An aerial view of the Big Muddy Refuge. (Photo courtesy of FWS)
The federal government is in charge of building levees along the nation’s rivers,
but another agency within the government sometimes works to take them down.
Tom Weber reports on one such case where officials are working on
a long-range plan for a wildlife refuge:
Transcript
The federal government is in charge of building levees along the nation’s rivers,
but another agency within the government sometimes works to take them down.
Tom Weber reports on one such case where officials are working on
a long-range plan for a wildlife refuge:
The Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge stretches along the floodplain
of the Missouri River between Kansas City and St. Louis. Right now, it includes
11,000 acres, but it’s a mish-mash of parcels that don’t always touch.
So officials at the refuge are starting a 3 year process to come up with a long-
range plan. They’ll only add land to the refuge when landowners want to
sell, but if they get enough of them, it might mean some levees can be taken
down.
Tim Haller is with the Fish and Wildlife Refuge:
“Some areas we have acquired a large enough area where we can allow the river to
flood into its floodplain, and that inadvertently provides a relief to adjacent
levees. That water spills out on us and not onto cropland.”
Haller, though, says no levee will ever come down if doing that would harm
farmland.
For the Environment Report, I’m Tom Weber in St. Louis.
The timber rattlesnake has been wiped out in several states in the East and Northeast and is not doing well in the Midwest. (Photo by David Larson, Saint Louis Zoo)
Scientists are worried that
snakes living in sprawling areas could be affected.
In one region, researchers have implanted dozens of
snakes with radio transmitters. Julie Bierach reports, it’s part of an effort to prevent a
decline in the snake population and educate people
that they can live with them:
Transcript
Scientists are worried that
snakes living in sprawling areas could be affected.
In one region, researchers have implanted dozens of
snakes with radio transmitters. Julie Bierach reports, it’s part of an effort to prevent a
decline in the snake population and educate people
that they can live with them:
Wayne Drda loves snakes:
“I think they’re really neat animals.”
In this wilderness area, Drda and his team are studying the basic movement patterns and habitat use of
Timber rattlesnakes and Osage copperheads:
“A lot of the wildlife areas, are being surrounded by subdivisions and homes, and some are
completely surrounded. And so the animals tend to wander out of the wildlife areas into
backyards and many of them don’t survive that.”
The timber rattlesnake already has been wiped out in several states in the East and Northeast. And the
timber rattler is not doing very well in many states in the Midwest. Drda says snakes in general get a
bad rap. A lot of people don’t like them, so otherwise peaceful people can turn into what he calls “nature
vigilantes,” and they kill snakes on sight:
“Well, I guess the most common way is with a shovel. That’s always the common joke, the
shovel. (Laughs)”
Drda wants to prevent that from happening as often in his area. He’s the field manager for the Pitviper
Research Project at Washington University’s Tyson Research Center near the suburbs of St. Louis,
Missouri. He’s trying to help suburbanites understand that the Timber rattler is a much less aggressive
species of rattlesnakes.
Drda and his team have implanted 26 snakes with the radio transmitters, and track them daily using a
GPS system. Ryan Turnquist is one of the students tracking the snakes:
“And basically we use that to map it on an area photo and determine how far the snake moved,
where the snake moved, what kind of habitat they used, home range size.”
On this day, they’ve already tracked 8 snakes. And now, they’re on their way to find another. Turnquist
turns on the GPS system. And we begin to plow through the woods. Each snake has been named and assigned its own frequency on the transmitter.
The 4-foot-long male rattlesnake we’re tracking has been named Aron.
As we get closer, the signal gets stronger. Turnquist leads the way pointing the big steel antenna in
several directions. And then, we see him. Aron is lying in the sun, half coiled, near a log . He blends in
with the pile of leaves that surround him. He doesn’t rattle, but instead is still, hoping we don’t see him.
Wayne Drda has been studying snakes for 40 years. He knows what Aron is up to:
“This snake is probably in the most conspicuous situation you can find him in, except being out in
the road. He’s not going to give away his position by doing anything until he feels like he’s
really threatened. I mean he knows we’re here, but he’s probably not going to rattle.”
That happens a lot more often than you expect. Drda says they’ve already tracked some snakes that
have made their way to backyards of homes in the area. And the homeowners don’t even know it:
“We’ve been trackin’ this one snake, her name is Hortence. She’s basically been in somebody’s
backyard now for three weeks I guess.”
So far, the team has learned that the male timber rattlers have a larger home range. They breed in late
summer, or early fall, and they never breed with females from the same den where the males hibernate.
Jeff Ettling is with the St. Louis Zoo. He’s conducting a DNA analysis to determine which areas need to
be kept open so the snakes can travel back and forth without running into someone with a shovel:
“If we can get enough samples within a given area, we should be able to tell what the relatedness is
and which males are moving between dens. That’s what we’re hoping to find out. I mean, we have a good
idea by tracking them where they go. But which females are they breeding with from different
dens we really don’t have any idea right now.”
The research team is finding new scientific information about the snakes. But, they say the ultimate
goal is to explain to the people who live in the area that you can live with the rattlesnakes. They don’t
have to kill them. Drda wants people who find a timber rattler in their backyard to call a herpetologist,
instead of running for the shovel.
Barge companies question the science of the Army Corps of Engineers' studies that indicate habitat restoration and changes in river management help threatened species and other wildlife. (Photo by Lester Graham)
The US economy relies heavily on the nation’s rivers to transport goods bound
for foreign markets. Each year river barges carry hundreds of millions of
tons of cargo to busy ports. Traffic is bustling on some rivers, but it’s dying on
others. Commercial shippers say their situation is made worse by attempts to
balance their interests against conservation. In the second of three reports,
Kevin Lavery explains why some barge companies say mismanagement is
squeezing them out of the marketplace:
Transcript
The US economy relies heavily on the nation’s rivers to transport goods bound
for foreign markets. Each year river barges carry hundreds of millions of
tons of cargo to busy ports. Traffic is bustling on some rivers, but it’s dying on
others. Commercial shippers say their situation is made worse by attempts to
balance their interests against conservation. In the second of three reports,
Kevin Lavery explains why some barge companies say mismanagement is
squeezing them out of the marketplace:
In 2004, America celebrated the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of
Discovery mission to the West. At the start of the 19th century, the Missouri River
was center stage in an age of discovery.
By the start of the 21st century, the river was in an age of discontent. Riverboat
companies, environmentalists, Indian tribes and state governments were
deadlocked in legal battles over water releases.
Paul Davis’ shipping terminal in Boonville, Missouri has been around for 36
years. In 2004, he watched two major shippers call it quits. One of them,
Blaskey Marine, was a family venture:
“And Blaskey had been in the towboat business on the Missouri River for as long as I can
recall, and business just got too tough for them, so they just gave it up. And that’s what
really was the beginning of the end in our involvement with barges, at least for the time
being.”
Industry watchers say the riverboats have been clanging their death knell for
a long time. In 1977, barges carried just over 3 million tons of cargo. Since then,
floods, drought and market forces have cut barge shipments by two-thirds. Chad
Smith is with the environmental group American Rivers in Lincoln, Nebraska:
“They don’t move a lot of tons, and agriculture basically dictates that grain moves the
market by truck and rail. Everybody agrees those numbers don’t lie.”
But everyone doesn’t agree. Paul Rhode is with the national shipping advocacy
group Waterways Council, Incorporated:
“People say barge traffic is dying on the Missouri. That’s not true. Barge traffic is being
killed by the way the Missouri river is managed right now.”
Rhode blames the industry’s woes on the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal
agency that regulates the Missouri River.
In May 2006, the Corps released more water than usual from a South Dakota
reservoir. The rise was meant to tell an endangered fish, the pallid sturgeon, to
spawn. Rhode says that artificial rise in the spring later lowered the river’s depth
in the summer. He says unpredictable flows kept shippers from carrying a lot of
freight… and making long-term plans:
“The levels could be managed much better. We don’t need a spring rise. We need water
down here in August and September. Barge traffic has been cut short by leaps and
bounds over the past few years, in part because of the spring rise issue.”
How short? Despite heavy rains earlier this year, the Corps plans to shorten the
navigation season by at least 45 days. That means shippers who normally finish
in December will be lucky to still be hauling by Halloween.
But there’s only so much water that can be released from upstream
reservoirs… and the Corps stands by its decision to raise the river. Spokesman
Paul Johnston says biologists are encouraged by the data they’re seeing on the
pallid sturgeon. And he says the man-made flood pulses are minor:
“They’re certainly not aggressive, at least in our perspective, and I know that there are
people who think that it’s too much too soon. But if we don’t do anything, then we
certainly will not have any data to back up any decisions.”
Historically, the Corps’ decisions tended to favor riverboats, especially in the
1930’s, when the Corps turned 735 miles of the Missouri into a shipping channel.
American Rivers’ Chad Smith says while that was viewed as the best course for
the river then, its time to set a new one:
“It’s now the year 2007 and I think our hopes and dreams have changed. And it’s probably
time for Congress to go back and see what’s happening in this basin with market forces in
agriculture and a lot of these big drivers that put pressure on the way we use and manage
the Missouri now, and see if there are things we need to do differently.”
Smith suggests some of those uses of the Missouri River might be changing
soon. With their balance sheets already razor-thin, barge operators worry those
changes might sink them.
For The Environment Report, I’m Kevin Lavery.
ANCHOR TAG: Tomorrow, Kevin reports on how the recreation and wildlife
preservation search for their place on the Missouri River.
Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the south to the plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:
Transcript
Freezing temperatures recently descended on large sections of the country.
Record lows were registered from the South to the Plains states. The
prolonged frost means entire crops of fruit and grain could be lost. Adam
Allington reports:
Paul Peters has 500 acres of apples and peaches in central Missouri. Peters
says above average temperatures during the day and night advanced the
growing season by 2-3 weeks:
“We really didn’t cool down at night; I think probably was more of a concern then
reaching 60-70 degrees in the daytime. One of my partners here said he’d never seen an
apple blossom in March and this year he did.”
But then a week-long frost hit, right when crops were at their most
vulnerable.
Extensive damage has also been reported on crops of winter wheat, grapes
and cherries.
Some farmers will be able to till under failed wheat and alfalfa crops and
substitute corn. However, it may not be that simple since corn seed supplies
are already tight from higher than normal plantings for ethanol production.
A shed in Valmeyer, Ill. shows how high the water got during the 1993 Flood. The flood waters caused such damage that most of the town moved a few miles east, high up on a bluff. A few residents and many farmers, though, stayed in the flood plain. (Photo by Tom Weber)
A view of the flood plain at Valmeyer, Ill., where the Corps studied the possibility of building a new levee for the purpose of creating a "storage district." (Photo by Tom Weber)
Ron Kuergeleis (left) chats with Doug Sondag at Doug's farm in Valmeyer, Ill. The two men sit on the local levee district, which is the government body responsible for the levee's upkeep. (Photo by Tom Weber)
It’s been 13 years since the Great Flood of ’93 caused widespread destruction along the upper Mississippi River. After the flood, there was talk of needing to expand the natural floodplain by eliminating levees that protect farmland. That didn’t happen. In fact, not much of anything has happened, but that doesn’t stop farmers from wondering if the government will buy their farms and turn them into natural areas designed to take the waters of the next big flood. Tom Weber reports:
Transcript
It’s been 13 years since the Great Flood of ’93 caused widespread destruction along the
upper Mississippi Rivers. After the flood, there was talk of needing to expand the natural
flood plain by eliminating levees that protect farmland. That didn’t happen. In fact, not
much of anything has happened, but that doesn’t stop farmers from wondering if the
government will buy their farms and turn them into natural areas designed to take the
waters of the next big flood. Tom Weber reports:
For all the river talk in these parts, it’s actually kind of hard to see the water. Doug
Sondag’s farm is about about two miles from the river and his view to the west
is of the bluffs, on which Missouri towns, like Herculanium, sit.
“That’s Missouri bluffs. That’s Missouri bluffs, and to the north the bluffs that you see is Missouri.
We’re on a big bend here.”
Doug’s friend Ron Kuergeleis is visiting the farm today. Kuergeleis lost his home in the
’93 flood, but he still farms on the flood plain near Valmeyer, Illinois. The two also are
commissioners with the local levee district, which means they’re in charge of keeping the
local levee up-to-date so the river is kept away.
Today, though, they’re talking about the possibility of a new federal levee and something
called “Plan G.”
(Ron): “You’re talking quite a few farmers that would absolutely put them out of
business. You’re one of them, I’m one of them, and there’s – (Doug): “There are quite a few
more.” (Ron): “There are quite a few more.”
No one is going out of business any time soon, though. Plan G is something the Army
Corps of Engineers studied and decided wasn’t worth the money. It would have the
Corps spend billions building up bigger levees along the upper Mississippi to 500-year
levees: the highest levees the Corps builds.
Plan G also would create a huge storage district nearby. A storage district is a kind of
relief area where flood waters go to take strain off other levees. Corps engineer Richard
Astrack says design elements like these can help control flooding in other places:
“Now we have the capability that we didn’t have before to look at whole system to ensure
that actions taken at one location can impact another location.”
The Valmeyer storage district would require a new levee in the flood plain, which would
leave 10,000 acres of currently protected farmland unprotected and on the wrong side of
the levee.
This all started a few years ago, when Congress told the Corps to study the entire Upper
Mississippi River, from Illinois’s southern tip to Minnesota, find out if the current levees
are good enough to reduce flood damage. If not, should there be some comprehensive plan to guide just which levees get built up and when? Such a study actually had never been done.
The Corps’ Richard Astrack says they looked at a lot of options, including that Plan G,
to see if any of them were worth the time and money. And it turns out, none of them is:
“None of the plans passed that test. Our draft report does not
recommend any systemic plan.”
And the Corps’s final report will probably recommend essentially doing nothing because
the current system does a good enough job of preventing flood damage. The Corps will
recommend updating, but not raising, current aging levees, and also creating some mini-
levees to protect roads that approach bridges.
But even with all the assurances that Valmeyer, Illinois is safe for now, farmers in the
bottomlands are worried that the federal government might one day force their children
or their grandchildren off their farms.
Ron Kuergeleis is a fourth generation farmer:
“We’re pretty much assured in our lifetime it ain’t gonna happen. But some of us got another
generation coming up and you don’t know. He claims, you know where you going to
come up with money, but if they want to come up with it, they’ll find it.”
The worries stem from the fact that Corps cannot, in all fairness, guarantee that such a
levee would never be built. Because setting aside some of the bottom lands for natural
flooding could protect big cities such as St. Louis, Missouri and Memphis, Tennessee,
there’s concern that Congress might one day instruct the Corps of Engineers to buy out
those farms.
So, while Valmeyer is not getting a new levee right now, the people here say they’ll keep
working to stay one step ahead to make sure it never happens.
Grassland prairie flowers from Weldon Spring, part of the Department of Energy's restoration effort to control erosion and add aesthetic beauty to the area. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)
Birdseye view of Weldon Spring disposal cell, which contains 1.48 million cubic yards of radioactive waste. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)
Another view of the disposal cell. The cell covers a massive 45 acres in Weldon Spring. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)
Across the U.S., there are more than 100 sites contaminated by radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear weapons programs.
The government is trying to return these Cold War relics to safe and useful purposes. Some of these once toxic zones are being treated much like public parks. The GLRC’s Kevin Lavery visited one that was recently opened to the public:
Transcript
Across the US, there are more than 100 sites contaminated by radioactive waste from the
nation’s nuclear weapons programs. The government is trying to return these Cold War
relics to safe and useful purposes. Some of these once toxic zones are being treated much
like public parks. The GLRC’s Kevin Lavery recently visited one that was recently
opened to the public…
A thick grove of trees opens up to a clearing that reveals a white mound of limestone
rock. It rises like a tomb from some long-forgotten civilization, were it not for the water
towers and golf courses on the horizon.
Mike Leahy and his 9-year-old son Cameron came to this rock dome to catch the view
atop its 75 foot summit. But the real attraction was what they did not see:
“We read the sign and saw what was buried and how they did it, and – it’s kind of
disturbing, what’s in there.”
Beneath their feet lay more than a million cubic yards of spent uranium, asbestos and
PCB’s. The 45 acre mound is a disposal cell, where the government buried thousands of
barrels and tons of debris. That history didn’t bother young Cameron:
“It’s really cool. They keep all that nuclear waste under all that and it can’t harm
anybody.”
The Weldon Spring site, 30 miles west of St. Louis, Missouri began during World War
Two as an Army TNT factory. In the 1950’s, the plant refined yellow cake uranium for
later use in nuclear weapons. All that stopped in 1966 and all the radioactive waste just
sat there. Weldon Spring became an EPA Superfund site in 1987. After a 900 million
dollar cleanup, the site was opened to tourists in 2002.
(Sound of frogs)
Today, frogs sing in a native prairie at the foot of the cell. In April, officials opened a
hiking trail adjacent to a once-radioactive landfill. The route connects to a state park.
Weldon Spring is not a park per se, but project manager Yvonne Deyo says urban sprawl
prompted them to think like one:
“There’s subdivisions and lots of infrastructure going in…and that just kind of hits home
how important green space is, and that’s kind of what we’re trying to do a little bit of
here at the site.”
Weldon Spring is one of about 100 such sites the Department of Energy is converting to
what it calls “beneficial re-use.” Many are becoming recreational venues. Another
closed uranium plant near Cincinnati is adding horseback riding trails. In Wayne, New
Jersey, a former thorium processing facility is becoming a baseball field. And a national
wildlife preserve is in the works at Rocky Flats, the site outside Denver that made the
plutonium cores of nuclear warheads.
The Department of Energy says Weldon Spring is safe for visitors – though some residual
contamination remains.
(Sound of Burgermeister Spring)
Burgermeister Spring runs through a 7-thousand acre state reserve adjacent to the site.
This is where uranium-laced groundwater from Weldon Spring rises to the surface.
Though the spring exceeds the EPA’s drinking water quality standard, there’s no warning
sign here. Officials say the contamination is so low that it poses no immediate public
hazard. The spring feeds into one of the most popular fishing lakes on the property.
Most visitors are surprised to hear that:
“Huh.”
Jeff Boeving fishes for bass four or five times a month:
“(Does that concern you to hear that?) Yeah – absolutely…I mean, they’ve got a great
area out here and they’re kind of messing it up if they’re going to have contaminants, you know, going into it.”
The government’s vision of post-nuclear playgrounds is not without its critics. Arjun
Makhijani heads the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park,
Maryland. He says recreational sites near urban development zones risk losing their
original purpose:
“Institutional memory tends to be very short; after 30, 40, 50 years people forget, they
begin to develop the land, and pretty soon you could have houses, farms and schools in
the area. So it’s not necessary that it will stay recreational forever.”
Recreation is only one option the Department of Energy is considering for all of its sites.
In the last two years, the agency’s budget has doubled with the addition of nearly a dozen
radioactive properties. Officials say Congress has so far supported its fiscal requests.
And with the future of a proposed permanent nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain still
in doubt, even more tax dollars will likely be spent converting the nuclear dumps in
America’s backyards to a place where families play.
Members of Congress say politics is delaying EPA rules to reduce pollution from lawn mowers. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Members of Congress say politics is delaying EPA rules to reduce
pollution from lawn mowers. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
California is usually ahead of the nation in pollution restrictions. That’s
the case here. The state wants lawn mower manufacturers to add
catalytic converters to mowers to reduce emissions. Lawn mowers
generally pollute at a rate six times that of automobiles.
The EPA says it’s actively working on California’s request… but it’s
been slowed. One of the issues is whether a catalytic converter might be
a fire hazard on a lawn mower.
But another delay comes from U.S. Senator Kit Bond of Missouri. There
are two major Briggs and Stratton manufacturing plants in Missouri. The
small engine manufacturer says its tests show because they get so hot, a
catalytic converter is too much of a hazard on machines that come into
contact with dried grass.
Senator Bond has made a couple of maneuvers to delay a ruling for the
California request and a national ruling to clean up the lawn mower
emissions.
A federal judge in Missouri says the EPA’s standards for lead pollution are out of date. And he’s given the agency about two months to figure out how much lead is too much. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Sepic
reports:
Transcript
A federal judge in Missouri says the EPA’s standards for lead pollution are out of date, and he’s given the agency about two months to figure out how much lead is too much. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Sepic reports:
Under federal law, the EPA is supposed to review lead standards every five years, but Judge Richard Webber said the agency “blatantly disregarded Congress’ mandate.”
Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed the suit on behalf of a couple from Herculaneum, Missouri, who claim their son was poisoned by a nearby lead smelter. Nixon says the EPA last changed its airborne lead rules fifteen years ago.
“EPA sets what’s allowable as far as lead in the air. We think science has moved forward over the years to show that is very dangerous both for young kids in older housing as well as around smelters and lead operations.”
An EPA spokeswoman says the agency did not ignore the issue, but instead of updating emissions standards, regulators decided instead to focus on specific sources of lead pollution.
A catalytic converter may be on its way to a lawn mower near you. (Photo by Karen Trilford)
Small gasoline engines—including those on lawnmowers and weed trimmers— are a major source of air pollution. But one Republican lawmaker says more testing is needed to ensure that proposed emission controls for the engines are safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Sepic reports:
Transcript
Small gasoline engines, including those on lawnmowers and weed trimmers, are a
major source of air pollution. But one Republican lawmaker says more testing
is needed to ensure that proposed emission controls for the engines are
safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Sepic reports:
Air quality advocates want the federal government to require catalytic
converters be put on all new small engines.
However, Missouri Republican Senator Kit Bond wants a safety study first. He
says extra heat from the devices could be a fire hazard. But William Becker, who heads a group of local and regional air quality officials, says that’s just a stalling tactic.
“Both California and the Environmental Protection Agency have done a lot of testing. And they show that engines with catalysts are no hotter than engines without catalysts. The issue of safety is really bogus.”
Becker says Senator Bond is just trying to protect Briggs & Stratton. The
engine maker has two plants in Missouri.
In 2003, Bond also pushed for a measure that blocks all states but
California from imposing small engine pollution regulations that are
stronger than federal rules.
Votes from many of Ohio’s farmers helped President Bush win re-election last year. Now many of them feel betrayed because the President’s 2006 budget proposal calls for federal agriculture spending to be cut by nearly ten-percent. The cuts would drastically reduce farm subsidies… and they would curtail agricultural research efforts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Niedermier reports that would be an especially big problem for a fairly new crop in the Midwest… grapes for wine:
Transcript
Votes from many of Ohio’s farmers helped President Bush win re-election last year.
Now many of them feel betrayed because the President’s 2006 budget proposal calls for
federal agriculture spending to be cut by nearly ten-percent. The cuts would drastically
reduce farm subsidies… and they would curtail agricultural research efforts. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Niedermier reports that would be an especially big
problem for a fairly new crop in the Midwest…grapes for wine:
President Bush wants to cut agriculture spending by more than eight billion dollars as he
looks for ways to reduce the federal deficit. If Congress approves the proposed cuts,
agricultural research at all of the nation’s land grant universities would suffer. For
example, Ohio State University’s Agriculture Research Center in Wooster, Ohio, would
lose six-million dollars. Director Steven Slack says, when you multiply that reduction by
all the research universities across the region… it could mean a lot of cuts.
“If that budget goes through this October, we would see an impact that would reduce
about 200 faculty positions, about 400 staff positions, and about 550 graduate students
that are supported in the north central region, and these are the states from Ohio to the
east and Iowa to the west.”
One of the newer ag industries that has benefited greatly from federally supported
agricultural research is America’s wine producers. For instance, university research into
“bio-dynamic” farming can help vineyards produce wines that don’t rely on synthetic
fertilizers, pesticides or fungicides. Instead, it uses natural methods. It’s like organic
farming…. only it limits the materials used to grow a crop to the farm on which the crop
grows. It’s a closed system.
Under the President’s budget, that kind of research and much more would be cut
at a time when the Midwest wine industry is just getting a good start.
During the last few decades, U.S. wineries have grown from a few hundred, to more than
35, 000 according to the Ohio Wine Producers Association. Most of them are small,
family run operations.
Near the Lake Erie shore just outside Cleveland, Lee Kling-Shern runs the
ten-thousand gallon a year Klingshirn Winery. As wineries in this part of the world go…
his is an old one. His grandfather began growing grapes and making wine on this farm in
1937. Klingshirn says federally funded research made it possible for Midwest vineyards
to grow better varieties of wine grapes…like Viniferas.
“And it’s only been in the last 30 years that technology and research has brought
recommendations to ambitious growers like ourselves to explain how best to handle these
tender varieties and make them work in the field. And thus, today our business is now at
a competitive level with other wine-producing areas of the world as far as the varieties
that we can produce and the quality that we can make. And allows us to be something
worthwhile to come see and do and experience.”
Like Ohio wineries, vintners in states such as New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri
have turned out higher and higher quality wines. Klingshirn is worried that federal cuts
to research spending will make it harder for small vineyards to stay competitive….
“There was finally a research development operation slated to be built at Cornell-New
York which would apply to our style of viticulture here, that as far as I understand has hit
the trash can at this point. So, that’s something we’ve needed for years and years and
years and just as we’re on the cusp of getting it, it’s pulled away.”
Klingshirn and other vintners are also upset that the Bush budget proposes a fifty dollar
fee be paid by winemakers anytime they change the label on a bottle. The money would
be used to pay inspectors who make sure the new labels meet federal standards for health
warnings and other required information.
The vineyard owners and winemakers say the new fees and research cuts are bad timing
for the wine industry in the Midwest, just as many of the vintners were beginning to win
gold medals nationally and internationally.
They’re afraid their progress will be tarnished by the Bush Administration’s proposed
budget.
An aerial view of the Big Muddy Refuge. (Photo courtesy of FWS)
