The public release of a little aquarium fish that glows in the dark is stirring the waters of the genetic engineering debate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:
Transcript
The public release of a little aquarium fish that glows in the dark is stirring the waters of the genetic
engineering debate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:
Texas-based Yorktown Technologies calls its creation a Glo-fish. It’s a genetically-modified
zebrafish that glows in ultraviolet light. It’s marketed as an attractive and graceful addition to a fish
tank. The company says because the Glo-fish is tropical, it wouldn’t survive in cold waters like the
Great Lakes if it escaped.
But environmental and consumer groups worry that genetically-modified pets of the future could
threaten the ecological balance. Peter Jenkins is a policy analyst with the Center for Food Safety.
He says the Glo-Fish also raises ethical concerns. He’s calling on the federal government to
regulate them.
“We’re not flat-out opposed to all genetic engineering. If it is to be used, it should be for the
betterment of mankind and for the environment and not for frivolous pets.”
California is the only state that can bar genetically-engineered species. It recently ruled to prohibit
Glo-Fish sales. In all other states, the Glo-Fish will be available in pet stores starting January 5th.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
The Emerald Ash Borer is destroying hundreds of thousands of ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, and Ontario. The Asian insect likely made its way to North America in wood packing materials. (photo courtesy of David Cappaert, Michigan State University)
An exotic pest called the emerald ash borer is laying waste to millions of trees in Michigan and Ohio. Now it’s affecting sales of ash trees across the entire country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
An exotic pest called the emerald ash borer is laying waste to
millions of trees in Michigan and Ohio. Now it’s affecting sales of ash
trees across the entire country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy
Samilton reports:
The attractive, adaptable, and fast-growing ash tree is a favorite of
growers, landscapers and homeowners. But sales of the tree have plummeted
nationwide, even though the emerald ash borer has only infested trees in
Michigan, Ohio and Maryland so far. Dave Bender is President of the
Illinois Nurserymen’s Association. Bender says the city of Chicago, the
biggest buyer of trees in the state, recently issued a moratorium on
buying ash trees. One Illinois grower lost a big chunk of his business
almost overnight.
“Last year he sold 5,000 ash trees – a little over 5,000 ash trees. This year he sold one.”
Bender says the emerald ash borer is an energetic insect that travels
great distances quickly, so it’s only a matter of time before it arrives
in Illinois and beyond. He says Great Lakes growers are developing
contingency plans to try to slow and control its spread until researchers
find ways to eradicate it.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
Christmas tree sellers are in the height of their season right now. Truckloads of spruces, pines and firs are being delivered to stores and Christmas tree lots all across the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Christmas tree sellers are in the height of their season right now. Truck loads of spruces, pines
and firs are being delivered to stores and Christmas tree lots all across the region. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Christmas tree growers are hoping sales are up this year. Last year they were down substantially.
Sales dropped from the year before by about five-and-a-half million trees. That’s because of two
things. Thanksgiving came late last year, making the buying season shorter. Then, the hustle and
bustle of the condensed holiday season caused some families to skip the tree altogether.
Andy Cole is a grower in Michigan and a spokesperson for the National Christmas Tree
Association. He says hopefully newer trends in trees will help sales this year. In recent years
instead of Scotch pines, people are leaning toward true fir trees such as the Frasier fir and the
Balsam fir.
COLE “Well, they’re a more open layered tree and they have a sturdy branch pattern that will take
the large ornaments that are so popular now.”
The National Christmas Tree Association expects one out of every four households will buy a
fresh tree this year. That amounts to 28 million trees purchased between Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A European semiconductor firm is developing a new kind of solar cell. They hope it could make renewable energy competitive with coal and natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richie Duchon reports:
Transcript
A European semiconductor firm is developing a new kind of solar cell. They
hope it could make renewable energy competitive with coal and natural gas. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Richie Duchon reports:
Most solar panels use silicon semiconductors to convert the sun’s energy into
electricity. They’re the most efficient, but they’re also the most expensive. Right
now, solar energy costs about ten times more over a 20 year period than oil or
natural gas.
STMicroelectronics is developing a semiconductor made primarily of plastic. It
will be less efficient, but the company hopes that a significantly lower cost will
make it a competitive source of energy.
Salvo Coffa is the head of STM’s research and development.
“What we would like to see is to eliminate the first reason for not using the solar
cell, which is the high costs.”
Coffa and his team are still in the research phase, but he hopes that his company
will have plastic solar cells out by 2005.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Richie Duchon.
A new report finds outdated sewage systems are polluting waters throughout Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
A new report finds outdated sewage systems are polluting waters throughout Ontario. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
The report says aging treatment plants are dumping improperly treated sewage into Ontario
waterways, especially when rain or snow overload the system.
It’s a problem that’s found all over North America.
The latest report comes from the Ontario Environmental Commissioner. It says 38 percent of the
province’s sewage is released into Lake Ontario. Commissioner Gord Miller says that waste
threatens the ecosystem.
“You can actually get the risk of fish kills, of fish avoidance, loss of fish habitat, and then you can
get discharges of actual toxic materials, like ammonia.”
Miller says the sewage is not threatening people’s drinking water. But it’s harming fish and
wildlife, and leading to the closure of beaches.
He wants to see Ontario study and address the problem.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I”m Karen Kelly.
A day marker for barge traffic on the Missouri River. Environmentalists say there's not enough barge traffic on the Missouri to warrant the millions spent on maintaining the lock and dam system. Barge operators disagree. (photo courtesy of USGS)
A team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists is putting the final touches on its latest recommendation for the management of the Missouri River. The document, known as the Biological Opinion, will guide the Army Corps of Engineers in deciding how to control the river in a way that best protects endangered birds and fish. It’s the latest turn in a contentious battle that for years has pitted environmentalism against economics. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:
Transcript
A team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists is putting the final
touches on its latest recommendation for the management of the Missouri
River. The document, known as the Biological Opinion, will guide the Army
Corps of Engineers in deciding how to control the river in a way that best
protects endangered birds and fish. It’s the latest turn in a contentious
battle that for years has pitted environmentalism against economics. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:
The new Biological Opinion will be the second such document in three years.
The 2000 Bi Op – as it’s often called – advocated high water releases on the
Missouri each spring to cue the spawning season of the pallid sturgeon.
Reducing the flows in the summer, the Bi Op explained, would expose sandbars
to provide nesting grounds for two endangered birds, the interior least tern
and the piping plover.
That philosophy had been the view of many in the Fish and Wildlife Service,
who have studied the Missouri for more than a decade. But in early
November, the Department of the Interior announced it was replacing the
original scientific team to expedite the process of crafting a new outlook
for the river.
The decision unsettles environmentalist Chad Smith with the group American
Rivers. He feels the switch was an attempt by the Bush Administration to
silence those who offered a politically unpopular opinion.
“It seems to us like there’s an effort being made to try to find
someone to give the administration the answer that they want; that they don’t want to make flow
changes even though the science is crystal clear.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service team leaders deny that politics played a role
in rebuilding the scientific staff. The 15-member team in fact includes
seven who either worked on the 2000 Bi Op or have specific research
experience on the Missouri.
Commercial shippers that do business on the river are hopeful that new
thinking may lead to more growth for their industry. Navigation on the
Missouri has always been negligible, but industry officials say the past
summer was nothing short of devastating. A series of court decisions and
overturns led to a three-day drop in flow levels in August that ground barge
traffic to a halt.
Chris Brescia is President of the Midwest Area River Coalition 2000, which
represents barge operators. He says that incident punctuated their position
that unpredictable flow levels make the Missouri an unreliable
transportation mode:
“The conflicting court orders literally brought everything to a
standstill because it was unsafe for operators to quote freight rates and to
presume that they could navigate on the river when they didn’t know at what
point in time the court was going to reverse a decision to support
navigation.”
Central to the debate over how to manage the Missouri is the issue of
whether the economic value of river commerce is worth the cost of keeping
the river navigable. For the past decade, the Corps of Engineers has spent
just three million dollars a year on navigation. The Corps’ own data
indicates that navigation is worth about three times that amount each year.
One fully loaded 15-barge tow can carry more than 22-thousand tons, about as
much as 870 large semi trucks. Barge operators say having the river as a
viable transportation route keeps the cost of other shipping modes down.
But American Rivers argues that the two million tons of fertilizer, grain
and similar products barges carry each year on the Missouri fall far short
of what the Corps projected decades ago would be carried on the river.
For its part, the Corps of Engineers says whatever the cost-benefit ratio,
navigation is a congressionally mandated purpose it’s obliged to continue
paying for.
The draft of the Corps’ 2004 operating plan does not include the flow
changes environmentalists have demanded. Corps spokesman Paul Johnston says
his agency recognizes that those measures will not provide the biological
conditions the listed species need to survive. Instead, Johnston says the
Corps plans to spend more than 40-million dollars next year to accelerate
its habitat creation program:
“We’ll be looking for opportunities to acquire appropriate land
from willing sellers, and we’ll be looking at building tern and plover
habitat as well. So I’m really convinced we will reach a point where we can
have a much richer river than we have now and still enjoy the economic
benefits.”
The scientific team has until December 15 to complete its Biological
Opinion. The Army Corps of Engineers hopes to have its final operating plan
for the Missouri in place by March 1.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Kevin Lavery.
According to the USDA, 40% of the corn grown this year in the U.S. has been genetically modified. Some researchers fear there's not enough oversight on the rapidly growing biotech industry. A program at the University of Minnesota wants to create a new profession - the 'Biosafety Engineer.' (photo courtesy of the USDA)
Genetic engineering – especially when it comes to food – is a battleground. On one side: people who fear a world of contaminated food, harming humans and the environment. The other side fears we’ll miss an opportunity to prevent hunger and disease. Now there’s a ground breaking initiative that might produce compromise. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Stucky reports that some researchers think safety can be built into the bio tech industry:
Transcript
Genetic engineering – especially when it comes to food – is a
battleground. On one side: people who fear a world of contaminated
food, harming humans and the environment. The other side fears
we’ll miss an opportunity to prevent hunger and disease. Now, there’s
a ground breaking initiative that might produce compromise. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Stucky reports that some researchers
think safety can be built into the bio tech industry:
To remove a gene from one organism and transfer it to another…
that’s genetic engineering. Genetically modified or GM crops are
easier to grow, according to bio tech supporters and in the future
might be more nutritious. But they also might contain hidden
allergens, because they use genes from a plant or animal that
people might be allergic to. And there are concerns that GM crops
might harm the environment by crossbreeding with natural plants in
the wild. And so the University of Minnesota is proposing a
solution – an entirely new profession – call them biotech safety
engineers – along with a new science of bio safety. Anne
Kapuscinski is a researcher at the University of Minnesota and a
force behind the initiative called Safety First. Kapuscinski says
rather than regulating the industry after a new product is developed,
companies should prove safety first.
“It will mean that some ideas that will be on the lab bench won’t go
any further in development because the developers
will realize there are safety concerns that we don’t know how to
mitigate, or how to prevent from happening or how to address.”
And that could save companies money… by avoiding costly mistakes
such as the Starlink corn debacle. That’s when genetically modified
corn accidentally mixed with conventional corn and got into dozens of
foods. Kapuscinski says it was common knowledge in the industry that
the corn could get mixed up because of the way it’s transported and
stored… which might have been avoided with uniform safety standards
and government oversight. But until now, industry has resisted that.
They’ve been touting the benefits rather than the risks such as this
ad campaign put out by a group called the Biotechnology Industry
Organization.
(music under)
“Biotechnology, a big word that means hope.”
But one expert says if the industry wants to inspire public
confidence, it should support the Safety First initiative. John
Howard is the founder of a Texas based biotech firm called
ProdiGene. Not all biotech companies support the University of
Minnesota effort, but Howard thinks it has a good chance of
alleviating public concerns.
“The problem is, however, if you do it yourselves, what
credibility do you have as a company promoting your own safety
assessment? So an independent agency or source that comes out
and says, ‘Look, this is now credible, we’ve looked at all the safety
issues,’ that’s great, and if they find something that we’ve missed
then fine, we want to do it that way.”
John Howard says his company is working to bio-engineer corn to
deliver drugs. For instance, if you need insulin you could have it
in your breakfast cereal.
Opponents of bio tech say we don’t know all of the ramifications of
engineering drugs into food or altering the genetics of any organism,
but John Howard thinks we know enough to be safe.
“You can always argue that we just don’t know
enough yet and that’s an argument that can go on and on. And this
applies to everything that we think about in terms of risk. But
what you can do is look at a risk benefit equation. There’s
no question this is a for-profit company, let’s not make any mistake,
but not at the expense of harming people.”
And supporters say the Safety First initiative will see to that.
Lawrence Jacobs is a political scientist at the University of
Minnesota and a leader in Safety First. Jacobs says, like it or not,
GM food is here to stay.
“If we do not find some credible way to address the biosafety issues in
biotechnology, we are heading for a major maelstrom. The challenge
that’s out there now for the biotechnology industry right now is get
your act together. And the potential for consumers to panic in this
country is significant.”
Of course safety standards are already engineered into the
manufacturing of airplanes and cars. But will that work in an
industry which is manufacturing a living thing?
Supporters of the Safety First initiative say there’s too little
oversight on an industry that could have much greater impact on health
and the environment.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Stucky.
A judge in Michigan has given a spring water bottling plant three weeks to stop pumping water from the ground. He says the Ice Mountain facility is causing harm to surrounding lakes, streams and wetlands. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
A judge in Michigan has given a spring water bottling plant three weeks
to stop pumping water from the ground. He says the Ice Mountain facility is
causing harm to surrounding lakes, streams and wetlands. We have more from the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
The Ice Mountain plant pulls hundreds of thousands of gallons a day from
an underground spring in northern Michigan. The bottled water is shipped
across the Midwest.
Environmentalists say that should be considered an illegal diversion of
water from the Great Lakes basin.
Mecosta County Circuit Judge Lawrence Root said that’s not the case. But
he did say the facility is having an adverse effect on nearby surface water
levels, fish, and plant life. He ordered the plant to stop pumping water.
Plaintiff Terry Swier says that’s good enough for her.
“All of us that heard it could only say, ‘Wow.’ It is, uh, it’s great.”
Ice Mountain officials say the impact of this will be felt by farmers,
golf course owners and other businesses that require large withdrawals of
groundwater.
They plan to ask for permission to continue operating while they appeal
the decision.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta in
Lansing, Michigan.
Environmentalists say the new government of Ontario has failed its first green challenge. The liberals under premier Dalton McGuinty could not keep a promise to protect a swath of ecologically sensitive land north of Toronto. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports, environmental activists say they’ve been betrayed and are losing faith in the new government:
Transcript
Environmentalists say the new government of Ontario has failed its first green challenge. The
liberals under Premier Dalton McGuinty could not keep a promise to protect a swath of
ecologically sensitive land north of Toronto. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan
Karpenchuk reports, environmental activists say they’ve been betrayed and are losing faith in the
new government:
The Oak Ridges Moraine is a tract of land north of Toronto that includes lakes, forests and
wildlife habitat. When he came to office, Premier McGuinty said he would halt development of
6600 homes in the moraine.
“We’re going to do what we’ve committed to doing, we’re going to protect that space.”
But when McGuinty’s government told developers to stop, they threatened to sue. So the
government cut a deal allowing for about 900 fewer homes than before. Activists like David
Donnelly of Environmental Defense Canada were furious that an election promise was broken.
“We think this was both an environmental and a symbolic promise to try and stop sprawl in the
Oak Ridges Moraine, in some of the most sensitive lands in all of Ontario.”
But the Liberals say 900 fewer homes still means more green space. They could have passed a
law to take back the land, but would likely have faced lawsuits that could cost taxpayers billions
of dollars. Environmentalists are now asking: if the new government was naive about this issue,
what else is in store for the next few years?
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk
New evidence shows that forest fires near the Arctic Circle release a toxic heavy metal into the atmosphere. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports the smoke can make its way down to the Northeast United States:
Transcript
New evidence shows that forest fires near the Arctic Circle release a toxic heavy metal into the
atmosphere. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan reports the smoke can make its
way down to the Northeast United States:
The study was published by the American Chemical
Society. It shows that fires in the boreal forests of
northern Canada are sending up massive amounts of
mercury into the atmosphere.
Scientists say the mercury released by the burning
evergreens is mostly natural. They say it comes from
volcanic eruptions.
Jeff Sigler of Yale University conducted the study. He
says in a given year, the fires can release as much
mercury as human sources like coal-fired power plants.
“A large Canadian boreal fire can really enhance the
ambient mercury, the mercury in the air, in the northeast
even though it’s already a fairly polluted area.”
Mercury is a heavy metal known to damage the central
nervous system. It’s toxic if ingested even in small
quantities.
Mercury becomes a threat to human health when it
returns to the earth in rain and makes its way up the food
chain in fish.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.
