Tag: fix

Co-Ops Get Bikes Road Ready

  • The Sopo Bike Coop - new bike coops are still opening around the country, even in cities that haven't always been seen as friendly to human-powered transportation in the past (Photo by Dana Goldman)

Partly because of the economy, bicycles are becoming more popular now with adults. Dana Goldman reports a growing number of bike cooperatives is giving hands-on lessons about how to make old bikes road-ready with the help of some used but still-usable parts:

Transcript

Partly because of the economy, bicycles are becoming more popular now with adults. Dana Goldman reports a growing number of bike cooperatives is giving hands-on lessons about how to make old bikes road-ready with the help of some used but still-usable parts:

Matari Yumoja isn’t the typical bicyclist – yet.

He’s young, African American, and lives in the suburbs.

But on a recent weeknight, he was in the city hauling around his un-ridable hand-me-down bike. And trying to figure out how to get it working.

“Ever since I got it, its been looking that weird. The metal part of the wheel is really bent. It’s got a lot of issues right now. I definitely need new tires.”

In fact, Matari’s bike tires kinda looked like they’d been run over – more than once. Matari didn’t know how to fix them, and didn’t have money to spend at a bike shop. But on this clear spring night, none of that mattered.

“We are working on – what’s your name? Matari’s bike. And I’m Big John.”

“Big John” Brazwell is a regular at the Sopo Bike Cooperative in East Atlanta.

Sopo is one of more than a hundred bike co-ops that have opened around the country over the last few years. They’re do-it-yourself community centers with tools and used, donated, and salvaged parts.

People like Matari can learn to take old wheels, or handlebars, or seats and put them on other bikes. They end up with a functional bike that’s cheaper – and more unique than what they’d find in a store.

“The frankenbike is an industry term to refer to a bicycle that’s put together out of parts.”

Rachel Speewack is the founder of Sopo.

“Usually parts salvaged from bikes that aren’t functional any more. So it’s a term of endearment for one bike put together out of many.”

Speewack likes her Frankenbikes, and the bike coop model because they help people who want to start biking but don’t know where to start – like Matari Yumoja. And bicyclists like Big John are more than happy to teach what they know.

“Dude, we have to go in and find you a rim, because that one’s bent.”

“That’s what my biggest fear was.”

When Sopo opened 3 and a half years ago, Rachel Speewack couldn’t have known gas prices get so crazy – or that the economy would tank. But in car-centric, sprawling Atlanta, she and a few friends wanted to show that bikes could be a cheap, environmental, and practical.

We’re a community of people who already had our eyes on what gas prices were doing and the actual cost of being car dependent. To us the gasoline crisis was already here. And we wanted to do something proactive about it.”

When gas prices went up last year to more than $4 a gallon, Speewack watched as the number of visitors to its donations-only shop grew and grew. Just about everyone was looking for an option besides driving.

Now with more people out of work and pinching pennies, Sopo’s seeing even more people coming in with their bikes, looking for help.

During January and February, 275 people came to Sopo – even though the shop’s only open a few hours a day. Some came in a few times every week. But the bike coop’s popularity doesn’t really surprise anyone, including Speewack.

“We figure: how many people have a bike? Most everyone. How many have ridden them recently? Not many. Why is that? Flat tire, the brakes are kind of out. Minor repair issues. There’s an infinite supply of discarded bike parts and an infinite need for transportation and a lack of money. That’s where we come in.”

And there’s so much demand and interest it’s not just Sopo that’s coming in. New bike coops are still opening around the country – even in cities that haven’t always been seen as friendly to human-powered transportation in the past.

But these days all the co-ops – whether new or slightly less new – are happy to watch people who came in carrying their bikes leave riding them. After all, those same people often come back and help someone else looking for a new start on an old bike.

For The Environment Report, I’m Dana Goldman.

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That Big Dripping Sound

  • According to the EPA, US homes waste 1 trillion gallons each year from leaks (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

Today begins “Fix a Leak Week.” It’s probably not in your calendar. It’s a new effort from the US EPA to encourage people to take a closer look at their plumbing. Tamara Keith reports:

Transcript

Today begins “Fix a Leak Week.” It’s probably not in your calendar. It’s a new effort from the US EPA to encourage people to take a closer look at their plumbing. Tamara Keith reports:

(sound of dripping)

It turns out that drip drip drip of a leaky faucet can really add up.

(sound of toilet running)

A running toilet can waste up to 200 gallons a day.

Michael Shapiro heads the water division at the EPA.

“A typical home will leak up to 11,000 gallons a year. About the amount of water that will fit into a home swimming pool, for example.”

Most people can handle doing the repairs themselves. Jim Loviss is the plumbing manager at Strosneiders Hardware in Bethesda, Maryland.

“Sometimes it’s a washer, sometimes it’s a hose or a supply tube. Most times it’s simple. It’s being able to shut the water off and find out where the problem is and solve it.”

But, he’s not expecting a rush on washers and toilet flappers just because the EPA has declared it “Fix A Leak Week.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Business Booming at Repair Shops

  • Despite the decline in new car sales, Sales Manager Joe Marken expects more business on the repair and maintenance side of of the dealership. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Not too many people are buying new cars these days. But that’s not all bad news for auto dealers. Julie Grant reports that more car owners are starting to spend money on repair and maintenance:

Transcript

Not too many people are buying new cars these days. But that’s not all bad news for auto dealers. Julie Grant reports that more car owners are starting to spend money on repair and maintenance:

(sound of construction)

Now there’s a sound you don’t hear every day anymore. Especially at a car dealership. It’s construction.

This Toyota Dealer in Kent, Ohio is in the midst of a 12-million dollar expansion.

Sales manager Joe Marken says they’re renovating the repair and maintenance garage. That’s where he’s starting to see the most growth.

“People are looking at, ‘do I want to encumber myself with a 60 month payment of some sort, or do I want to spend X and know that I can get a year or two more years out of whatever I’m doing?'”

Marken says lots of people don’t know if they’ll have a job in the next year or two.

The National Automobile Dealers Association expects more people to spend money on parts and service nationwide this year.

They say there’s an upside – maintenance improves gas mileage and resale value of the vehicle.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Kittens and Climate Change

  • Climate change is making cats' breeding season longer, resulting in more kittens taken to shelters (Photo courtesy of the US Humane Society)

Every year between three to four million
dogs and cats in the US are euthanized in
shelters. That’s according to the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
That’s because no one will take them in. Kavitha
Cardoza reports the
warmer temperatures caused by climate change are
making the problem of too many cats worse:

Transcript

Every year between three to four million
dogs and cats in the US are euthanized in
shelters. That’s according to the American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
That’s because no one will take them in. Kavitha
Cardoza reports the
warmer temperatures caused by climate change are
making the problem of too many cats worse:

It takes just one cc of sodium pentobarbital and a few seconds to turn this…

(sound of cat mewing)

into this…

(silence)

Each year about twice as many cats as dogs are killed.

(sound of dogs barking)

At the Washington Humane Society Shelter there’s a large whiteboard with instructions
scrawled on it. Kittens “Rice and Gravy” need socializing. The dog Clint Eastwood
does not like other dogs.

Some animals are put down because they have medical problems. Others because
they’re aggressive. But, the main reason is there are just too many of animals and not
enough homes willing to adopt them.

It’s a year round problem, but Spring – around April, begins what’s called the “kitten
season.” Michelle Otis, head of the shelter, says that’s been changing.

“We’re finding that starts earlier every year with the climate change. We’re starting to
see large litters come in as early as February now.”

That would start to slow down in September, but now with warmer winters, it’s
continuing until December.

Otis says on a busy day they get what she calls “an avalanche” of kittens – about 100 a
day – some weighing less than a pound with their eyes still closed.

No one at this shelter wants to euthanize more kittens or puppies.

The only solution they see is to get more people to spay or neuter their pets. But that’s
not easy.

(sound of Jeep stopping and door closing)

Paul Hibler is an animal control officer in Montgomery County Maryland. He’s
responding to a complaint call.

(knocking on door)

Officer: “Hi is victor home?”

Lady: “He’s working.”

Officer: “Does he still have dogs?”

While he waits to get the owner on the phone, Hibler walks to the backyard and points
out the 6 large pups crowded in a small space. They’ve all got “cherry eye” or a red
inflammation of the eyelid.

“This is typical of someone who doesn’t understand the importance of spaying and
neutering. I think he just assumed well if the dog became pregnant she’ll have a couple
of pups and ill be able to find homes for them. And lo and behold she had 10 times the
number he thought.”

Hibler says overpopulation could easily be controlled if people would spay and neuter
their pets.

There are many reasons why pet owners don’t get their pets ‘fixed’. Often it’s the cost.
Sometimes they don’t know where to go. But it’s also myths people believe, such as
“my pet will become fat” or “not as affectionate.”

There are some owners who come to the shelter again and again with litter after litter.
That’s despite offers to spay their pets for free. It’s a huge financial burden for shelters.
And it’s an emotional burden for the people who work there.

Diana Foley at the Washington Humane Society says no matter how many times she’s
been present when an animal is euthanized, it’s never gets easier.

“Each time that you’re faced with that decision, and you’re in that moment, and you’re
thinking how can you make him have a good end. And you’re petting them and holding
them and kissing them and touching them, talking to them and you’re saying how can
you make that animal’s last moments peaceful.”

And with climate change making the breeding season longer, the animal shelter workers
are finding their spending even more “last moments” with unwanted animals.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kavitha Cardoza.

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Repairing Backyard Rivers

  • The Conservation Resource Alliance works with property-owners to repair their rivers from problems such as erosion (Photo courtesy of the Conservation Resource Alliance)

American rivers have gone
through a lot in the last century.
Their twists and turns have been
turned into straight channels.
Their banks have been washed away.
And pollution is still flowing off
farm fields and city streets. Fixing
these rivers is a big challenge. A lot
of the land that rivers run through is
privately owned. So that means – to
fix a river, you often have to work with
landowners. Rebecca Williams has the story
of one group that thinks they’ve found
the secret to winning people’s trust:

Transcript

American rivers have gone
through a lot in the last century.
Their twists and turns have been
turned into straight channels.
Their banks have been washed away.
And pollution is still flowing off
farm fields and city streets. Fixing
these rivers is a big challenge. A lot
of the land that rivers run through is
privately owned. So that means – to
fix a river, you often have to work with
landowners. Rebecca Williams has the story
of one group that thinks they’ve found
the secret to winning people’s trust:

(bird sound)

Di Rau is the fourth generation of her family to farm this land in Northern
Michigan. Her grandpa homesteaded the land and set up a sawmill.

“It was the primary industry – I mean there was logging camps just
everywheres you turned.”

Back then the rivers were the only way to get those logs downstream. But
years of rolling logs down the bank into the river were causing serious
erosion. Huge trees were crashing into the water.

Rau says she didn’t know any of her family’s legacy until one day, when a
local group gave her a call. The more she learned about the problems, the
more she felt, well…

“Guilt! (laughs) Because of my ancestors. It’s like practicing medicine. It’s
always evolving and you don’t really know lots of times what you’re doing
wrong until another generation comes along and tells you this is what
you’ve created. Then it’s like okay let’s do something about it.”

So Rau let construction workers on her land. And now, ten years later, she
says it’s beautiful.

“Go down and just listen to creatures. You have deer come splashing
through, we have a bear around here, he likes to visit, couple bobcat.
There’s a lot of wildlife – it’s pretty cool.”

The woman who won Di Rau over is Kim Balke. She’s a biologist with the
group Conservation Resource Alliance. She says working with Di Rau was
pretty easy. But not everyone opens their doors so quickly.

There was the divorced couple who still owned land together, the fighting
brothers, the neighbors who nobody liked.

“Other people have said you know don’t go to their house they’ll greet you
with a shotgun!”

So far, no shotguns. Balke says she’s learned not to listen to what neighbors
say about each other. She approaches each person one by one, and talks to
them about what’s at stake. Her sales pitch? We’re just here to help – and
hey, we’ll pay most of the bill.

“You know a lot of our projects are erosion control, when banks are
completely falling into the stream – landowners, it’s not hard for them to
realize they’re losing property.”

But Balke says, still, you can’t just rush in and tell people what to do. She
says it can take months or even years to warm homeowners up to the
project.

That’s because fixing rivers is serious work. If a riverbank is eroding or an
old bridge is falling into the water, we’re talking about heavy construction
equipment. You have to be willing to have bulldozers and port-a-johns on
your lawn for a long time. And you might have to lose a tree.

“Things can look a little rough when you’re doing construction and some
people are a little worried about change.”

Balke says she just takes her time. She sends letters, sits down for coffee,
lets people think it over.

And it’s not just homeowners who Balke’s group needs to win over. There
are road commissions, tribes, sportfishers, and environmentalists. People
who sometimes just don’t trust each other.

Amy Beyer directs Conservation Resource Alliance. She says her group has
gotten all those people together.

“Yes they have been historically mortal enemies and that doesn’t mean all of
the baggage falls away but I can tell you it feels awfully good to go around
the circle when we complete a project and hear all the different voices and
how they’re celebrating that success.”

Beyer says this is not a quick and easy process – it can take years to get
people to actually find some little thing to agree on. But she says you can
fix a river without ever going to court.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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‘Land Bank’ Reinvests in Inner City

  • Heavy cleanup crews from the Genesee County Land Bank use chain saws, wood chippers, tractors and brute force to move piles of debris on the lot of an abandoned house on the north side of Flint, Michigan. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes. Those problems have led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes.
They’ve led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the
community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up
properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


(sound of work crews operating wood chipper)


Cleanup crews are sending downed branches through a wood chipper on a vacant lot.
They’re also removing tires, used diapers, car seats, sinks, old clothes and dead animal carcasses.
The workers are from the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Michigan. They’re trying to
make abandoned property useful again. Dan Kildee is the Genesee County Treasurer and the brains
behind the land bank. He thinks this new approach can recover unpaid property tax money and help
improve the Flint Metro area.


“The community gets to make a judgment on what we think we should do with this land. We get
to take a deep breath.”


Empty lots and rundown homes have been multiplying for a generation. That’s left the city of
Flint in a terrible economic state. But the land bank is beginning to change things.


Until just three years ago, Michigan was like most other states. No one had come up with
a solution. The state would auction off a city’s tax liens. Then conflict between the tax
lien buyer and the property owner could go on for up to seven years. In the meantime,
properties were left to neglect and often vandalized.


Under this new program, the treasurer’s office forecloses on a property and hands it over
to the land bank, which acts as the property manager. The land bank might then demolish
a house; it might throw out the owner and let a tenant buy it; or it might auction it off
to the highest bidder. A private investor can’t just buy a tax lien. He has to buy the
property along with it and take care of it.


The land bank is financed in two main ways: through fees on back taxes and through sales
of the few nicer homes or buildings the land bank acquires that bring in relatively big
profits. Treasurer Dan Kildee says it makes sense to take that revenue to fix up old
properties and sell them to people who deserve them.


“There is no system in the United States that pulls together these tools. Both the
ability to quickly assemble property into single ownership of the county, the tools
to manage it and the financing tools to develop that property.”


The land bank program hopes to change the perception of Flint. As thousands of abandoned
homes, stores and vacant lots become eyesores, people and their money go other places,
usually to build more sprawling suburbs. The perception that people are abandoning the
inner city then speeds up that abandonment. Many people who can afford to leave the city do.
And those who can’t afford to move are left behind.


According to data gathered by the research group Public Sector Consultants, Flint has the
state’s highest unemployment and crime rates and the lowest student test scores.


Art Potter is the land bank’s director. He thinks the downward spiral can be stopped.
When it is, those folks in the central city won’t have to suffer for still living there.


“Even though the City of Flint has lost 70,000 people in the last 30 years, the people who
are still here deserve to have a nice environment to live in. So our immediate goal is to
get control and to clean these properties now.”


Urban planning experts are watching the land bank approach. Michigan State
University’s Rex LaMore says Flint is typical of Midwestern cities whose manufacturing
base has shrunk. Private owners large and small have left unproductive property behind.
As the land bank steps in, LaMore says it’s likely to succeed and become an example that
other municipalities can follow.


“They can begin to maybe envision a city of the 21st century that will be different than
the cities of the 20th century or the 19th century that we see around the United States.
A city that reflects a more livable environment. So its an exciting opportunity. I think
we have the vision; the challenge is can we generate the resources? And the land bank model
does provide some opportunity to do that.”


But the land bank is meeting obstacles. For example, the new mayor of Flint who took over
in July canceled the city’s existing contracts. A conservative businessman, the mayor is
suspicious of the city’s past deals. They included one with the land bank to demolish 57
homes. This has slowed the land bank’s progress. Its officials are disappointed but they’re
still working with the mayor to get the money released.


(sound of kids chatting, then lawn mower starts up)


The weeds grow rampant in a neighborhood with broken up pavement and sometimes
no houses on an entire block. It’s open and in an odd way, peaceful. Like a
century-old farm. It’s as if the land has expelled the people who invaded with their bricks,
steel and concrete.


In the middle of all the vacant lots, Katherine Alymo sees possibilities.


“I’ve bought a number of properties in the auctions from the land bank and also got a side
lot acquisition from them for my house. My driveway wasn’t attached to my house when I
bought it. And it was this huge long process to try to get it from them. But they sold it
to me for a dollar. Finally.”


And since then, she’s hired people to fix the floors, paint walls and mow the lawns.
She’s also finding buyers for her properties who want to invest in the city as she has.
Together, they say they needed some help and the land bank is making that possible.


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


(lawn mower fades out)

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Epa Calculates Illnesses Caused by Sewage Overflows

Sewage overflows during heavy rains have long been implicated in illnesses in people. For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency has come up with an estimate of just how many people are getting sick from swimming at contaminated beaches. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

Sewage overflows during heavy rains have long been implicated in
illnesses in people. For the first time, the Environmental Protection
Agency has come up with an estimate of just how many people are getting
sick from swimming at contaminated beaches. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:


The EPA estimates that somewhere between 3,500 and 5,500 beachgoers get sick
every year when untreated sewage is flushed into rivers, streams and lakes
by heavy rains. The EPA’s Ben Grumbles says the report is another reason
for cities to fix their aging sewage systems – despite the high cost.


“And it can literally add up to hundreds of millions, a couple of billion dollars, for
very large cities, to fix the problem for the long-term.”


Grumbles says many communities can avoid that bigger expense by investing
in new technologies to better manage existing systems – and keeping pipes
well-maintained and free of debris.


Environmental groups say they hope legislators are listening. Congress just reduced
the fund from which communities can get loans for sewer projects by 500 million dollars.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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