Tag: local governments

Home Deconstruction vs. Demolition

  • The deconstruction method can preserve many of a house's resources in order to decrease waste from demolition. (Photo courtesy of Buffalo ReUse)

Every year, cities across the country spend millions of dollars tearing down condemned
houses and hauling away tons of debris to landfills. But progressive engineers and
community activists have found a way to reverse that wasteful process. A demolition
method called “deconstruction” uses human power instead of the wrecking ball to
preserve and reuse everything from floor joists to the kitchen sink. Joyce Kryszak puts
on her hard hat and takes us to one deconstruction site:

Transcript

Every year, cities across the country spend millions of dollars tearing down condemned
houses and hauling away tons of debris to landfills. But progressive engineers and
community activists have found a way to reverse that wasteful process. A demolition
method called “deconstruction” uses human power instead of the wrecking ball to
preserve and reuse everything from floor joists to the kitchen sink. Joyce Kryszak puts
on her hard hat and takes us to one deconstruction site:



This is not your typical demolition site. There are no wrecking balls or back hoes carting
away splinters of this once grand two-story home. Instead there are walls, lying
everywhere, and workers are taking them apart. A neat stack of harvested hemlock
beams grows on the vacant lot next door. There are cabinets, doors, books, furniture,
and dishes scattered all around them. There’s even a pile of dusty wine bottles retrieved
from the cellar. Deconstruction technician John Markle is covered in the dirt and grime
of the 100-year-old colonial. That’s because he’s taking this house apart with his
bare hands:


“Yeah, you won’t see a wrecking ball on our job site, but you will see a telescopic
forklift…And as you can see right there, we cut the house literally into big pieces,
and just take it apart, piece by piece.”


Markle does have some help. A crew of seven is busy carefully lifting off walls, pulling
apart beams and setting aside the spoils of their painstaking work. With a standard
demolition, about fifteen tons of usable building materials and supplies would have gone
to a landfill. Instead the materials are resold to builders, and at a discount to low-income
families so they can make repairs to their own homes. Dave Bennink is a deconstruction
consultant from Seattle. He’s spent the last fourteen years teaching communities this
sustainable method. And Bennink loves his job:


“We’re creating jobs, we’re keeping things out of landfill, we’re saving energy,
saving resources and we’re helping lower-income families…I mean, how could you not
like it every day.”


And he says the idea is slowly catching on. Bennick has clients in 21 states. Some of
them are private developers. Some are local governments. Right now, he’s working in
Buffalo, New York. He says when city officials learn they can deconstruct a house for
about the same cost as a demolition, in about the same time, the idea sells itself:


“I think they’re looking to make responsible choices, but they’re still looking to
make good decisions with the taxpayers’ money. So, when I can offer them both, I
think that’s more and more appealing.”


But sometimes a good idea needs a push. Michael Gainer is a former teacher and
community activist who needed little convincing. He sought out Bennink to help his city
get a deconstruction not-for profit business started.


Gainer is pretty young and strong, but he was still struggling to open the huge overhead door
that’s slipped off its tracks. This warehouse is where they keep all their salvage and then later sell it . And there’s plenty to choose from:


“We have a pretty big selection of doors, sinks, clawfoot tubs…”


And all of that from only a few months in the deconstruction business. The not-for profit
has already salvaged several houses on private contracts and has contracts with the city to
deconstruct about a dozen houses that were slated for demolition. And all with little to
no start-up money. Gainer says they’ve gotten a few grants, but so far they haven’t seen a
dime. They keep going with contracts and proceeds from sales. He pauses from telling
story to pull back a hair that’s strayed from his pony tail. His bandaged fingers leave a
smudge of dirt on his face. Gainer says the work isn’t easy, but he was eager to dig in:


“You know you gotta get out there and do it though. You gotta do the work. You
know, we talked about this for a year and I was about going bonkers, because I said,
I’m tired of talking about stuff. Let’s just go to work and get it done.”


Gainer is even more eager about the impact on the community. They’ve trained and hired
five, full time employees, a few part-timers, and are paying them all a living wage. They
get full medical coverage too, including the volunteers who pitch in. Gainer says it’s
possible because they’re not just throwing away resources:


“I was looking at wasteful expenditure of a hundred to two hundred million dollars
in a city to throw things in a landfill, and I’m like, this doesn’t make any sense. My
goal is to divert money from wasteful demolition and put young people to work,
improving their community.”


But Gainer says he’d really prefer not to take apart houses. His crew spruces up and
boards up abandoned houses that could still be saved. And he says if someone comes
along who has the vision to rehab it, they’ll help with that too.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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School Districts Encouraging Urban Sprawl?

  • School districts tend to like bigger homes on larger lots because the districts rely so heavily on property taxes. (Photo courtesy of USDA)

Each year, Americans build a staggering one and a half million new homes. A lot of environmentalists say too many of these houses are big, single family homes on spacious lots. They say that wastes farmland and natural areas. But suburban planners say they’re forced to build that way by local governments, such as school districts. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

Each year, Americans build a staggering one and a half million new
homes. A lot of environmentalists say too many of these houses are big,
single family homes on spacious lots. They say that wastes farmland and
natural areas, but suburban planners say they’re forced to build that way
by local governments, such as school districts. The GLRC’s Shawn
Allee has more:


Jamie Bigelow makes a living building houses in suburbia. He takes a
dim view of his profession. For Bigelow, most suburbs don’t let
neighbors be… well, good neighbors. After all, homes are too far apart
for people to really meet one another and everyone has to drive far for
work or to just go shopping. According to Bigelow, families are looking
for something better.


“We believe there’s a growing market for people who want to be
interconnected and live in interconnected neighborhoods and housing,
primarily in the suburbs, no longer supplies that.”


So, about ten years ago, Bigelow and his father tried building one of these
interconnected neighborhoods in a Chicago suburb. They wanted shops
and parks nearby. They also wanted to close some streets to cars, so kids
could play safely near home, but one detail nearly derailed the project.


Under the plan, houses would sit close together on small lots. The local
zoning board hated this idea. According to Bigelow, they said small houses
would break the local school district’s budget.


“They want large houses on large lots, because for the school district,
that will give them a lot of taxes with not as many kids because there’s
not as many houses.”


The planners wanted Bigelow to build bigger, pricier houses. Bigelow and his
family fought that and eventually won. They did build that compact suburban
neighborhood, but victories like that are rare. Often, the area’s local
governments try to protect schools’ tax revenue by promoting large homes and lawns.


“They’re actually behaving, or reacting, very rationally.”


That’s MarySue Barrett of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a
Chicago-based planning and advocacy group. She says growth
sometimes overwhelms schools, and it can catch taxpayers and parents
off guard.


“They don’t have the revenue from their local property tax to pay for
hiring new teachers, so their class sizes become thirty-two, thirty-three.
And that family who said, Wait a minute, I came out here for good schools, now
I’m going to an overcrowded school? It’s the last thing I thought was
going to happen.”


From the schools’ perspective, larger lot sizes solve this problem. Big
lots mean fewer kids per acre. Larger houses bring in more property
taxes. That means higher taxes cover costs for the few kids who do
move in.


Barrett says the trend’s strongest in states like Illinois, where schools rely
heavily on property taxes. She says in the short term, the strategy keeps
schools flush, but it also pushes the suburban frontier outward, into rural
areas. That wastes land and hurts our quality of life.


(Sound of kids coming out of school)


The day’s over for this high school in Northern Illinois. A throng of
teens heads toward a line of thirty yellow school buses. Some of them
spend up to three hours per day riding between school and home.


Inside, Superintendent Charles McCormick explains what’s behind the
long rides. He says the district’s large size is partly to blame, but there’s
another reason. The area’s subdivisions are spread among corn fields,
far from existing towns and from each other.


“Well, the land use pattern itself disperses the students, so when you look
at what bus routing means, the position of one student can add ten to
fifteen minutes to a route.”


McCormick says local governments in his school district encouraged big
homes and lots, but even his schools can barely keep up with the costs of
educating new students. He says suburban planners just can’t risk
bringing in smaller homes and more kids.


“Well, if you were to run a business the way growth affects school districts,
you’d be broke because you cannot keep up with rapid growth that produces
for every student, a deficit.”


That’s because even high property taxes don’t fully pay for each
student’s education.


Land use experts say reliance on property taxes for education puts
suburbs in a tight spot. Some want to try allowing smaller homes or
even apartments, but school funding’s a stumbling block.


Like other reformers, MarySue Barrett has been pushing for an
alternative. She wants state government to kick in a bigger share of
education dollars. The idea’s to have enough funding for each kid, regardless
of how large or expensive their home is.


“And if we have a different way of paying for our schools that’s less
dependent on the property tax, we’ll begin to move away from this
problem that’s put a choke hold on so many communities.”


It will be an uphill fight, because states are reluctant to change their tax
structures, but Barrett says it’s the worth the political cost. She says, if
we want alternatives to suburban sprawl and its traffic congestion, we
need new ways to pay for education.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Cities Offer Prizes to Top Recyclers

Some communities are trying contests and other financial incentives to get people to properly sort their recyclable garbage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Some communities are trying contests and other financial incentives to
get people to properly sort their recyclable garbage. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


Local governments can make money selling the paper, aluminum and
some other items people set aside for recycling, but improper sorting can
clog the waste stream and add to costs. So, some communities are
randomly handing out cash or other rewards to citizens who do recycling
right.


Kate Krebs is with the National Recycling Coalition. She favors
incentive programs that get people to be less complacent about sorting
their trash.


“It isn’t top of mind anymore…it isn’t as easy as consumers want it to be
or they just have such busy lives that they haven’t really imbedded the habit
in their lifestyle.”


Krebs says the best incentive programs choose their winners fairly and
then spread the word to other people – creating some peer pressure. She
says recycling incentives are similar to other businesses where people do
things like offer coupons to keep people interested in a product or a
service.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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States Restrict Local Gmo Seed Control

Lawmakers in three states (California, Michigan, North Carolina) are considering measures to block communities from regulating the use of genetically modified seeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

Lawmakers in three states (California, Michigan, North Carolina) are
considering measures to block communities from regulating the use of
genetically modified seeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah
Hulett reports:


More than a dozen states have already passed laws to prevent local
governments from banning the use of seeds that have been modified to
produce high-yield crops.


Peter Jenkins is with the Center for Food Safety. He says organic
farmers worry that pollen from genetically altered plants could drift into
their fields, and contaminate their crops.


“So, local control’s important to allow towns and counties to stake out
particular areas that should be set aside for organic or for GMO crops. In
some cases, you know, you could have zoning, or bans altogether.”


Supporters of the legislation say there are other ways to protect organic
crops from gene drift – including buffer zones and timed plantings. They
say it should be up to the federal government to regulate the use of
genetically modified seeds.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Epa Proposing New Rules for Sewage Plants

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new rules on how sewage treatment plants clean water after heavy storms. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

The US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing new rules on
how sewage treatment plants clean water after heavy storms. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:


When rainstorms overwhelm sewage treatment plants, cities sometimes
blend raw sewage with clean water that can contaminate local rivers and
lakes with bacteria. To stop this, the EPA’s proposing a compromise
with local governments. Cities may blend waste when there’s no
alternative, but they must improve their waste treatment systems.


Alexandra Dapolito Dunn represents an alliance of city treatment
facilities. She says local governments need this flexibility.


“There are going to be some communities around the country where, due
to the low income and the distressed nature of an urban population, they
may have a difficult time affording the most cutting edge technologies
available.”


It’s not clear how much money cities will save under the proposed
guidelines. Upgrades can cost millions of dollars, and right now,
treatment centers compete for limited federal assistance.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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The Debate Over Mobile Home Parks

  • Because mobile homes can be transported they're not taxed the way permanent homes are. They're taxed like vehicles (when they're bought and sold). Mobile home owners pay a small tax for the small plot of land they sit on. (Photo by Chris McCarus)

People who live in mobile homes might be seeing their property taxes going up. Some government officials say it’s an attempt to tax for the services used and to discourage mobile home parks from sprawling across former farm fields. But others wonder if higher taxes aren’t a form of discrimination against this kind of affordable housing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:

Transcript

People who live in mobile homes might be seeing their property taxes going up. Some government officials say it’s an attempt to tax for the services used and to discourage mobile home parks from sprawling across former farm fields. But others wonder if higher taxes aren’t a form of discrimination against this kind of affordable housing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:


(sound of expressway traffic)


The Capital Crossings mobile home park sits on rolling farmland near an Interstate highway. The residents of the 15 homes have moved here either to retire or to make the 30 minute daily commute to nearby Lansing, Michigan. And more mobile homes are being pulled in.


(sound of construction)


Workers are building porches and attaching the skirting between the ground and the house. It’s supposed to show permanence, like a foundation. But mobile homes are not permanent. And mobile homes are not taxed the same way as other houses. They’re taxed like vehicles. Taxed when they’re purchased. Taxed when they’re sold. Still there are no property taxes on the homes. Only on the tiny lots on which they sit.


Some government officials say the $3 a month that these park residents have been paying for property taxes don’t cover the costs of police and fire protection or other government services. They want a tax hike to give local governments more money. Dave Morris is a farmer and the local township supervisor.


“We all have to pay our fair share for services such as sheriff, ambulance, fire department as well as schools. Schools is a big issue of course. And they aren’t paying their share. That’s all.”


But advocates for affordable housing say hiking taxes on mobile home residents is more likely just an attempt to discourage that kind of housing. They say zoning mobile homes out of existence has been tried, but taxing them out is a new idea. Higher taxes will likely lead to mobile home parks closing.”


John McIlwain is with the Urban Land Institute. He says as mobile home parks become more expensive to operate, their owners will sell off to subdivision or big box store developers.


“The numbers are going to be so attractive that the people who own mobile home parks are going to be much more interested in selling the land to a housing developer than in continuing to run the mobile home park. So in time the parks are probably going to disappear on their own anyway and trying to raise the taxes on them specifically is simply going to make that day come earlier.”


In Michigan there is a proposal to raise the taxes on mobile home sites four times higher. State Senator Valde Garcia says the $3 a month that mobile home park owners pay for each home site is not nearly enough.


“What we are trying to do is really change the tax structure so it’s fair to everyone. The system hasn’t changed in 45 years. It’s time we do so but we need to do it in a gradual manner.”


Senator Garcia’s colleagues in the state house have voted to raise the tax to $12 a month. He’d like to raise it to at least $40 a month. The mobile home park industry has hired a public relations firm to produce a video criticizing the tax increase.


“Site built homes pay sales tax only the materials used in their homes and don’t pay tax on resale. Manufactured home owners pay sales tax on materials, labor, transportation profit of a home and they pay sales tax every time a home is resold. ”


The two sides don’t agree on the math. Tim Dewitt of the Michigan Manufactured Housing Association says $3 a month sounds low because it doesn’t show hidden costs. The biggest cost comes when park owners have to pay the higher commercial property tax instead of the lower homestead tax. Dewitt says the park owners then pass the tax to the home owners whose average family income is only about $28,000 a year.


“That’s our worst fear. It could put people who could least afford any type of tax increase into a tough position.”


15 million people live in mobile home parks around the country. And different local governments have tried to find ways to increase taxes on mobile home parks. But Michigan is one of the first states to propose hiking taxes this much. State Senator Garcia says he is not trying to hurt the mobile home industry or make life harder for mobile home park residents. He dismisses the idea that he’s being pressured by wealthier constituents who don’t like to see the mobile home parks being developed.


John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute says a bias against mobile home parks is part of the mentality that leads to sprawl. When people from the city and the suburbs move a little further into rural areas they want the look and feel of suburbia.


“The mobile home parks are no longer things that they want to see. And so they find ways to discourage those mobile home parks. The ones that are there try to see if they can be purchased, turned into stick built housing or otherwise discourage them and encourage them to move on elsewhere.”


But often the people who move in also want the shopping centers, restaurants and conveniences they once had instead of the mobile home parks.


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

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Mayors Push for Larger Role in Great Lakes Future

Mayors from around the eight Great Lakes states met in Chicago this month and delivered a unified message: They want a voice in the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:

Transcript

Mayors from around the eight Great Lakes states met in Chicago this month and delivered a
unified message: They want a voice in the future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:


The winter meeting of the Great Lakes Cities Initiative was hosted by Chicago Mayor Richard
Daly. Thirty-five Great Lakes mayors voted to push Congress to pass a 4-billion dollar clean-up
bill pending in the House. Superior Mayor Dave Ross says only the federal government has the
resources to do the job right.


“It’s a great burden on local governments and municipalities to take on the burden of water
quality because in any small cities such as Superior, that would be an enormous financial burden.
We certainly need financial help from outside sources, and of course the federal government
would be the prime source.”


Ross says mayors will lobby their members of Congress to support similar legislation in the
Senate.


“We can’t do it ourselves. We can’t do it alone. One new invasive species is being found in the
Great Lakes system each year. If this continues at the rate it is, we’re going to destroy the Great
Lakes.”


The mayors say until now local governments have been bypassed in Great Lakes decisions. Now
the mayors say they want to be part of the federal Great Lakes Advisory Board.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

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Used Tires Dumped in Low-Income Neighborhoods

Some low-income suburbs of major metropolitan areas are dumping grounds for used tires. But who’s dumping the tires continues to stump the authorities. In one state, authorities hauled off more than 40,000 used tires last year… and more keep showing up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:

Transcript

Some low-income suburbs of major metropolitan areas are dumping grounds for used tires. But
who’s dumping the tires continues to stump the authorities. In one state, authorities hauled off
more than 40-thousand used tires last year… and more keep showing up. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:


Today’s job is a small one — inspectors from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
have been called in to remove about 3-thousand tires buried in an overgrown junkyard in a remote
corner of Blue Island, a suburb south of Chicago.


The state is paying for this clean-up, because tires are more than a nuisance, they’re a public
health problem.


This unpenned junkyard is overgrown with weeds and swarming with mosquitoes.


State EPA tire inspector George Skrobuton swats a big one from his elbow as he directs his crew.


“You’ve got all these tires here right now. They’re mixed between mattresses, garbage, clothes,
trash, leaves… See what they do is they get these tires out of the trees, the bushes, and the trash –
and they put them in a nice big pile, and they load the piles into the truck – it’s easier that way.
So, I mean, we’ll do the best we can, we’ll try to get every tire off the ground, if possible. And
hopefully, it’ll stay this way.”


The head of a back-hoe pushes aside a heap of garbage and its jaws close on a pile of almost a
dozen tires. Water streams from the knot of rubber as its lifted and dumped into an open semi
truck.


Skrobuton and his team have been called in to remove thousands of tires across the state, piles left
by rogue transporters who are paid to take them away, but pocket their fee instead of taking them
to be processed legally.

Some speculate the dumpers come from as far as Indiana to dump semi-truck-loads of the tires
under the cover of darkness.


Because these tires are on public land, Skrobuton’s team is cleaning them up for free as part of the
state EPA’s tire removal program.


But Skrobuton says this is a problem that just won’t go away.

“We can’t keep cleaning up these tire sites – it costs a lot of money. Y’know especially out here in
the south suburbs, I mean, there are so many forest preserves, and nooks and crannies like this,
that they could dump tires forever. And we don’t know where they’re coming from and that’s a
problem. Y’know, and unlesss they catch them in the act, we’re stuck with this problem.”


Over the last two years, dumpers left over 35-thousand tires in suburban Dixmoor.


With a population of less than 4-thousand, this poor suburb doesn’t have the money to remove the
tires… or fund a police force to keep the dumpers at bay.


So dumpers left their loads in alleys, vacant lots, even behind a school for years.


Village trustee Jerry Smith says the town was helpless until the state EPA came in and removed
all 18-truck-loads of tires last month.


“It’s just horrible, y’know – you go out there one day and it’s clear. And then you come back the
next day, you got 10,000 tires facing you. Well, what are you going to do with them? You can’t
pay the money to dispose them because you don’t have the money to dispose of them. There’s
nothing in our budget we got in there to dispose of tires what’s been dumped. So it’s just a burden
on us.”


But the state EPA’s Todd Marvel says the town had to move the tires because they’re a health
hazard.


He says the mounds of used tires draw more dumpers. And when tires catch fire, they produce a
toxic smoke, and Marvel says spraying water on them just makes things worse.


“So when that tire burns and you put that water on it, you’ve got a pretty contaminated run-off
there, a very oily run-off. And any surface water that’s in the area can be immediately
contaminated if that oily sheen is not contained properly.”


And, of course, there are mosquitoes. Marvel says each tire off its rim can breed thousands of
them, so these dumps are a breeding ground for West Nile.


Because of health concerns in the past, the state started a program to help get rid of these tires.


The state’s used tire clean-up program was created as a way to get the tires out of the state’s
junkyards, and into a useable industry.


People who purchase tires in Illinois pay a fee of $2.50 for each tire, new or used, which goes to
fund clean-ups and put back into the state’s used tire industry.


Most of the tires are shredded and mixed with coal to burn in power plants. Shredded tires can
also be used as the surface for everything from football fields to highways to playgrounds.


Marvel says the program has been so successful, Illinois’s demand for used tires actually exceeds
its generation rate.


“In fact, Illinois is a net importer of used tires. And the state of Illinois is constantly looking at
other markets and developing those markets to ensure that all of the used tires that we generate
and that all of the used tires that we clean-up through the dumps throughout the state have
someplace to go.”


But not all the tires end up where they’re supposed to go. Even though dumpers charge the fees
to process them properly, some of them steal the money and dump them in places such as
Dixmoor.


Dixmoor trustee Jerry Smith says once the tires show up in his town, they don’t have the money
to process them.


He says one company quoted him a price of $6 a tire. Multiply that by thousands.


So for now, he’s hoping the state EPA’s clean-up will last the town a long time.


Although the state EPA has offered Dixmoor support for added surveillance, Smith says a few
well-placed boulders and barricades seemed to do the trick.


Until last week, when 15 truck tires showed up in an alley.


Smith is cautiously optimistic this most recent find won’t multiply overnight.


“Let’s hope not. (laughs) I hope not. I really hope they don’t.”


But Dixmoor’s a small town and can’t afford a large enough police force to stop all the dumpers.


That means, chances are, abandoned tires will start showing up in back alleys and vacant lots
again soon.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton.

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Bacteria-Powered Fuel Cell Becoming More Efficient

Scientists have been able to harness energy from bacteria for several years. Now, some scientists have developed a more efficient system, using bacteria that feed on sugar. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Scientists have been able to harness energy from bacteria for several years. Now, some scientists
have developed a more efficient system, using bacteria that feed on sugar. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:


It’s called a microbial fuel cell, and it works like this: the bacteria in the fuel cell feed on sugar in
food or lawn waste. In the process, they transfer electrons to an electrode, starting a flow of
electricity.


This new fuel cell is more efficient than older models, bringing the technology one step closer to
everyday use.


Derek Lovley designed the fuel cell. His research is published in the journal Nature
Biotechnology. He says because the U.S. consumes so much energy, he doesn’t think his fuel
cells will be used on a large scale here. But he says, in the future, consumers might be able to use
them in their backyards.


“Say you had an electric lawnmower and you clipped your grass clippings and threw them into
this type of system, and used it to charge up the battery to run your lawnmower the next
weekend.”


Lovley says it’ll be a while before anyone can buy a microbial fuel cell. Right now, the fuel cell
produces just enough energy to power a calculator.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Land Rights Needed to Finish North Country Trail

For the last 23 years, the National Park Service and groups of volunteers have been trying to create a 46-hundred mile hiking trail. Once completed, the North Country National Scenic Trail would meander from New York to North Dakota. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, organizers hope Congress will pass a bill that will make the trail easier to finish:

Transcript

For the last 23 years, the National Park Service and groups of volunteers have been trying to
create a 4,600 mile hiking trail. Once completed, the North Country National Scenic Trail would
meander from New York to North Dakota. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar
Charney reports, organizers hope Congress will pass a bill that will make the trail easier to finish:


The only way organizers can get land to build the trail on is if people donate it. The legislation
that created this project and a number of similar ones prevents the Park Service from buying land
for the trail, even if there is a willing seller.


Bob Papp is the Executive Director of the North Country Trail Association. He says a bill to let
the Park Service buy land for trails has passed the Senate, now they’re hoping it will pass in the
House.


“There are a number of trails that are involved and there’s a tremendously high percentage of
federal land ownership in western states and so there are a lot of private property rights groups
who see any effort to expand the federal governments ability to acquire land as a bad thing.”


Papp says in the meantime they’re finding ways of partnering with state governments and private
landowners to obtain the rights to continue work on the trail. So far, about 1,700 miles are ready
to be hiked.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

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