Wetlands Ruling Confusing

Federal officials just announced which
wetlands they’ll protect and which ones they
won’t. The announcement was supposed to clear up
the confusion around federal wetlands
protection. But as Mark Brush reports, the
confusion and the controversy continue:

Transcript

Federal officials just announced which
wetlands they’ll protect and which ones they
won’t. The announcement was supposed to clear up
the confusion around federal wetlands
protection. But as Mark Brush reports, the
confusion and the controversy continue:


The controversy began when government officials stopped developers from building on
wetlands. The Supreme Court ruled the government should clear up exactly which
wetlands are protected under federal law.


Federal agencies now have new guidelines, but the Assistant Secretary of the Corps of
Engineers says it’s not clear whether more wetlands are at risk:


“It’s, I would say, very difficult if not impossible to determine the precise impact of this
vis a vis the prior existing regulation.”


Some environmentalists believe that more wetlands will be at risk because of the new
guidelines. Jim Murphy is an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation:


“It increases confusion. It puts a lot of important resources at risk. It’s really a disaster
all around.”


Now, Congress might step in with new laws to protect more wetlands.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Raw Pet Food Junkies

  • Some vets claim commercial pet food has never been good for pets like Woody (pictured), even before the tainted food scare. (Photo by Alexandra Murphy)

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:

Transcript

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:


“This is Woody.”


You’d never guess that Woody is 11 to look at her. The mid-sized
mixed breed is as spry as a puppy. And as hungry as one, too, since we
rudely showed up at her dinner time. But Woody’s owner, Alexandra
Murphy says this is a good time to get a peek at Woody’s menu.


“Today, for breakfast she got two chicken wings, and she got a couple
of chicken gizzards. She’s going to have that for dinner and before she goes to bed tonight she’s going to have two
to three ounces of ground up veggies.”


Murphy says she’s a “raw feeder.” That means her dog Woody and 11-year-old cat, TJ, only eat raw meat and veggies. No kibble food from a
bag for these guys:


“Okay, I start with vegetables that I like. I like broccoli a lot because
nutritionally, it’s a very dense food.”


Murphy says she began feeding raw about seven
years ago after a doing a lot of research. And after getting a lot of
flack from fellow pet owners and skeptical veterinarians:


“I’m looking to give them something that is as close to what their species would get in nature.
I know my dog’s not a wolf. But I also know that pet food has only been made for the last fifty years. They
didn’t go through such a drastic change, that all of a sudden all of
this real food is going to make them sick.”


(Sound of prepping food and Murphy explaining)


Murphy is certainly not alone in her passion for holistic feeding.
There’s almost a cult following of pet owners who spend hours grinding
or cooking their own pet food. And there are some vets out there who
whole-heartily support them.


Cynthia Lankenau is a holistic veterinarian. Lankenau says commercial
foods have never been good for pets – even before the tainted food
scare. She says dogs and cats simply can’t digest grain very well.
But grain is the main ingredient in most commercial pet foods. So, why
do most vets still promote them? For starters, Lankenau says it was a
major pet food-maker that taught nutrition at her vet school:


“Yeah, just about any vet that graduates is truly, honestly, strongly
believing that that’s the best nutrition that’s available. But we were
brainwashed.”


But some vets are breaking free of traditional training. Jim Albert is
a small animal veterinarian and a vet for the Buffalo, New York zoo.
Albert’s still not sure how he feels about raw meat diets for pets. But
Albert admits that the nutritional requirements are quite similar, no
matter the size of the canine or the cat.


“Small animals have small canine teeth for a reason, dogs and
cats. And those were typically used to apprehend and hold prey, so I
guess you could make the argument that meat should certainly constitute
a percentage of their diet.”


Albert concedes there are plenty of good options out there. And
there’s good reason for people to be exploring those options. Albert
says he’s treated half a dozen pets that became very sick from tainted
commercial foods. And he says that has even some of his busiest
clients are trading in their processed food and making their own in
food processors.


“It certainly wasn’t feasible for a lot of our clients in the past, but
I think they’re taking these kind of matters into their own hands.”


Back in Alexandra Murphy’s kitchen it’s pretty obvious how much work
homemade pet food can be. Murphy says her pets are worth it. But she
admits making homemade pet food isn’t for everyone:


“Although I love doing this, I would say to someone, if you’re the
kind of person who says, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to have to do this,
can I cut this corner, can I cut that corner,’ you may not be cut out
for it. Because if you can’t do it right, you shouldn’t be doing it at
all.”


She says one of the best ways to find out is to find a good mentor.
And they are out there. You can find them by calling a local holistic
vet. Or, go online and you’ll find packs of natural feeders who love
to share their philosophies… and their recipes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Program Works Toward Greener Golf Courses

  • Centennial Acres Golf Course in Sunfield, Michigan has increased protections for employees who mix and load chemicals, and has learned how to apply pesticides correctly. (Photo by Erin Toner)

Golf courses are among the biggest water users in the country,
and they use a lot of pesticides and fertilizers that could end up in waterways. The potential for pollution is growing as golf becomes more popular around the world. But thousands of golf courses are working to become certified as environmentally-friendly. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports on a program that helps golf courses comply with environmental laws, save money, and become more natural:

Transcript

Golf courses are among the biggest water users in the country, and they use a lot of
pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers that could end up in waterways. The potential for
pollution is growing as golf becomes more popular around the world. But thousands of
golf courses are working to become certified as environmentally-friendly. The GLRC’s
Erin Toner reports on a program that helps golf courses comply with environmental laws,
save money, and become more natural:


I’m at Centennial Acres Golf Course in Sunfield, Michigan and it’s a perfect summer day:
the sky is a deep blue, the air is warm and it smells like grilled hot dogs. The hot dogs
are for military veterans here for a golf outing. The outing hasn’t started yet, but already
most of the day’s work on the course is finished. The fairways and the greens have been
sprayed and mowed, and a couple of high school kids are washing the mowers and
parking them in a big garage.


(Sound of sprayer)


Debbie Swartz is the director of the Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship
Program at Michigan State University. It certifies golf courses that have completed a list
of environmental improvements. Today, Swartz is doing a follow-up visit at Centennial
Acres to check on the course’s progress. She’s watching how the staff is cleaning the lawn
mowers:


“The problem is that you need to get rid of the water and you need to get rid of the
clippings. And years ago, a very easy solution would be to take this operation and put it
as close to a river as possible. And we’ve learned over the years that that’s not
appropriate. You’re loading a waterway with nutrients and so we needed to come up with
solutions on how we could clean equipment in an environmentally-sound way.”


Swartz says Centennial Acres is doing it the right way. The mowers are being cleaned on
a cement pad to reduce runoff. Clippings are first blown off the machines with air
sprayers so fewer pesticides end up in the water. Then, the clippings and the water are
applied to the golf course. This is one of many changes the course has made after
enrolling in the Environmental Stewardship Program. It also installed cement pads and
walls around its fuel tanks and it built barriers around wellheads to guard against
groundwater pollution. Josh Mattice is the golf course superintendent. He says he was
surprised at all the things he needed to work on:


“Absolutely, there was a lot of stuff that that’s the way it’s been for years and you really
don’t pay much attention to it and when somebody else brings it up it kind of turns a light
bulb on and says oh, geez, you know, that’s a good idea, or that’s something that we need
to look into.”


Mattice says the biggest change was protecting ponds and creeks on the course from
chemicals. To do that, he stopped mowing right up to the water’s edge and let those areas
grow naturally, weeds and all. The vegetation serves as a buffer, trapping chemicals
before they get into the water. Mattice says these overgrown areas were kind of tough at
first for the golfers because perfectly manicured courses have been the gold standard in
golf:


“It was rough at first, ha, ha, that’s for sure. But now that they’ve gotten used to it and
understand the reasoning behind it, they’re all for it. They’ve learned to appreciate the
natural beauty.”


Now, 15 acres on the golf course never get mowed, saving gas and money. Similar
buffers zones are being created at nearly all the golf courses in the stewardship program.


(Sound of golf swing)


Paul McCoy is teeing off at Centennial Acres. He’s been a member here for 15 years, and
he golfs every single day. McCoy says he doesn’t mind the natural buffers because they’re
mostly out-of-play areas anyway. And he likes the wildlife they attract:


“When I’m out on the course every day and I see turkeys all over the place, like I did
today, eight turkeys. Yesterday I saw two bucks out there with the velvet steel on the
horns. And I’ve seen the hawks nest out there with two hawks, a mother hawk and I see
that everyday I think it’s a great place to be right here on this golf course.”


About a quarter of Michigan’s 900 golf courses are enrolled in the Environmental
Stewardship Program. Audubon International has a similar certification program, with
more than 2 thousand golf courses enrolled worldwide.


It costs a couple hundred dollars a year for courses to be involved in these programs. But
the cost is pretty low compared to potential fines for violating environmental rules. The
program’s also helping to bring in business for some courses. Already this summer, a
handful of groups have booked Centennial Acres for their golf outings specifically
because the course has been certified as a friend of the environment.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

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Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Wetlands Case

  • The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case that will determine how much power the federal government has over isolated wetlands - wetlands that aren't adjacent to lakes or streams. (Photo by Lester Graham)

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments that could decide which wetlands the federal government can regulate. The case before the court involves a couple of construction projects in the state of Michigan, but it’s being followed closely throughout the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments that could
decide which wetlands the federal government can regulate. The case
before the court involves a couple of construction projects in the state of
Michigan, but it’s being followed closely throughout the country. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:


The federal Clean Water Act is supposed to stop people from polluting
streams, wetlands and other waterways that are connected to the
country’s major lakes, rivers and coastal areas, but what if the wetland in
question is located 20-miles from the nearest major waterway? Is it
covered by the Clean Water Act? That’s the question the court will
consider.


In the 1980’s John Rapanos started moving sand from one part of
property he owned in Michigan to another, to fill in some wetlands. He
wanted to sell the land to a shopping mall developer. Trouble is, he
didn’t get permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to fill in the
wetlands. The government says he should have.


“The property has a drainage ditch that runs through it…”


Robin Rivett is a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation. It’s a
property-rights group that is representing Rapanos.


“And because of the movement of the sand on the property, which is
characterized as wetlands, the government came in and has prosecuted
him for actually discharging fill material into the navigable waters.”


Rapanos was charged with violating the Clean Water Act. Washington is
demanding 13-million dollars in fines and fees, and wants him to set
aside about 80-acres as wetlands.


In another case, that’s been combined with the Rapanos matter,
developers in Southeast Michigan were denied permits to fill in wetlands
so they could build a condominium complex. That site is about two
miles from Lake St. Clair, which lies between lakes Huron and Erie.


In both cases, the federal government says the sites fall under the Clean
Water Act because they’re located near navigable waters. Actually, that
term – navigable waters – has evolved over the years and come to mean
“interstate or intrastate waters,” along with their wetlands and tributaries.


The plaintiffs, their attorneys and supporters say the land should be
governed by state environmental regulations, rather than the federal
Clean Water Act, but on the side of the government in this case is 35
state governments, along with many environmental and conservation
groups.


Jim Murphy is a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation. His group
has filed briefs on behalf of more than a dozen organizations that support
the federal position.


“What is at stake here is the ability of the act to protect the vast number
of tributaries that flow into navigable waters and the wetlands that
surround and feed into those tributaries. If those tributaries and wetlands
aren’t protected under the federal Clean Water Act, it becomes difficult if not
impossible under the Clean Water Act to achieve its goal to protect water
quality.”


Murphy says if the Supreme Court rules that Congress did not intend to
protect wetlands like the ones in this case, then about half the wetlands in
the country could lose their federal protection. Murphy and others on his
side worry that wetlands could begin disappearing more quickly than
they already do today.


Scott Yaich directs conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited – a
wetlands protection group.


“The landowners who have those wetlands would no longer be subject to
getting the Corps of Engineers to review, so essentially they could do
anything they wanted.”


The lawyers for the landowners don’t see it that way. The Pacific Legal
Foundation’s Robin Rivett says individual states would have something
to say.


“I believe there are 47 states that have their own clean water programs.
If it is clear that the federal government doesn’t have jurisdiction over
local waters, the states will step in to protect those waters.”


Maybe they will; maybe they won’t, say environmental groups. They
fear a patchwork of water protection laws. They say it could mean
polluted water from a state with weaker laws could flow into a state with
stronger water protection laws.


Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation.


“The Clean Water Act provides a floor. It provides comprehensive
protection, a floor beyond which states must maintain that level of
protection.”


Those who support the property owners in this case say it’s about more
than clean water – it’s also about land use. They say if the court rules
that waterways and wetlands are interconnected and all deserving of
protection under the Clean Water Act, then what could be left out?


Duane Desiderio is with the National Association of Home Builders,
which has filed briefs supporting the property owners.


“All water flows somewhere. Every drop of water in the United States,
when it goes down the Continental Divide, is going to drain into the
Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. Pretty much.”


Both sides are hoping the Supreme Court provides a clear definition of
which wetlands and tributaries Congress intended to protect when it
passed the Clean Water Act. A decision is expected this summer.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

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