The Pride of an Industrial Town

  • Cline Avenue and its bridge once cut across and over steel mills and refineries in East Chicago, Indiana. Inspectors found it was structurally unsound and the state didn't feel it warranted repair. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The US government estimates about twelve percent of the country’s bridges are in dire need of repair.
Those are hazards, of course, but for towns that pride themselves on their industrial might … a crumbling bridge is a concrete and steel embarrassment.
Shawn Allee found one town that needs to remove a bridge but thinks maybe that’s for the best:

Transcript

The US government estimates about twelve percent of the country’s bridges are in dire need of repair.
Those are hazards, of course, but for towns that pride themselves on their industrial might … a crumbling bridge is a concrete and steel embarrassment.
Shawn Allee found one town that needs to remove a bridge but thinks maybe that’s for the best:

East Chicago, Indiana, has been a steel- and chemical-manufacturing powerhouse, and still is, but mills and refineries need fewer workers these days.
That industrial decline is a sore spot that got poked pretty hard last fall.
Some inspectors found structural problems in the Cline Avenue bridge.
It’s an enormous bridge that let drivers soar over canals, trains, and industrial truck routes.
But the local government and the State of Indiana didn’t have the money for a fix, and they closed Cline Avenue bridge for good.

That bothers Monica Serrano.
She wonders, if the town’s losing a bridge, what does that say about the town?

“Why would I stay in this area? If I know the roads are deteriorating, and people are just gonna leave, why would I stay? I want to be in an area that would flourish. I really feel that don’t have the best judgement when it comes to the people here.”

Well, there’re people who think removing the bridge is an opportunity to remake East Chicago for the better.
One person who makes that argument is Kristi DeLaurentiis.
She’s with the Metropolitan Planning Council, a regional land-use think tank.
To make her case, she drives me past East Chicago’s steel mills and refineries.
From your car window … they loom large and dominate the landscape.

“There’s only small pockets of open space that are not privately or corporate-owned.”

DeLaurentiis says back in the day, big industry scooped up enormous stretches of real – estate, including the shoreline along Lake Michigan.

“Maybe but you can kind of see the lake front from here …
It goes on for what seems like it goes on for miles. Nothing but beachfront that’s cut off by fences or very large industrial buildings, smokestacks and the like.
You know, they really have not taken advantage of the shoreline they have.”

DeLaurentiis says the mills use fewer workers these days, and they need less land, too.
So, East Chicago is hoping to reclaim industrial space for an economic boost.
Maybe developers would build new neighborhoods closer to the lake and pay a premium for it.
Or, at the very least, residents could get more parks.

“Here, it seems a real shame not to have people picnicking and using the open space and really not to have personal enjoyment within their own community.”

Well, back to the issue of the Cline Avenue bridge …
DeLaurentiis says it makes things worse – it blocks off the lake from the rest of the town.
It’s so tall, you can’t see past it and you gotta drive a ways to get around it.
If you want to reclaim industrial space for parklands or beachfront neighborhoods, no one will do that if the bridge is in the way.

That’s the practical argument … but what about the idea that big infrastructure is part of East Chicago’s identity?
Surprisingly, big industry won’t miss the bridge much.
Mark Maassel (MAH-zull) heads the Northwest Indiana Forum, a group that represents business in the area, including the steel mills.

“So while I recognize those comments, if we rebuilt that bridge, the one thing we can say for certain is that you’ve spent an enormous amount of dollars and cents resources that would have been potentially used in some other way, and you’ve done it to recreate a barrier between one part of the community and the next.”

Maassel says the whole town of East Chicago, including the remaining steel mills, will benefit from a better local economy.
If that means letting an old symbol like a bridge die, then so be it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Looking Back on the “Slick of ’76”

  • Officials placed containment booms around the barge. Most of them failed to prevent the oil from floating downriver, contaminating dozens of miles of pristine shoreline. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)

30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New York state. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:

Transcript

30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds
of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New
York State. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the
United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic
liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:


It was really foggy that morning. Bob Smith awoke to two sounds:


“You could hear the anchor chains going down, and next thing we know
there was a young Coast Guard guy knocking on the front door.”


The Coast Guard guy had driven up, asking around for a missing barge.
Smith remembered the anchor chains echoing across the water that woke
him up. He went outside to look.


(Sound of walking outside)


Thirty years later, Smith lives amidst cozy cottages on manicured lawns in
the heart of the touristy Thousand Islands.


“Just right about straight out there. See where that boat’s coming up there
now?”


That’s where a barge carrying oil from Venezuela had dropped anchor after
running aground. That morning Smith watched crude as thick as mud drift
out of sight downriver:


“If you’re born and raised here on the river, you don’t like to see anything go
in the river that doesn’t belong there.”


The Coast Guard placed booms in the water, but the oil quickly spilled over.
It carried 50 miles downstream. It oozed as far as 15 feet into the river’s
marshes. Tom Brown was the point man for New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. He says the spill couldn’t have come at a
worse time for wildlife:


“All the young fish, waterfowl, shorebirds, furbearers, were coming off the
nests and were being born.”


Thousands of birds and fish suffocated in black goo. As images of
devastation flashed on national TV, the spill killed the tourism season, too.
It was a summer with no swimming, no fishing, no dipping your feet in the
water at sunset. Really, it was a summer with no river.


(Sound of river at Chalk’s dock)


30 years later, everyone still remembers the acrid smell:


“When I woke up in the middle of the night and I could smell oil, I was
afraid I had an oil leak in my house.”


Dwayne Chalk’s family has owned a marina on the St. Lawrence for
generations. Chalk points to a black stripe of oil on his docks, still there
three decades later, and he’s still bitter:


“The Seaway has done this area, well, I shouldn’t say that, it hasn’t done any
good. To me it hasn’t.”


The St. Lawrence Seaway opened the ports of the Great Lakes to Atlantic
Ocean freighters carrying cargoes of steel, ore, and liquid chemicals. It
generates billions of dollars a year in commerce, but it’s also brought
pollution and invasive species.


Anthropologist John Omohundro studied the social effects of the 1976 oil
spill. He says it helped awaken environmentalism in the Great Lakes:


“The spill actually raised people’s consciousness that the river could be a
problem in a number of areas, not just oil.”


Groups like Save the River and Great Lakes United began lobbying for
cleaner water and safer navigation in the years after the spill:


“If a vessel carrying oil or oil products were in that same type of ship today,
it would not be allowed in.”


Albert Jacquez is the outgoing administrator for the US side of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. The 1976 barge had one hull and gushed oil when it hit the rocks.
Today’s barges are mostly double-hulled and use computerized navigation.
Jacquez says a lot has changed to prevent spills:


“The ships themselves are different, the regulations that they have to follow are
different, and the inspections are different. Now does that guarantee? Well,
there are no guarantees, period.”


So if there is a spill, the government requires response plans for every part of
the Great Lakes. Ralph Kring leads training simulations of those plans for
the Coast Guard in Buffalo. Still, he says the real thing is different:


“You really can’t control the weather and the currents and all that. It’s definitely going to be a
challenge, especially when you’re dealing with a real live incident where
everyone’s trying to move as fast as they can and also as efficient as they
can.”


Critics question the ability to get responders to remote areas in time. They
also worry about spills in icy conditions and chemical spills that oil booms
wouldn’t contain.


(Sound of river water)


Back on the St. Lawrence River, Dwayne Chalk says the oil spill of 1976
has taught him it’s not if, it’s when, the next big spill occurs:


“You think about it all the time. Everytime a ship comes up through here,
you think what’s going to happen if that ship hits something.”


Chalk and everyone else who relies on the Great Lakes hope they’ll never
have to find out.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Expanding the Seaway

  • A freighter leaving the Duluth harbor in Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of EPA)

One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes with a look at the idea of
letting bigger ships into the lakes. Lester Graham is our guide through the series.


One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:


(Sound of rumbling noise of front-loaders)


The port of Ogdensburg sits on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York State.
When the Seaway was built, local residents were promised an economic boom. Today
what Ogdensburg mostly gets is road salt.


(Sound of crashing cargo)


Road salt and a white mineral called Wallastonite – the Dutch use it to make ceramic tile.
Front-loaders push around mountains of the stuff. In all, the port of Ogdensburg
welcomes six freighters a year and employs just six people.


Other Great Lakes ports are much bigger, but the story is similar. They handle low-value
bulk goods – grain, ore, coal – plus higher value steel. But few sexy electronic goods
from Japan come through the Seaway, or the gijillion of knick-knacks from China or
South Korea.


James Oberstar is a Congressman from Duluth. He says there’s a reason why. A
dastardly coincidence doomed the Seaway.


“Just as the Seaway was under construction, Malcolm McLean, a shipping genius, hit on
the idea of moving goods in containers.”


Containers that fit right on trains and trucks. The problem was the ships that carry those
containers were already too big for the Seaway’s locks and channels.


“That idea of container shipping gave a huge boost of energy to the East Coast, Gulf
Coast, and West Coast ports, and to the railroads.”


Leaving Great Lakes ports behind ever since the regional shipping industry has wanted to
make the Seaway bigger.


The latest effort came in 2002, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the
economic benefits of expansion. The study said squeezing container ships through the
Seaway would bring a billion and a half dollars a year to ports like Chicago, Toledo, and
Duluth. But if you build it, would they come?


“Highly doubtful that container ships would come in. Highly doubtful.”


John Taylor is a transportation expert at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
He’s studied Seaway traffic patterns extensively. He says there would have to be “a sea
change” in global commerce.


“Rail is too competitive, too strong moving containers from the coast in and out say from
Montreal and Halifax and into Chicago and Detroit and so on, too cost-effective for it to
make sense for a ship to bring those same containers all the way to Chicago.”


The expansion study sparked a flurry of opposition across the Great Lakes. It failed to
mention the cost of replumbing the Seaway — an estimated 10 to 15 billion dollars. It
didn’t factor in invasive species that show up in foreign ships’ ballasts. Invasives already
cost the economy 5 billion dollars a year, and environmentalists said it glossed over the
ecological devastation of dredging and blasting a deeper channel.


Even the shipping industry has begun to distance itself from expansion. Steve Fisher
directs the American Great Lakes Ports Association.


“There was quite a bit of opposition expressed through the region, and in light of that
opposition we took stock of just how much and how strongly we felt on the issue and
quite frankly there just wasn’t a strong enough interest.”


Most experts now believe expansion won’t happen for at least another generation.
Environmentalists and other critics hope it won’t happen at all.


So instead, the Seaway is changing its tactics. Richard Corfe runs Canada’s side of the
waterway. He says the vast majority of Seaway traffic is actually between Great Lakes
ports, not overseas. So, the Seaway’s focus now is to lure more North American shippers
to use the locks and channels.


“Our efforts have to be towards maximizing the use of what we have now for the benefit
of both countries, the economic, environmental, and social benefit.”


Today, trucks and trains haul most goods from coastal ports to Great Lakes cities.
Shippers want to steal some of that cargo, take it off the roads and rails, and put it on
seaway ships headed for Great Lakes ports.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Returning Quality Food to Urban Areas

  • Chene Street, on Detroit's east side, was once a thriving retail corridor. Now, it's a decimated stretch of crumbling and burned-out buildings. (Photo by Marla Collum)

Finding a big supermarket is next to impossible in many inner-city
neighborhoods. That means a lot of people do their shopping at convenience
and liquor stores, where there’s rarely fresh produce. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on one group’s efforts to get around
the grocery store problem – and help revitalize a neighborhood:

Transcript

Finding a big supermarket is next to impossible in many inner-city neighborhoods. That means a lot of people do their shopping at convenience and liquor stores, where there’s rarely fresh produce. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on one group’s efforts to get around the grocery store problem and help revitalize a neighborhood:


(Sound of traffic)


Up and down this street as far as the eye can see are crumbling and burned-out buildings. This used to be a thriving business district. It’s where Vlasic Pickle, White Owl Cigar, and Lay’s Potato Chips grew into national brands. Today, the most evident sign of commerce is the prostitutes walking the street. Smack in the middle of this is Peacemaker’s International. It’s a storefront church where Ralph King is a member.


“Now if you look at it you see that there’s no commercial activity, no grocery stores within a mile of here. And our concern was that people had to eat.”


There are about seven liquor stores for every grocery store here on the east side of Detroit. Some people can drive to the well-stocked supermarkets in the suburbs, but many families don’t have cars, and King says the city busses are spotty.


“So they’re buying food at convenience stores or gas stations. And quite frankly, it just doesn’t seem a good fit that a community has to live off gas station food.”


That means processed, high-starch, high-fat diets that lead to illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Those are all problems that disproportionately hit African Americans, and public health researchers say those higher rates of illnesses are linked to the food availability problems in poor black communities.


Amy Schulz is with the University of Michigan, and she’s studied the lack of grocery stores in high-poverty neighborhoods.


“What we found, in addition to the economic dimension was that Detroit, neighborhoods like the east side that are disproportionately African American are doubly disadvantaged in a sense. Residents in those communities have to drive longer, farther distances to access a grocery store than residents of a comparable economic community with a more diverse racial composition.”


In other words, if you’re poor and white, you have a better chance of living near a grocery store than if you’re poor and black. Ralph King and the folks in this neighborhood want to get around that problem. So about three years ago, they decided to try and reopen a nearby farmer’s market. They turned to Michigan State University Extension for help. Mike Score is an extension agent.


“I thought it would just be the process of organizing some people, helping them buy some produce wholesale, setting up in the neighborhood, selling the food, and generating a net income that could be reinvested. And I was really wrong.”


The farmer’s market was a flop. Score says produce vendors set up in the neighborhood, but the fruits and vegetables sat all day, unsold. He says the problem was they were using the wrong currency. Most people in this neighborhood have very little cash on hand, and they need to use their food stamp cards to shop for groceries.


So, Score helped develop a plan for a neighborhood buyers’ club that can negotiate low prices by ordering in bulk. His business plan also calls for job training for people in the neighborhood.


“It’s going to give people who are chronically unemployed but who have some entrepreneurial skills access to food at a lower cost, and that enables them to think about starting restaurant businesses or smaller retail businesses. So that’s an important part of this project: in addition to getting people groceries, it also creates some job opportunities.”


It’s been a struggle to get the program off the ground. It took a long time to get approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a machine to read peoples’ food stamp cards. People have stolen some of the project’s meager resources, but Mike Score and Ralph King say they’ll stick with it until families in this neighborhood can put decent food on their tables. And they say they hope it can be a model that other low-income communities around the country can use.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Land Swap: Steel Mill Jobs for Forests?

  • The expansion of an existing steel mill could mean more jobs but less forest. (Photo courtesy of AmericasLibrary.gov)

Everybody has different ideas about how land ought to be used. Lately, the fight’s been about whether to allow expanding retail development on farmland. But a different fight’s going on right now, too. It’s a fight between two long-time rivals – heavy industry and open space. It’s also about jobs and preservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:

Transcript

Everybody has different ideas about how land ought
to be used. Lately, the fight’s been about whether to allow
expanding retail development on farmland. But a different
fight’s going on right now, too. It’s a fight between two
long-time rivals – heavy industry and open space. It’s also
about jobs and preservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Shawn Allee has this report:


(Sound of train)


The town of Riverdale’s a kind of industrial crossroads. It’s near a Great Lakes port, heavy trucks lumber through its streets, and in some areas, rail crossings are as common as stop signs. At one time, this village just south of Chicago was known for more than just moving industrial goods – thosands of workers used to make things here, especially steel.


(Sound of birds)


Today, there are only a few hundred steel jobs left in Riverdale. Most are at one plant that sits near a stretch of Cook County Forest Preserve, a place called Whistler Woods. The remaining steel mill wants to expand. It wants to swap twenty one acres of Whistler Woods for thirty one acres of its own wooded land. Supporters hope the move will bring jobs to the town.


Jim Bush grew up in the area and is with the region’s chamber of commerce. He supports the deal, saying the area is fighting for its economic future.


“So you can see, it’s pretty hard to keep your schools up to standards and all your city services when you’re faced with a declining tax base.”


Bush says this is urgent. The Riverdale plant was recently bought out by Mittal Steel, the world’s largest steel company. Bush says to keep the mill attractive to the new owners, the county needs to make the company happy now.


“Mittal USA has plants all around the world. If they don’t do this expansion here, they’re talking about taking it to Ohio. We can’t let other states take business away from Illinois without doing something.”


Besides, he says, critics of the land swap should just do the math.


“Thirty-one acres for twenty-one acres. Sounds like a no-brainer to the business community.”


But not everyone’s buying into that calculation. To understand why, I meet with Benjamin Cox. He’s with Friends of the Forest Preserves, an advocacy group. Cox and I are traveling along the bike path leading to the field the company wants to acquire.


“As you’re walking along here, you can hear many, many birds. We just saw some deer. There are wonderful native plants here.”


Cox says the forest preserve district could use an extra ten acres, but the company’s offering land that’s half a mile away and across a river. Cox says that land won’t help these woods. He also doesn’t have much faith in the company’s new owners.


“The part of this that nobody’s talked about yet is that they have not committed to actually bring these jobs here or do this project.”


The company confirms this, saying it can’t make promises about jobs even if it could expand the plant. Cox adds the proposal flies in the face of Forest Preserves history. During the past ninety years, it’s only sold or traded land a handful of times and the last time it did, it go burned. A few years ago, it let go of two acres so Rosemont, a Chicago suburb, could build a casino parking lot. The parking lot got built, but the casino project never got started.


Now Cox fears if this deal goes through, it’ll be open season on Forest Preserve land.


“As soon as you start nibbling away at the corners, a little acre here, a little acre there, twenty acres here. All of a sudden, it’s ‘You did it for them, you should do it for me.'”


The plan’s supporters say they don’t want to sell off the preserves, they just want a little flexibility.


Cook County Commissioner Deborah Sims represents Riverdale and surrounding communities. She says opponents are typically from more affluent parts of the county, places that have an easy time attracting new businesses. There, she says,


“All you have to do is build a few houses and everybody will come. We don’t have that luxury. So, any economic development we have, we can’t afford to lose.”


So the land swap seems a small price to pay for a little economic security.


A tall chain-link fence separates the woods from the Riverdale steel plant. Despite the division, both parcels of land have something in common – their boosters are motivated by fear.


The area’s steel industry is, in many ways, a diminishing, precious resource. The Cook County Forest Preserve District also faces a crossroads, but a more political one. It holds tens of thousands of acres of open land, but it’s not clear whether it can always fend off demands made by a land-hungry economy.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Consumers Stocking Up on Banned Pesticide

  • The pesticide diazinon is being phazed out by the EPA for being hazardous. Some gardeners are still buying it despite health warnings. (Photo by Scott Schopieray)

A powerful pesticide that’s popular with gardeners
and homeowners will no longer be sold starting in January, but that
hasn’t stopped people from stocking up on the chemical before it’s
pulled from shelves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman reports:

Transcript

A powerful pesticide that’s popular with gardners and homeowners will no longer be
sold starting in January. But that hasn’t stopped people from stocking up on the
chemical before it’s pulled from the shelves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Chris Lehman reports:


Diazinon, at one time, was the most widely used pesticide on lawns. It can
still be sold through the end of the year. But there’s no deadline for homeowners
to use up their supplies. So that’s led some people to stockpile the product. The
decision to ban diazinon was made during the final weeks of the Clinton Administration.
But the Environmental Protection Agency gave diazinon producers four years to phase it out.


Jay Feldman is director of the environmental group Beyond Pesticides. He says the EPA
should have banned diazinon outright instead of phasing it out gradually.


“When the agency identifies a hazard such as this, one that is particularly problematic
to children, it ought to institute a recall, get the product out of commerce, make sure
that people do not continue to use the product unwittngly.”


Officials at the EPA say over-exposure to diazinon can affect the nervous system. They
also say it poses a risk to birds.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.

Related Links

Biologists Find Deer Devouring Rare Flowers

  • Largeflower bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) is one of the wildflowers declining at many of the sites studied by University of Wisconsin researchers. (Photo courtesy of Dave Rogers, UW Herbarium)

Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Most of us think of the white-tailed deer as a graceful and cherished
part of the natural scene. But it turns out when there are too many
deer, it’s bad for some of the plants in the forest. New research
suggests deer may be a prime culprit in a worrisome loss of rare
plants in the woods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:


Gardeners in many suburbs and rural areas know deer are good at
mowing down hosta, tulips and other favorite plants. In the woods,
deer munch on the small plants that live on the forest floor… plants
such as orchids, lilies, and other wildflowers.


Fifty years ago, researchers at the University of Wisconsin surveyed
hundreds of acres in the state, and made careful records of the plants
on those sites. In those days, the deer population was a lot lower
than it is now. In the last couple of years, two biologists went back to
many of those same sites and counted the plants living there now.


Tom Rooney says at most sites they found fewer different kinds of
plants.


“It tends to be the same species occurring over and again on the site.
You’re losing the rare species and picking up more and more
common species.”


He says they tried to link the decline in rare species to the fact that
the forest is getting older. But they found no evidence for that.
Instead, lead researcher Don Waller says the evidence points to
deer, which have increased dramatically over the last fifty years.


“The worst changes we’ve seen, ironically were in a couple of state
parks and a protected natural area, that showed losses of half or
more of species in 50 years. However, in these sites there was no
deer hunting, implying high densities of deer may be causing a lot of
the effects we see in the woods.”


Plants that rely on insects for pollination declined more than other
types of plants. Waller thinks it might be because the insect-
pollinated plants have showy flowers, which could catch the eye of a
wandering deer. As the flowering plants decline, the insects and
birds that rely on them for food could decline as well – bees, moths,
butterflies, and hummingbirds.


Waller says it’s worrisome because scientists don’t know how
particular insects and plants work together to support each other.


“As we’re losing parts of the ecosystem, we’re really not sure what
their full function is, they might play some crucial role we’re not aware
of and only too late might we become aware of the fact that this loss
led to an unraveling or threats to other species.”


Waller says the only places they studied that still have a healthy
diversity of plants are on Indian reservations. The Menominee Tribal
Forest in northeastern Wisconsin is pretty much like it used to be fifty
years ago.


(forest sounds under)


In this forest, there are only about ten deer per square mile. That’s
about as low as the deer population gets in Wisconsin. It’s not that
the tribe is hunting more deer; it’s the way the forest is grown.


Deer find lots to eat in young aspen woods; there’s less for them to
eat where pines and oaks and maples grow. Don Reiter is the wildlife
manager here. He says in the 360 square miles of the Menominee
forest, there’s really four different types of woods.


“We have pulpwood, we have northern hardwoods, white pine, red
pine, and again, the forest ecosystem as a whole, there’s plenty of
food out there for the deer.”


And because there aren’t too many deer, young pines and hemlocks
– and orchids and lilies – have a chance to grow.


In the upper Great Lakes states, wildlife officials have been trying to
thin the deer herd for several years. That’s because state officials
have been aware deer were causing problems by eating too many
plants. The recent study provides dramatic evidence.


In Minnesota, for instance, hunters are shooting four times the
number of deer they shot fifty years ago.


Steve Merchant is forest wildlife program consultant for the
Minnesota DNR. Merchant says the agency has liberalized its rules,
to encourage hunters to kill even more deer. But the number of
hunters hasn’t gone up in recent years. And lots of private
landowners post no-hunting signs.


“We need to have some help from people, people still need to get out
and hunt deer, and landowners need to provide that access for
people to harvest deer.”


Merchant says Minnesota is gradually trying to restore pine forests,
which were cut down for lumber and replaced with fast-growing
aspen. More pine forests could cut down on the deer population…


“But as long as we still have the strong demand for the aspen
markets that we do, and we manage those aspen forests in a
productive manner for wood fiber, we’re going to create a lot of good
white-tailed deer habitat.”


Merchant says it would take decades to change the woods enough to
reduce the deer population. And in the meantime, we’re losing more
and more of the rare flowers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Survey: Parents Missing Important Asthma Triggers

New research suggests that while parents of children who have asthma try to protect their youngsters from the things that trigger attacks, those measures often aren’t very helpful. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland reports:

Transcript

New research suggests that while parents of children who have asthma
try to protect their youngsters from the things that trigger attacks,
those measures often aren’t very helpful. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Michael Leland reports:


Researchers at the University of Michigan found 80 percent of the
parents they surveyed were doing something to prevent attacks, but
often missed important measures. For example, a quarter of the parents
said a smoker lived in the same house as a child with asthma, but they
hadn’t done anything about it.


In one case, the parent of a child with pollen-triggered asthma bought
a new mattress cover, but didn’t close windows to keep pollen out of
the house.


Dr. Michael Cabana is a U of M pediatrician who led the study. He says
many parents also needlessly buy products they think will lessen asthma
symptoms.


“A lot of times, parents may get more information from other commercial
sources more often than the time they have to spend with either their
primary care doctor or their doctor who might be a sub-specialist in
asthma. So I think physicians have to do a better job putting that
information into perspective.”


Dr. Cabana suggests parents talk to their child’s doctor about asthma
triggers before spending money on asthma-related products.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Michael Leland.

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Interview: Great Lakes Need Citizen Input

A recent report indicates many of the problems troubling the Great Lakes are due to poor governance of the lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham talked with the chief author of the report, Restoring Greatness to Government: Protecting the Great Lakes in the 21st Century. Dave Dempsey is a policy advisor with the Michigan Environmental Council, which published the report:

Transcript

A recent report indicates many of the problems troubling the Great Lakes are due to poor
governance of the lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham talked with the
chief author of the report Restoring Greatness to Government: Protecting the Great Lakes in
the 21st Century
. Dave Dempsey is a policy advisor with the Michigan Environmental
Council, which published the report:


Dave Dempsey: “Well, we have sick Great Lakes in part because we have a sick governance
system. We have an array of 21st century problems facing the lakes from climate change to
continued degradation of some of our waters with toxic chemicals, but we have a 19th century
system of government that’s trying to protect them and failing.”


Lester Graham: “Now, the International Joint Commission, which is a body made up of
appointees by the Canadian government and the U.S. government, is to watch over the water
quality agreement and the treaty between the U.S. and Canada as to how we treat the Great Lakes.
And the Great Lakes Commission is another group that’s made up of representatives from the
eight Great Lakes states and the two provinces in Canada that surround the Great Lakes. And
these are all 21st century people, I know some of them, and they’re bright folks, they’re doing an
earnest and fairly decent job. What’s holding them back? They’re not 19th century people.”


DD: “No, but the structures and the systems they use are 19th century. There’s two problems: with
several of the commissions, they’ve become very politicized. The International Joint Commission
used to have a tradition of independence from political pressures and looking at the long-term
health of the Great Lakes. That’s been compromised since the ’90’s. But maybe more
importantly, with all these institutions, they’re relying on the old fashioned way of dealing with
public input. We think, in the environmental community, that the way to restore healthy Great
Lakes is to make sure the citizen voice is heard. These institutions cover a Great Lakes basin
that’s hundreds of thousands of square miles, and they’re expecting people to show up at public
hearings, perhaps traveling hundreds of miles to get there. Today, what we need to do is take
advantage in governance of the Internet, and other ways of involving people that don’t require
that kind of commitment or sacrifice because people frankly don’t have the time.”


LG: “How would increased participation of the public help the health of the Great Lakes?”


DD: “Well, looking at the history of the Great Lakes, every time the public voice is heard
strongly in the halls of government, the Great Lakes recover. Every time the voices of special
interests are drowning out the public voice, the lakes begin to deteriorate and that’s what we see
happening now.”


LG: “The Great Lakes Commission has had some success recently in getting more money from
the government for the Great Lakes recovery, the IJC has done a good job recently of working
with the media to bring public awareness to invasive species because of the Asian black carp. So,
are those moves the kind of thing you’d like to see to solve this problem?”


DD: “I think it’s helpful. Both of these commissions can use their bully pulpit to publicize
problems and call attention. But if you took a poll of the average Great Lakes residents, very few
of them would ever have heard of these commissions. We need bodies that look out for the Great
Lakes that are really plugged into individual communities, and that doesn’t exist right now. The
Great Lakes Commission specifically was set up to promote commercial navigation in the Great
Lakes, and while it has broadened its agenda to look at ecosystem issues, it has been an advocate,
for example, for the Great Lakes review of navigation that could result in more invasive species
coming into the Great Lakes by allowing more ocean-going vessels. We need an institution that’s
looking at the health of the Lakes first, not at the health of the industries that sometimes exploit
them.”


LG: “Bottom line, what would you like to see done?”


DD: “I’d like to see a Great Lakes citizens’ commission building on the existing institutions that
plugs into the individual states and provinces around the Great Lakes and brings people and their
voices together so that their vision of healthy Great Lakes can be carried out by government.”


Host Tag: Dave Dempsey is chief author of a report on governance of the Great Lakes issued by
the Michigan Environmental Council. He spoke with the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham.

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Hotter, Drier Climate in Region’s Future?

A new study predicts that water levels in the Great Lakes could drop significantly over the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A new study predicts that water levels in the Great Lakes could drop significantly over
the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Researchers at Environment Canada say global warming could cause shorelines to drop
by more than three feet over the next five decades. The findings were based on computer
models, which are predicting hotter and drier conditions in the region’s future. David Fay
is coauthor of the study. He says a drop in water levels would affect many people,
starting with landowners.


“If they have a dock on their property, the water depth of the dock would go down. It
would certainly impact commercial navigation… quite significant environmental changes
are possible.”


Fay says the study offers predictions, not guarantees. But it does suggest that Lakes
Michigan and Huron and the St. Lawrence River would be most affected.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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