Canada’s environment minister is recommending that road salt be classified as a toxic substance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly has details:
Transcript
Canada’s environment minister is recommending that road salt be classified as a toxic substance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports.
Approximately 5 million tons of road salt are used in Canada each winter.
And much of those salts eventually find their way into bodies of water.
The Canadian government recently completed a 5-year study of the environmental effects of road salts.
The scientists found water near some major highways contained as much salt as ocean water. And they concluded freshwater plants; fish and other organisms are being harmed. Canadian environment minister David Anderson has recommended road salt be added to Canada’s list of toxic substances.
But the government is not proposing a ban on salt. Officials are studying ways to reduce its use and improve snow removal techniques to minimize the amount of salt escaping into waterways. The public has 60 days to comment on the plan. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary:
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Sprawl affects urban and rural residents of every Great Lakes state. Rapid development continues to swallow farmland and leave impoverished urban cores in its wake. But one Great Lakes mayor believes there’s still time to preserve land and revive cities. Mayor John Logie shares this commentary.
Urban sprawl is alive and well in Grand Rapids, my hometown. The term refers to the insidious way that webs of suburbs, manufacturing plants, etc., are expanding in unplanned, ever-widening circles around our city. Such sprawl results in longer commutes, pollution, and the loss of undeveloped land. The American Farmland Trust reports that 70% of the country’s prime farmland is now in the path of rapid development. On the list of 30 of the most sprawling cities in the entire United States, Grand Rapids, which has experienced a 48% increase in its urban area between 1990 and 1996, ranks right in the middle, behind such hyper-growth communities as Las Vegas, Austin, and Tucson, but well ahead of Cleveland, Chicago, and Portland in our rate of sprawl increase.
This Land-use change has rarely been done in a responsible fashion. Some sprawl apologists say what we’ve ended up with is that’s the American Dream, and any problems are easy to fix. They say there’s plenty of land left in America. They say congestion would go away if we just build more roads. But sprawl matters. Pollsters say it’s the most important issue in the Country.
Distress about urban sprawl arises from many factors: loss of open space, traffic congestion, economic segregation, a lack of affordable housing, and a lost sense of community. According to Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam, the longer people spend in traffic, the less likely they are to be involved in their community and family.
To solve these problems, it takes a combination of land conservation and real free market economics, which can actually provide smaller lots for those who want them. However, many communities try to maintain what they believe are high property values by allowing only large-lot homes to be built. This effectively excludes several types of households, including singles, some empty nesters, single-parents, and the elderly, along with lower-income people. And the favored “middle-class family” with kids, today represents just 25% of new homebuyers. Only 11% of U.S. households are “traditional” families with children and just one wage earner. One size no longer fits us all.
Here’s what we need now.
We need smaller houses in walkable clusters, town homes in real “towns,” lofts in vital urban neighborhoods, and affordable housing just about anywhere. The development of compact communities that offer urban amenities and street life will show that the market actually supports more density and more housing diversity—not less. But we’re not building communities like those; communities that can help reduce many symptoms of sprawl, including traffic. Instead, we’re just building new roads. But for every 10% increase in new freeway miles, a 9% increase in traffic is generated within 5 years as sprawl continues. You just can’t build your way out of gridlock. More importantly, today we can no longer afford to keep building new freeways. The key is building more walkable communities. All this depends on promoting different land-use patterns, and not just building new roads.
Property rights advocates argue against regional planning, or any planning for that matter. They say that people should have a right to develop their properties as they please. As a historic preservationist, I have heard that for years. But what if one person’s development decision adversely impacts another’s property, or the whole neighborhood, or the whole region? What if certain choices require more public tax dollars to pay for infrastructure and services than others? At the regional level, it is public dollars that enable development on private property. Without highways, roads, sewers, water systems, and public services, development cannot occur. Therefore, we must use the tool of government spending appropriately – and seek out and implement the most cost-effective public investments which creatively and positively support growth, but discourage sprawl. My name is John Logie, I’m the Mayor of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Efforts to reduce road noise pollution are making progress in
Indiana. Last year, Purdue University opened the Institute for Safe,
Quiet, and Durable Highways. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
David Naylor reports:
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Efforts to reduce noise pollution are making progress in Indiana.
Last year, Purdue University opened the Institute for Safe, Quiet, and
Durable Highways. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David
Naylor reports:
In the past, measuring road noise meant measuring the sound of a
car’s mechanical systems, primarily engine and muffler noise. Now,
with the development of more efficient engines, researchers have
identified the tires and road surface as the newest problem.
So, Purdue researchers are looking for the quietest combination of
tire treads and pavement. They say the most promising surface so far is
one developed in Europe: a thick layer of asphalt, with pits one and a
half to two inches deep.
It reduces road noise by about 50% and does well in the
freeze-and-thaw cycle. But the major problem is keeping oil and dirt
out of the deep pits.
Lab director Bob Bernhard hopes a double layer of pavement will
help.
“One which has the properties that they think are optimal for acoustics, and then put a second
layer below it, which has bigger spacing. In that way, they can flush the dirt and the things that
are plugging, out of the top layer, where the acoustics are affected, in the bottom layer, and
then flush it out.”
Research on the porous pavement continues in Europe and the U.S.
There are no plans yet for commercial production.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Naylor.
University of Buffalo researchers have developed a new technology that
could save taxpayers money on highway repair and weigh station expenses
it’s called "smart concrete." The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Elizabeth Christensen reports:
The phrase "where the rubber meets the road" is taking on new meaning
in some states. Ohio, for example, is testing rubber in the mix of
asphalt it uses to repave roadways. Ohio and other states say this is
one way to recycle old tires. But, as the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Julie Grant Cooper reports, researchers aren’t sure it’s
cost effective:
What role do new highways play in development? That’s the question to
be answered by a study that’ll start soon at the University of Iowa.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Herb Trix reports:
A Minnesota highway relocation project is getting national attention as
Native American tribes are attempting to stop state and federal projects
from destroying tribal lands. The Highway 55 re-route would cost an
estimated 100 million dollars and would provide a faster route from
downtown Minneapolis to the local airport and Mall of America. A
Minnesota tribal group says that if construction for the highway takes
place, they will lose sacred land. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jesse Hardman reports:
Snowy, icy roads are a fact of life around the Great Lakes. For years,
de-icing salt has been the weapon of choice to keep roads passable
during the winter months. But the runoff from road salt can pollute
surface and ground water, contaminating wells and causing problems for
fish populations. So researchers have been looking for alternatives.
And now, there’s a new one that looks promising. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports: