It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was one way to help jump start the economy. (photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)
The Recovery Act called for a multi-billion dollar home weatherization program. It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was the ultimate “shovel ready” project to help jump start the economy. But as Mark Brush reports, so far, it just hasn’t worked out:
Transcript
The Recovery Act called for a multi-billion dollar home weatherization program. It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was the ultimate “shovel ready” project to help jump start the economy. But as Mark Brush reports, so far, it just hasn’t worked out:
The Department of Energy’s Inspector General found the data alarming.
Of the ten states receiving the most money for home weatherization – eight of them weren’t even at two percent of their goal.
One reason for the hold-up is bureaucracy. There’s a law that says if you get federal money – you have to pay workers a “prevailing wage” or a fair wage. And there was confusion over how much to pay people.
Don Skaggs is with Ohio’s Office of Community Services. He says most states waited until the issue was resolved – but Ohio didn’t wait:
“So we decided to go ahead and do production. And then once we understood what the requirements were, we would go back and retroactively adjust those wages for those staff, which is what we did.”
So Ohio’s on track – but most states are not. The Department of Energy said it’s working on these problems – and expects things to ramp up soon.
In order to qualify an old vehicle must get less than 18 miles per gallon.
(Photo source: IFCAR at Wikimedia Commons)
After a meeting with the White House, Members of Congress appear to be close to a deal
on a so-called “cash for clunkers” program. But Tamara Keith reports critics say the
compromise members have come up with won’t do much for the environment:
Transcript
After a meeting with the White House, Members of Congress appear to be close to a deal
on a so-called “cash for clunkers” program. But Tamara Keith reports critics say the
compromise members have come up with won’t do much for the environment:
The “cash for clunkers” program has wide support as good for the environment; good for
the ailing auto industry.
Car owners would get a voucher towards a new fuel efficient car when they scrap their
old gas guzzler. In order to qualify an old vehicle must get less than 18 miles per gallon.
But a new car that does just 4 miles per gallon better earns a $3,500 reward. A
10 MPG improvement brings $4,500.
Critics say many of the new replacement vehicles would fall well short of the
government’s average fuel economy standards.
Congressman John Dingell from Michigan says the critics are missing the point: the new
cars will be more fuel efficient than the ones that are getting junked.
“What they aught to ask is, ‘what is this going to mean in terms of increased fuel
efficiency and reduced CO2 emissions.’ The result will be substantial.”
Of course the deal isn’t really done until it is approved by Congress. If it passes, the
President is expected to sign it.
Several neighbors near Cook County Illinois' Bunker Hill Forest Preserve are concerned about the loss of trees. Bathsheba Burmin is third from the left. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The Cook County Forest Preserve District has been transforming sections of the Somme Forest Preserve into savanna. This is after a small burn. It once had many more trees in the area. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
When somebody says a natural area, does everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
Transcript
When somebody says a natural area, dose everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
If you go to the Bunker Hill Forest Preserve just outside Chicago, you find picnic spaces, bike trails, and woods – acres of woods.
If it’s the wrong day, though, a security guard will turn you back from the woods.
Guard: “Closed off for a while? It’s closed off for a while. They’re doing a controlled burn – they’re burning that field over there.”
Man: “What are you doing exactly? Burning?”
Guard: “Controlled burn.”
Forest preserve workers in sooty, yellow fire suits are burning brush and trees.
They say soil tests show this land was once savanna – a kind of grassland with a few trees mixed in.
They’re trying to restore it to that original landscape.
Volunteers help out with this restoration, but a small number of people want to stop it.
“Everything they burned today is area they’ve cleared over the past two years. We’re opposed to cutting our urban forests.”
Bathsheba Burmin shows me the site – after it’s cooled.
She wants me to see what it takes to turn woods into savanna.
Burmin: “It’s a little muddy, so…”
Allee: “It’s hard not to notice.”
(sounds of walking through mud)
Allee: “This place is being actively transformed.”
Burmin: “Yes.”
Allee: “You can see brush piles moved around, trees have obviously been cut because you can see the stumps, and obviously they burned just today.”
Burmin: “What it does is tell the story of what the restructuring of an ecosystem looks like.”
Burmin and a few of her neighbors have protested the transformation of these woods into savanna.
Some don’t believe this was ever grassy savanna in the first place.
Burmin says, even if it was savanna – it’s not now; it’s woodland – and she regrets losing the trees.
Burmin: “If you’re not familiar with the site and you hear there’s an increase in grassland species you must be doing something wonderful. Nobody talked about what happened to all the woodland species. The reason you have an increase in grassland species, but that’s because you took out all the forest.”
Habitat restoration can be violent.
It can involve poisoning or burning unwanted plants or maybe killing animals like deer that graze on more desirable plants.
Wildlife managers use restoration techniques all the time, but on occasion critics like Burmin ask tough questions about it.
When that happens, people like Stephen Packard rush to its defense.
“Now we’re standing in a place where all the brush was cut last year.”
Packard heads the Chicago chapter of the Audobon Society.
He’s offered to show me some restored savanna, about ten miles north of that Bunker Hill spot.
It looks kinda familiar.
Allee: “There’re stumps and sticks everywhere.”
Packard: “Is this ugly or is it not ugly? Here’s my perspective on it. To me it’s like a bunch of broken eggshells after someone made an omelet. I think this is a beautiful thing to see the first stage of recovery. It is stumps, it is bare ground, but from doing this, I know certain plants will start to come up and keep developing.”
Packard says no one restores savanna because they like chopping trees.
It’s just that some plants need open space and light – like in a savanna. Dense woods create too much shade for them.
He says if we let some natural areas literally run wild, a few aggressive species take over, and the rare ones lose out.
“You lose millions of years of evolution of these thousands of species that may be important to the planet, so why not have some places where we can take care of them?”
Packard says some natural areas are so unhealthy, that for now, we need to protect some parts of nature from others.
And if you don’t buy that – you don’t buy restoration.
Stands of pine like this have been clear-cut to demonstrate an option that forest owners can take to manage their property. (Photo by Keran
McKenzie)
Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S. Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:
Transcript
Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S.
Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly
manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a
new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:
(sound of chain saws)
Workers are cutting down trees in a fifty-year-old pine crop. At the same time, state
foresters are leading a botanist, a private tree farmer, and a reporter through this forest
education site. One of the foresters, Rick Miller, is directing the chain saws to show what
needs to be cut for what’s called a “crop tree release.”
“This one here we selected out with the orange flags, the trees that show the best form and
dominance in the crown. They have a nice big healthy crown. And then what we’re doing is removing
any trees that are touching the crowns of those ones that are orange, and just opening it up
to give the crown more room up there to spread out and possibly increase their growth and their
vigor.”
A forest owner who wants to make money off his pine stand might do a crop tree release to
improve the quality of the remaining timber. The bigger the tree, the more money it’s worth
to a logging company.
Heading deeper in, a crop of pine trees lined up like soldiers trails to our right, and wilder
hardwoods shade us from the left. There are signs to demarcate different timbering techniques:
improvement cut, understory removal, selective cut. Project manager Frank Corona stops at one
section of oaks, maples and cherries.
“You have small trees, medium trees, some larger trees. Trees are probably selectively
harvested in here and you have all different ages of trees in this stand…”
The cool shaded path abruptly opens up. The lush canopy is replaced by harsh sunlight.
GRANT: “Oh wow, so this is the clear-cut…”
CORONA: “This is the clear-cut.”
The forest is gone… cut to the ground. All that remains are the 120 hardwood stumps on
the torn-up dirt. Botanist Steve McKee suports construction of the demonstration site.
But he also loves trees.
GRANT: “What do you think when you see that clear-cut?”
MCKEE: “Well, clear-cuts are never pretty, ya know? So, uh, I think the most shocking thing
for me is I’ve walked in this my whole life and it was surprising. But I knew it
was coming too, so…”
But some people in the community say they didn’t know the demonstration project would include
clear-cutting older trees. Anne McCormack hikes the Mohican nearly every day, clearing trails,
cleaning garbage, or enjoying the woods. The education site has been roped off from the public
during construction. But she found out there was a clear-cut demonstration in an old growth
section of the forest.
“So, I just was… I was just shocked. I mean I can’t say anything more. I just felt
terrible for… I felt terrible for the trees that stood there since before white settlers
were even in Mohican. And there they just were bulldozed and chain cut for education.
I mean, it doesn’t add up.”
McCormack’s not the only one who’s upset. A lot of people didn’t realize this is what
the Forest Service had in mind. Back at the clear-cut site, Corona says many trees suffer
from disease when they mature to 120 years. He says it’s a good age for private land owners
to consider the clear-cut option.
“This was a time where before they would rot out or anything and we see more damage, more
susceptibility health-wise in the entire stand, we could make a harvest in here and utilize
those trees and start this whole new cycle of growth in here.”
The foresters and forest owners say clear-cutting is a viable option, and just one of the
many examples at the demonstration project in the Mohican forest.
Tree farmer Scott Galloway says people need to understand that owning a forest is another
form of family farming. For instance, he got a call recently from a man who inherited 30
acres and needed money right away. He doesn’t know how to manage his tree crop.
“Where does he go? How do you make the right decisions quickly? The faster he can make
decisions, in his lifetime with his forest, the sooner he’ll be able to enjoy the benefits
of those decisions. It’s all about forestry, wildlife, natural resources. So the more education he
can get, the better those decisions will be and the better off all of us are environmentally because of it.”
The Forest Service says a demonstration project is needed because forest acreage is getting
cut up into smaller and smaller parcels. That means the forests are owned by more and more
people who need to know how to manage their timber. The Forest Service hopes this project
will help them make better decisions.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.
It was thought that putting insulation in older homes was one way to help jump start the economy. (photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)
