jason - The Environment Report

Making Boat Washing Mandatory

Sarah and Mike Litch rake the bottom of Little Glen Lake, identifying plants to make sure there are no new foreign invaders. They want to catch problems early before they spread and completely take over this lake. (Photo by Linda Stephan)
It would be very easy for a foreign invasive plant to overtake Little Glen Lake. If that happened, the sandy bottom would be filled with a tangle of weeds reaching all the way to the surface.
Little Glen Lake is a small sandy bottomed lake next to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Michigan. The eastern coast of Lake Michigan is just beyond the sand dunes. (Photo by Linda Stephan)

Aquatic plants and animals can cling to the bottom of
recreational boats. That’s one way invasive species are spread. A couple of hitchhiking zebra mussels, or a plant
caught in the propeller are enough to alter the ecosystem of an
entire lake. One resort region has passed laws requiring boaters
to wash their boats before putting them into their local lakes.
But some state officials don’t like the new laws, and that
might make it impossible to enforce them. Linda Stephan
reports:

Transcript

Little Glen Lake is known for unpredictable winds, and clear
blue waters… at times the lake is turquoise. It sits against
glacial dunes that lead to the eastern coast of Lake Michigan.
Sarah Litch retired here with her husband Mike:

“It was kind of a toss-up between New England and here. Miss
the mountains, but we love the water here. Although there are
so many water issues now. I don’t know.”

Those water issues include foreign invasive plants that could
take over Little Glen Lake:

On a pontoon boat, the Litch’s zig zag across the lake, raking up
aquatic plants at the bottom. If there are any invaders, they
want to find them early.

One of the bad guys they’re looking for is Eurasian water
milfoil. That’s a long, thin plant with feather-like green leaves.
Another invader is Hydrilla. You’ve probably seen it in
aquariums. It’s taken over lakes from California to Indiana, and
on to Maine. Both plants grow very quickly, they choke out native
fish habitat, and form a green carpet on the lake surface:

“And then it can be all – you’re trying to boat in all this tangle
of aquatic plants, or swim. So it just ruins a lake.”

These invaders have likely spread from lake to lake across the
US hitchhiking on boats pulled out of one lake, and headed for
another.

Some states such as Maine and Minnesota now require boaters
to make sure crafts and trailers are free of aquatic nuisances
before they drive down the road with them, possibly
endangering other lakes. And in those states, officials inspect
boats, too.

But other states, such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, have NOT
taken those steps, and Michigan borders four of the five Great
Lakes.

Since the state hasn’t passed laws to prevent boats from moving
invasive species from one lake to another, some local officials
have.

Sarah Litch designed a local law that requires boats to be washed
before going into local inland lakes, and it easily passed in two
adjoining communities. So around here, it’s a 500 dollar fine if
you don’t wash your boat.

Homeowners provide a free wash station at the main point of
entry to Little Glen Lake, a state-owned boat launch, but a few
boaters had refused the voluntary local inspections. That
frustrated Sarah Litch enough to fight for new local laws:

“Just to give people that are working at the boat wash a little more
backup when they have a refusal. So that they can inform the
individual and take their license if they refuse.”

But the local governments might end up in a power struggle
with the state agency that controls the boat launch, the
Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The state
agency doesn’t like this new local law.

Jason Fleming – who’s with the agency – says the homeowners’
boat wash has been successfully running on state property for a
decade, but only because the state allows it with special
permission:

“When we established that with the association, it was based on
a voluntary basis. So we’d have to review the terms and the
language of that agreement.”

In other words, if workers at the wash station start reporting
boaters to the local sheriff for refusing their services. Fleming
says the state might kick them off the state-owned boat launch
property. He says a voluntary approach is enough.

State officials don’t believe the local law applies to the state-
owned boat launch.

Chris Bzdok is an environmental lawyer. He says state courts have repeatedly ruled that local
governments can make laws like this one… and they can enforce them:

“The localities have a right to protect these resources – whether
they’re being accessed through a road end, through a private
marina, or through a state facility. The larger question is why
the DNR has a problem with it. What would be any good-faith,
genuine, substantive reason for opposing that?”

Scanning the lake from the boat launch, Sarah Litch talks of
what to do when – not if – the next invading plant or aquatic
animal arrives.

She says the best way to protect the lakes is to enforce the local
law, to make sure boats don’t bring in new invaders.

For the Environment Report, I’m Linda Stephan.

Blazing New Atv Trails in Parkland

Advocates of special trails for ATV riding say the trails would reduce environmental damage from uncontrolled use. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
ATV riders have worn down the bank of the Cloquet River in northern Minnesota. ATV owners say if they had more trails to ride on, there would be less off-road riding and less environmental damage. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Managers at state parks across the country are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a
rising demand for trails for All-Terrain Vehicles. Stephanie Hemphill reports park
managers are finding it’s not easy to satisfy both fans who have fun on four wheel drive
vehicles and people who want a quieter time in the park:

Transcript

As the name suggests, All-Terrain Vehicles are built to travel rough. ATVs power over
rocks and logs. Their go-anywhere knobby tires grip the land and take their riders just
about anywhere they want to go, and a lot of them want to go to public parks.

Whether it’s forests, dunes, bogs or a desert, riders say four-wheeling can be a fun way to
get out into nature. The vehicles are popular. Dealers are selling close to a million ATVs
every year, and sales are growing steadily. With that many people looking for a place to
play, states are scrambling to accommodate them.

In Minnesota, the state decided a long ATV trail might be a good way to attract tourism
dollars to a struggling rural area in the state.

Ron Sluka jumped at the idea. He’s the trail coordinator for a local ATV club. He’d been
wanting for years to build a trail in his area. Then he heard the state would pay for a
“destination” trail so well-built and attractive, people would come from all over to ride it.
Sluka thought it would be great news for his area.

He and county officials worked up a plan, but when it hit the local news, Sluka says a
few people raised a ruckus:

“The way it was presented to the people, eminent domain would take over in cases if
need be, and there were going to be up to 20 feet of your land taken for this trail. None
of the above is true, totally none of it is true, absolutely zero. But it’s too late: once
things are rolling, it’s rolling.”

Sluka says now, it’s hard to get a rational discussion of the issues. Beyond property rights
issues and worries about the ATVs being too loud, there are other concerns:

“The residents have kind of been left out of the loop.”

That’s Deb Pomroy. She lives near the proposed ATV trail.

Pomroy says most of her neighbors don’t mind the local ATV riders. It’s that idea of
drawing ATVs from all over the state that freaks them out, and Pomroy has her own reasons
for opposing a trail here, where the Cloquet River has its beginning: wood turtles.
Pomroy is a biologist. She says this area is a refuge for the turtles. They’re endangered in
most of their range, and listed as a threatened species in Minnesota.

Wood turtles bury their eggs in sandy soil. Pomroy says they would love to bury their
eggs in soil disturbed by ATVs, but the eggs wouldn’t survive:

“Even stepping on a nest, which is buried in soil, don’t know there are eggs there, is
enough to destroy the eggs.”

The trail is on hold for now, while county officials and ATV riders try to come up with
an alternative. Concern about damage to sensitive environmental areas is one of the chief
reasons many environmentalists don’t like the idea of letting ATVs into parks.

Jason Kiely is with Wildlands CPR, a national non-profit group that works to prevent off-
road vehicle damage on public land. He says fights over ATV trails are inevitable, as
long as public agencies don’t involve all park users in a comprehensive planning process.

“Primarily because off-road vehicles affect every other use of the forest so significantly.
So we advocate for doing comprehensive travel and recreation planning, not just trying to
carve off the ATV piece, but multi-stakeholder planning efforts that offer something to
everyone.”

Kiely says the US Forest Service and many state agencies have a lot of work to do, to
find the right balance between preserving nature and allowing ATV riders to have their
fun on public land

For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Housing Developers Go Native

Views like this attract new housing developments around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. (Photo courtesty of the National Park Service.)
Some housing developers are planting only native species in and around their new developments to help protect the park's biodiversity. (Photo courtesty of the National Park Service.)

In recent years, the land surrounding America’s national parks has become attractive to residential developers. But the landscaping in these new neighborhoods can often feature aggressive, exotic plants, many of which threaten to choke out native plants. Now, a new program aims to keep these plants from sneaking their way into the nation’s most-visited park. As Matt Shafer Powell reports, the program depends upon an uncommon alliance of environmentalists and developers:

Transcript

Jason Love is standing next to a wall of roadside rock. He’s watching as the mimosa trees anchored in the rock wave in the wind from a passing stream of cars. The cars are all headed to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, only a few miles down the road. These days, he says the mimosas are a predictable part of the landscape for those visitors heading into the park.

“The mimosa was probably planted as an ornamental and from there, was spread by birds eating the seeds, and now, instead of just being in one place in one person’s yard, you can see it up and down the roadside here.”

Love is an ecologist with the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. It’s an environmental education group that works with the Park Service. Love admits the mimosas are beautiful trees, with their brilliant spray of pink and white flowers and their strong perfume-like scent. His problem with them is that they’re killing off some of the plants that have called the Smokies home for thousands of years.

“We see more and more of these invasive exotics creeping up along the park’s edges and that makes it harder to control inside the park because just as birds brought this mimosa here beside us, these same birds go inside the park and carry these same seeds and then the park has to actively deal with it.”

And the park does deal with it the best it can. Each year, the Park Service spends a lot of money and time monitoring the plants inside the park and yanking out any invasives. The question is why, especially if the mimosas are so appealing. Back at the Tremont Institute, Love has a simple answer.

“We love this environment. This is the Smoky Mountains. It has over 130 species of trees, more than all of Europe. And when we bring in these invasive exotic plants, we are lessening that diversity, we’re making it a little less special.”

With new neighborhoods full of exotic invasives creeping toward the park, the park service and the Tremont institute decided the best way to address the problem was by educating developers. So they created a pilot program called the Native Landscape Certification Program. It’s a voluntary program where residential developers like Robin Turner promise to use only native plants in their landscaping schemes. Turner is currently developing a neighborhood on more than seven hundred wooded acres next to the park.

“That’s really why we’re all here. We’re here because of the beauty of this place, I mean we can pick anywhere in the country to live and we’ve picked this region because of the park and because of the National Forest and because of what’s here.”

Turner is sitting on the back porch of his sales office, a refurbished one room schoolhouse that stands only a few feet from a creek that dribbles through the development. He says he wants his exclusive – and expensive – development to blend in seamlessly with the natural landscape of the park. But he says it also has to make financial sense.

“It’s the right thing to do and it’s excellent business. I mean, we will make a very nice living doing this. I think our sales are higher and we’re getting higher prices because of what we’re doing.”

Ultimately, that’s what will determine the success or failure of such agreements. Meredith Clebsch runs an East Tennessee nursery that specializes in native plants.

“It comes down to money with them. Most of the time, they’re not going to be environmentalists like some of us might be, so they’re going to have to have a reason that it’s going to be beneficial to their pocketbook and you know, their customers have to want it.”

For the folks at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, this idea of ecologists and developers reading from the same page takes a little getting used to. Ken Vorhis is the Executive Director of the Tremont Institute. He says he often has some explaining to do to his environmentally conscious friends.

“Some people say, ‘Oh, you’re joining up with the developers, aren’t you? Going over to the dark side?’ And we’re saying “No, these people want to do it right. There are going to be developments, we need economic development, those kinds of things, but can we do it in a way that makes more sense, that’s sustainable, a way that is environmentally friendly.”

Voorhis admits that the Native Landscape Certification Program isn’t going to resolve all of the friction between the forces of development and natural preservation. But he says it may be an important first step.

For the Environment Report, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.

Part 1: Carmakers Push for More Ethanol

Switchgrass is an easily grown biofuel crop, which can be used to make ethanol. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

This summer, drivers got a crash course in the dangers of fossil fuel. Gas prices shot above three dollars a gallon, concerns about global warming surged, and instability continued to plague areas of the world where oil is produced. We’ll be taking a look at some of the technologies that could help the US kick its fossil fuel habit. We’re starting with an alternative fuel that’s been sprouting up in gas stations across the region. Dustin Dwyer has this look at the promise, and the limitations of ethanol:

Transcript

This summer, drivers got a crash course in the dangers of fossil fuel. Gas prices shot above $3 a gallon, concerns about global warming surged, and instability continued to plague areas of the world where oil is produced. We’ll be taking a look at some of the technologies that could help the US kick its fossil fuel habit. We’re starting with an alternative fuel that’s been sprouting up in gas stations across the region. Dustin Dwyer has this look at the promise, and the limitations of ethanol:

This summer, Misty Childs found a way to do something positive about the fossil fuel problem. She says that she and her husband realized their Chevy Silverado pickup could run on E-85, a blend of 85 percent corn-based ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

E85 burns cleaner than gas alone, so it’s good for the environment. And the ethanol is made from corn grown in the US. As she tops off her tank at a gas station, Childs says that makes a difference.

“It means a lot that we’re doing something for our country here, and not having to rely on others.”

Detroit’s Big Three automakers have been making a big push for E-85 in the last year. E-85-capable vehicles get the automakers a credit on federal fuel economy standards. So, even if drivers put regular gas in the vehicles instead of E-85, Detroit still gets a credit for doing better. And this summer, as more buyers became aware of the problem with fossil fuels, E-85 was just about the only alternative Detroit had to offer.

But ethanol as it’s currently made has limits. Jason Hill is a researcher at the University of Minnesota. He recently published a study on the long term outlook for corn-based ethanol.

“What we found is if you convert every corn kernel we produce in this nation to ethanol, we would be able to offset only about 12 percent of our national gasoline usage. So that’s not that large.”

That’s every corn kernel, including what we currently use for food. Which brings up another problem with ethanol: if E85 jumps in popularity, will that mean less corn for animal feed and grocery stores?

Maybe. Corn originally became popular because it was already being grown around much of the country, with help from federal subsidies. And ethanol processors, such as Archer Daniels Midland, also got tax breaks for making corn-based fuel.

But there’s another option for ethanol. Inside a lab at Michigan State University, researchers are working on the next generation of the fuel. This is what’s called cellulosic ethanol. Instead of using grains like corn kernels, cellulosic ethanol is made from the starches in plant cell walls. It can be made from pretty much anything that stands up straight – wood, prairie grasses and corn stalks.

That offers the possibility to increase the ethanol output for every acre of land devoted to the crops, and those crops don’t require fossil fuel-based fertilizer. They also don’t require planting every year by gas or diesel burning tractors the way corn does.

Professor Bruce Dale heads research into cellulosic ethanol at MSU. He says the current problem with cellulosic ethanol is finding a cheap way to break down the stiff materials. His lab uses ammonia to do the trick.

“The idea is to make cheap sugar. And the plant cell walls potentially could give you the cheapest sugar on the planet, if we could figure out how to get at that sugar easily. That’s what our ammonia process does in combination with the enzymes.”

It turns out that, much like a teenager eating pop-rocks, cars and trucks get a whole lot of energy from fuels based on sugar. Dale says most woody plants have plenty of sugar, but it’s really hard to get that sugar out.

Dale says some cellulosic ethanol could be on the market in the next few years, and the fuel could eventually sell for about 60 cents a gallon.

Right now, ethanol is still hard to find at the pumps. And one study says, even with major investment over the next decade, cellulosic ethanol might only equal half of our current oil useage by 2050.

That’s still a lot. But to really eliminate the need for gas, many experts say it’ll take more than just one technology.

For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Waspy Pest Seeking Out Pines

A new pest has the potential to do damage the nation’s pine forests.
Richard Annal reports it’s already damaging pines in two states:

Transcript

A new pest has the potential to damage the nation’s pine forests.
Richard Annal reports it’s already damaging pines in two states:

The Sirex woodwasp is believed to have made its way into the US
by infesting imported packing materials. The wasp was first
discovered in New York two years ago and has spread across a
large part of that state and into parts of Pennsylvania. The bug
destroys pine trees by laying eggs in them.

Jason Denim is a senior forester with New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. Denim says the wasp has proven to
be a major pest to pine forests around the world and has the
potential to do major damage to pines here in the United States:

“It’s been a major pest globally in pine plantations of North
American pine species primarily outplanted in other parts of the
world.”

To stop the spread of the wasp, foresters are asking loggers not to
take pine materials out of infested areas.

For the environment report, I’m Richard Annal.

Marketing a By-Product of Ethanol

Ethanol plants are being built all over the corn belt. 97 plants are operating and another 34 new plants or expansions are underway, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. A by-product of the process is corn mash, or distillers grain. The distillers are hoping to sell it all to nearby livestock farms. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The federal government has called for more renewable fuels for cars and trucks over the next few years. Ethanol from corn is expected to meet much of that demand. As ethanol production increases, the distillers are looking for ways to make money on some of the by-products of the process. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on how the ethanol distillers might market what’s left over after turning corn into ethanol:

Transcript

The federal government has called for more renewable fuels for cars
and trucks over the next few years. Ethanol from corn is expected
to meet much of that demand. As ethanol production increases, the
distillers are looking for ways to make money on some of the by-
products of the process. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on
how the ethanol distillers might market what’s left over after
turning corn into ethanol:

(Sound of construction)

New ethanol plants are being built every year. 97 plants are in
operation today and the Renewable Fuels Association indicates 34 new or
expanded plants are under construction. The ethanol refinery
industry is gearing up for the expansion that the government wants.

Ethanol plants are basically giant corn alcohol stills. They produce
huge batches of – well – moonshine, but like moonshiner stills,
there’s a corn mash left over. It’s called distillers grain, and with
all the new plants coming online, there’s going to be a lot more of the
by-product in the future. Distillers grain can be used as livestock feed.
So, the agricultural industry is trying to get more cattle farmers and
others to buy it.

Tracy Jones is a farmer in northern Illinois. He says the agriculture
industry and the ethanol plants that want to get rid of the distillers
grain cheaply, have been encouraging farmers to expand their
livestock operations.

“And I know some producers that are maybe expanding. It’s a
good deal, but it’s not that good of a deal, and there’s a lot of other
issues that go into the cattle feeding business besides just getting
cheap feed.”

Jones has been feeding wet distillers grain from Wisconsin to his
cattle for about a year. Jones says the distillers grain makes sense
as long as the price doesn’t get too high.

“We need to buy it cheaply. We’re basically using it as a corn
replacer. So, when we have cheap corn, you still need to buy the
by-products cheaply also.”

Jones says his cattle are gaining weight at about five-cents a pound
cheaper using distillers grain as part of the mix of feed. Part of the
reason is the price is lower, but distillers grain has another
advantage… it’s higher in protein than plain corn. It’s got about the
same protein content as soybean meal.

That makes Jason Anderson think this stuff might be good to
export overseas as a food for people. Anderson is the Economic
Development Director for the city of Rochelle, Illinois. An ethanol
plant is being built in his city. With a couple of major railways and
a cargo container transfer station in his town, exporting dried distillers
grain would be easy. Because of the nation’s trade deficit, about
half the cargo containers go back to their original country empty.
Anderson says the by-product could be dried to a sort of high-
protein corn meal and shipped.

“Dried distillers grain could be put into intermodal containers,
which are sealed containers, put on a train and sent to the west
coast. They could also be shipped over the Pacific Ocean to starving
countries on the other side of the world.”

Corn tofu, anyone?

Exporting dried distillers grain as human food overseas hasn’t been
discussed much, but shipping it to cattle feedlots in Texas and
other cattle country has been discussed. Agriculture experts think
the ethanol plants located in the corn-belt won’t find enough
livestock in the immediate area to buy the product.

“At this point, where the livestock are and where the plants are
there’ll be a lot of them that has to be shipped.”

Jim Hilker is an agriculture marketing expert at Michigan State
University. He says he’s not sure the ethanol plants will make
much money on distillers grain, especially if they have to ship it to
cattle feedlots out west. That’s because they’ll have to dry the
product… and that adds to the cost.

“The first ones, I think, are making some money before we get
saturated on this, and I think if we put a system for handling it and
stuff in place, they’ll probably. But, if they can more than cover
the cost – remember, otherwise there’s disposal fees too. So, a
break-even here is a pretty good deal.”

So if the distillers just recover the drying and shipping costs, it
would be better than paying to dump the distillers grain in a
landfill.

But farmer Tracy Jones says he thinks the ethanol manufacturers
have already figured out the by-product will be abundant… and
they’re still counting on making some money on it.

“When they do their financials for their ethanol plant, they don’t
plan on giving this product away. So, they need to get something
for it.”

Jones says he’s noticed the ethanol producers don’t call distillers
grain a by-product of the process. They call it a co-product. He
thinks that’s a little marketing ploy that indicates the ethanol
plants definitely plan to demand a good price for the livestock feed,
regardless of the glut on the market.

For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Tag: jason

Making Boat Washing Mandatory

Transcript

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Blazing New Atv Trails in Parkland

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Housing Developers Go Native

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Part 1: Carmakers Push for More Ethanol

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Waspy Pest Seeking Out Pines

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Marketing a By-Product of Ethanol

Transcript

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