Public health officials are stepping up their concerns about global warming.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Public health officials are stepping up their concerns about global warming.
Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Some predictions about rising global temperatures look at the potential threat to the environment
and wildlife, but the American Public Health Association says with more scientific evidence of
climate change, it’s time for local health departments to talk to people about the potential threat to
humans.
Environmental Studies Professor Jonathan Patz was a key author of a recent UN paper on
climate change. He says higher temperatures could lead to more heat waves, smog and
infectious diseases:
“…Carried by insects or water-borne diseases, if we’re talking about not only warming
but extremes of the water cycle and potential for contaminating our drinking water systems.”
The Public Health Association will take about six months to develop recommendations
for dealing with the human health impacts of climate change.
This billboard was displayed along several major highways in Michigan. The sponsors were hoping to raise awareness about water diversion, but do these arid states really pose a threat to the Great Lakes? (Photo courtesy of Central Michigan Life )
One of the biggest claims about diversion of Great Lakes water is that the southwest will eventually come after it. (Photo by Kym Parry)
We’re continuing our series on the Great Lakes. One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes that experts identified was water withdrawals. Our guide in this series, Lester Graham, says the next report looks at one of the myths of water withdrawals:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series on the Great Lakes. One of the Ten Threats
to the Great Lakes that experts identified was water withdrawals. Our
guide in this series, Lester Graham, says the next report looks at one of
the myths of water withdrawals.
Environmentalists and policy makers say a thirsty world could pose a
major threat to the Great Lakes. Water wars have been predicted in arid
parts of the globe, and some say the laws of supply and demand might
one-day lead to a raid on the region’s fresh water. Reporter Mark Brush takes a
closer look at one claim: that states in the southwest will one day come
after the Great Lakes water… and finds that it might just be H2O hype…
Taking water out of the Great Lakes is a hot button issue, and no one is
more aware of this than politicians looking for votes. In the 2004
campaign, President Bush used the issue to rally a crowd in Traverse
City, Michigan:
“My position is clear. We are never going to allow the diversion of
Great Lakes water.”
(Sound of applause)
The issue taps into people’s emotions. People get outraged when they think
of someone taking water out of the Lakes – especially when they’ve seen lake
levels dropping over the years, and the region’s political leaders have listened
to those concerns. The states and provinces that surround the world’s largest fresh
water system are working on a compact that will prevent water diversions.
But where is the threat to Great Lakes water coming from? We
conducted an informal poll on the streets of Ann Arbor, and we asked
people: “who wants water from the Great Lakes?” Six out of the ten
people we talked to pointed to the west:
(Sound of street)
“Las Vegas, the Southwest.”
“Probably the dry states in the West. Arizona, Nevada.”
“I think the west should keep their damn hands off our water.”
But do the arid states in the West really pose a threat to Great Lakes
water? It turns out – this same question was asked more than twenty
years ago.
In the 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the possibility of
moving Lake Superior water to the Missouri River. It’s a distance of
about six hundred miles. Farmers in the High Plains states were hoping
to use this water to irrigate their crops.
Jonathan Bulkley is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at
the University of Michigan. Bulkley and his colleagues analyzed this
diversion plan, and he says the whole project would have been too
expensive:
“We found it would take seven 1000 megawatt power plants dedicated to
lifting the water, because water needs to be lifted to reach these distant
locations, and in addition there would have to be conveyance structures
built to transport the water, and our conclusion was the total cost would
far exceed the value of the water.”
In other words, Bulkley found that it would be cheaper for these states to
find other sources of water – or to find ways to conserve the water they
had left, and this was a diversion of only 600 miles. A diversion all the
way to the Southwest would mean piping the water almost twice that
distance.
“We are always looking for extra water – everyone in the Southwest is
looking for extra water.”
Bob Barrett is a spokesperson for the Central Arizona Project. It’s one of
the biggest water suppliers in the Southwest. The Project pulls water
from the Colorado River and delivers it to southern Arizona. Barrett
says he can’t imagine a situation where Great Lakes water is pumped for
more than a thousand miles to the Colorado River:
“Most people don’t realize it, but a gallon of water weighs about eight
pounds, and if you’re going to push that up and over the Rocky
Mountains you’re going to need a lot of power. (Laughs) So, it’s a good
idea, but I don’t see how anybody could pay for it.”
But some observers say even though it might not happen today – it could
happen in the future. They point to a fast-growing population and a fast-
dwindling fresh water supply in the southwest. They say that
combination could drive engineers and policy makers to devise a way to
get Great Lakes water.
But Barrett says for states like Arizona, California, and even Texas – it
would be cheaper for them to build desalinization plants… these plants
convert ocean water into drinking water:
“I mean why should Texas build for a canal and then have to maintain it
from the Great Lakes down to the state of Texas when they can go to the
Gulf Coast and build several desalinization plants, and then just pipe it
wherever they need it?”
So, a large-scale water diversion to the southwest seems unlikely.
Experts say water from the Great Lakes is much more likely to go to
cities and towns right on the edge of the basin, but as legislators move to
tighten restrictions on diversions – even these places will
have a hard time getting access to the water.
Some environmental groups and labor unions are pushing for an end to using certain wood preservatives in treated lumber. They’ve jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court to push the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the use of the preservatives because they contain toxic chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Some environmental groups and labor unions are pushing for an end to using certain wood
preservatives in treated lumber. They’ve jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court to push the
Environmental Protection Agency to stop the use of the preservatives because they contain toxic
chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The EPA acknowledges that some of the wood preservatives such as penta and creosote contain
chemicals that can cause cancer. But, the agency has long maintained that it cannot just ban the
wood preservatives used to treat lumber, utility poles and railroad ties. That’s because it says
there are no viable alternatives. Jay Feldman is with the environmental group “Beyond
Pesticides” which is one of the organizations suing the EPA. Feldman says the EPA position used to be true,
but not anymore:
“The alternatives are on line; they’re ready to go. It’s unnecessary for us to continue to dump
over a billion pounds of these wood preservatives into the environment on an annual basis.”
Feldman argues that recycled rubber, steel and plastic materials are available at about the same
cost. And he adds many power, telephone and cable lines can be put underground rather than on
creosote-treated utility poles. The Treated Wood Council indicates that its products are safe, but the industry is
beginning to offer different preservatives without the cancer-causing chemicals because of the
concerns.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
