Billions of fish and other aquatic organisms
are killed every year by industrial plants located on
waterways. Brad Linder reports that environmental
regulators are hoping to bring those numbers down:
Transcript
Billions of fish and other aquatic organisms
are killed every year by industrial plants located on
waterways. Brad Linder reports that environmental
regulators are hoping to bring those numbers down:
Power plants, oil refineries, and other industrial plants often have
cooling systems that rely on river water. But when water is sucked
into the cooling tanks, so are fish and other tiny organisms.
John Hughes is the state of Delaware’s environmental secretary. He says companies could use systems that recycle water but few want to spend the money:
“Every refinery in America looks up into the air and
worries about their emissions. That’s where the bulk of their
investments go in pollution controls. And when you bring up water, you
get that blank look, like ‘what now?'”
Hughes says federal rules let companies sidestep water regulations if
upgrading is considered too costly. But Hughes says
he is asking local companies to step up… and if that doesn’t work,
his state might pass tougher regulations.
Matt Lehner owns a farm that sits between two condominium projects. His rooster has become a symbol for his community's fight against rapid development in the area. (Photo by Adam Allington)
Matt Lehner's chickens rest on his farm that sits between two condominium development projects. Recently, residents of the condominiums were upset because a rooster crowing in the early morning and during the day. (Photo by Adam Allington)
The management of Bay View Development tried to get a no-farm-animal ordinance passed by the Village of Suttons Bay council without notifying Matt Lehner of their intentions. Many locals rallied around him, using the rooster as a symbol of their dislike of developers continuing to build in the community. (Photo by Adam Allington)
Some communities are struggling to find the right balance between new development and preserving the farms and natural areas surrounding them. Some towns feel as though rapid development is out of control. Local residents sometimes feel as though they’re fighting big business to preserve their community’s way of life. Every once in a while, a champion for their fight emerges from the least likely of places. The GLRC’s Adam Allington reports:
Transcript
Some communities are struggling with finding the right balance of new
development and preserving the farms and natural areas surrounding
them. Some towns feel as though rapid development is out of control.
Local residents sometimes feel as though they’re fighting big business to
preserve their community’s way of life. Every once in a while, a
champion for their fight emerges from the least likely of places. The
GLRC’s Adam Allington reports:
Matt Lehner is a mechanic and a small scale farmer. He lives on his
family’s homestead built by his great great grandfather in the late 1800’s.
These days the only animals on the farm a few chickens and geese that
Matt raises as a hobby.
“I’ve got bard rocks, I’ve got Rhode Island reds, I’ve got mini chickens
called banties.”
In a strange twist of fate Matt’s rooster has a become a local icon of sorts
by simply doing what roosters do best.
(Sound of crows)
Located just in northern Michigan near the Village of Suttons Bay, Matt’s
farm sits smack between two big condominium projects sitting on the
Bay, a scenic area off of Lake Michigan. Developers have tried to buy
the farm for years, but the family is not selling.
The new residents of the condos didn’t appreciate the early morning
crowing of Matt’s rooster… or their crowing any other part of the day for
that matter. Rather than an audible reminder of the rural character of the
area, the rooster crowing was a perceived as a problem by the
management of the Bay View Development. So they tried to get a no-
farm-animal ordinance passed by the village council.
“They tried to go to the village meeting to get an ordinance against
chickens without even notifying me they were doing this and the village
told them that this farm is 150 years old and it precedes their jurisdiction
by at least 50 years.”
In other words, Matt’s farm was not only there before the condos… it
was there before the village, and that wasn’t the end of the story. When a
small article about the dispute was published in the local newspaper, the
Leelanau Enterprise, locals rallied around the roosters with
surprising tenacity. Letters poured into the Enterprise. Most of which
were critical of the condominium’s attempt to get a crowing ban. It was
almost like the chicken scratched the surface of a tension that had been
simmering for years. Some residents of the county have the feeling that
their home is gradually becoming swallowed up by developers with no
connection to the land or its communities.
Ashlea Walter is a business owner from the nearby town of Empire. She
says that the rooster issue represents a kind of irony that she sees
happening every day.
“Yeah, I think the sentiment is that there is a lot of development all over
the county that we see and I’m not anti-development at all, but what I’m
seeing is the irony of the development. The great thing about this area is
its agricultural history, it’s picturesque towns and its natural beauty but
then what is so wonderful about the area is what the developers want to
get rid of.”
The developers didn’t think it was that big of a deal. They weren’t trying
to change the community. They just didn’t want the rooster waking up
everyone.
Todd Demock is the construction superintendent for the Bay View
Development. He says that as far as the chickens are concerned he never
thought it would go this far.
“Apparently the roosters that were next door were making a bunch of
noise. It didn’t bother me I wasn’t paying much attention to it. One day
I came in and seen an officer here and Karen told me that she had to file
a complaint against it. So we kind of laughed it off and didn’t think it
would become a big deal.”
But it did become a big deal. As word traveled around the county, the
Suttons Bay rooster has become the hot topic at every local coffee hour,
beauty salon and town meeting. Most people just shake their head and
laugh, others are more animated.
And the chickens, well their life hasn’t got any easier. With their right to
crow already at risk, a fire recently claimed one of Matt Lehner’s coops.
Police Officer Burt Mead was assigned to investigate.
“My initial reaction was, due to the history and the problems that we had
investigated there before that there could be some kind of criminal
involvement there.”
Turns out, no one had in fact put a hit out on the chickens.
“The principle reason it burned was that he had put a heat lamp in there.
Some of the chickens were in there nesting and he thought they would be
more comfortable, because it had been cold the previous two nights. So
he put the lamp in there and it was a temporary fixture. We think that it
probably fell over, the fire started precisely where he had placed the
lamp and the damages spread from there.”
As far as the dust up between the Lehner Farm and the Condo
development, the two parties have smoothed things over a bit. Matt will
keep his chickens but has agreed to slaughter some of the noisiest
roosters…and the developers they’ve offered to replace his coop with a
custom built “chicken condo”.
But the roosters won’t be forgotten. They’ve become a symbol for what
some people see as their threatened way of life… and a bumper sticker
battle cry for keeping the developers’ influence on the community
cooped up.
Planting hazelnut, red oak and other native species will produce nuts and acorns that many different kinds of animals will eat. Migration corridors connecting larger natural areas are critical for many kinds of animals.
(Photo by Lester Graham)
Landowners such as Ed Harris (orange jacket) are working with not-for-profit organizations such Conservation Resource Alliance to protect and restore wildlife habitat corridors. (Photo by Lester Graham)
There is growing concern about the loss of wildlife habitat. For decades, development has been spreading into areas that were once home to many different kinds of animals. The land has been cleared or altered so that a lot of the food sources have disappeared. The government has tried to set aside some parks and preserves, but biologists say many species of wildlife need much more space. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports that’s why more and more groups are approaching private landowners:
Transcript
There is growing concern about the loss of wildlife habitat. For decades
development has been spreading into areas that were once home to many
different kinds of animals. The land has been cleared or altered so that a
lot of the food sources have disappeared. The government has tried to
set aside some parks and preserves, but biologists say many species of
wildlife need much more space. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports
that’s why more and more groups are approaching private landowners:
(Sound of tree planting)
Ed Harris is digging into the dirt with a dibble bar… a tree planting tool.
“We’re planting American hazelnut seedlings. They grow vigorously
and produce nuts in about five years for white tail deer, turkey, grouse,
and even black bear.”
Harris owns this piece of land. He and his wife Elaine are getting a little
help planting the hazelnuts. A couple of young guys from neighboring
property are here, and a couple of guys from a not-for-profit organization
called Conservation Resource Alliance are working too. Ed Harris says
he’s in a partnership with that group…
“We wanted to improve the wildlife habitat. That was one of our goals
and that was one of the reasons we got together with Conservation
Resource Alliance to enhance the area. You know, you hear of so much
development now and taking trees and cutting them and bulldozing. Do
we want to see the land in condominiums or rather see it in a natural
state? And that was an easy choice for us.”
But it’s not so easy for some other private land owners. It’s really
tempting to sell scenic land like this to developers who offer big bucks.
Those who don’t sell often want to improve the land for wildlife, but that
can be expensive. There are government programs… but, a lot of the
time private landowners are reluctant to sign up. They don’t like the
bureaucratic red tape… and some don’t like idea of a government agency
telling them what they can or cannot do with their own land.
Groups like the Conservation Resource Alliance – the CRA for short –
are aware of that reluctance and that’s why they approach landowners
carefully.
Jeff Brueker is with the CRA. He says they don’t come in with a plan…
they sit down with the landowner. He’s been working on a plan with Ed
Harris for a couple of years.
“And when we can meet with a landowner that has some of those same
goals in mind and we can come to an agreement on some of their goals
matching with our goals, then we’ll go into a partnership together and
work at that.”
The goals include keeping certain wildlife travel areas – especially along
streams – inviting to wildlife so animals such as black bears, otters and
bobcats can migrate from one large natural area to another.
Brueker says this approach works because his organization and the
landowner work together to make it happen… including spending days
like this… planting hazelnuts and American red oak trees that will
provide food for wildlife for years to come. Brueker says this kind of
effort will probably mean long term protection of the property…
“In other words, if we help a landowner plant a hundred oaks on his land,
he’s looking at those 20 years later, showing that to his heirs, saying
‘Look, I planted those trees; I’ve been watching how they’ve been
growing,’ it just helps leave a legacy on the land.”
But getting one landowner to establish better wildlife habitat is not
enough. These kinds of groups are trying to build larger wildlife
corridors. That means they want Ed Harris… and they want his
neighbors… and their neighbors… to establish a huge area of food and
habitat for wildlife.
Programs across the country go by a lot of different names. The CRA
calls its program “Wild Link.”
Jeff Brueker’s colleague, Matt Thomas, says it’s connecting the dots
between properties, and… getting the private landowners on board takes
time…
“It’s kind of a door-to-door, kitchen table sort of recruitment. We start
by literally knocking on doors, doing presentations to groups that can
maybe share that information. We rely heavily on neighbor-to-neighbor
contact, where one landowner is having some successes and some
excitement about participating with Wild Link, they’re inclined to tell
their neighbors that ‘Hey, the connections work, if you can participate
too.'”
Groups like the Conservation Resource Alliance note that working with
private landowners is a critical piece of the puzzle in restoring wildlife
habitat. Of the one-point-nine billion acres in the lower 48 states, one-
point-four billion is in private hands. That’s 72 percent… nearly three
out of every four acres on average. Without private landowners lending
a hand… habitat for wildlife would be limited to isolated pockets in
government owned parks.
The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand
acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural
communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service
directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and
shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
The goal of the plan is to raise 800 million dollars for schools that have
lost money generated by timber sales, but lawmakers from both parties
say auctioning off forest land is short-sighted. Environmental groups say
it’s one of the latest attempts by the Bush administration to give oil,
timber and mining interests access to pristine natural areas.
Amy Mall is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“These lands are part of America’s natural legacy. Some of them are really wild
areas where there is very high-quality wildlife habitat. They might be
areas where a lot of people recreate. They might go hunting or fishing.
Or they might just think that these areas should remain wild.”
An agriculture department official described most of the land proposed for sale
as isolated and expensive to manage.
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.
Some groups are looking for ways to reduce the damage to natural areas done by off-road vehicles. An organization representing off-road riders agrees that there should be rules for off-roading… but not complete bans on the recreational vehicles. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
Some groups are looking for ways to reduce the damage to natural areas
done by off-road vehicles. An organization representing off-road riders
agrees that there should be rules for off-roading… but not complete bans
on the recreational vehicles. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:
Off-road riding is a lot of fun for a lot of people, but some environmental
groups want off-road vehicles banned in many state and national parks.
For example, one study is looking at banning off-road vehicles from
some sand dunes on Lake Michigan because they damage rare plants.
Russ Ehnes is with the riders’ group the National Off-Highway Vehicle
Conservation Council.
“We all need to be sensitive when it comes to threatened and endangered
species and habitat, but we need to also find ways to provide
opportunities instead of just eliminating opportunities.”
Ehnes concedes as the number of off-road riders has increased, damage
to natural areas has worsened. He says it’s up to the park managers,
though, to find a way for everyone, including riders, to enjoy the parks
and preserve the important habitat.
In times of crisis and sadness, many people find solace in America's wild places (above: Lake Superior coastline). Photo courtesy of Dave Hansen.
It’s been three months since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. Many people find they’re still trying to come to terms with their feelings about the attacks. Some people, though, have found solace in a walk through nature. For them, wild places have become a respite from the chaos of emotions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
It’s been three months since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C. Many people find they’re still trying to come to terms with their feelings about the attacks. For some though, they’ve found solace in a walk through nature. For them wild places have become a respite from the chaos of emotions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
The September 11th attacks left many people bewildered. How could it happen? Why did so many people have to die? People question their own safety. They worry about the safety of their family and their friends, the disturbing images of the planes crashing, the buildings collapsing, and the threats of bio-terrorism since then. They’re all hard to comprehend. The terrorism has been such a shock, that some people found they need space to think, to try to wrap their heads around what had happened.
Often that space, it turns out, is green. In New York, almost immediately after the attacks, many people found themselves drawn to the Gateway National Recreation Area not far from Manhattan where the twin towers of the World Trade Center had stood. U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton says people went there, searching for a break from the intensity of the events.
“After the attacks, the number of people flocking to Gateway skyrocketed. Park employees say visitors told them that they wanted a place to get away from the television, to be alone, and even to cry.”
People around the nation did much the same thing. Many other parks have been reporting higher numbers of visitors. Park staff say people tell them they feel drawn to the peaceful settings; Many of them heading into nature just to escape the scenes repeated over and over again on television.
Richard Nelson is a writer in Alaska. He says he’s not surprised people are returning to parks and places outdoors. In the days following September 11th, he wrote an article for Orion-on-line-dot-org about his own need to go to nature. In it, he wrote the only way he had found release from “the almost unbearable weight of grief and fear is to take myself out into the wild places, where I can find the embrace of peace, where I can see that the world goes on as always.” Nelson says when the human world looks ugly, nature has a way of reminding people that there’s still beauty.
“I can’t do away with that grief I feel about the enormous losses of September 11th. I can’t eliminate that from myself. But, I can balance it against this great bright sanity of the earth itself. This is why I think we need these wild places, why they are so vital for us is because it’s where we find balance.”
For some people the balance means finding deeper meaning in nature, reveling in the survival of an old tree that’s been around longer than the memories of past horrors, but still stands unbowed, or discovering a tiny flower that’s bloomed despite a hard freeze and winter’s onslaught.
Of course, finding that respite in nature is not unique to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Long before the attacks, writer Wendell Berry wrote a poem entitled “The Peace of Wild Things.” In it he expresses that comfort that many people recently have found again.
“When despair in the world grows for me
And I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and I am free.”
To a psychologist, finding this freedom in places that seem constant and reliable is a perfectly natural reaction. Shannon Lynch is a clinical psychologist at Western Illinois University. She says while some people might be drawn to other people for comfort and understanding…others will be drawn to green spaces for reassurance.
“When you choose to go and be outside or you choose to go somewhere so you can feel ‘real,’ I’d say you’re coping. You’re reminding yourself that even in this time, there are places that you can feel safe, that you can feel connected, that you can be in green space to feel at peace. We might go out and be in green space to remind ourselves that we’re good adventurers and we get through tough times, that we’re survivors. There are lots of reasons. This idea that you’re real, that your surroundings are real and that they’re predictable. That you’re going to go on a hike and you can know what’s going to happen there.”
It can give people the right atmosphere and the time to help them deal with the feelings and the emotions that might have disturbed them since the attacks.
For writer Richard Nelson, the constant rhythm of nature helps remind him that not everything in life has been marred by mankind’s violence.
“Wild places are where I find my peace and solace and relief from the sort of pressures and the darkness of the news. It seems to me whenever I go to someplace wild I’m able to absorb myself in positive and beautiful things. When I go out to the meadows or to the seacoast or to the meadows somewhere. I. I don’t know, it just…everything else seems to fade into some kind of irrelevance. And, I feel as if my damaged soul gets healed when I’m out there.”
Nelson stresses that he’s not saying a walk in the park will solve the world’s problems or your own feelings about them. But, he says, the nature found there might just be enough of a reminder that life endures, for many people to find a way to rekindle their hope for mankind. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.
Eleven million acres of prime farmland were lost to
urban sprawl in a 15 year period. Some small cities are embracing
the growth and helping developers circumvent so-called Smart Growth
restrictions on sprawl.
Researchers have found that small towns hungry for new tax dollars are making it possible for developers to get around Smart Growth plans. Often the result is urban sprawl that paves over farmland and natural areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the story:
Transcript
Researchers have found that small towns hungry for new tax dollars are making it possible for developers to get around Smart Growth Plans. Often the result is urban sprawl that paves over farmland and natural areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Despite the best efforts of some politicians to slow down the pace of turning farmland into suburbia, the 2000 Census shows population growth is exploding at the edges of Metropolitan areas, and all those people need somewhere to live and shop. So, in the Midwest, often housing developments and shopping malls are built where corn or soybeans grew just the year before.
For example, Kane County, Illinois, as recently as the 1970’s was predominately farmland. Now with more and more people moving there, only about half the county is left for farming.
Randall Road cuts through the heart of the county, although housing developments and retail stores are starting to infringe on the country setting, on one side of the road you can still see rows of crops and pasture, and on the other side of Randall Road, it’s nearly solid shopping malls and subdivisions. But in the middle of all that development, there’s still one dairy farm. Mike Kenyon and his family still grow hay and corn, and milk cows here. But their fields are surrounded by three sprawling towns. Kenyon says Randall Road used to be the line where planners said urban sprawl would stop. They were so confident that they even said so in their planning document for the year 2020.
“And they drew a line in the county and they said ‘we want the growth to occur here and we want to maintain this as rural, as farms. Well, how did developers get around that? Well they go to a little village and they say ‘Well, we’ll put a big housing development over here. Please, annex us and this’ll be more revenue and they’ll even have a sewer system when we get done.’ So, that’s what happens; they kind of bribe the villages so they get around the 2020 plan.”
And that, Kenyon says, is what’s now happening on the other side of Randall Road where Kane County was supposed to remain rural. Kane County officials are trying to implement all kinds of programs to save the remaining farmland from urban sprawl, or at least keep urbanization to certain areas of the county. But at the town and village level, many local politicians see growth as nothing but good and are willing to expand their city limits to include developments. That’s because those developments help increase their tax revenue.
The story is not unique to the Chicago region. It’s being repeated throughout the Midwest and the Great Lakes, as well as across the United States.
So much so that millions, yes millions of acres of prime farmland in the U.S. have been lost in a little more than a decade. Rich Green is a geographer at Northern Illinois University. He’s been tracking the fringes of the ever-growing Chicago Metropolitan area. He’s been adding up just how much former cropland has been turned into suburban lawns and parking lots.
“What we found is this: the nation between 1982 and 1997, that’s a 15 year time period, lost about eleven million acres of prime farmland, cropland, to urban development.”
Green also found, perhaps coincidentally, that an identical amount of land, eleven million acres of rangeland was plowed up and put into crop production during the same period.
“What we’ve been looking at is losing the nation’s best farmland in places like Chicago and other metropolitan areas in the Midwest, and replacing it with marginal lands in the arid West which requires more inputs, particularly water, irrigation.”
Green says shifting farming to less productive and more environmentally damaging land might not be the intent of the small towns that want to grow, but that’s the apparent result.
Just off campus at Northern Illinois’ Social Sciences Research Institute, Director Harvey Smith says Midwest states such as Illinois should take the time to better learn and weigh the costs of continued urban sprawl.
“Economically, Illinois relies very, very heavily on its agriculture. And, it is also the case that a lot of the very rich farmland is in the northern tier of the state which is closest to the moving fringe of the suburbs.”
Many times government at a more regional level, such as at the county level, is struggling with balancing development and farmland preservation. Even though it’s something of a contradiction, Smith says the people who move to the suburbs’ fringes causing further urban sprawl, actually want to preserve some of the farmland.
“The fact is that many of the people who move into the suburbs, while they like the sort of scenic quality of a farm or two over the hill, aren’t in a position to stop the disappearance of the farms themselves. It requires cooperation between local and regional governmental agencies to make a real effort to protect these qualities that are likely to disappear if they don’t.”
For some towns, it’s too late to recover the rural character and small town charm they lost to development, but for those at the fringes of the sprawling large metro areas with adherence to Smart Growth planning, some planners believe there’s still the opportunity to preserve a little of the setting of the suburbs that drew so many people there in the first place.
Eleven million acres of prime farmland were lost to
urban sprawl in a 15 year period. Some small cities are embracing
the growth and helping developers circumvent so-called Smart Growth
restrictions on sprawl.
The U.S. has lost millions of acres of productive farmland in the last decade to urban sprawl. Researchers say state and county officials are seeing Smart Growth plans circumvented by politicians in small cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The US has lost millions of acres of productive farmland in the last decade to urban sprawl. Researchers say state and county officials are seeing smart growth plans circumvented by politicians in small cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Most states have passed legislation or are looking at doing so to reduce urban sprawl. Even some counties are working to restrict development to certain areas. But often developers approach small cities, promising increased tax revenues and infrastructure if the town annexes large areas of surrounding land for the developers. Rich Green is a geographer at Northern Illinois University. He says some small town officials don’t see past their own city limits.
“And in some respects, they may overlook the regional concerns to benefit their own territory, developers, shopping malls, retailers, playing one municipality off the other in terms of getting the best deal to locate.”
And so long debated plans to manage growth become nothing more than lines on a map, while natural areas and farmland are replaced by subdivisions and parking lots. Green says that’s led to eleven million acres of prime farmland being taken out of production in the fertile Midwest and East in a 15 year period due to urban sprawl. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Lisa Johnson shows off a rough blazing star, a native prairie plant. Johnson is a member of Wild Ones - Natural Landscapers, Ltd. The group encourages growing native plants to save the genetic diversity and to attract wildlife.
Small patches of native plants can include flowering plants, but some neighbors complain they're only weeds. Wild Ones works to educate people that the plants are beneficial and have beautiful blooms.
More and more backyard gardeners are tending plants they once
considered to be weeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports… these backyard naturalists are creating tiny natural areas to
save the plants and attract wildlife:
