The Coast Guard and local agencies have declared 22 security zones on the Great Lakes… areas which are now off-limits to boaters under penalty of up to a $10,000 fine. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
Transcript
The Coast Guard and local agencies have declared 22 security zones on the Great Lakes…areas which are now off-limits to boaters under penalty of up to a $10,000 fine. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
Coast
Guard Petty Officer Paul Roszkowski says this is a reaction to the 9-11 terrorist attacks. He says not all of the zones are marked yet, but eventually will be with yellow buoys. He says the first time violators will be warned.
“Right now there are several security zones throughout the Great Lakes around nuclear power plants, around water filtration areas that boaters are going to have to keep an eye out for this boating season.”
Roszkowski says the Coast Guard is also organizing what they call “Eyes on the Water” programs in local ports. These get boaters to call in anything out of the ordinary.
“Especially people hunting and fishing in locations that are not typically used for those activities…Unattended vessels, any aggressive activities, any unusual filming, vessels operating in areas vessels don’t normally operate.”
Roszkowski says this is part of our changed world since 9-11.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.
More communities along the Great Lakes are testing their beaches and fighting over who’s to blame for beach closings. One dispute along Lake Michigan involves the performance of a multi-billion dollar sewage system in Milwaukee. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
More communities along the Great Lakes are testing their beaches and fighting over who’s to blame for beach closings. One dispute along Lake Michigan involves the performance of a multi-billion dollar sewage system in Milwaukee. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Some Illinois Congress people have asked the EPA to stop Milwaukee from dumping sewage into Lake Michigan. The politicians say a major sewage tunnel installed in Milwaukee a decade ago still allows too much untreated material into the water. They argue that city sewage is to blame for a sizable increase in Illinois beach closings over the last few years. But Val Klump of the Great Lakes Water Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee says the local sewer tunnel has greatly reduced the number of sewer overflows.
“Now that’s not to say we’re content with allowing any kind of untreated material getting into our waterways. That’s not our goal.”
But Klump says given other factors like dilution and other bacterial sources like gull droppings and pet waste, it’s less likely that Milwaukee wastewater is fouling beaches fifty miles south.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach in Milwaukee.
Recommendations have been made in the second and final report of an inquiry into the tainted water tragedy in Walkerton, Ontario. Seven people died and 2,300 became sick two years ago when E. coli bacteria leeched into the town’s drinking water supply from a nearby dairy farm. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
Recommendations have been made in the second and final report of
an inquiry into the tainted water tragedy in Walkerton, Ontario. Seven people died and 2,300 became sick two years ago when E. coli bacteria leeched into the town’s drinking water supply from a nearby dairy farm. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
In his first report three months ago, the head of the Walkerton inquiry, Associate Chief Justice Dennis O’Connor, outlined what went
wrong and who was to blame. In his final report, O’Connor makes 93 recommendations aimed at preventing another tragedy like Walkerton. He provides a blue print for fixing the province’s water systems. That includes having the province spend 800-million dollars immediately to upgrade water systems, and beef up programs and policies designed for water protection. He says there should be a safe drinking water act, a separate drinking water branch as well as a watershed management branch both to be created within the environment ministry. And there must be tougher enforcement of water regulations for farms and municipalities.
Without that, O’Connor says the threats to safe water in the Great Lakes region will grow. If the recommendations are implemented, many people will be able to rest easier knowing that Ontario could be working on improved watershed protection. But that may be wishful thinking. Already the Ontario government is taking a “go slow” approach, mainly because of the money it might have to spend… almost four times as much as the environment ministry’s current budget. The next step, it says, is consultations with communities across the province.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.
A new environmental study has found toxic emissions increased in Canada during the late 1990’s, while pollution in the United States decreased over that same period. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, critics say the findings reflect the differences in the governments’ commitment to cleaning up the environment:
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A new environmental study has found that toxic emissions increased in Canada during the late 1990’s while pollution in the United States decreased over that same period. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, critics say the findings reflect the differences in the governments’ commitment to cleaning up the environment:
Between 1995 and 1999, the amount of toxic waste released into the environment by American manufacturers decreased by about seven
percent. However, in Canada, toxic releases increased by six percent. That’s according to a new study conducted by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. It was established under the North American Free
Trade Agreement. The study compares industrial pollution in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, where the system is voluntary. Ken Olgivie is the executive director of Pollution Probe, an environmental group based in Toronto. He says the findings reflect the tightening of environmental regulations during the Clinton years. And the simultaneous
budget-cutting that was going on in Canada.
“When the U.S. is going down and we’re going up, I think that raises a serious question on Canadian policy and Americans should be aware of that because I’m sure you’re told all the time by our politicians how we do such wonderful things and we’re ahead of you, but I don’t think that’s true.”
For instance, the Ontario progressive conservatives cut their
environmental budget in half in 1995. Such cuts are significant because the regulation of air and water pollution in Canada lies with the provinces, rather than the federal government. That leads to different laws all across the country. An independent inquiry blamed the Ontario cutbacks for the deadly E. coli outbreak that occurred in the town of Walkerton in 2000.
The NAFTA report found Ontario had the largest increase in pollution of any state or province – at 19 percent. It remains the fourth largest polluter in North America and is the biggest recipient of American toxic waste. But it’s not the only place in the Great Lakes highlighted in the report. The study’s director, Erica Phipps says the region is responsible for a significant amount of North America’s pollution.
“Five Great Lakes jurisdictions, Ohio, Ontario, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois, represent one quarter of the facilities and one quarter of the total releases that we’re looking at in this report…when we’re looking at the toxic releases and transfers coming from that region, it is certainly of concern.”
Phipps says that close to half of the landfill disposals of toxic waste occur in this region. Landfills in Ontario, Michigan and Ohio are the
biggest recipients. But at least one government is considering a change. Ontario’s new premier, Ernie Eves, is promising to pour new funding into the province’s environment ministry and tighten its enforcement.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
When NAFTA was passed in 1994, environmentalists feared catastrophic results. Polluting industries would move to Mexico, where environmental protections hadn’t caught up with those in the U.S. and Canada. They were worried that air pollution would increase as more goods were shipped across international borders, and they were concerned that shared resources like the Great Lakes might lose their protected status and become commodities subject to trade. Supporters of NAFTA argued that increased prosperity would lead to improved pollution technology and a strengthening of environmental protections. But eight years later, the effects of NAFTA on the environment appear to be mixed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer explains why:
Transcript
When NAFTA was passed in 1994, environmentalists feared catastrophic results. Polluting industries would move to Mexico, where environmental
protections hadn’t caught up with those in the U.S. and Canada. They were worried that air pollution would increase as more goods were
shipped across international borders. And they were concerned that shared resources like the Great Lakes might lose their protected status and become commodities subject to trade. Supporters of NAFTA argued that increased prosperity would lead to improved pollution technology and a strengthening of environmental protections. But eight years later, the effects of NAFTA on the environment appear to be mixed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer explains why:
Two years ago, a private Canadian company got permission from a provincial government to ship water from Lake Huron to water-starved countries in Southeast Asia. When the federal government got wind of the deal, the contract was revoked. But environmentalists feared that
another assault on Great Lakes water could arise under a provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Chapter 11 is a clause that allows private foreign investors to sue local governments if they believe their trade rights have been violated. In the case of Great Lakes water, that could mean that trade laws could trump environmental regulations – and that businesses could overturn a government’s ability to protect natural resources and human health.
[ambient sound]
At a recent U.S./Canada law conference held in Cleveland, government officials, policymakers, and trade lawyers gathered to discuss the environmental consequences of Chapter 11 and other trade issues. In the
Great Lakes region, the sharpest impact may have been to air quality.
“Increased freight transportation
linked to NAFTA has led to significant air pollution at border crossings at both borders.”
Jannine Ferretti heads the North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation, an international agency established to address environmental concerns under NAFTA. She admits that as yet, there’s been only limited assessment of those impacts. But she says what data there is, shows it’s not all bad news.
“The Mexico steel, because of NAFTA’s investment provisions, actually enabled Mexico steel to upgrade its technology, making the sector actually in some ways cleaner than that of the United States and Canada. But what about the effects of trade rules on environmental policy? And this is where we go to NAFTA’s Chapter 11.”
(Frank Loy) “Chapter 11 is a chapter designed to protect investors from one NAFTA country that invested in another NAFTA country and it has led to a number of cases that have worried the environmental community.”
Frank Loy served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs under the Clinton administration. He says under Chapter 11, a number of private investors have successfully sued foreign governments for millions of dollars, contending that meeting local environmental regulations violated their rights under free trade laws.
“I would say the cases worry me a lot. My guess is
there already is a regulatory chill, a timidity on the part of governments
to take certain actions for fear of subjecting the state to liabilities.”
Part of that regulatory chill may derive from the concern that it’s not an open process. One of the sharpest criticisms of Chapter 11 is that the cases are heard and decided by a closed-door, three-person tribunal, with no mandate to hear testimony from third parties. So while the public has a hard time benefiting from NAFTA, companies have it relatively easy. In one of the first challenges under the provision, U.S.-based Ethyl Corporation won nearly 20-million dollars in damages from the Canadian government for its ban on a gasoline additive called MMT. Canada has since dropped the ban. Another case involved an Ohio company, S.D. Meyers, that treats the chemical compounds known as PCBs.
James McIlroy, a trade lawyer from Toronto, says the company wanted to import the waste from Canada, despite a Canadian prohibition.
“The government of Canada said we are prohibiting this for environmental reasons. But the real reason, when you really looked at it hard, the real reason was there was a PCB plant in Alberta in western Canada that the government of Canada wanted to promote.”
McIlroy is not alone when he says a number of Chapter 11 cases apparently based on environmental protection have proved on closer scrutiny to be a cover-up for government trade protection. While he doesn’t dismiss the environmental issues, he does caution against blowing them out of proportion.
“I think it’s fair to say, whether the cases are valid or not, there sure haven’t been a whole lot of them. And therefore this is not this huge, massive problem that people are talking about. And
we’ve had this what, since 1994, and you can count the number of cases on two
hands.”
Ohio Democrat Congressman Sherrod Brown voted against NAFTA. He disagrees with McIlroy’s assessment.
“Their arguments are specious. Perhaps in the opinion of trade lawyers, these challenges have served as a cloak for protectionism. But to trade lawyers, everything’s seen as a cloak for protectionism.”
Brown says while companies began making use of Chapter 11 only about four years ago, there have been plenty of other trade challenges to environmental laws.
“Time after time after time, both in NAFTA and every public health law challenge under the WTO, 33 straight times, public health laws, environmental laws, and food safety laws, every single time they’ve been struck down. That’s wrong, whenever a trade law can be used to undercut or repeal a democratically-attained rule or regulation.”
Both opponents and supporters agree it’s unlikely NAFTA will be revised anytime soon. But the precedents set under NAFTA could affect future trade agreements. Arguments on both sides of the issue will undoubtedly be aired again as Congress takes up approval of new fast track trade
legislation with similar investor protections this spring. Environmental groups believe equitable settlement of future trade challenges may have to rely on the strength of public opinion to sway government decisions.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Schaefer in Cleveland.
A revival of pasture-based agriculture in the Midwest is pleasing cheese maker's palettes. Photo courtesy of Uplands Cheese Company.
If you drive out into our Midwestern countryside these days, expecting pastoral scenes of placid cows grazing leisurely on grassy hillsides, you’ll be at least 50 years too late. Traditional pastoral herding practices, based on the summertime abundance of self-renewing grasses, has mostly disappeared. It’s been replaced by year-round production based on dried feeds grown from intensively worked soils. However, if you were to visit Pleasant Ridge Farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin or a small number of other farms around the Great Lakes region, you would find a successful and quite modern, revival of pasture-based agriculture. You would also find an incredibly tasty cheese. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ed Janus reports:
Transcript
If you drive out into our Midwestern countryside these days expecting pastoral scenes of placid cows grazing leisurely on grassy hillsides, you’ll be at least 50 years too late. Traditional pastoral herding practices, based on the summertime abundance of self-renewing grasses, have mostly disappeared. It’s been replaced by year-round production based on dried feeds grown from intensively worked soils. However, if you were to visit Pleasant Ridge Farm in Dodgeville, Wisconsin or a small number of other farms around the Great Lakes region, you would find a successful and quite modern, revival of pasture-based agriculture. You would also find an incredibly tasty cheese. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ed Janus reports:
Although they own a dairy farm and milk 200 cows, Mike Gingrich and Dan Patenaude really don’t farm at all like their neighbors. They’re grass farmers and herders. Their cows feed themselves on well-managed, systematically rotated pastures of flavorful summer grass – on farmland that does not know the plow, or soil erosion. So fresh is their grass that their cows convert it into milk that is unusually rich in essential dairy flavors. As Mike explains:
“This rotational grazing was a way that we preferred to run a dairy. It’s easier on the soil, it’s easier on the animals, and easier on the farmer, I think, too. All of our land is pastureland. We graze our cows all summer long. That is unusual. So they’re eating a live plant. Pasture produced milk is sort of like going back in time. You know, a hundred years ago and earlier, all milk was pasture produced.”
As traditional dairy farmers, Mike and Dan’s labors had been both anonymous and poorly compensated. Their milk was combined with that
of hundreds of other farmers and processed into a standardized,
personality-free product. But, on the way to proving that herding could be economically viable, they learned that this method of farming also made a real difference in the richness and flavor of their milk.
“I had always heard from old-time cheese makers that the best milk for making cheese was the June milk when the cows were on that new pasture. And that’s the ideal stage… for both nutrition for the cow and the flavor development of these cheeses coincidentally. That’s why, for instance, dairy products from New Zealand will have a stronger dairy flavor because their national milk supply is grass-based. Whereas in the United States, our national milk supply is stored feeds predominantly, and they’re much milder, they don’t have these dairy flavors.”
Because of their system of rotational grazing that allows them to move the cows from pasture to pasture, their cows are regularly introduced to new and flavorful grass. That means that they have that strong tasting June-like milk from late spring through October. Finding a way to get that milk with its unique qualities directly into the mouths of consumers was the next step for Mike and Dan. They decided that making their own cheese was the answer. So, Mike got his state cheese maker’s license, apprenticed in a small road-side cheese factory and became a farmstead cheese maker.
“A farmstead cheese comes from the milk from a single farm.
It has the potential of having unique and different and interesting flavors that are not available in production cheeses. And that’s because the cheese maker is the same person that milks the animals. Because we use only our milk, and we manage our cows so differently than a
typical farm, we really get a substantially different milk, and then of
course the cheese that we make is only from that milk.”
To make a cheese worthy of their milk, Mike chose a French alpine cheese called Beauford as his model because it too is made from the milk of grass-fed cows that gives it a pronounced but subtle, earthy
flavor and color. Pleasant Ridge Reserve cheese, like its French cousin, is cave-aged and turned by hand at least fifty times. And like its French cousin it has something lacking in mass-produced cheeses. It has “terroir” – the flavor of a particular place and the character of the people who make it.
Apparently there is a place for “terroir” in America. Last year Pleasant Ridge Reserve was awarded the Best in Show by the American Cheese Society. This year Mike and Dan will sell 2,000 ten-pound wheels of their cheese to top-scale restaurants, gourmet cheese retailers and on their Web site, at prices many times what they would get if they just waved goodbye to their milk at their farm gate. And, happily for cheese lovers, Mike and Dan, like a handful of other Great Lakes states farmstead cheese makers have found a way to package some of the splendor from their grass.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Ed Janus.
