Month: April 2002

Northern Neighbor Curbs Pesticide Use

While the U.S. continues to struggle over the use of pesticides, its neighbor to the north has recently taken some major steps toward restricting its use. Earlier this year Canada’s largest grocery chain announced that its 440 garden centers would be pesticide-free by 2003. In the wake of this announcement the Canadian government introduced amendments to its 33 year-old pesticide control act. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that while this is welcome news… “what took so long?”:

Transcript

While the U.S. continues to struggle over the use of pesticides, its neighbor to the north has recently taken some major steps toward restricting its use. Earlier this year, Canada’s largest grocery chain announced that its 440 garden centers would be pesticide-free by 2003. In the wake of this announcement, the Canadian government introduced amendments to its 33 year-old pesticide control act. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that while this is welcome news, “What took so long?”

Contrary to popular belief, there are at least three things that you can’t avoid – death, taxes and pesticides. Pesticides are everywhere – in our food, in our water and in the air that we breathe.

Ever since the publication of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, 40 years ago, many environmentalists have expressed their concern that anything that can kill other living organisms must also have an effect on human health. They have patiently gathered evidence while encouraging the scientific community to do the same. But despite our growing awareness of the dangers of pesticides, progress toward restricting their use has been painstakingly slow.

And then came Hudson. A decade ago this small Quebec town passed a local by-law to restrict the cosmetic use of pesticides. Cosmetic use generally means using them to improve the appearance of lawns and gardens. Two lawn care companies immediately took the town to court. The ensuing legal battle dragged on for ten years. But the town’s remarkable tenacity paid off. Last year the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously upheld Hudson’s right to legislate the use of pesticides and encouraged other municipalities to do the same.

The Supreme Court decision literally opened a floodgate of activity. Hundreds of municipalities that had been waiting for the Hudson ruling are now proceeding with their own pesticide legislation.

Even the traditionally conservative Canadian Cancer Society – known for its “cancer can be beaten” philosophy is calling for a ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides known to cause cancer. Apparently, cancer not only can be beaten – it can be prevented.

Then in March a modern day corporate miracle happened. The Loblaw’s grocery chain announced that it would be pesticide free in all of its 440 garden centers by next year. What was so amazing about the giant retailer’s announcement is that a cancer victim inspired it. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, a young Canadian doctor went on a one-woman campaign to ban pesticide use. Dr. Bruinsma’s story caught the attention of a Loblaw’s company official and the rest is corporate history.

It was only after all of this, that the Canadian government finally introduced a long promised update of its 33 year-old pesticide act. While the bill isn’t perfect, it is a step in the right direction – the direction that environmentalists have been pointing to for decades.

The Canadian Cancer Society, Loblaws, even the Canadian government are making some dramatic shifts in direction thanks to the extraordinary efforts of ordinary citizens – many of them cancer patients, like Dr. Bruinsma. While struggling with their own disease they have gathered evidence about the harmful effects of pesticides in the hopes of preventing others from suffering the same fate.

Sadly, Dr. Bruinsma didn’t live to see the change in Loblaw’s corporate policy. She died of breast cancer just a few short weeks before the announcement was made. Ironically, Rachel Carson, the great-grandmother of the anti-pesticide movement also lost her life to breast cancer a few years after Silent Spring was published in 1962. What we can learn from their deaths – and their remarkable lives – is that change, as always, starts with the power of one.

Campus Power Plants Struggle to Keep Up

For universities across the Midwest energy costs are becoming a huge expense. Schools are increasingly reliant on technology and many are adding new research facilities. With that growth has come an increased demand for electricity, and at a number of schools around the region, aging power plants can’t keep up with that demand. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports on this growing problem:

Transcript

For universities across the Midwest, energy costs are becoming a huge expense. Schools are increasingly reliant on technology and many are adding new research facilities. With that growth, has come an increased demand for electricity. And at a number of schools around the region, aging power plants can’t keep up with that demand. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports on this growing problem:

Jeff Bazzi is a freshman at Michigan State University. He shares a dorm room on campus with three other students. They use a lot of electricity.

(Natural sound up/under — computer, fan, radio, TV)

In this one dorm room, there are four computers, two stereos, two televisions, three refrigerators, three fans, one microwave and four alarm clocks. Jeff Bazzi says even though he doesn’t get an electricity bill from the university every month, he’s aware of the amount of energy he uses.

“I know if I was at home my mom would yell at me for wasting electricity, running her bill up. So I still try to conserve. I don’t leave lights on around me and leave the TV on and all that, I try to conserve.”

And
that’s exactly what the university wants Bazzi and other students, faculty and staff to do…conserve. Last year, Michigan State launched an energy conservation campaign to promote ways to reduce electricity consumption. University officials say small changes on everyone’s part, such as turning off lights and computers, can collectively result in lower energy costs. Terry Link is the director of MSU’s Office of Campus Sustainability. He says just a five-percent reduction in electricity demand could save the university one million dollars a year.

“What we need to do is create that environment so that people become more aware that what they’re doing has an effect, it has a cost. It’s not immediate to their wallet, but it has other kinds of costs. And then to give them tools, examples, of how, if they feel they should do something to reduce that, what they can do.”

University officials say energy conservation is especially important now, as MSU struggles with a much tighter budget this year. Also, saving energy could delay a much larger problem. In the not-too-distant future, Michigan State’s power will no longer be able to provide enough electricity for campus. Bob Ellerhorst is the power plant director.

“Our universities are really becoming research-oriented, supported by a lot of high technology stuff. All of it takes electricity, a lot of it requires supplemental air conditioning.”

(Power plant sound up/under)

Michigan State’s power plant can make 55 megawatts of electricity, and during the hottest days of the summer, the campus uses all 55 megawatts. Over the next 15 years, MSU officials project the school will need at least 20 more megawatts of power. Schools throughout the Midwest are facing similar situations, as the demand for power on campus becomes too great for their aging power plants. Many are expanding their plants to meet demand. The University of Illinois is spending 60-million dollars on two new gas-fired turbines, Minnesota’s expansion will cost a-hundred-million dollars and the University of Wisconsin is building a brand-new power plant at a cost of 200-million dollars. Some schools, including Michigan State, are also considering buying more power from their local utility companies. But MSU power plant director Bob Ellerhorst says that electricity is almost twice as expensive as power produced on campus and isn’t nearly as reliable.

“Campus didn’t have a single outage, we had a lot of equipment failures in the plant that we just deal with. The campus has not had an interruption to service in over 36 months. I think that’s a lot longer than you’ve had to reset your clock at home.”

Michigan State is also looking into whether alternative sources of energy, such as wind and fuel cells, could play a part in a long-term solution. But in the meantime, they’re hoping students and faculty will begin conserving energy to help reduce demand and cost.

(Sounds of dorm up/under)

But that could be a challenge, from the looks of things at dorms and buildings on college campuses throughout the Midwest…where more electricity is being used than ever before.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Cities Tackle Regional Planning Puzzle

In the mid-1960’s, the federal government started requiring metropolitan areas to come up with regional plans in order to get government grants for everything from highways to housing. That forced officials from large cities and from the suburbs to sit down at the same table (in many cases for the first time) and think about what was best for the entire region; not just their own town. From this effort, sprang the regional planning movement, but things aren’t always easy, and certainly don’t always go ‘according to plan.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one region’s attempt to plan for growth:

There are four major regional planning orgnizations in the Chicago metro area:

Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission
Chicago Area Transportation Study
Chicago Metropolis 2020
Metropolitan Planning Council

Transcript

In the
mid-1960’s, the federal government started requiring metropolitan areas to come up with regional plans in order to get government grants for everything from highways to housing. That forced officials from large cities and from the suburbs to sit down at the same table — in many cases for the first time — and think about what was best for the entire region, not just their own town. From this effort, sprang the regional planning movement. But things aren’t always easy and certainly don’t always go ‘according to plan.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on one region’s attempt to plan for growth:

If you were to gather around the coffee pot in the morning at just about any place of business in just about any suburb of just about any big city, the topic of conversation would probably not be the weather, or last night’s big game, or even politics. Nope. More than likely it would be about how long it took to get to work. Lots of people drive an hour, ninety minutes, or even longer to make the commute. So, why not move closer, you might ask. The answer could very well be “Can’t afford it.”

Housing costs in many suburbs are so high that the people who teach the kids, fight the fires, and fix the cars in the nice suburbs have to live in other less affluent communities where housing is cheaper. That’s because city officials in many suburbs encourage the building of expensive houses on big lots because it means a better tax base. But that also means many workers need to hop in their cars to get to work in those fancy suburbs.

Of course, when thousands of cars line up bumper to bumper to make the commute, you get traffic congestion.

“If you think it’s bad now, just wait. It’s gonna get worse.”

That’s Frank Beale. He’s the Executive Director of a group named Chicago Metropolis 2020. Metropolis 2020 put together a plan that looked at the Chicago area’s growth patterns and came up with some pretty dire forecasts. According to the study, if the Chicago region conducts business as usual, by the year 2030 there will be a 75-percent increase in auto miles traveled for work, shopping, and normal everyday trips. The time it takes to drive to work will be up 27-percent. And only about seven-and-a-half percent of housing units will be within walking distance of mass transit.

Beale says there’s seems to be a disconnect between local governments’ decisions to encourage big, expensive houses and the resulting need for more roads and additional lanes of traffic to handle all the commuters.

“More equitable
distribution of affordable housing and the employment centers would diminish the demand on the transportation systems. We seem to always only talk about roads. But, we only need roads because of how we’ve configured the land in the region.” Beyond the travel concerns, business as usual — according to the Metropolis 2020 study — means another 383 square miles of farmland will become subdivisions and strip malls in less than 30 years.

Organizations such as Metropolis 2020 are working together to try to educate and persuade the Chicago region’s 275 suburban mayors that the decisions they make will have an effect on the whole region.

Larry Christmas was once one of those mayors. He’s also spent his career running or working for regional planning agencies. He says as a mayor, it’s hard to think about the larger region when you are working to bring good growth to your town. It’s especially hard when regional planners want you to give up local control of land-use for the betterment of the larger region.

“And that’s something the communities don’t want to give up lightly even if there’s a regional argument that the collective local decisions may add up to bad regional development patterns.”

So, those looking at the big picture have their work cut out for them. The regional planners spend a lot of time at meetings with local officials, putting together roundtables to explain plans and trying to schedule meetings between antagonists.

One of the partners of Metropolis 2020 is the Metropolitan Planning Council. Executive Director Mary Sue Barrett says sitting down with those different interests and getting them to consider the reasons for bending a little here and there to adhere to a regional plan can pay off.

“To put it in practical terms, if you can get an environmentalist and a homebuilder and a mayor to agree on something, you can probably go get it done. And that’s what we try to do.”

And the regional planners try to get the mayors to listen on topics ranging from fair and equitable housing, to public transportation, and even taxing systems that sometimes encourage bad development with tax breaks.

But given the kind of expansive sprawl that continues to plague the Chicago metropolitan area, there’s still one question you have to ask of people such as Frank Beale with Chicago Metropolis 2020. That is: who’s listening?

“Well, the general assembly, the legislators are listening, the Mayor, the 275 suburban mayors are listening. They don’t always agree, but they’re listening.”

And as long as they keep listening, the people looking for better regional planning will keep trying to persuade the cities in the suburbs there’s a better way.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.