Congress is looking at restricting antibiotic use on livestock farms. The drugs are added to the animals’ feed to help stop diseases. Antibiotics also make the animals grow faster, and that’s good for farmer’s profits. Mark Brush reports… public health officials are concerned:
Transcript
Congress is looking at restricting antibiotic use on livestock farms. The drugs are added to the animals’ feed to help stop diseases. Antibiotics also make the animals grow faster, and that’s good for farmer’s profits. Mark Brush reports… public health officials are concerned:
A lot of researchers say overuse of antibiotics on farms can lead to bacteria that are resistant to the drugs.
A bill in Congress would stop the drugs from being used to promote growth… and just use them to treat sick animals. The Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act is sponsored by the only micro-biologist in Congress. Representative Louise Slaughter from New York:
“And we’re watching a whole new classification now of bacteria, which was basically just a cut above harmless, become deadly. Particulary Staphylococcus aureus, which was as common as dirt, but now is MRSA. And can kill you in twenty-four hours.”
Slaughter says the Food and Drug Administration is not doing enough. So Congress has to step in.
The livestock industry says current regulations are enough.
An artists rendering of the solar cells on Babcock Ranch in southern Florida (photo courtesy of Babcock Ranch)
A former NFL player wants to build the world’s first 100-percent solar-powered city. He’s billing it as the world’s most sustainable city too. Rebecca Williams visited the planned site of the new city to find out how green real estate can get:
Transcript
A former NFL player wants to build the world’s first 100-percent solar-powered city. He’s billing it as the world’s most sustainable city too. Rebecca Williams visited the planned site of the new city to find out how green real estate can get:
Syd Kitson used to be Number 64… an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers. Now… he’s a developer… with a even bigger dream for fame.
He bought a 90-thousand acre ranch in Southwest Florida… called Babcock Ranch. He sold more than three-quarters of it back to the state as a nature preserve. The rest will become a city of 45-thousand people.
(video clip)
“It’s a place where business, education, technology, energy, transportation, and safety all merge into an exceptionally livable, environmentally sensitive community.”
It might sound like he’s packing a lot in… but the plans don’t end there. The video tour shows you a glittering utopia. Little animated people glide by on sailboats and Segway scooters. You’d get to work in your electric car, and plug it in while you’re at work. You’d be harvesting rainwater. You’d go camping on the nature preserve. And pretty much everything would run on the sun.
Syd Kitson says what’ll make the city even greener… is that it’ll meet all of your needs.
“The whole idea of Babcock Ranch is that you don’t leave. That you have everything you need in Babcock Ranch. That’s not to say people aren’t going to go to Disney World or the beach but for daily needs, go to work, shopping, normally have to get in their car and drive an hour, or 20 minutes – they can do that right there in their hometown.”
Kitson’s proud to say he’s won over a lot of local environmental groups. But his city of the future has its skeptics.
The Florida Sierra Club sued to stop the sale of the land. Kitson and Partners ended up settling the lawsuit… and the deal went forward.
Frank Jackalone is with the Sierra Club. He says he does like the plans for solar power… and the city looks pretty well-planned out. But he says once development starts it usually doesn’t stop.
“Even the best planned community could be swallowed up by a sea of urban sprawl… of roads, of shopping malls, of poorly planned development that surrounds it that creates the very nightmare that environmentalists fear the most.”
Jackalone says it’d be better to invest in older cities and retrofit for solar power. He says it’d be better to keep the land intact for Florida wildlife – like bears and panthers.
Syd Kitson says he does respect that point of view.
“And we hope at end of the day they’ll look at it and say you know we would’ve loved to have it all preserved but they did a great job here.”
The solar city is supposed to get underway within the next couple years.
But reality is blocking the dream. Right now… Babcock Ranch is still just a ranch with grazing cows and watermelon fields. The huge 75-megawatt solar plant that would power the city hasn’t been built yet. The Florida legislature still has to approve it.
And of course… there’s the little issue of the recession. The solar city’s planned in a county with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation.
Kitson says these are just temporary hurdles.
“It’ll take time but we think eventually the housing market will come back and this’ll be a place we think people will look first to live.”
In fact… he thinks all developers are going to have to build in a greener way.
“I think if any developer, any builders who aren’t thinking about doing it in an environmentally responsible way are really going to miss the boat on what’ll be happening when we come out of this recession.”
But as Kitson himself has found… even the world’s most sustainable city is still a city. There will always be opposition from someone who thinks the greenest kind of city is rebuilding our old cities.
You might have seen road construction
signs that read, “Project funded by the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
That’s economic stimulus money being spent
on road repair and construction. Shawn Allee reports one environmental group wishes
there were less construction and more repair:
Transcript
You might have seen road construction signs that read, “Project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.”
That’s economic stimulus money being spent on road repair and construction.
Shawn Allee reports one environmental group wishes there were less construction and more repair.
The land-use policy group Smart Growth America tracked how much stimulus money is going toward road repair versus road construction.
The group’s state policy director Will Schroeer says new roads and bridges are getting about a third of transportation stimulus dollars.
Schroeer says to employ the most people, we should be spending even more on repair, not construction.
“The largest reason for that is that you don’t have to buy any land to repair the road and as soon as you start buying land, that’s money that you can’t put toward wages and other things that produce secondary employment.”
Shroeer’ says about 20 percent of transportation stimulus money is still up for grabs.
That gives states about a year to turn spending toward projects his group advocates, including road and bridge repair and public transit.
The Matson Line Container ship is unloaded at the Port of Oakland. It takes up to 48 hours and hundreds of trucks to unload the world's large container ships. Everything except the white cranes runs on diesel (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
Trucks shuttle shipping containers without destinations to the storage yard (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)
U.S. ports are among the biggest sources of air pollution in the cities they are in. Some
ports are making progress in cleaning up their emissions. But Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports, critics say the pace is slow:
Transcript
U.S. ports are among the biggest sources of air pollution in the cities they are in. Some
ports are making progress in cleaning up their emissions. But Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports, critics say the pace is slow:
The Matson Line cargo ship is laden with hundreds of shipping
containers and looks like a floating building, rather than a ship. It’s in
from a recent trek across the Pacific Ocean and it’s docked here at
the Port of Oakland.
It’s being unloaded one container at a time by a row of cranes
towering over the ship.
“And they’re either loading them on to a truck chassis to go directly out of the port, or
they’re going to store it in the yard, sort it out, put it on a rail car or send it out on the
regional freeways.”
That’s Richard Sincoff. He directs the environmental projects at the
Port of Oakland.
He says it can take crews 24 to 48 hours to fully unload just one ship,
and all that the activity creates a lot of the air pollution surrounding
West Oakland.
The trucks moving containers around the port run on diesel, and
recently, the port banned all pre 1994 trucks from shuttling shipping
containers.
Delphine Prevost, who manages truck programs at the port says goal
is to ensure the thousands trucks serving the port emit low levels of
diesel pollution.
“These are engine models we are talking about, and generally the older, the more
pollution it is. Just like anything else, trucks get cleaner as technology for truck engines
get cleaner.”
Since most of the truck drivers are independent contractors and can’t
always afford a brand new truck, the port has set up a grant program
to help them cover the costs.
Los Angeles has done this, too, and it is the biggest port in the
country. Since last fall, it’s removed forty-five hundred dirty trucks
from its operations.
David Abby says the region’s seen a nearly 35% improvement to the
local air quality and a reduction of 500 tones of nitrous oxide or NOX.
“And to put that into prospective, that 500 tons of NOX is like taking 1300 cars off the
road for a year.”
But truck exhaust represents only about 4% of all diesel emissions in
America’s ports. It’s ships that emit the most. They burn dirty bunker
fuel on their way in to the port. Then they’re docked, they keep
burning it for electricity.
James Cannon is with Energy Futures – an environmental advocacy
group. He says these big ships are just like a power plant on land.
But, because they are in the water, the US Clean Air Act doesn’t
apply.
“Because the power plant is just a few feet off the berth on the ship, it’s totally
unregulated and this has led to emissions that are literally thousands of times higher
than if it were just a few feet away.”
Cannon says ports are exploring ways to cut these emissions, but the
pace is slow. He says the most ideal solution is to allow the ships to
plug into the electrical grid while at berth. A few ships docking in the
Port of Long Beach can do this now.
These California ports are greening their operations, because state
law is pushing them. Cannon says America’s seven other ports have
much farther to go.
He says they should take advantage of the lower shipping activity
during this recession – and spend money to green up their
operations.
“Rather than endlessly expanding their container ports or endlessly expanding volume
they now have a chance to restructure their ports and put them on a cleaner basis.”
US EPA has pledged to regulate air within 230 miles of US Coasts by
2012.
If the agency stays true to its word, all of the nation’s ports will have
to green their operations eventually. Whether it will be as much as
California’s ports have done remains to be seen.
For The Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.
Nitrates and nitrites are found in a lot of foods - like bacon, hot dogs, and pepperoni - as food preservatives
(Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
A new study in the Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease finds a strong
link between some food preservatives
and an increased risk of death from
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
A new study in the Journal of
Alzheimer’s Disease finds a strong
link between some food preservatives
and an increased risk of death from
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Nitrates and nitrites are found in a lot of foods we eat: bacon, hot dogs, and even cheese and beer.
The chemicals aren’t there naturally – they’re added as preservatives. And they’re also used in fertilizers.
Dr. Suzanne de la Monte is the study’s lead author.
She says they found a strong connection between higher death rates from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes and the increases in our exposures to these chemicals in our food and water since the late 1960s.
“What we’ve identified says this is certainly something I would consider very very important. Are there other things? Probably.”
She says people could be genetically predisposed to these diseases.
But she says long term exposure to nitrates and nitrites could also be playing a role in two ways: whether we get these diseases and how severe they might end up being.
John Vrieze has a machine called a digester on his dairy farm that's used to turn manure into energy (Photo by Todd Melby)
Big dairy farms produce more than just milk. They also generate manure. Lots and lots
of it. That can be a problem for farmers and the environment. Todd Melby reports on a
technology that reduces manure and generates electricity:
Transcript
Big dairy farms produce more than just milk. They also generate manure. Lots and lots
of it. That can be a problem for farmers and the environment. Todd Melby reports on a
technology that reduces manure and generates electricity:
(sound of suckling cows)
I’m on a dairy farm with John Vrieze and his daughter Brittany.
Oh, and some cows too.
Vrieze is a frugal man. A couple of winters ago, he had a contest with his son to see who
could use the least electricity. Vrieze was willing to go to extreme measures.
His daughter Brittany tells the story this way:
Brittany Vrieze: “He’d shut his fridge off in the winter time. Just use the outdoors for his
fridge. He was definitely trying to keep the kilowatts down.”
Todd Melby: “So what did he do? He just kept his milk in the porch?”
Brittany Vrieze: “Yup.”
Todd Melby: “And kept his frozen stuff outside?”
Brittany Vrieze: “Yup. Yup.”
Today, Vrieze isn’t just trying to save energy. He’s trying to create it.
(sound of cow moos)
From cow dung.
He’s got 1,600 head of cattle at his place here in western Wisconsin. Those cows produce
milk that gets made into cheese. But they also produce about 50,000 gallons of manure
— every day.
Farmers are required to store that manure in a big pool-like structure called a lagoon.
John Vrieze covers his up with a giant tarp.
“It would blow up from the biogas. It would look like a great big balloon or like the
Metrodome, for folks in the Cities. It’s from the nature decomposition of the manure. It
creates biogas. We would have to take that gas out from underneath the cover and flare it
off, which got us to thinking that there has to be a better way to use that energy than just
to flare it off.”
So Vrieze bought a $1 million machine called a digester. And he had help from the
federal government. They paid for a quarter of it. The government is interested in these
things because they can turn manure into energy.
And it turns out — the reason it’s called a digester — is a farm thing.
“A cow has four stomachs. We call the digester really the fifth stomach. All the stuff that
comes out of the back of the cow we then put in that digester.”
So this “fifth stomach” produces energy. However, it’s not ready-to-use energy. To sell it
as natural gas, it has to be about 95% methane. The gas from the digester is only about
60% methane.
(sound of pipeline burn off)
Another option is to convert it to electricity. But in the U.S., electricity is cheap.
Todd Melby: “You tried to sell it to the electric company, but they didn’t want it.”
Brittany Vrieze: “They’re not offering us enough money. So …”
After all this investment by Vrieze and the federal government, some of the gas he
collects is just being burned off into the air.
But maybe not for long.
Vrieze wants to build a greenhouse right on his Wisconsin farm so he can grow
vegetables and herbs in the winter. He says he’ll power it with energy from the digester.
“So, instead of your produce coming from 2,000 miles away – from the central valley of
California – wouldn’t it be neat if it came from 45 miles away?”
Vrieze is planning to use the water from the cow manure for his vegetables and herbs in
his greenhouse. And he’s got a machine similar to ones used at wastewater treatment
plants to clean the manure water.
But even with the digester, there’s still leftover manure he has to deal with. But Vrieze
says the digester makes it more manageable.
(blowing sound)
Some of the dry manure is blown into a pile where it’s gathered up and used as bedding
for the cows. In the summer, it’s also used for another purpose.
“It’s just a clean version of manure. It stinks a little bit. Most of the stink has been taken
out of it. And we mix this with potting soil and it works great for the plants. So …”
That manure/potting soil mix is sold to gardeners in the city. It’s another way for Vrieze
to be frugal and environmental at the same time.
A one-size-fits-all phone charger could cut down on the electronic waste generated by cell phones (Photo by Shawn Allee)
That search for the right cell
phone charger should soon become
a thing of the past. Cell phone
makers have agreed to come up with
a universal adaptor. Julie Grant
reports that that could save tons
of landfill space:
Transcript
That search for the right cell phone charger should soon become a thing of the past. Cell phone makers have agreed to come up with a universal adaptor. Julie Grant reports that that could save tons of landfill space:
Top cell phone makers – including Nokia, Samsung and Apple – have struck a deal to standardize handset chargers for European consumers by next year.
And the U.S. wireless industry association says Americans will likely see a universal charger before 2012.
That means when you buy a new phone, you won’t need to buy a new charger. You’ll be able keep using the one-size-fits-all charger.
Ted Scardamalia is with the technology analysis firm Portelligent. He says this is good for consumers – and the environment.
“If I have a charger that lasts for two or three or four phones, that’s two or three or four chargers I don’t have to recycle or put into a landfill.”
Last year, an estimated 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide, according to University of Southern Queensland data reported by industry umbrella group GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association), generating up to 82,000 tonnes of chargers.
With concerns over the level of waste generated by redundant or outmoded chargers, European legislators had, prior to Monday’s agreement, considered forcing manufacturers to adopt universal technology.
Koichi Wakata (left), space station commander Gennady Padalka (center),
and Michael Barratt (right) take ceremonial sips of recycled
urine in a key milestone for the lab complex. (Photo courtesy of NASA TV)
NASA has technology light years ahead of what’s available to the rest of us. Advanced water recycling is
one of them. For years, astronauts have collected and recycled sweat and even water vapor. Shawn Allee
looks at NASA’s latest water recycling technology and whether anything like it is already on Planet Earth:
Transcript
NASA has technology light years ahead of what’s available to the rest of us. Advanced water recycling is
one of them. For years, astronauts have collected and recycled sweat and even water vapor. Shawn Allee
looks at NASA’s latest water recycling technology and whether anything like it is already on Planet Earth:
A press conference between NASA headquarters and the International Space Station got some attention
recently.
It was about making drinkable water from astronauts’ urine.
Headquarters: “The Expedition 19 crew inaugurating the use of the water recovery system to
produce recycled, purified water.”
NASA figures sending water into space wastes rocket fuel.
Why pay good money, if you can just reuse water that comes out of astronauts’ bodies?
Astronauts have recycled other fluid, but urine was kinda the final frontier.
Astronaut: “Everybody’s talked about recycling water in a closed-loop system, but nobody’s ever
done it before. So, we’re going to be drinking yesterday’s coffee frequently up here, and happy to do
it.”
Three astronauts hold up their drink pouches.
Astronaut: “And, here we go. Here’s to everybody who made this happen.”
Group: “Cheers.” (laughter)
Headquarters: “That’s looks really, really good from down here. Um…”
For all the jokes cracked in space, water’s a serious problem down here on Earth.
Is anyone recycling urine like they are on the space station? Depends on how you cut it.
NASA’s system is a closed loop: water out, urine in, water out.
Similar technology’s used during some natural disasters, and the country of Singapore gets close.
Singapore recycles sewage water but it’s sent to reservoirs where it’s diluted.
How far does America get with recycled water? Public service announcements hint at who’s furthest
along.
“Southern California is getting drier. Go to bewaterwise.com. Find out how your community is
dealing with mandatory conservation.”
For decades, California utilities have used recycled waste water to spruce up landscaping and golf courses –
but you’re not allowed to drink it.
Orange County goes a tad further. It replenishes an underground aquifer with recycled water. The utility
draws water out of that aquifer.
So, it’s a kind of water recycling – more like Singapore’s diluted variety than NASA’s fully-closed loop.
According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency – no city in America has astronaut-style water
recycling.
But, some water utility managers predict some city will.
“It’s a non-issue. From purely a perception standpoint, Oh my god you’re making
me drink toilet water. You know, get over it, because you’ve been doing it anyhow.”
That’s Frank Jaeger. He runs the water system in Parker, a Denver suburb.
He says most water systems are more like Singapore’s and Orange County’s than you might think.
“I was in New Orleans, and I had the chance to go through their treatment process. And, they
pointed out that ten years in a row they had won the drinking water award for turbidity, taste, odor –
and that water going down the Mississippi had been through 12 stomachs by the time it had gotten to
New Orleans. They mix it with a little more scotch than we do, but they drink it.”
Jaeger says, think of the advantages a full water recycling system would have.
Some cities would save energy since they’d pump water shorter distances. And you’d get a consistent
supply of water, since you can count on people bathing and flushing on a regular basis.
“It is silly, in this day and age, to be worried about these sorts of things – especially
here in the United States, where we have such good wonderful treatment
processes.”
There’s no federal regulation that specifically prohibits full toilet-to-tap water recycling.
So, Jaeger says, someday, some politically brave local government will move forward.
Biomass is catch-all term for technology that turns things like wood chips into energy or heat. (Photo by Susan Mittleman)
Congress could wrap up a huge energy bill by this fall.
It could include a minimum renewable energy standard for
utilities. That’d mean more wind and solar-generated power.
Shawn Allee reports biomass could get a boost, too:
Transcript
Congress could wrap up a huge energy bill by this fall.
It could include a minimum renewable energy standard for
utilities. That’d mean more wind and solar-generated power.
Shawn Allee reports biomass could get a boost, too:
Biomass is catch-all term for technology that turns grass, wood chips, or even algae into energy or heat.
It’s usually ignored in political discussions, but Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders brought it up in a recent hearing.
He says he was inspired by a power plant he saw at Middlebury College.
“I went to a plant they have on campus which is using wood chips replacing oil they are saving $700,000 a year and creating local jobs and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”
Congress is considering what kind of plants and agricultural waste might qualify as “renewable biomass energy.”
Some energy analysts say some plants shouldn’t be included, since it could take too much energy collect and transport them.
A mechanic works on the bikes to make them as compact as possible - removing pedals, kickstands, and turning the handlebars
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
A volunteer stacks the bikes into a pile at the back of a huge shipping container
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
Bicycles from the program in Tsumeb, Namibia
(Photo courtesy of Bicycles For Humanity)
So many of us have an old bike collecting
dust in the garage. More often than not,
they end up in the garbage. But, as Karen
Kelly reports, one group has found a unique
way to recycle them:
Transcript
So many of us have an old bike collecting
dust in the garage. More often than not,
they end up in the garbage. But, as Karen
Kelly reports, one group has found a unique
way to recycle them:
(sound of banging)
“That’s a sweet ride!”
A volunteer drops a bike into a pile at the back of a huge shipping container in Ottawa, Canada.
The bikes are stacked one on top of the other.
(sound of tools)
Just outside, a mechanic is stripping the bikes down to make them as compact as possible.
“If it has a kickstand, we have to remove it. We take the pedals off and turn the handlebars.”
In a few hours, this cargo container will be jammed with hundreds of donated bicycles, bike parts, and backpacks.
The gear is collected by a group called Bicycles for Humanity.
They have 20 chapters, most of them in North America.
Each chapter raises a couple of thousand dollars to buy a shipping container.
They pack it full of donated gear, and send it off to a community in Namibia, Africa. The shipping cost – another several thousand dollars – is also raised by the group.
A volunteer group there turns the container itself into a locally-run bike shop that provides jobs and transportation.
Some of the bikes are donated to health care workers who use them to pull patients on a stretcher.
Others are piled high with stacks of food and household items that defy gravity.
Martin Sullivan points to some of the pictures on display.
“These are the bakers who are able to sell their bread. And also wood, you can stack wood. It’s just amazing what they do, how they make use of these bikes that we take for granted. We throw them out, and they can do so much with them.”
(sound of traffic)
In Namibia, cars – and even bicycles – are scarce. Sullivan says these bikes make life easier for people who are used to walking miles to get to school, work, or to find the basic necessities.
Seb Oran is the co-founder of Bicycles for Humanity in Ottawa.
This is the fourth container of bikes that she’s sent to Africa.
Each one supports a local community group.
Sometimes its a hospital, sometimes an orphanage, sometimes a women’s empowerment group.
She remembers one run by former prostitutes.
“Six of them became bicycle mechanics now. And now, they don’t have to sell their bodies to put food on their plate.”
But there are some challenges.
Michael Linke runs the Bicycle Empowerment Network.
He helps the Nambians set up the bicycle shops.
“Because this is the first time a lot of these people have had formal ongoing work, it’s often difficult to get people to understand a long-term ongoing business.”
But with some mentoring, they’ve been able to make it work.
There are now 13 successful projects, with more containers filled with bikes on the way.
The group estimates that these bikes will last another 20 or 30 years in Africa. They might be junk to us, but in Namibia, they’re a precious resource.
