Frogs: A Love Story

  • A Wyoming toadlet at the Detroit Zoo. (Photo by Danna Schock, National Amphibian Conservation Center)

There are thousands of kinds of frogs and toads that could go extinct
in our lifetime. Rebecca Williams reports zoos are trying to save the
most endangered frogs by playing matchmaker:

Transcript

There are thousands of kinds of frogs and toads that could go extinct
in our lifetime. Rebecca Williams reports zoos are trying to save the
most endangered frogs by playing matchmaker:


“Okay, so we’re in our Panamanian golden frog room.”


This is the frog bachelor pad.

(slow music)

The lights are low. One of the girls
is sitting naked under the waterfall. And in a dark corner of an
aquarium, there’s some action.


“Well, the male has clasped onto the female around the back…”


Danna Schock is like Dr. Ruth for frogs. She’s the curator of frogs
and toads at the Detroit Zoo. Right now she’s trying to get these
little yellow and black frogs in the mood.


“They were just put together a couple days ago, we’re not sure
they’re feeling it yet. I don’t know if we need Barry White music in
here or what.”


(Barry White song)

Getting the mood right matters because frogs are sensitive. The
temperature has to be just right. Sometimes what the male wants is
just not what the female wants.


Danna Schock wants these guys to have lots of babies. That’s because
frogs are in big trouble in the wild. They’re disappearing really,
really fast.


“The extinction going on is really of the scale that happened
at the end of the Cretaceous when the dinosaurs went. But that
extinction happened over a million years. We’re seeing some of this go
down in my lifetime. This is unprecedented.”


As much as half of all amphibian species on Earth could go extinct in
our lifetime. Here’s why. Frogs and toads breathe and drink through
their skin. Those thin skins make them very sensitive to pollution
from farms and industry and whatever we put down the drain. Also, the
places frogs live are being paved over for parking lots and
subdivisions.


Then there’s another really big problem. There’s a disease
sweeping through frogs around the world. It’s called chytrid fungus.
It can kill frogs in just a few weeks.


Kevin Zippel is the program director for Amphibian Ark. It’s kind of
like Noah’s Ark for frogs. It’s a group working with zoos to save the
frogs and toads that are most at risk. Especially the ones dying from
chytrid fungus.


“The only solution for those species that are susceptible is to bring
them into captivity as a stop-gap measure until the day when we do have
a cure for it.”


Zippel says chytrid fungus was first found in the 1930s in the African
clawed frog. That frog was exported around the world for medical
research. And scientists think the disease was spread with it.


Kevin Zippel says they’re scrambling to bring frogs into zoos before
they’re wiped out. He says it’s always much better for frogs to live
in the wild. But he says, for hundreds of frog species, taking them
into zoos is the only way to keep them alive.


The Wyoming toad is one species that’s been saved by zoos. For all
practical purposes, it’s considered extinct in the wild. Zoos around
the country have taken in the toads and gotten them to mate.


(Sound of tanks bubbling)


At the Detroit Zoo there’s a special quarantine room. It’s under lock
and key. We have to disinfect our shoes so we don’t track in bacteria
or other diseases.

Then Danna Schock lets us peek in on her
babies. These Wyoming toadlets are about the size of gumballs.


“These guys are fabulous little creatures. These are not divas.
They’re just such a pleasure to work with, they’re fun, they eat well.
There are just little Buddha bellies on ’em.”


These little Wyoming toads have big lives ahead of them. A lot of sex.
And their babies might get released back to the same place where they
got their name – Wyoming.


The US Fish and Wildlife Service has been releasing toad eggs and
tadpoles in a few protected areas there.


Brian Kelly is with the Service. Last summer, for the first time in 10
years, his team found new Wyoming toad eggs in the wild.


“It’s incredibly encouraging because that’s why we’re doing this, we
want to establish populations that maintain themselves and remain
viable over time.”


Kelly says the toads are still in trouble. Their habitat has to be
protected. And the fatal chytrid fungus is still a major threat. So
zoos will have to fill the gap for a while.


It’s not ideal. It costs a lot to keep frogs at the zoo. There isn’t
enough room in zoos to save every type of frog. And, as Danna Schock at
the Detroit Zoo will tell you, it’s tough to figure out exactly what
the frogs want. But she says she’s not going to give up.


“I’d rather go down flailing in flames. At least we can say we tried.
And there are reasons to be optimistic. We have had successes – and
they’re scattered, and they’re patchy, and we learn from our mistakes all
the time.”


Schock says it would be much better to solve the frogs’ problems in the
first place. She says that means not paving over all the wetlands. It
means not polluting ponds and creeks. And hopefully, finding a cure
for chytrid fungus.


For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Phthalate Chemicals Found in Infants

Infants are widely exposed to a class of chemicals that might be harmful to their
reproductive systems. That’s according to new research published today/this week
(Monday, February 4th, 2008) in the journal Pediatrics. Mark Brush reports – the
chemicals are known as phthalates:

Transcript

Infants are widely exposed to a class of chemicals that might be harmful to their
reproductive systems. That’s according to new research published today/this week
(Monday, February 4th, 2008) in the journal Pediatrics. Mark Brush reports – the
chemicals are known as phthalates:


Phthalates are everywhere. They’re used to make plastics softer. And they’re used in
perfumes, shampoos, and lotions to help the product absorb into your skin.


Researchers at the University of Washington found that infants had higher concentrations of phthalates in their urine if their mothers used baby lotions, shampoos and powders.
Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana led the study. She says it can be hard to avoid phthalates:


“In terms of personal care products and cosmetics, we don’t know. The products are not
labeled to contain phthalates in them, and so it’s very, very difficult to kind of counsel
families about what to do.”


Sathyanarayana says more study is needed to determine human health effects. Animal
studies have shown that the chemicals can change hormone levels, leading to
reproductive problems in males.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Bush Brushes Over Environment

  • Bush has spoke of plans to fund clean energy and reduce dependence on oil but did not elaborate on how he would put these plans into action. (Photo courtesy of whitehouse.gov)

President Bush is echoing his past calls to wean the country from foreign oil, but his
most recent State of the Union speech quickly brushed over the topics of energy
independence and global warming:

Transcript

President Bush is echoing his past calls to wean the country from foreign oil, but his
most recent State of the Union speech quickly brushed over the topics of energy
independence and global warming:


The President says the U.S. is committed to energy security and confronting global
climate change:


“And the best way to meet these goals is for America to continue leading the way
toward the development of cleaner and more energy-efficient technology.”


The President called specifically for funding new clean coal technology. That came
at the same time his Energy Department pulled funding for a major clean coal
technology project in Illinois. Mr. Bush also called for better battery technology and
renewable fuels for automobiles, but did not mention additional government support
for research.


A proposed investment in clean energy in developing countries and completing an
international agreement on global warming was noted by environmental groups. But
then they criticized the Bush administration for not implementing a mandatory
greenhouse gas cap and trade program in the U.S.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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‘Futuregen’ Project Scrapped by Feds

  • FutureGen would burn coal and capture carbon dioxide produced in coal plants like this one. (Photo by Erin Toner)

The United States Department of Energy is pulling the plug on a state-of-the-art
power plant intended to demonstrate how coal could be burned cleanly. Amanda
Vinicky reports:

Transcript

The United States Department of Energy is pulling the plug on a state-of-the-art
power plant intended to demonstrate how coal could be burned cleanly. Amanda
Vinicky reports:


The FutureGen plant would burn coal without pollution by sequestering carbon
emissions underground.


President Bush called for FutureGen five years ago and repeated support for this kind of project in his
recent State of the Union speech:


“Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions (applause
fade).”


But the Department of Energy says because of ballooning costs, it’s backing out.
Illinois Republican State Senator Dale Righter says it could kill the project planned
for his state:


“It was the right thing to do, in order to find new ways to produce energy using 21st
century technology. That idea is more expensive, as everyone knew it would be. But it’s still
the right thing to do.”


Congress could still salvage the FutureGen project.


For the Environment Report, I’m Amanda Vinicky.

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Company Turns Waste Juice Into Energy

  • Millions of gallons of wastewater is produced by cleaning operations at the Welch's. Some of the sugar in the wastewater is being used to make electricity. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Tiny single-celled organisms could become the giants of
energy production in the near future. Scientists are
using bacteria to convert waste into hydrogen energy.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton recently watched a vat of microbes
turning wastewater into electricity:

Transcript

Tiny single-celled organisms could become the giants of
energy production in the near future. Scientists are
using bacteria to convert waste into hydrogen energy.
Lisa Ann Pinkerton recently watched a vat of microbes
turning wastewater into electricity:


More than 17 million gallons of grape juice is sitting in what amounts to be a huge
refrigerator. It’s Welch’s grape juice ready to be bottled. About the size of a
gymnasium, the cooler’s covered with tile and the juice is stored in big
stainless steel tanks.


Paul Zorzie is the plant manager. He says they have to regularly clean the
tanks. And first they rinse them with water to clean out the remaining juice:


“Juice would be anywhere from 10 to 20 percent
sugar, so what goes down the drain might be .3.”


Since there’s still a little bit of grape juice and sugar in that wastewater, it can
still be used. Behind the plant, the faint smell of grape juice wafts from a
bubbling tank of wastewater. It looks kinda like a purple jacuzzi. In a nearby
shed, Gannon University Professor Rick Diz has built a pilot system to covert
the sugar in that grape juice wastewater into electricity. With the help of the
Ohio biotechnology firm NanoLogix, he’s coaxing millions of microorganisms
to consume the sugar and produce hydrogen:


“The sort of bacteria that produce hydrogen and
actually other bio fuels of one sort or another just
love sugar. Just like for people, sugar is the easiest
thing to digest for many organisms.”


Diz says if you keep introducing food that sugar from the watered-down grape
juice, the microbe population will double every 24-48 minutes. He’s trying to
keep the conditions just right to encourage hydrogen-producing microbes to
grow, while at the same time discouraging methane producing ones. They feed
on hydrogen, and it can be a careful balancing act.


When the microbes produce enough gas, the pressure trips a switch and the
hydrogen is pumped into a slender, high-pressure holding tank:


“And so far we’re been quite successful. We are in fact
producing hydrogen gas, we have used that gas to run an
engine that generated electricity for us on just a
demonstration purpose.”


You can imagine, there are all sorts of industries that create waste sugar
water, from fruit juices, and sodas to candy makers. So there’s lots of
potential to generate hydrogen and then electricity from residual sugar in
wastewater.


But, Diz says the Welch’s system is the only one in the US to successfully do
this outside a laboratory setting. The Welch’s plant in Erie, Pennsylvania
spends about one-and-a-half million dollars a year for electricity and
wastewater treatment each. It hopes a large-scale project that Diz will build
this spring can put a dent in those bills:


“Welch’s is certainly one of the first companies that we’ve hear of who’s expressed
interest in producing hydrogen from microorganisms.”


That’s Patrick Serfass at the National Hydrogen Association. He says
developing renewable ways to generate hydrogen is ideal for a greener energy
sector. But the methods have to be economically worth it:


“The trick is to make the leap from the laboratory to real world applications, and using the hydrogen to either produce
electricity or meet some other energy need.”


Serfass says if Welch’s makes good on it’s plans to built a large demonstration
bio reactor it’ll be a major step for renewable hydrogen and an example to the
rest of the nation’s over 200 beverage makers and bottlers.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Dumped Tires Land on Doorsteps

When you get new tires on your car, you’re charged a fee to “properly dispose” of
the old tires. Too often, that does not happen. The tires end up being abandoned
in vacant lots or thrown into a remote ditch. Zak Rosen reports one group is
picking up those tires, making something useful and helping people:

Transcript

When you get new tires on your car, you’re charged a fee to “properly dispose” of
the old tires. Too often, that does not happen. The tires end up being abandoned
in vacant lots or thrown into a remote ditch. Zak Rosen reports one group is
picking up those tires, making something useful and helping people:


Mike Mason: “If you notice, it don’t take much to find tires around here, you don’t have
to go far.”


Mike Mason is driving me around in a big white truck, looking for thrown out
tires. And we’ve found some. A pretty big pile of old tires:


“You see how they dump them around abandoned buildings?”


Rosen: “Who do you think dumped these?”


Mason: “Somebody went somewhere and picked up some tires from a tire shop,
and they paid them to get rid of them, and instead of taking them somewhere,
they’ll dump them right here.”


Abandoned tires are a problem in a lot of big cities and that’s the case here on the west side of Detroit. The tire piles are a
fire hazard. They’re breeding grounds for mosquitoes. They’re an
environmental disaster.


Mason loads a dozen or so tires into the back of the truck. He’s taking them
to a factory where workers take these problem tires and turn them into
something useful.


(Sound of engine)


One large room of this multi-purpose factory is used to shred the formerly
discarded tires into think rubber strips. The strips are then hole punched,
fixed together with 3 metal rods and designed with colorful plastic
beads. The end result is a custom-made doormat made out of
recycled tires.


This whole venture started when Reverend Faith Fowler came across a
magazine article about a Native American tribe making doormats out of old
car tires in Oklahoma. She thought, heck, we should be doing this in Detroit:


“It intrigued me because of the vacant lots here in the city, and the fact that we’re dealing with illegal
dumping. We knew we had a bunch of men and woman who have
been homeless and are having a hard time finding work right now.”


Reverend Fowler is the executive director of Cass Community Social Services. That’s a center for homeless
people and people with addictions. And now, she’s heading up the new
doormat-making business.


The people who work here actually live across
the street or at another one of Cass’s housing programs
around the city. Fowler says she’s really into this new business model because
of all the problems it fights, unemployment, vacant lots, and illegal
dumping:


“We set it up as a training program so that for three months they work just four
hours a day just learning, sort of the business if you will, and at the end of the
training time they can either decide they want to work here or they can take a
reference from us to work somewhere else.”


This really is a small-scale operation. There are four part time and three full-time employees here, making about
25 mats a day:


“I don’t know if that sounds like a lot or a little!”


That’s Stacey Leigh. She’s in charge of supervising the door mat operation. She says the whole point of this business is to work in a place that’s not very high stress. They don’t have quotas and all the employees get paid the same thing no matter how many mats they make in a day.


“It’s not all about production and bottom line. For us, the
bottom line is human beings, so that’s where our focus is.”


And some of the people making the doormats say the approach makes the
difference for them. Before starting work
at Cass Community Social Services recently, Davel Davis was having a really hard
time finding a job:


“I would have jumped on any job that was offered to me but it’s just my mental
state, when I do work, I let that bother me and I feel odd. But it’s all part of the
illness, schizophrenia. And basically when this came along, I was very happy, knowing that I
could work and not have any distractions to where it would make me not want to work, so I like
it here.”


Now, no one is making a lot of money by any means. But Reverend Faith
Fowler says it’s making a difference for the people, and for the environment.
More than 1,000 mats will have been made. That means more than 2,000
discarded tires that were illegally dumped are now welcoming people into homes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Zak Rosen.

What’s Behind the Organic Milk Label?

  • Many people now choose organic milk, but there are some problems with the USDA organic certification. (Photo by Adrian Becerra)

Products labeled “organic” used to be associated with
hippie culture. Ever since the National Organic Standards
went into effect five years ago, organic has become big
business. Sales of organic products now total about 20-billion dollars a year in the U.S. But that quick growth
spurt is coming with some growing pains. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

Products labeled “organic” used to be associated with
hippie culture. Ever since the National Organic Standards
went into effect five years ago, organic has become big
business. Sales of organic products now total about 20-billion dollars a year in the U.S. But that quick growth
spurt is coming with some growing pains. Julie Grant
reports:


Kara Skora is a part-time college professor, and her family
doesn’t make a lot of money. She’s wearing a hand-me-down
sweater. She’s been eyeing some bracelets at this Target
store, but she quickly walks away. She isn’t going to
spend her money on something so frivolous. Instead, Skora
goes to the dairy case and pulls out a carton of organic
milk. At $3.50, it’s nearly double the price of a regular
half gallon. But Skora thinks the higher cost is worth it
for her two sons:


“Because it’s the one thing. I mean, we don’t go out to
dinner, we don’t waste money on things. We don’t have much
money to spend. But I figured, this is becoming their
bodies. This is becoming their bones and their flesh, and what
little they have, they’re both skinny little boys. So I’m
willing to go into debt to get organic milk.


Julie Grant: “You really go into debt?”


“Oh yeah, we’re in credit card debt. I think a couple
thousand dollars of that every year is organic milk. It’s
the one thing we splurge on.”


Skora used to have to go to a health food store to find
organic milk. These days, she can buy it a lot of places.
And whether she’s buying it at Target or somewhere else,
she trusts that the government’s organic label means the milk
meets certain standards.


It used to be, a label that said “organic” could mean all
kinds of things. Different state agencies and private
organizations each had their own organic standards. Each
trained their own people to inspect farms – to make sure
farmers were meeting their organization’s rules.


Then, five years ago, the US Department of Agriculture
launched the National Organic Program. Now, the people who
inspect organic farms are all looking at the same set of
rules: the USDA’s national standards.


A national standard means farmers know what they need to do
to sell milk as organic in every state. So now big dairy
farms are churning out organic milk to be shipped out
across the nation.


Leslie Zuck is director of Pennsylvania Certified Organic,
one of the certifiers for the USDA. Zuck says the national
program has some problems. The standards aren’t always
specific, so it can be difficult for certifiers and farmers
to know if they’re doing the right things. For instance,
one big concern is how long dairy cows get to be out on grass:


“You go out there and you say, we don’t think enough
pasture, and they say how much is enough and we say, well, we don’t really know but we don’t think you have
enough.”


Since some rules are a little fuzzy, some certifiers are more
lenient than others:


“Some certifiers have interpreted that part of the regulation as
not really requiring that cows have pasture all the time, and that they don’t
really have to have a lot of grass to eat, they just have to be out there walking around few hours a day.”


Zuck says some dairy producers find out which agencies will
interpret the standards the way the farmers want, and hire
those certifiers:


Barbara Robinson: “Well, that shouldn’t be the case.”


Barbara Robinson is USDA administrator of the National
Organic Program.


“Certifying agents should all be applying rules in the same
way.”


Robinson concedes many issues, such as the required amount
of pasture, need to be clarified in the national rules.
Some environmentalists were appalled that a large dairy
producer in Colorado was certified organic. Aurora Farms
confined its cows indoors for nine months out of the year.
Robinson says the USDA considered revoking the company’s
certification, but instead signed an agreement – and she says Aurora
Farms has been improving its practices:


“I don’t have any problems telling consumers who go into
retail market and purchase organic milk at Wal-Mart that
they are purchasing properly labeled certified organic
milk. They can feel comfortable with that.”


And Wal-Mart and Target are exactly the kinds of retailers
that Aurora Farms supplies with its organic milk.


Meantime, the people who buy that milk say they expect the
government to make sure the dairies are living up to the
national standards. Especially since customers like Kara
Skora have to sacrifice so much to pay the higher prices of
milk with an organic label.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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