Senator Robert F. Bennett blocked the nomination of David Hayes as the Deputy Interior Secretary (Photo courtesy of the US Senate)
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Transcript
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar says he knows his old Senate colleague Bob Bennett of Utah very well, and he understands the politics behind blocking the nomination of Salazar’s deputy.
Senator Bennett and his fellow Republicans blocked the nomination of David Hayes after Secretary Salazar canceled leases for oil and gas drilling near National Parks in Utah.
Salazar says the leases were rushed through late in the Bush administration without proper environmental review.
Senate Democrats say the Hayes nomination will be brought up again. Secretary Salazar says he hopes so.
“I sure hope that it happens. You know I think Senator Durbin and others, Senator Reid, indicated they think that it can happen this week. I hope that it does.”
The Democrats will need the votes of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd. Both men have been absent from the Senate because of health problems.
If you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent (Photo by Jessi Ziegler)
Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Shade trees can save you
money on your energy bill. Now,
for the first time, researchers
have figured out just how much.
Rebecca Williams has more:
Economists looked at utility bills of homes in California on the hottest days
of the year.
Geoffrey Donovan is with the Forest Service Research Station.
He says, if you have shade trees on the south or west sides of your home,
those trees reduce your electricity use by five percent.
“So putting a tree somewhere it’s going to cast shadows at the warmest time
of the day. The other thing you want to think about is winter sunshine.
Particularly on the south side of a house you may want to put a deciduous
tree as opposed to an evergreen tree so in wintertime you’ll get some
sunshine through that.”
Donovan says how close you put those trees to your house matters too. For
the most energy savings, shade trees should be within 40 to 60 feet of your
home.
Steve Mohoney (left), of the Clinton County Soil & Water Conservation
District, gives dairy farmer Dale Tetreault his first look at "Bigfoot". (Photo by David Sommerstein)
Over the last 30 years, plastics
have become indispensable on America’s
farms. They save farmers time and money.
The problem is agricultural plastics are
filling up landfills. In some places,
farmers actually burn the plastic. That
releases dangerous chemicals into the air.
David Sommerstein reports
on a new effort to bale plastics and recycle
them:
Transcript
Over the last 30 years, plastics
have become indispensable on America’s
farms. They save farmers time and money.
The problem is agricultural plastics are
filling up landfills. In some places,
farmers actually burn the plastic. That
releases dangerous chemicals into the air.
David Sommerstein reports
on a new effort to bale plastics and recycle
them:
Farmers must have been paying attention when Dustin Hoffman got that
famous piece of advice in ‘The Graduate’.
“I just want to say one word to you, just one word.”
“Yes, sir?”
“ Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Plastics.”
Plastics are all over the farm today. Plastic greenhouse covers. White sheets
to wrap hay bales. Black plastic feed troughs.
(sound of moving troughs)
Dale Tetreault shakes a tall pile of the feed troughs on his dairy farm in
northern New York State.
“They’re a hard plastic and they hold molasses and minerals.”
Tetreault says the plastics are handy – essential, really – to keep feed fresh
for his 500 cows. But the material’s hard to re-use because it gets dirty and
tears easily.
So Tetreault’s left with a decision – spend a thousand dollars a year to truck
them to the landfill. Or burn them, polluting the air and water.
“Yeah, exactly, I mean, we’re not talking about some light piece of plastic
here. We’re talking about heavy duty plastic.”
A new machine is giving Tetrault a third alternative. It goes by the name of
Bigfoot.
(sound of motor starting up)
Bigfoot is a portable hydraulic press. It crushes used plastic and ties it up
in bales.
“Quite an interesting contraption, that’s for sure.”
Tetreault’s been saving up used farm plastics for a couple months for this
test run.
“Alright, we ready to try this?”
That’s Steve Mahoney, a farm educator with the local soil and water
conservation district. He bought Bigfoot with a $35,000 state grant.
(sound of engine running)
Mahoney and some farmhands stuff dirty plastic sheets into the baler, then
Bigfoot crushes it down. That makes room for more.
(crushing sound)
“Okay, so go on back up.”
Mahoney teaches the farmhands how to run Bigfoot. With the help of the
local farm extension office, he’s baled plastics at nine farms so far. He
wants all of the area’s farmers to share Bigfoot, to keep plastics out of the
landfill or burn pile.
“It’s an obvious problem on the farms. It’s necessary, but the disposal of it
is a problem.”
The big plan is to recycle the plastic. Mahoney’s coordinating with a
recycling firm in Minnesota to pick up 40,000 pounds of plastic bales. They
could be made into plastic lumber or shingles or road filler.
The thing is, there isn’t much of a market for low-grade, dirty plastic right
now. Lois Levitan directs New York’s Ag Plastics Recycling Project at
Cornell University. She says as fuel costs rise and more farmers bale their
plastic, that might change.
“Markets want to know that there’s a certain quantity of product at a
certain level of quantity and they’re going to become increasingly interested
when they know there’s a steady stream.”
(sound of Bigfoot machine popping out a bale)
“Ok, that’s it, that’s the finished product.”
Steve Mahoney presses a button and out pops a thousand pound bale of
plastic. Farmhand Lennie Merculdi brushes his hands.
“Put it this way, trying to put it in a dumpster, to the barn, and never having
enough room for the garbage, that’s not good either. What’s a few minutes?
You get rid of the plastic, it’s convenient, you tie it up and away it goes.”
For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.
Sidewalks don’t go a lot of the places we’d like to walk. So people do what people have always done: cut through empty lots… or woods… or across railways. A lot of these pathways, worn down by use, never seem to make it onto maps. The GLRC’s Jennifer Guerra reports one group thinks they ought to be mapped… and their stories told:
Transcript
Sidewalks don’t go a lot of the places we’d like to walk. So people do
what people have always done: cut through empty lots… or woods… or
across railways. A lot of these pathways, worn down by use, never
seems to make it onto maps. The GLRC’s Jennifer Guerra reports one
group thinks they ought to be mapped… and their stories told:
When Hilary Ramsden moved to Detroit from England, she thought the
best way to explore the city was to bike it.
“And I was run off road by cars, and people shouted and screamed at me.
So I decided to cycle on sidewalk but then I noticed sidewalks came to
end, and started singing little paths.”
Ramsden points to a little ribbon of dirt that run thru a neighbor’s yard
or cut through a vacant lot…
“And I noticed there was a whole network of these paths through the
city. So I started exploring them!”
Soon Ramsden’s co-worker, Erika Block, starts tagging along on the
walks, and since none of the trials they want to take are listed on any
maps, the two just start wandering:
“And then we started thinking about mapping and what’s really
represented on traditional maps and what’s missing.”
Block thinks of maps as a kind of storytelling. So if the short cuts and
gravel paths that people take aren’t listed on a map, then the stories of the
people who use them aren’t being told. So Block and Ramsden – who
run a theatre company in the city – decided to turn their walks into a performance
art piece of sorts. It’s called The Walking Project.
Once a week they pick out a section of Detroit and walk it. To track their
route, they use a handheld Global Positioning System device. They also
bring along digital cameras to snap pictures and record conversations
they have with people. Eventually, the photos, recordings and GPS tracks will
all be uploaded to a computer and transformed into a sort of 3-D digital map.
“And so a representation of place is going to be more than just lines and
dots and symbols on a map, it hopefully will become the video, and audio, and drawings
and conversations that people bring to it.”
And that’s really what these walks are about for Hilary Ramsden…
meeting people.
“…oh look at path here…this is a great shortcut. Is there a story here?
Tons of stories here, but no one walking here to ask at the moment. I’d
be interested in talking to someone.”
About twenty minutes into the walk, we cut across a gravelly path that
runs through a small field. There, we run into a homeless man. The
minute Block and Ramsden say hello, the man starts talking. About
himself, about the path and about the field we’re standing in…
(Sound of talking)
Block and Ramsden snap pictures and record everything he’s saying.
Their hope is to one day have it all linked to a virtual map that places this
man and his image on this particular Detroit dirt path, and because Block
recorded their conversation, his story will become a part of the map, too:
“People will ultimately be able to drag and drop images to build their own maps
of these places that tell different stories. And I think people are fascinated by
other people’s stories, and I think that ultimately the more we know of other
people’s stories the less afraid we become and the more comfortable it becomes.”
Block admits that the technology for creating such a map is at least two
years off. But in the meantime, she and Ramsdon will continue to walk
around and record the stories of those who choose to travel off the beaten
path. In hopes that maybe one day they’ll have a map to call their own.
State legislatures around the Great Lakes will be the next stop for a water diversion plan recently endorsed by the region’s governors and provincial leaders. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
State Legislatures around the Great Lakes will be the next stop for a
water diversion plan recently endorsed by the region’s Governors and
provincial leaders. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck
Quirmbach reports:
The Annex 2001 implementing agreements aim to block any long-
distance diversion of Great Lakes water. The plan may allow some
water to go to communities that straddle the Great Lakes basin. All eight
state legislatures in the region must okay the agreements.
Wisconsin Governor, Jim Doyle, is chair of the Council of Great Lakes
Governors. He says he hopes lawmakers give the plan bi-partisan
support. He says it tries to fairly handle water requests.
“We now have standards, we have a framework, we have a way to
discuss these issues.”
Some lawmakers on the edge of the Great Lakes basin are seeking more
lake water for their communities. So, the debate over the diversion
plan could take several months. If the states sign on, the proposal would
then go to congress for final approval.
This is a private beach Charles Shabica developed for a homeowner on Chicago's North Shore. The grasses in the background are native to the area and help stabilize the beach and bluff. They also help trap and filter runoff. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Another shot of the private beach. The designer describes it as a "miniature" bay. The curve protects the sand without sending a structure very far out into the water (compare to the steel structure that juts out farther). (Photo by Shawn Allee)
A common development pattern along Chicago's North Shore. These "groins" are there to hold the beaches in place. If there are too many, or they're not configured correctly, they block the natural flow of sand along the shoreline. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is changing how the shoreline interacts with
the lakes. Humans like to improve on nature. For example, we like to build things to
protect our property. Protecting a home from forces like wind, water and soil erosion can
be a tough job and expensive sometimes. But if your property is along the shore of a
Great Lake, it can be especially difficult. Reporter Shawn Allee looks at one engineer’s
effort to protect lakefront property and nature:
Transcript
We’ve been bringing you reports from the series ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’ Our
guide in the series is Lester Graham. He says the next report looks at protecting property
and protecting nature:
One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is changing how the shoreline interacts with
the lakes. Humans like to improve on nature. For example, we like to build things to
protect our property. Protecting a home from forces like wind, water and soil erosion can
be a tough job and expensive sometimes. But if your property is along the shore of a
Great Lake, it can be especially difficult. Reporter Shawn Allee looks at one engineer’s
effort to protect lakefront property and nature:
Great Lakes shorelines naturally change over time. Beaches erode. Dunes shift.
Sometimes, even the rockiest bluffs collapse.
That’s OK for nature, but maybe not for a house sitting on top of it. So it’s no wonder
that landowners try to stabilize their shorelines. To do that, they sometimes build walls
of steel or concrete to block incoming waves. It’s a tricky process. If the walls are too
short, they won’t stop erosion. But if they’re too long, they trap sand that moves
naturally along the lakeshore.
When nearby beaches can’t get sand, they degrade into muddy or rocky messes.
Charles Shabica is a coastal engineer. He’s been working at the problem for decades
now.
“My dream is to see the shores of the Great Lakes ultimately stabilized, but in a good
way and not a bad way where you’re causing problems.”
Shabica takes me to a small private beach north of Chicago. He engineered it to keep the
shoreline intact. The keys to that are two piles of rock that jut out into the lake.
The piles are just the right size – big enough to protect the shore, but small enough to let
some sand pass by. There’re other elements to the design as well.
Tall, blue-green grasses line the beach’s perimeter.
“Not only do waves tend to move sand around, but wind is also really an important agent,
too. So the beach grass and dune grass tends to stabilize the sand. And what will happen
is, you can see these things are seeding now, wind will blow the seeds and pretty soon
you get that stuff growing all over the place.”
A lot of homeowners and city planners applaud Shabica’s work. But not everyone does.
Some environmental groups say, once a landowner builds a wall or rock formation,
others have to follow suit, just to preserve their own sandy shoreline.
The environmental groups’ alternative? Keep development farther away from shorelines
and allow more natural erosion.
But that hands-off approach is not likely to happen. The majority of Great Lakes
shoreline is privately owned. And in many states, landowners often prevail in court when
they try to protect their investments.
Keith Schneider of the Michigan Land Use Institute says the question isn’t whether to
build near the shore, but how to do it.
He says, in the past, landowners tried to get off cheap. They didn’t pay for quality
construction or get expert advice on local geological systems.
“If you don’t pay a lot of attention to these systems, it’s gonna cost you a lot of money.
And if you build inappropriate structures or inappropriate recreational facilities, you’re
going to either be paying a lot of money to sustain them or you’re gonna lose them.”
A lot of coastal geologists agree that, for much of the Great Lakes coast, private
shoreline protection efforts – even the bad ones – are here to stay.
In urban or suburban areas, housing developments near the shore often include a buffer or
wall.
Michael Chrzastowski is with Illinois’ Geological Survey. He says, in these cases, the
shore can look natural…
“But it’s going to be a managed, engineered facility, because wherever you are on the
shore, you’re influenced by some other construction or historical development along the
shore that’s altered the processes where you are.”
That’s definitely the case along highly-developed, urban coastlines, such as Illinois’.
Other parts of the region are catching up, though.
“What’s going to happen is, other places along the great lakes as they become more
developed and they become more urbanized, they’re going to use Illinois as a model.”
That could bring more projects like Charles Shabica’s little beach. Shabica says that’s
not necessarily a bad thing.
It’s just a way to come to terms with our presence along the lakes.
“Human beings are here to stay. It’s our responsibility I think to make our environment
better for us, but not at the expense of the biological community, and your neighbors.”
That sounds reasonable enough. But it will ultimately mean the vast, natural coastlines of
the Great Lakes will be engineered, one beach at a time.
Gary Tessier of Team Manitoba works on the team's 16-foot-high snow sculpture in Gatineau, Quebec. (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Denis Vrignon-Tessier uses a spade to carve the outline of a fiddle on the snow sculpture. (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Gary Tessier and Real Berard of Team Manitoba work on a snow sculpture that will depict a fiddler lost in the rapids of the Winnipeg River. (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Every year, snow sculptors from the U.S. and Canada travel
to northern cities to carve huge works of art. They often depict things such as legends of sea monsters and native spirits. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, these artists are driven by a shared passion for the outdoors:
Transcript
Every year, snow sculptors from the US and Canada travel to northern cities to carve huge works of art. They often depict things such as legends of sea monsters and native spirits. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, these artists are driven by a shared passion for the outdoors:
(sound of chipping and scraping)
Gary Tessier is jabbing a spade into the side of a towering block of snow. He and his team are here to compete in a snow sculpture competition in Gatineau, Quebec. It’s just across the Ottawa River from Ottawa, Canada’s capital. The team has 50 hours to transform this 16 foot high block of snow into a work of art. They work from 8:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night – shoveling, scraping and sawing.
“Basically, fundamentally, you use a good sharp spade and these homemade sander kind of things. A whole variety of tools and uh, it doesn’t take much.”
The team is creating a sculpture based on a legend of a fiddler from their hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The fiddler drowned in the Winnepeg River and the legend has it that people can still hear his music in the rapids. Gary uses the spade to follow the outline of a fiddle drawn in black magic marker on the snow.
“I’m working on one of the what do you call that? La manche… du violin… comment t’appelle ca? The fiddlehead! The fiddlehead. When we’re finished, hopefully it’ll be two fiddleheads and the fiddler surrounded by the water that well, he lost his life in, but went on to forever playing music.”
Gary and his sculpting partner Real Berard have been going to snow sculpting competitions for 25 years. They both work in the arts, Gary as an administrator and Real as an artist. Gary says they spend most of their time indoors, hunched over, working at a desk. Which is why he looks forward to a week outside, even if it’s 30 below.
“This is like a pilgrimage, literally, it clears my mind and clears the body, too, of all kinds of awful things. It’s just a reawakening, like a rebirth every time, it’s beautiful, it really is.”
And on the best days, Gary and Real say, the sculpture takes over.
Tessier: “You’re sort of going with the flow, going with the line and going where it’s going.”
Berard: “Yeah, and you see quite often, like we follow the lines. It seems like a snake. It wants to go someplace and there’s no way that you could… it’s stronger than your mind.”
Tessier: “Sometimes you try and fight it and don’t listen – this is really where this thing has got to go – and then ultimately it doesn’t work.”
Kelly: “That’s when you make a mistake?”
Tessier: “Yup, and it shows.”
Not that they’re that concerned about making mistakes. Of course they want the sculpture to look good, but they say they don’t care about winning, which was tough for Denis Vrignon-Tessier, Gary’s son, to accept. He’s 22 and has been with the team for 4 years.
Vrignon-Tessier: “Like at first, in a competition, I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be real disappointed if we lose,’ and stuff and then just being with them every year, they’ve just showed me that really, it’s not important.”
Kelly: “So what is it about?”
Vrignon-Tessier: “It’s about being here and spending time with them, just joking around, hearing what they have to say. Yeah.”
In the end, the sculpture has two giant violins. There’s a fiddler kneeling in front of them, playing in a swirl of water.
It doesn’t win.
The judges seem to like the sculptures with lots of details carved on them. But Gary and Real like bold, smooth shapes that will last for a while. And sure enough, after a couple days of freezing rain and warm temperatures, a lot of the detailed work on other sculptures is worn away. But the fiddler and the violins stay strong – ready to play into the spring.
Great Lakes water has become an issue in this year’s presidential campaign as both candidates try to pick up valuable votes in the swing states. Both of the major party candidates say they’re against diverting the water to other states, and both say their opponent has been inconsistent on the issue. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
Transcript
Great Lakes water has become an issue in this year’s presidential campaign as
both candidates try to pick up valuable votes in the swing states. Both of the
major party candidates say they’re against diverting the water to other states,
and both say their opponent has been inconsistent on the issue. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:
President Bush says he favors keeping Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes.
He said so this summer during a campaign stop in Traverse City, Michigan.
“My position is clear. We’re never going to allow diversion of Great
Lakes water.”
And John Kerry says he is against diverting Great Lakes water. It’s one of six
points included in his recently-released plan to clean up and preserve the lakes.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm discussed that plan in a conference call
with reporters.
“They are adamantly opposed to diverting water from the Great Lakes
basin. They will institute a no diversions policy for the Great Lakes.
They will block any water diversion.”
And while both the Bush and Kerry campaigns are promising not to let other
states tap into the Great Lakes, they’re accusing each other of going back and
forth on the issue. Bush says back in February, Kerry referred to the diversion
issue as a “delicate balancing act.” The next day, Kerry’s campaign said the
Democrat was “absolutely opposed” to diversions. The Kerry campaign
says back in 2001, President Bush expressed support for diverting Great Lakes
water to the Southwestern United States. The president wasn’t that specific
about it, though he did say he’d be open to discussions about water with
Canada’s prime minister.
Michigan’s Governor Granholm says there’s no immediate threat that Great
Lakes water would be diverted, though she says it has to be a concern as the
dry, Southwestern part of the United States continues to add people, and
members of Congress who might one day vote on such an issue.
But some experts say diversion of Great Lakes water is much more likely to happen
in areas closer to the Lakes. They say diverting water to the arid Southwest
would cost too much.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.
Senator Robert F. Bennett blocked the nomination of David Hayes as the Deputy Interior Secretary (Photo courtesy of the US Senate)
