally fossil fuel driven in the field.”

Singer’s working on a pilot project to demonstrate the technology. He says fuel pellets made from switchgrass can be used in stoves that usually burn wood or power plants that usually burn coal.

For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

Usda Catches Shady Organic Certifiers

The US Department of Agriculture says consumers will
see tougher policing of the organic food market. That’s after the
USDA recently revoked the accreditation of a company that certified organic products. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

The US Department of Agriculture says consumers will
see tougher policing of the organic food market. That’s after the
USDA recently revoked the accreditation of a company that certified
organic products. The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

The Ag Department kicked a Wisconsin certifier out of the
National Organic Program for apparent conflicts of interest. That marks the first time
the department has revoked an organic certifier, but the agency says
other investigations into rule-breaking have been done and some
certifiers have left voluntarily when they knew the government was
scrutinizing them.

Barbara Robinson oversees the USDA’s Organic
Program. She says the learning curve of the four-year old effort is
over and tougher enforcement is on the way:

“Ignorance is no longer a good excuse. Now, enough time has passed to
say, okay, we can get a little tougher.”

People who break the organic certification rules can be booted out for up to
five years and face fines.

For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

Hybrid Car Ownership Drives People Together

Some hybrid car owners are starting clubs to socialize and to learn how to squeeze even more miles per gallon out of their fuel-efficient vehicles. The number of hybrid owners is still small enough that the owners feel a little “special.” The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Some hybrid car owners are starting clubs to socialize and to learn
how to squeeze even more miles per gallon out of their fuel-efficient
vehicles. The number of hybrid owners is still small enough that the
owners feel a little “special.” The GLRC’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Bradley Fons says he already thought about the environment a lot before he
purchased a used hybrid car three years ago. He bought a Honda Insight:

“…And I kind of figured out how to drive it to get the best mileage but there
was no support, no help out there at that point to assist me.”

Eventually, Fons found a group of hybrid owners who helped him answer
some questions about the car.

(Sound of group meeting)

But this year, with some help from his family, Fons has done one better: he’s
organized a hybrid owners club.

(Marie Fons) “…And put your name on one of these little things, for a door prize. I know, work, work, work, work, work. Here, you guys want to work on the
door prize thing?”

Bradley Fons’ wife, Marie, is helping about two dozen people check in. This
is the first meeting of the hybrid owners group. They get to know each
other by their name, their city, and the kind of hybrid they drive:

“I’m Kathy Moody from Racine and I have a ’05 Prius.”

“I’m Bill Vaness from Waukesha and I ride in my wife’s ’03 Prius (laughs).”

(Group member) “At least you’re honest.”

“My name is Sherrie Schneider, I’m from Bristol and I have an ’06 Civic. Picked it up about a month ago and I’m here to learn a lot ’cause I don’t know how to get the mileage you all
are getting but I’m going to learn (laughs).”

And so Bradley and Marie Fons go into teaching mode, offering encouragement and advice about how to get the most miles per gallon from the cars. The hybrid of gas engine and electric batteries usually cost more to buy more than similarly sized conventional cars. So the new owners are anxious about getting the best mileage possible.

Bradley Fons preaches patience. He says for new vehicles, owners have to work through
the car’s several thousand mile break-in period before they get the kind of gas
efficiency the cars can reach:

“So if you’re getting in the forties, ya know, high 40, mid 40, to low 50s in
a Prius and it’s new, don’t worry about it, ya know. It’ll come.”

Fons says some of these cars will get miles-per-gallon in the 60s and 70s. Then there are
the controversial people who’ve become what’s known as “hyper-milers,” getting 80 or 90
miles per gallon through various means that even the hyper-milers concede aren’t
completely safe.

Fons introduces Wayne Gerdes, who tells how to steer a hybrid
in the air draft right behind 18-wheel trucks:

“Hopefully you’ll understand that this close in, is this one car to one and a half second
back, that’s a dangerous area. I don’t recommend anybody doing it, but you’re gonna find
your fuel economy going through the roof on that.”

The hybrid owners club that the Fons family has organized also takes club
members out in hybrids for some lessons on the road:

“So we’ll go down, ya know, another set of streets.”

Bradley Fons sits in the front passenger seat of a Toyota hybrid. He’s
teaching a club member named Bill a driving method called the “pulse-and-
glide.” Basically, it involves only occasionally tapping the gas pedal and coasting
a lot, so that neither the car’s motor or electric battery system is operating much.

When pulse-and-glide is done right, a monitor on the dashboard reports a surge in
fuel efficiency. After some difficulty, Fons helps Bill get the hang of it:

“All right, foot totally off. Now just on a little, there you are. You’re in it, hold it,

(Bill) “Do you take your foot off when you’re in there, though?”

“No, you have to leave pressure on it. Boy, that was the longest glide you did (laughs)!”

It’s moments like these that make Bradley Fons glad he and his family are helping to
spread the hybrid car message. But Fons sees an opportunity for members of his club to
go outside the group and become pro-hybrid activists:

“Hoping dealers get more hybrid cars, working for candidates that push alternative fuels,
sustainable energy, anything that can be done…because at this point in time it hasn’t been
coming from the government. They’ve done some, but our group doesn’t feel they’ve done
enough.”

Fons says politicians should listen to hybrid owners and hybrid clubs, because they’re
offering part of the solution to America’s oil addiction.

For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

“Usda Organic” a Loose Label?

You might not be getting what you pay for when you
buy food with the USDA organic label. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams explains:

Transcript

You might not be getting what you pay for when you buy food with the USDA
organic label. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams explains:

The USDA organic label is supposed to guarantee that shoppers are buying
food that’s free of most chemicals, antibiotics, and hormones, but that label might not
always be trustworthy.

Staff at the Dallas Morning News analyzed USDA’s own internal audits. They
found that the USDA does not know how often organic rules are broken. The
agency has not yet fined any producer for violating the rules, but some
producers have been ordered to remove the organic label.

USDA auditors found that some food producers got approval even though there
was evidence that banned chemicals were used on their products.

The Dallas Morning News analysis found that about 40 percent of organic food
is grown overseas, with even less oversight.

For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Budget Cuts to Fuel Ash Borer’s Spread?

When an emerald ash borer has infected a tree, white-colored larvae can be found under the bark. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)
When an adult emerald ash borer emerges from an ash tree, they leave behind a D-shaped exit hole. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)
The ash borer larvae form S-shaped tunnels under the bark.. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)

U.S. senators are asking the Department of Agriculture for emergency funding to help control the spread of the emerald ash borer. The burrowing tiny insect has already killed millions of ash trees. The emergency funding request comes as Congress has severely cut federal funding for the program. That’s forced states to change the way they fight the spread of the beetle. The GLRC’s Mike Thompson reports because of the federal budget cuts and a lack of state funding, experts fear the infestations could spread:

Transcript

US senators are asking the Department of Agriculture for emergency
funding to help control the spread of the emerald ash borer. The
burrowing tiny insect has already killed millions of ash trees. The
emergency funding request comes as Congress has severely cut federal
funding for the program. That’s forced states to change the way they
fight the spread of the beetle. The GLRC’s Mike Thompson reports
because of the federal budget cuts and a lack of state funding, experts
fear the infestations could spread:

(Sound of chainsaw and worker)

In 2002 the emerald ash borer was first discovered in southeastern
Michigan. Soon after that federal and state officials determined the
chainsaw was the best way to fight it.

(Sound of tree falling)

Since the tiny beetle arrived, officials estimate the insect has killed – on
its own – more than 15 million trees in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, and the
infestations keep spreading.

There is no known natural predator for the ash borer; no known
pesticide. The experts believe the only way to stop it is to destroy it by
cutting all ash trees within half a mile of a known infestation.

Dan Herms is an entomologist at Ohio State University. He serves on the
ash borer science advisory panel. He says the beetle threatens all of
North America’s 8 billion ash trees.

“If the spread of the insect can’t be contained to Michigan, it will
continue to spread to Ohio and throughout the Eastern United States,
killing all the ash trees. Essentially it’s going to do to ash what
Dutch elm disease did to elm and what chestnut blight did to chestnut.”

Over the past two years the three infested states have cut down
hundreds of thousands of ash trees to stop the spread, but cutting was the
preferred method when the federal government was picking up the tab.

In 2004, the federal government allocated some 41 million dollars for
protecting and cutting down ash trees. That funding slipped to 27
million dollars last year. In 2006 the federal government ash borer
funding has dropped to 8 million dollars – just one-fifth of what it was
two years ago.

Getting at the reasons for the budget cut is difficult. State agriculture
officials defer to federal agriculture officials who defer to Congress.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Ash Borer Program coordinator
Craig Kellogg theorizes the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina forced
lawmakers to cut funds.

“We can always speculate between all the other programs that are going on at
USDA, the cost of war, the cost of the hurricanes and the clean-ups and
all that good stuff, but we are not at the level that we were given the full
reason why we were cut.”

So with little federal money, most of the pre-emptive cutting of ash trees
has stopped. OSU entomologist Dan Herms says he’s concerned.

“It worries me extremely because if the funding is not restored such to
allow at least the opportunity to stop the spread of the insect in northwest
Ohio it will spread throughout the eastern United States, and it will cost
hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.”

The USDA and the states have shifted focus. States will use the federal
funding they receive to monitor the spread of the insect, enforce
quarantines and educate the public. Ohio will cut trees only if they find
new infestations away from the northwest part of the state.

But if the threat is so great to Ash trees, why won’t the states spend their
own money to stop the spread of the emerald ash borer?

We asked Ohio Agriculture Department spokeswoman Melissa Brewer.

“Well, you know, the state has stepped up to the plate as far as having in kind services
and taking those programs and running with them. You know, as far as how much
money can be contributed and that kind of thing… I don’t know who to even direct you on that.”

Officials from the different states say with current state budget pressures,
it’s difficult to find the money to cut down ash trees, and now that
federal money has dried up, Indiana scientists say they’re not sure
cutting trees worked.

State officials and scientists say the emerald ash borer is a national
problem and it should be the federal government’s responsibility to pay
the protection costs.

For the GLRC, I’m Mike Thompson.

Use of Corn for Ethanol Production Increases

Every few years, the amount of corn being used to produce ethanol doubles in the United States. That’s causing concern that too much of the country’s corn crop is being taken out of food production. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Every few years, the amount of corn being used to produce ethanol
doubled in the United States. That’s causing concern that too much of the
country’s corn crop is being taken out of food production. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Demand for ethanol is increasing as more states start requiring the corn-
based fuel to be blended with gasoline, and Congress has required that
the amount of renewable fuel used in the U.S. triple in the next six years.

Keith Collins is chief economist for the USDA. He’s says he’s not
worried about a food shortage. He says there were record corn crops in
2004 and 2005, and there’s 35 million acres of cropland in reserve in the
U.S.

“Some of that has to stay there because its environmentally fragile land,
but some of it could come out if demand for food goes up, and demand
for fuel goes up. I think we have a very strong resource natural resource
base that can produce a lot more agricultural commodities, both for food
and for fuel.”

Overproduction has kept corn prices as low as they were in the 1950s,
but Collins expects corn to get more expensive over the next few years as
ethanol production increases.

For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Tag: usda

Banned Firewood for Sale

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Corn Ethanol: Higher Food Prices

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