We use about 410-billion gallons of water a day in the U.S.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
Even as the population grows, the
US is using less water. Lester
Graham has the numbers from a new
report on water use from the US
Geological Survey:
Transcript
Even as the population grows, the
US is using less water. Lester
Graham has the numbers from a new
report on water use from the US
Geological Survey:
We use about 410-billion gallons of water a day in the U.S. But, water use per person is down. And, total water use for the nation is down about 5% from 1980 to 2005, the latest year covered by the report.
Susan Hutson is one of the authors of the Geological Survey report. She says there are a lot of factors affecting water use.
“Water conservation education, a public policy that supports that water conservation, and inovative technology, primarily in irrigation and the generation of thermo-electric power, the use of water for the cooling.”
There are still some problems. Some agricultural areas are using water faster than aquifers can be replenished. And, as we build more power plants -the biggest users of water – it will mean more demand in the future.
Jack Spicer of Preservation Chicago is on a campaign
to save the venerable 'wood frame window,' like these
on his Chicago home. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Each winter presents some homeowners with a choice: whether to replace old,
wooden windows with modern, energy-efficient ones before cold winds blow
again. Each year, more homeowners choose the replacement windows, often made from vinyl or aluminum. Shawn Allee found some historical preservationists want homeowners to think twice about that:
Transcript
Each winter presents some homeowners with a choice: whether to replace old,
wooden windows with modern, energy-efficient ones before cold winds blow
again. Each year, more homeowners choose the replacement windows, often made from vinyl or aluminum. Shawn Allee found some historical preservationists want homeowners to think twice about that:
If you think century-old windows have to be rickety and leaky, Jack
Spicer would like you to come to his place.
He’s eager to show off windows on his Chicago two-flat, built in 1908.
“So, here’s an example of the way an old-fashioned wood window
looks from the outside a hundred years later. These windows are
longer-lasting and obviously better looking than any replacement window you
can find.”
It’s no surprise Spicer makes this pitch.
He’s with a group called Preservation Chicago, and he’s on a campaign
to save wood-frame windows from the onslaught of vinyl and aluminum-framed
replacements.
Spicer’s losing ground, even in his own neighborhood.
“This apartment building replaced their windows. The next building
replaced all their windows. If you look across the street at this huge
courtyard building, there’re about 48 units in there. Those windows were
fine, and those windows are now trashed. They went into a dumpster and are
now in a landfill somewhere.”
But if old wood-framed windows are so great, why do so many US homeowners
replace them?
“Somebody told them it would save them money if you put in brand-new
replacement windows. Everybody’s taught that – you read about it, you
see the ads. All the replacement window (companies) tell you, if you’re
American and you love your children, you’ll replace your windows. Well,
we’re getting over that now, I hope.”
Spicer insists replacing your windows is not an environmental slam dunk.
He says if old wood-frame windows are properly sealed and have storm
windows, they’ll hold heat almost as well as replacements.
I ask Spicer for numbers on this, and he sends me to Mike Jackson, with
Illinois’ Historic Preservation Agency.
“Several years ago, Vermont as a state did a study and they looked
at repairing windows, adding storm windows, replacing windows, and what it
really came down to was, how leaky are your windows? If they were
reasonably tight, there wasn’t a lot of savings to replacing your windows
at all.”
Jackson says a new furnace or insulation are better pay-offs, and
replacement windows often last just a few decades.
“We’re throwing away items that lasted for a hundred years with
simple technologies and replacing them with more complex things with
shorter life spans. In our line, the reason they call them replacement
windows is because you have to keep replacing them.”
Well, people in the replacement window industry don’t take kindly to
this.
One rep told me the short life span of replacement windows is overblown –
high quality ones last longer.
And he told me, if energy prices rise in the future, replacement windows
become more competitive.
So, is it worth replacing old, wooden windows?
“There’re many factors and that’s why it’s, in our opinion,
not so clear-cut.”
Christian Kohler studies window technology at the Lawrence-Berkeley
National Laboratory.
He says replacement windows are better on energy, but it could take decades
to get a good payback and by that time, you might need to replace them
again.
Anyway, Kohler says there’s an alternative.
If your wood windows are in good condition, you can add storm windows that
have what’s called a “low – E” coating.
The coating helps retain heat.
“It’s applied to glass and it’s virtually invisible. It
doesn’t have a color or anything.”
Kohler says if preservationists want to keep wood windows around on account
of their looks or long-term value, it still makes sense to crack down on
leaks and get good storm windows.
It doesn’t make sense to waste energy on account of beauty when you
don’t have to.
The nest of a Swainsons warbler. (Photo by Judith McMillan)
The 'Nesting' exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History)
The nest of a Vermillion flycatcher. (Photo by Judith McMillan)
Nests in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. (Photo by Gretchen Cuda)
The nest of a Painted bunting. (Photo by Judith McMillan)
A parasite visits - this nest holds the egg of a cowbird. Cowbirds surreptitiously lay eggs in other birds' nests. The birds that made this nest discovered the egg, and mounded the nest around it so it would not be incubated. (Photo by Gretchen Cuda)
Some of the world’s most intricate
architecture is not always constructed by
humans. Sometimes the most skilled architectural
wonders are designed by nature. Gretchen Cuda reports on an exhibit that celebrates
birds’ nests:
Transcript
Some of the world’s most intricate
architecture is not always constructed by
humans. Sometimes the most skilled architectural
wonders are designed by nature. Gretchen Cuda reports on an exhibit that celebrates
birds’ nests:
Judith McMillan didn’t find her inspiration in tree branches. She found it in the
basement of the museum where she works. She was rummaging through drawers
there when she came across a hundred-year-old collection of bird nests.
“This Museum must have 10 cabinets full of bird’s nests.”
She was fascinated and immediately knew she had a new subject for her art.
McMillan is a photographer who has been volunteering at the Cleveland Museum of
Natural history for 20 years. In her latest exhibit, titled “Nesting”, she captures some
of natures most inspiring, and often overlooked architecture – the nests of birds.
(sound of exhibit crowd)
“I was looking for nests that were different from each other so that you could see that
these birds were little architects. And there were so many different kinds of materials
used – and then the eggs could be so different. Some with little tiny speckles, some
with different colors some with little calligraphic streaks around them, so it was that
variety that I wanted to capture.”
All the photographs are in black and white – because she really wanted people to
concentrate on the architecture without being seduced by the color. She’s fascinated
by the way different birds chose very specific materials to work with – everything
from marsh reeds, grape vine, or little knotty twigs – like this one.
“This is a vermillion flycatcher – it’s almost like it’s made of pick up sticks in the way
their pushed together.”
And to emphasize the diversity of structures birds can create she shows me an
Orioles nest that’s five inches deep and formerly hung like a basket from a tree.
“I actually had to shine a flashlight down in it when I was taking the photograph in
order to get the eggs to show up.”
Most of the nests and eggs were collected around the turn of the 20th century by
amateur naturalists who never thought twice about disturbing the natural wildlife.
But the practice eventually fell out of fashion as people became more
environmentally conscious and large nest and egg collections were often turned over
to museums – explains Andy Jones the museum’s ornithologist.
“People whose grandfathers were dealing with eggs as a hobby, well their
grandfathers are passing away and so they contact their local university or natural
history museum, and say, ‘hey do you want these?’”
Those specimens were originally collected just because they were pretty. These
days, they’re still beautiful, but they also serve a scientific purpose. Scientists can
look at things such as the thickness of the shells, or the type and number of birds
found in a specific location and tell a lot about the birds. They can see where birds
used to live and how far their territories reached. They can even tell if a bird that’s
extinct now once lived in an area.
Judith McMillan hopes her photographs will not only show how beautiful the birds’
handiwork was, but will also inspire people to do something about saving the birds
that are still here.
“I didn’t understand until I started using a camera myself how you can isolate
something and make people look at it differently–And I hope through my
photographs I’m getting people to take a fresh look at things. It’s hard to have an
appreciation of nature unless you really look at it and start to really care about it.”
Recent surveys have found that many songbirds are disappearing. If people don’t
start caring, those photographs and drawers full of nests might become the only
reminders of many more species that go extinct.
Using hand picks from North Carolina, Operations Manager Bill Schaubs starts his first solo millstone
dressing project. He was taught by Upper Canada Village's Roland Tetrault.
The deep furrows help the grain travel across the cutting plateaus--until done to the right consistency
as judged by the miller. (Photo by Lucy Martin)
Besides illuminating the past, museums like Watson's Mill teach that bread does not start in plastic
bags on store shelves and that power can come from diverse sources. (Photo by Lucy Martin)
Watson's Mill is all that remains of a river-powered industrial complex from the mid 1800's. It's now a
working heritage museum in the village of Manotick, a short drive from Parliament Hill in Ottawa,
Ontario. (Photo by Lucy Martin)
When possible, Watson's Mill uses locally-grown wheat. A century ago, farm families used local mills
like this to process their own grain, seed and flour, with the miller taking a fraction as payment. (Photo by Lucy Martin)
Today, we buy whatever we need from the
store. But what would happen if we had to make
our own butter or spin our own wool? We needed
these kinds of skills to survive. And many of
them took centuries to learn. Some people are
working to keep these skills alive. Lucy Martin
followed a man who works in a historic flour mill.
He’s taken the time to learn old skills that he
says still matter today:
Transcript
Today, we buy whatever we need from the
store. But what would happen if we had to make
our own butter or spin our own wool? We needed
these kinds of skills to survive. And many of
them took centuries to learn. Some people are
working to keep these skills alive. Lucy Martin
followed a man who works in a historic flour mill.
He’s taken the time to learn old skills that he
says still matter today:
(Sound of rushing water)
Bill Schaubs volunteers his time at Watson’s Mill in Ottawa, Ontario.
The old mill is powered by water. The water turns two huge millstones that cut grain into
flour. A few years ago, Schaubs learned how to maintain the millstones. He’s about to put
those lessons to the test – on one-ton wheels that are nearly 5 feet in diameter:
(sound of the Mill)
Lucy Martin: “Well, here are your beauties!”
Bill Schaubs: “They are. Absolutely! 1860’s beauties, if you will.”
Martin: “These date all the way back to then?”
Schaubs: “Yes, ma’am. They do.”
Millstones have something in common with car tires – their “tread” eventually wears down.
These wheels need to be dressed. Someone has to grind off encrusted flour
and re-chip the many grooves and surfaces, using hammer-sized picks.
It’s not a trade you
find in the yellow pages.
(sound of Shaubs chipping the wheels)
Bill Schaubs grew up on a farm. He still keeps some of his family’s land in production. But he
spent a lot of his career helping to build things for NASA. He thinks it’s important to know
many skills, old or new.
“Yes, keep the technology! It’s great; I love it too, OK? But we need to still keep our feet on
the ground and be realistic about everything.”
Schaubs says one reason to keep these traditional mills running is because of the kind of
bread you can make from them. These days, flour is typically milled in modern factories,
using high-speed metal rollers. A place like Watson’s Mill can’t possibly match those for
volume, or price.
But stone-ground flour is a specialty product. It isn’t always found at your nearby supermarket.
The high-fiber whole grain is cut, not crushed, by the stone’s sharp grooves. The process
preserves wheat’s natural oils and nutrients.
Larry Ellis is a big fan of bread made from this flour.
“I get at least one loaf, every week. It looks like it came out of your mother’s oven, sort of
thing, you know? (chuckles)”
Besides promoting things like flavor and nutrition, Bill Schaubs says there’s also a sort of
insurance factor.
“This grist mill here, is completely water-powered. So, if all else fails, we can always mill
flour.”
(sound of park visitors boarding a boat, speaking in French)
To keep the millstones in good shape, Schaubs had to learn from the experts. He came here,
to Upper Canada Village, an 1860’s era Heritage Park with its own grist mill.
Liam Carson works at the park. He says maintaining many different skills is important
because society doesn’t always know when they might be needed.
“If you can find a way of doing things that’s better, it doesn’t matter if it’s high tech or low tech,
it doesn’t matter if it’s now or then – better is better. And the more of these parallel paths you
have, that still exist, that’s a wealth of possibilities that can be accessed.”
(sound of the mill)
Back inside Watson’s Mill, the freshly-dressed millstones are ready to go. This is the test run.
(sound of wheat falling into millstones)
Bill Schaubs watches the gold-brown wheat trickle down while checking on the flour as it
comes out.
“There’s still a little bit of tweaking to do, but other than that, I’m happy! Good learning
experience, that’s for sure!”
Sometimes Schaubs worries that too many skills are getting lost. He’d like to see more
people taking the time to pick them up and pass them on. Old or new, he thinks we need
them all.
A bridge for a river... this portion of the Erie Canal crossed the Genesee River via an aqueduct in Rochester, NY. This photo was taken around 1914. (From the collection of the Rochester Public Library Local History Division)
Man-made canals allowed non-native species to swim into the Great Lakes. Some of them wreaked havoc on fish and habitat in the lakes. (Photo by Lester Graham)
One of the earliest invaders of the Great Lakes, sea lampreys heavily damaged commercial fisheries upon their arrival. (Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission)
The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:
Transcript
We’re bringing you an extensive series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the reports:
“The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” is looking first at alien invasive species. There are more than 160 non-native species in the Great Lakes basin. If they do environmental or economic harm, they’re called invasive species. There are estimates that invasive species cost the region billions of dollars a year. Different species got here different ways. David Sommerstein tells us how some of the region’s earliest invaders got into the Lakes:
If the history of invasive species were a movie, it would open like this:
(Sound of banjo)
It’s 1825. Politicians have just ridden the first ship across the newly dug Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York.
(Sound of “The Erie Canal”)
“I’ve got an old mule, and her name is Sal. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal…”
Chuck O’Neill is an invasive species expert with New York Sea Grant.
“At the canal’s formal opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton dumped a cask of Lake Erie water; he dumped that water into New York Harbor.”
Meanwhile, in Buffalo, a cask of Hudson River water was triumphantly poured into Lake Erie.
“In a movie, that would be the flashback with the impending doom-type music in the background.”
(Sound of ominous music)
It was an engineering and economic milestone, but a danger lurked. For the first time since glaciers carved the landscape twelve thousand years ago, water from the Hudson and water from the Great Lakes mixed.
(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)
Enter the villain: the sea lamprey. It’s a slimy, snake-like parasite in the Atlantic Ocean. It sucks the blood of host fish.
Within a decade after the Erie Canal and its network of feeders opened, the sea lamprey uses the waterways to swim into Lake Ontario. By the 1920’s and 30’s, it squirms into the upper Lakes, bypassing Niagara Falls through the Welland Canal.
What happens next is among the most notorious examples of damage done by an invasive species in the Great Lakes. By the 1950’s, the sea lamprey devastates Lake trout populations in Lake Superior. Mark Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
“They changed a way of life in the Great Lakes basin, the lampreys. They preyed directly on fish, they drove commercial fisheries out of business, the communities in the areas that were built around the fisheries were impacted severely.”
The sea lamprey wasn’t the only invader that used the canals. Canal barges carried stowaway plants and animals in their hulls and ballast. In the mid-1800’s, the European faucet snail clogged water intakes across the region. The European pea clam, purple loosestrife, marsh foxtail, flowering rush – all used the canal system to enter the Great Lakes.
Chuck O’Neill says the spread of invasive species also tells the tale of human transportation.
“If you look at a map, you can pretty much say there was some kind of a right-of-way – railroad, canal, stageline – that was in those areas just by the vegetation patterns.”
Almost one hundred invasive species came to the Great Lakes this way before 1960. O’Neill says every new arrival had a cascading effect.
“Each time you add in to an ecosystem another organism that can out-compete the native organisms that evolved there, you’re gradually making that ecosystem more and more artificial, less and less stable, much more likely to be invaded by the next invader that comes along.”
(Sound of “Dragnet” theme)
The next one in the Great Lakes just might be the Asian Carp. It’s swimming up the Illinois River, headed toward Lake Michigan. Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes.
“If this thing gets in, it can cause catastrophic damage to the Great Lakes, ‘cause it eats thirty, forty percent of its body weight in plankton every day, and plankton are the base of the food chain in the Great Lakes.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has installed an electric barrier in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that might stop the carp. But as long as the canals around the region remain open for shipping and recreation, it’s likely more invaders may hitch a ride or simply swim into the Great Lakes.
Victoria Park seems like a neighborhood that one might see in a suburban area. But, in fact, it's located in downtown Detroit. (Photo by Nora Flaherty)
Professor Jerry Herron says that people want to live in suburban-style homes. (Photo by Nora Flaherty)
Many cities across the nation are looking to re-imagine themselves—they’re trying to become more like dense, walkable cities like San Francisco or Boston. But some people say that some cities weren’t originally designed to be like that. And people don’t necessarily want them to be. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has this report:
Transcript
Many cities across the nation are looking to re-imagine themselves. They’re
trying to become more like dense, walkable cities like San Francisco or
Boston. But some people say that some cities weren’t originally designed to
be like that, and people don’t necessarily want them to be. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has this report:
Aside from the cicadas and crickets, it’s a quiet afternoon in Victoria
park. There’s no one out on the tree-lined street, or on the large houses’
beautifully groomed front lawns.
Jerry Herron is an American Studies professor at Wayne State University. He says that this gated community has everything that people associate with suburbia.
“An artificially wind-y street, some kind of neoclassical details on the houses, a cul de sac at each end, plenty of cars in the garages, basketball hoops, all of the things that people would associate with characterstic life in suburbia. Except it’s in the middle of one of the oldest downtown industrial parts of the city of Detroit.”
Herron says that most urban planners wouldn’t expect to see a suburban-style
cul de sac right in the middle of the city.
“I think because it doesn’t look like one of those pre-arranged ideas of the city, cities aren’t supposed to look like suburban McMansions houses. Well, it turns out that that’s where people want to live, and if you build it in the city, they’ll come and buy the houses and be happy.”
That kind of thinking runs counter to what many urban planning experts might say. In fact, the success of Victoria Park might seem to be an oddity in planning circles, because most planners believe that it’s a specifically urban lifestyle that attracts people to cities, one that involves chic apartments, condos and busy streets, not lawn care and attached garages.
But Jerry Herron says that more suburban-style development is in keeping
with this city’s history.
“One of the important things about Detroit is that seventy-five percent of the people who live here – I believe that’s an accurate figure – virtually since the beginning of the city’s history, have lived in private houses, so that there’s really a dedication to this idea of private property, that they have something good, it has to be mine, it has to belong to me, which makes it very difficult then to imagine as desirable living in something I don’t own, that I have to share with other people, that I may just be renting.”
Regardless of whether they choose to live in private houses or high rise buildings, people who choose to live in the city like being able to spend less time in their cars than they would if they lived in the suburbs.
And they like the cultural attractions and diversity of the cities. And even if it might seem suburban compared to life in other cities, life in this city is still very different from life in the suburbs. Olga Savich grew up in Troy, Michigan a north-west suburb of Detroit. She now lives in a high rise building near downtown.
“I moved to the city because I just needed to get out of the suburbs, I lived
there my whole life, there’s nothing there but the mall, I didn’t
necessarily want to structure my whole life around shopping. So I moved to
the city because it seemed like it was exciting, like a new start.”
Although Savich likes the more traditionally urban aspects of the city, she
also likes the fact that there’s big open spaces, including Belle Isle park,
right in the middle of it.
“I used to walk down on a Saturday afternoon with a book and just sit on the rocks by Shane Park and you can put your feet in the water, you know, it’s really pretty. Going to belle isle, it’s almost like having your own Metropark, you know, right in your own back yard, it’s like a five-minute bike ride.”
And while a lot of people see Detroit’s big, empty urban spaces and abandoned and decaying buildings as the city’s big problem, other people are attracted to exactly those things. Jerry Herron lives in the same building as Olga Savich.
“There’s a lot of room in the middle of a city that’s 300 years old, a lot of green space in the city. And I think that people that are attracted to that kind of revitalization and the presence of significant decay find this a really exhilarating and exciting place. That abandonment attracts people, the way ruins attract people. And people who like it think it’s really unusual and unique and only Detroit looks like that really.”
Like a lot of big cities with decaying centers, Detroit is working hard to bring people in. Experts are thinking hard about what kind of cities people are looking to move to. And Herron says that anyone who’s trying to make a city like Detroit appealing to outsiders would do well to work with what the city already has, rather than trying to make it like other cities with different histories.
These three monks walked 1600 miles from San Francisco to the Trinity Test Site. They came "full circle" to extinguish a flame kindled by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima that had destroyed their Buddhist shrine. Keigaku Muchu is in the center. (Photo by Paul Adams)
The obelisk that marks ground zero at the trinity Test Site where the first atomic bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico. The obelisk is made of volcanic rock taken from nearby mountains to symbolize fire. (Photo by Paul Adams)
The McDonald ranch house, built in 1913 by German immigrants, was used to assemble the Fat Man plutonium bomb that was tested at Trinity. The house was several miles from the first atomic test but was not destroyed by the explosion. It is a popular stop on the open house tour at the Trinity Test Site on the White Sands Missile Range. (Photo by Paul Adams)
Sixty years ago the first nuclear weapon was tested in the New Mexico
desert. A month later two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. It brought
World War II to a swift end. There are tourists who are interested in the
history of these weapons of mass destruction. They find the historical
sites of the atomic age are hard to get to and still controversial. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan reports:
Transcript
Sixty years ago, the first nuclear weapon was tested in the New Mexico desert, ushering in the dawn of the atomic age. A month later, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. It brought World War II to a swift end. There are tourists who are interested in the history of weapons of mass destruction. They might find the historical sites of the atomic age are hard to get to and still controversial. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan reports:
(Sound of monks chanting)
Keigaku Muchu is a Buddhist monk. Since the atomic bombs were dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese monks have walked back and forth between these two cities with a lantern that was lit by a flame captured from the smoldering ruins of their shrine, which had been destroyed.
In Zen Buddhism, sixty years is considered a sacred cycle. So this summer, they took a new pilgrimage to the Trinity Site in New Mexico. That’s where the atomic bomb was first tested. They wanted to close the cycle from where the atomic destruction started to where it ended in Japan. Keigaku says his journey helped him join spiritually to countless supporters who never want atomic weapons used again.
“So if people in northern America want to come physically to the Trinity site, that’s great too. But if they can’t come, they can be connected. I can connect with them spiritually.”
The monks were not alone on their 1600-mile overland trek from San Francisco in searing desert heat to the Trinity site. This walk was organized by Matt Taylor, co-executive director of the Global Nuclear Disarmament Fund. He says the walk has multiple missions.
“The main thing we’re trying to achieve is bringing the atomic claim that has been kindled from the ashes of Hiroshima back to the trinity site where it began, closing a sixty-year cycle.”
The Trinity test site is located on the White Sands Missile Range. The military holds an open house at the Trinity test site just two days per year. Jim Eckles is a spokesperson for the missile range.
“We get two to three thousand folks during each open house, and they come from all backgrounds, all walks of life, from all over the country. You’ll see young families, young kids, students on a science project, old people who were alive at World War II, veterans who come up and say, ‘I was getting ready to go to the Pacific and this saved my life,’ motorcycle gang members – you name it they come.”
Eckles says the Department of Defense is not likely to stop using the missile range just to welcome more atomic tourists. But the military is preserving the Trinity site.
“It’s significant because it is the first atomic bomb explosion or test site. It did change our lives. The Cold War had a different tone to it because of nuclear weapons and them hanging over our heads. And of course, they are still out there so they still influence us.”
And world headlines about nuclear proliferation still make history a flash point.
At another historic atomic site, the job of preserving is a little more difficult. John Isaacson is a resource manager in the environmental stewardship division at Los Alamos National Laboratories. There, the Manhattan Project was the code name for the top-secret program to build the atomic bomb. Isaacson says we’re still trying to understand what to make of the beginning of the atomic age.
“This is history that is gone through a number of different sort of re-analyses in the past fifty years since the end of the war and it’s still very alive for many people, a very real history for many people”
But there’s a problem. Manhattan Project buildings at Los Alamos are deteriorating. Most are wooden and were thrown up hastily by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Although today, the public doesn’t get to see the site because it’s deep within a security zone, Isaacson says it should be preserved.
“I think the Manhattan Project is a real good example of this very controversial, unresolved historical process that, by preserving the buildings, it allows people to think about it, and it’s important to think about it.”
Isaacson wants us to keep the buildings in good repair for the day when they can be opened to the public. He’s getting some help. The Atomic Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. is helping them and other Manhattan Project sites across the country raise eighty-eight million dollars to refurbish properties that are historically significant to the start of the atomic age.
The Great Lakes Myth Society's songs cover all aspects of living in the Great Lakes region. (Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Myth
Society)
The Great Lakes Myth Society is a rock band with a clear sense of place. As
you might expect from their name, the band’s debut album is full of songs
about Great Lakes folklore. But their music is also infused with a subtle
appreciation for Great Lakes nature as well. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Dustin Dwyer has more:
Transcript
The Great Lakes Myth Society is a rock band with a clear sense of place. As you might expect from their name, the band’s debut album is full of songs about Great Lakes folklore. But their music is also infused with a subtle appreciation for Great Lakes nature as well. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dustin Dwyer has more:
James and Timothy Monger grew up in what they call the “former small town of Brighton, Michigan.” While strip malls and fast-food joints sprung up around them, the brothers held on to a sense of respect for the natural world.
“We were taught when you drive down the road with your parents, and you see a bunch of cranes, you stop, and you look at them until they leave.”
“…And when you see a lilac bush in someone’s yard, you stop and cut off several and you drive away quickly.”
On their debut album with the five-man group, The Great Lakes Myth Society, James and Timothy turn their stolen moments of Great Lakes beauty into songs about the region’s culture, history and nature.
(Sound of song)
“When the cold stars work overtime to impress you, and the Northern Lights rise up from the coral, And your bed is on your back…”
But while many of James and Timothy’s songs for the Great Lakes Myth Society are full of awe for Great Lakes nature, the songs don’t include any overt environmental messages. James says that’s intentional.
“I’m not a big fan of musical political statements. I think it’s extremely narcissistic to me to use your music as a platform unless you’re out there doing something behind it.”
James and Timothy say they prefer a more subtle approach.
“It’s always good to come up from behind people and imply.”
“We whisper in their ears.”
“Yes we do.”
So he and his brother often use personal experiences to draw the environmental connections. Like this song James wrote about his college days at Central Michigan University. It’s called “Isabella County, 1992” On the surface, the song has nothing to do with the environment.
“And it’s an Indian summer, and the tap water’s brown sand ‘cause the lamprey are crammed ‘neath the Chippewa dam.”
But in a song that’s essentially about the drinking scene at a state university, James includes a line about how sea lamprey affect the tributaries that drain into the Great Lakes.
“I think I may be the only person who ever used a sea lamprey dramatically in a piece.”
“I think you’re right.”
James says he worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for a summer cleaning fish traps at the Chippewa dam in central Michigan.
“We would just get up early, get some donuts, pull up the traps, pull out three hundred crawdads, count weird riverfish like chubs. I liked the horny head chub a lot. That was my – and the Texas hogsucker. You learn a lot about your state when you know all the names of the fish that come through.”
And if James is about the gritty, sometimes overlooked details of Great Lakes nature, Timothy is more about the beauty of the area. He’s more likely to write songs about the northern night sky.
“‘Neath a radio of stars, on every band unravel cars. In the distance, Old St. Ignace, beneath a radio of stars.”
“Across the Bridge” is Timothy’s love song to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
“We played a Chicago show directly after 9/11, like a couple days after. Like so many people, we were almost frightened going into a large city. I’d been writing about the U.P. and it kind of occurred to me that that was about the safest place, you know. Sort of in the event of a hurricane, you’d go to your cellar, I’d go to the U.P. in case anything bad was going down.”
Timothy says he just felt safer up north, where society and sprawl have yet to take over. He says it’s one of the few places he and his brother can still go to simply appreciate the Great Lakes – not to be advocates or fight for a cause, but to recognize and appreciate the nature that surrounds them. A place where the only intrusion from the civilized world is the music playing in their headphones.
Dave Lemberg from Western Michigan University envisions not only opportunities for water sports, but also opportunities to see historical sites along waterways. (Photo by Tamar Charney)
If you traveled this summer, you might have noticed more and more cars with canoes or kayaks on top. Recreation associations say paddle sports are growing in popularity. And so are efforts to give paddlers places to go. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports some of these places benefit more than just the person in the boat:
Transcript
If you traveled this summer, you might have noticed more and more cars with canoes or kayaks on top. Recreation associations say paddle sports are growing in popularity and so are efforts to give paddlers places to go. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, some of these places benefit more than just the person in the boat:
It just stopped raining, which has made the air even more thick and humid than it was before. But there’s a slight breeze coming off the water.
(Sound of splashing, scraping, and paddling)
Dave Lemberg from Western Michigan University slides his yellow kayak into the St. Joseph River in Southwest Michigan.
“There’s a heron off to the right.”
We’re at the beginning of a water trail he’s helped to create. It is one of two pilot trails for The Michigan Heritage Water Trail Program.
His idea is that mapped-out water trails will lead you to places where you can put in and take out your boat, places to stop and stretch your legs for a moment, and places where you might want to stop and check out a historical bridge or museum you pass by. Lemberg wants to see these kinds of
water trails created all across the state.
“We are looking at this as a type of heritage tourism. Every river, every piece of coastline in the Great Lakes has a story to tell.”
As we paddle down the river, signs guide us from point to point. Along the way the signs tell about the history of the area, and refer to a trail guide that contains even more information.
“The country was settled on water trails; we just didn’t call them that.”
Water trails are popping up all over the country. Paul Sanford is with the American Canoe Association. Last month, the organization launched an on-line database of trails. There are more than four hundred of them. He says people new to the sport like them because they tell you where to go. And he says these days you don’t just find water trails in beautiful areas.
SANFORD: “You see more and more trails being developed in urban areas as a way to change public attitudes about a waterway that might have historically been pretty industrialized, pretty uninviting to local citizens as a recreational resource that folks are saying, ‘Hey wait a minute, we can have fun on this river.'”
LEMBERG: “Let’s see, let’s back up and go over there this channel seems to have disappeared.”
On the St. Joseph River, the water trail passes ruins of bridges, old mills, and other remnants of early settlements dating back to the 1800’s. There used to be bustling communities along rivers like this, but many riverside towns were left behind when the interstates took a different route. Dave Lemberg thinks water trails can be a way to revitalize some of these bypassed communities.
“So the vision is people paddling from bed and breakfast to bed and breakfast, eating in local restaurants, browsing in local stores. There’s where well be eating, on the deck up there, overlooking the river.”
After a morning on the river, we arrive eight miles downstream from where we started. One of the signs directs us up a creek to the Mendon Country Inn.
(Sound of door)
Gerard Clark is the chef and owner of this historic inn. He says the water trail has been good for business.
“Since the inauguration which was in August last year, we’ve a seen a three-fold increase in our canoe business which has impacted on lodging and as well as our dining facilities. We have a lot of city folk who come in who are so stressed out you can’t believe it, after a couple days on river and good food they unwind.”
Clark says the trail is drawing people from all over the region, and the hope is, paddle trails like this one will become a tourist draw in other places as well.
Spotted salamanders - adult and baby. Volunteers collected 14 species of reptiles and amphibians from a half-acre wetland in Ann Arbor, MI. (Photo by David Mifsud)
Baby frogs poised to leap from a volunteer's bucket at the new man-made wetland. (Photo by Rachel Osborn)
One of several rare hybrid salamanders found at the original wetland site by herpetologist Dave Mifsud. The salamander was first thought to be the state endangered small-mouthed salamander. Genetic testing found the salamander was a hybrid of the Jefferson salamander and blue-spotted salamander. (Photo by David Mifsud)
A lot of new shopping centers and subdivisions have wetlands
at their edges. Sometimes those wetlands are as new as the buildings next to them. Developers often build new ponds when they drain and fill existing wetlands. But experts point out that many man-made wetlands can’t match up to the ecosystems that evolved over hundreds or thousands of years. One group of people is trying something it hopes will be more successful: they’re moving a wetland, piece by little tiny piece. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has the story:
Transcript
A lot of new shopping centers and subdivisions have wetlands at their edges.
Sometimes those wetlands are as new as the buildings next to them.
Developers often build new ponds when they drain and fill existing wetlands.
But experts point out that many man-made wetlands can’t match up to the
ecosystems that evolved over hundreds or thousands of years. One group of
people is trying something it hopes will be more successful: they’re moving
a wetland, piece by little tiny piece. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams has the story:
Making a new wetland might not seem that hard. You need certain things – a
big hole in the ground, water, plants, some frogs, some snakes. But wetland
ecologists will tell you that it’s hard to get a man-made wetland to be a
replica of a natural one.
But this group of people is giving it a try. Volunteers are leaping after
baby frogs and snakes at the edge of a wetland in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“He’s fast, look at him go!”
They’re scooping the animals up and putting them in buckets to move them to
a new manmade wetland. The original wetland is small – just half an acre –
but it’s teeming with life. It’s also sitting right where a new high
school is going to be built.
Saving the frogs and snakes and newts is turning out to be a lot of work.
The group’s caught about five thousand adults and babies in all during the last five
months.
Dave Mifsud is a herpetologist; he studies amphibians and reptiles. He’s
in charge of the rescue. Mifsud surveyed the site last year and was
impressed that such a small wetland could hold so many species. He asked
the school district to let him lead a rescue.
“When I first proposed the idea, I was hesitant because whenever I’ve
suggested it in the past, it’s been received with laughs or a blatant no.”
Mifsud says in most construction projects, time means money. He says it’s
hard to get anyone to agree to wait while animals are moved. So, he was
surprised when school officials agreed to the rescue. Mifsud says the
school’s also trying to make the new wetland as much like the original as
possible. They’re moving water, soil, and plants from the old wetland to the
new one.
Randy Trent directs the school district’s environmental services. He says
instead of seeing Mifsud’s proposal as a headache, the school thinks of it
as a way to balance development and conservation.
“It gives us an opportunity to let our students have the history that’s
going on at this site as something to learn from.”
But critics are asking just what the school district is teaching by building
over an irreplaceable site. Ann Arbor resident Alan Pagliere is a vocal
critic of the district.
“There’s going to be a legacy left, there’s going to be a lesson taught, and what are those? You
certainly can’t teach a lesson about the environment by destroying wetlands, but clear-cutting landmark trees. These are decisions that are going to be with us for decades and the people
who are making the decisions will be gone when their terms are over.”
Pagliere says the school should preserve the existing wetland as a living
classroom instead of spending taxpayer money to destroy it and build a new
one.
The animal rescue has its skeptics too. Jim Harding is a wildlife biologist
with Michigan State University. He says moving amphibians and reptiles is
risky.
“An adult frog or adult salamander already has its idea of where home ought
to be; we have anecdotal reports of building new ponds for salamanders
and having them return in the spring to the old site which is now a parking
lot.”
(sound in, back with frogcatchers)
“Oh, I think that was mud.”
“It’s mud, it’s okay… if you’ve got the tadpoles, you can actually just dump them right on the edge.”
But herpetologist Dave Mifsud says he’s giving the frogs and toads a
fighting chance. He says the tadpoles he’s released will think of the new
pond as home. He’s also put up fences around the woods near the new pond. He
hopes they’ll direct the adults back to the new pond in the spring.
“Let’s start releasing the frogs along the edges…”
The frog-catchers’ buckets are loaded with baby frogs. Dave Mifsud’s taking
the cover off his bucket and coaxing frogs out into their new environment.
(Sound of tapping on bucket)
“Come on guys. You’ve been trying to get out of the bucket this whole time. Ah, this is the best part for me! Come on! You’re lucky if…in all my years I’ve seen maybe a handful of spring peeper babies. The fact that we were able to save these guys is incredible.”
Mifsud says it’ll be an uphill fight to make large-scale amphibian rescues
more common, but he says he isn’t known for keeping his mouth shut when it
comes to watching out for anything that leaps or slithers.
We use about 410-billion gallons of water a day in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
