New Homes for Chimney Swifts

  • The almost-finished tower awaits its new residents on the grounds of the Orono School District's nature center next to Lake Claussen. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)

There’s one American bird that has an unusual habitat problem. Chimney Swifts have adapted in the past as humans encroached on their territory. But now changes in human behavior are presenting new problems for the birds. And some people are trying to help them adapt again. Stephanie Hemphill reports.

Transcript

There’s one American bird that has an unusual habitat problem. Chimney Swifts have adapted in the past as humans encroached on their territory. But now changes in human behavior are presenting new problems for the birds. And some people are trying to help them adapt again. Stephanie Hemphill reports.

In his dad’s window-and-door warehouse in the Minneapolis suburbs, Derek Meyer is supervising the boys in his scout troop as they build a wooden tower for Chimney Swifts.

They’re using rough plywood to build a narrow box twelve feet high with an opening about a foot square.

Derek is doing this project to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. In the process, he’s learned a few things about the lives of Chimney Swifts.

“They originally lived in hollow trees but when the settlers from Europe came over they started destroying the trees, so they decided to live in the chimneys, and then people started putting wire over their chimneys, so over the last 40 years they’ve lost half of their population.”

Not just wire, but rain caps and other devices to keep moisture and critters out of chimneys.

The new home these boys are building for Chimney Swifts is destined for the nature center next to a nearby school. The school district was planning to tear down an old brick chimney as part of a remodeling project. Rebecca Field found out about that, and she tried to stop it.

“I said, wait a minute, I’m sure there are Chimney Swifts in there and they’re really good birds because they eat about 2,000 insects a day, each of those birds. And their favorite insect is the mosquito.'”

Field is on the board of Audubon Minnesota, and she’d been watching the swifts hanging around the chimney in the evenings. Individually they look like fat cigars with wings, but when they get ready to swoop down into the chimney for the night, there are so many of them, they look like a funnel cloud.

“How they communicate I have no idea, how they put the brakes on when they dive into that chimney so quickly, it’s a mystery but it’s a fun thing to watch.”

In the end the school district decided to leave the chimney up.

So now, a few weeks later, and just in time for the Chimney Swifts to fly back up from the Amazon, the tower is standing on a concrete pad at the school’s nature center.

School naturalist Marleane Callaghan has already brought all her classes, grades three-through-five, to check it out.

“We’ve talked about the bird, what it looks like, the dimension of it, I’ve invited them to come back with their parents to watch in the school parking lot in the evening up at the high school where they’ve left the chimney, and then to walk on down, to be able to identify them.”

This project is part of an effort by Audubon groups all over the country to raise awareness of Chimney Swifts and their need for homes.

In Minnesota, project director Ron Windingstad wants to convince homeowners to make existing chimneys more welcoming. He says people can take the caps off their chimneys during the summer, or just raise them high enough so the birds can fly in from the sides.

Soon these school kids will be able to see the amazing acrobatics of the Chimney Swifts. Windingstad says they hardly ever stop flying, from morning til night. They’ll even sip water and take a bath in a nearby pond, without stopping.

“They’ll scoop down, lower their bill, and fly across it and drink in the water. They’ll use some of these shrubs around here to break off little twigs about the size of a wooden matchstick or toothpick actually, and use that to build their nests, and they do that while flying as well. They are marvelous creatures.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Decision Coming on Cape Wind

  • Bill Eddy of East Falmouth, Massachusetts, built his own schooner, and would one day soon like to sail through the proposed wind farm known as Cape Wind. (Photo by Curt Nickisch)

A decade-long fight over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts could be over soon. It’s called Cape Wind. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he will make a decision by the end of April. What would be the nation’s first offshore wind farm is bigger than a simple “not in my backyard” issue. It has divided communities and even neighbors. Curt Nickisch met two people, who’ve come down on opposite sides – both for environmental reasons.

Transcript

A decade-long fight over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts could be over soon. It’s called Cape Wind. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he will make a decision by the end of April.

What would be the nation’s first offshore wind farm is bigger than a simple “not in my backyard” issue. It has divided communities and even neighbors. Curt Nickisch met two people, who’ve come down on opposite sides – both for environmental reasons.

At 63-years-old, Bill Eddy has old-man-and-the-sea white hair. He’s been sailing all his life, including the waters where the 130 wind turbines would go up more than five miles offshore. He knows the wind’s power. And he’s willing to give up part of the horizon he loves for clean energy.

“I have a firm, firm belief. We may have to for one generation be willing to sacrifice a very small portion of a coastal sea off the coast of Massachusetts. To launch this new future.”

Cape Wind would generate three-quarters of the electricity used by Cape Cod and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Bill says it’s time for residents here to share in the sacrifice for the energy that drives modern life.

“Consider for just a moment the sacrifice that’s already being made by the thousands of our fellow American citizens who live where their mountains are being removed for coal. Or what about the thousands of American men and women who are serving overseas to protect the places where the oil is that we import? To be honest with you, the 130 turbines of the wind farm, I’d prefer any one of them to one more marker in Arlington National Cemetery.”

“It’s not going to make any difference, this one wind farm.”

Martha Powers is just as passionate about Cape Wind, but she’s against it. She lives by the water, too.

“So this was a summer cottage, my Dad bought it in 1958.”

As a kid, Martha spent summers here. Now she’s a librarian with graying hair. She keeps binoculars by the back porch for birdwatching.

“This project would tear a big hole in that whole web of life there that could never be repaired. It would tear a hole that big under the ocean, all of the animals that live in the ocean beneath that water, and that fly above that water, it would be horrific. I can almost see it, like a bomb, to me, it feels.”

Mainly, Martha’s worried about the birds that will be killed by the spinning blades of the wind turbines. Her Christmas card this year was a photo of a chickadee perched on her finger.

“When you feel those little feet on your hand, trusting. It’s an amazing experience. So to kill them is just such a horrible thought. That’s the hardest thing for me to accept about this project.”

A few miles away, Cape Wind supporter Bill Eddy says it would be hard for him to accept the project not going forward.

“I know, I just know that, in a year or so, I’ll be able to go out to the wind farm. The wind in my sails and the winds in the blades of the turbine, that something very old and something very new is bringing about a most wondrous evolution.”

Whether that evolution starts off of Cape Cod will be up to someone in Washington. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the nation will move ahead with wind farms off the East Coast. But since people like Bill Eddy and Martha Powers can’t agree, Salazar will decide whether Nantucket Sound is the right place to start.

For The Environment Report, I’m Curt Nickisch.

Related Links

Greenovation: Eco-Certified

  • When doing home improvement projects, WaterSense, EnergyStar, GREENGUARD, and FSC certifications are some to keep an eye out for. (Photo by Michelle Miller-Freeck, courtesy of FEMA)

When you’re planning a home
improvement project, you can
be overwhelmed with decisions
about the right materials, the
right quality, and the right
design. Trying to keep it eco-
friendly on top of everything
else just adds to the confusion.
Lester Graham reports it can be
as simple as finding a label:

Transcript

When you’re planning a home
improvement project, you can
be overwhelmed with decisions
about the right materials, the
right quality, and the right
design. Trying to keep it eco-
friendly on top of everything
else just adds to the confusion.
Lester Graham reports it can be
as simple as finding a label:

Julia Weinert and her boyfriend like the idea of making their place nice, but even something as simple as painting causes concerns.

JW: “We want to support environmentally friendly options and we just don’t want to be smelling it for three days out and have to be running the fans. We just want it to be convenient and we think it would be an easy thing to do.”

LG: “Well, you’re in luck. We’re at the local Home Depot and we just happen to have Greenovation.TV’s Matt Grocoff here. Matt, you’ve got some advice for her.”

MG: “And it’s really, really simple. When you’re trying to find a paint that’s healthy for you or another product, you shouldn’t have to be a chemist when you go to the store. There’s a really simple thing you can look for. Just look for the simple GREENGUARD label. GREENGUARD is an independent organization that lets you know with a simple label that that product is safe for you.”

So, none of the really strong paint smells that mean polluting chemicals are being released. GREENGUARD Environmental Institute sets indoor air standards for products and buildings. Julia and I sniffed a can of paint WITH the GREENGUARD label, and then one without.

LG: “I’ll let you sniff first.”

JW: Okay. Oh! Yeah! Oh my gosh! That is ridiculous. I mean, it smells so much stronger than this one. You can’t even smell that one compared to this one.”

A gallon of paint with the GREENGUARD label DOES cost a few dollars more, maybe as much as ten bucks.

Matt then herded us to another part of the store, the plumbing section, where Julia and I were confronted by all kinds of shiny chrome and brass faucets.

JW: “There’s a whole wall, a whole aisle of faucets here and I just don’t know which ones to look for.”

LG: “So, Matt. You got any fancy labels here?”

MG: “Absolutely. Again, if you’re looking for that eco-friendly option, a way to save yourself some money and some water, it’s simple. Just look for the WaterSense label. The EPA does EnergyStar labels for appliances. The EPA also does WaterSense label for plumbing fixtures.”

WaterSense means the fixture – whether a faucet, shower head or toilet – will use less water but still works well.

As we wandered over to the lumber section of the store, Matt told us the last label he wanted to show us is the most ignored label – and it might just be the most important one.

MG: “FSC stands for the Forest Stewardship Council. And what that means is they’ve made a commitment that they’re not going to be tearing down forest and clear-cutting them in order for you to build some bookshelves in your home. This is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gases is that we don’t have these forests capturing this carbon any more. Instead of having to have a PhD in forest management, you can just simply look for a piece of wood that has an FSC label on it.”

So, labels. Julia says, works for her.

JW: “It’s going to be great, taking my boyfriend around the store and showing him all these cool things I can get to make our home improvements a little more cheap and environmentally-friendly.”

LG: “Alright remind me, go over this again. What am I supposed to be looking for?”

MG: “It’s very simple. If you’re looking for paint, look for GREENGUARD. For plumbing, WaterSense. For lumber, FSC, Forest Stewardship Council certified.”

LG: “That’s Matt Grocoff, Greenovation.TV. Thanks again, Matt.

MG: “Lester, it’s always a pleasure. Thank you.”

For The Environemnt Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Greenovation: The Re-Use Store

  • The ReStore sells everything from building supplies to power tools to toilets and sinks. (Photo courtesy of the Habitat for Humanity of Huron County, Michigan)

Home improvement projects cost
a lot of money. Some environmentalists
have found a way to save some money,
conserve resources, and help other
people get into homes. Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

Home improvement projects cost
a lot of money. Some environmentalists
have found a way to save some money,
conserve resources, and help other
people get into homes. Lester Graham
reports:

It seems like my friend Matt Grocoff with Greenovation TV is always working on a home improvement project. Not too long ago, he asked me to go with him to his favorite store. So we headed down the road where all the big box home improvement stores are in his hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan, but that’s not where we ended up.

MG: “Just about anything I need, my first stop is always a re-use center. My favorite is, of course, the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Today I’ve gotta find a– a, uh– what do you call them? A sander, a hand sander, a belt sander?”

Matt turned to Jackie Hermann who manages this ReStore. And she pulled a case from the shelf in back.

JH: “This absolutely beautiful Porter Cable professional random orbit sander with dust collection.”

MG: “This is gorgeous. This is exactly what I need. And how much is this?”

LG: “Looks like it’s never been used.”

MG: “Almost new condition. $35.00. And it’s used material that’s not going to a landfill or sitting in somebody’s basement not being used. And here I get to use it and save money. This is another one of the things where we can debunk the myth that going green costs more.”

Okay, so Matt got a good deal and it extends the useful life of a pretty good tool. But the idea is to raise money for Habitat for Humanity to help get people into homes, so I had to ask Jackie about that.

LG: “How much of that money actually goes to Habitat for Humanity and building houses for folks?”

JH: “We have a 12% administrative overhead, so 88-cents on every dollar into a habitat home.”

There are about 600 of these ReStores across the nation. The administrative overhead varies a bit from store to store, but the money raised at each store goes to homes in that store’s local area.

Jackie says, for her area, that’s meant a bit of a shift for Habitat for Humanity. You might have heard, in Michigan there are a lot of foreclosures.

JH: “We’re not building brand-new as much. We are buying foreclosed houses that are already existing in blighted neighborhoods, and we are rehabbing them and making it livable and improving the neighborhood.”

LG: “You’re recycling houses.”

JH: “We are! We’re recycling houses also. So, when Lowe’s, for instance, donated a large quantity of items, we kept a bunch aside for construction. They come and they look though and say what they can use, and then those items are set aside for them. And then as they need them, they use them.”

And anything left over is sold in the ReStore. It’s donations that make ReStore work. It might be overstock from places like Lowe’s or from local contractors. It could be people who are moving or retiring or just don’t need an appliance any longer. They might have extra cabinets, or carpeting, or a perfectly good sink they don’t need.

JH: “The proverbial kitchen sink. Lots and lots and lots of toilets. Light fixtures, flooring, doors, windows, fasteners.”

MG: “Lester, let me show you some of the stuff they’ve got here. My wife and I spent months looking for a really high-quality, affordable, high-efficiency, front-loading washer. This is a front-loading washer and dryer. (taps on appliance) In fact, this is the same model that we bought. We paid $600 for ours. Here, at the ReStore, it’s $200. And Jackie, how do we know that this works?”

JH: “Everything’s been tested. And, it’s guaranteed for two to three months – I’m really not picky about that.”

Some things are used, some are new. It all works.

Matt Grocoff with Greenovation.TV says it keeps stuff out of the landfill, it means perfectly good building materials and appliances for home improvement projects, saves resources, and raises money to help people get into a home.

MG: “It’s a win-win across the board.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Sustainable Prisons Project, Part Two

  • This is the entrance to The Hub. Prisoners who’ve been cleared on good behavior get to work here. This is where the prison’s beekeeping operation, recycling center and gardens are. (Photo by Sadie Babits)

Prisons probably aren’t the first
place you’d expect to find organic
gardens or beekeeping. But in some
prisons in western Washington, inmates
are being taught new skills and getting
involved in conservation work. As Sadie
Babits found out, inmates say they’re
restoring their own lives by helping save
native prairies and growing veggies:

Transcript

Prisons probably aren’t the first
place you’d expect to find organic
gardens or beekeeping. But in some
prisons in western Washington, inmates
are being taught new skills and getting
involved in conservation work. As Sadie
Babits found out, inmates say they’re
restoring their own lives by helping save
native prairies and growing veggies:

Stafford Creek Prison would feel like a college campus if it weren’t for the series of
heavy metal gates and the barbed wire.

(sound of mechanical gates opening)

2,000 prisoners are held at this medium security facility. A select group of them
who’ve been cleared on good behavior get to work in what’s called the Hub. It
doesn’t sound too exciting – until you spot the greenhouses.

(sound of door opening and fans)

Inside the largest greenhouse, there are hundreds of yellow plastic tubes. Three
inmates are filling these tubes with dirt. They are planting seeds to help restore
native grasses.

Toby Erheart is one of these prisoners.

“I don’t know if what we’re doing will make a huge impact on the world, but I know
it’s making a huge impact on this project. It will change the face of the prairies in
western Washington.”

This is the project’s first year. The goal is to grow 200,000 plants for the prairies.

It’s getting hot and muggy inside the greenhouse. So Inmate Jeff Harrigan heads
outside. He leans against the greenhouse as he talks about what it’s like to grow
these plants.

“It’s been a learning experience for me cause I’ve never done nothing like this on the
streets.”

Harrigan has been in and out of prison six different times.

“I’ve just learned doing other things than stealing and doing drugs makes you feel
better about yourself. I feel like I’m putting something back, something that is
saving something, ‘cause it’s saving the butterflies from what they told us.”

Harrigan says he’s never planted anything before until coming to Stafford Creek.

“And actually, it’s kind of cool cause since coming here I asked my girlfriend
something I never asked her before, what her favorite flowers were, just cause I had
started planting flowers. (laughs)”

Turns out marigolds and hens and chicks are her favorites. Two plants, Harrigan
says, that can be found around the prison. When he’s not planting native grasses,
Harrigan works in the prison’s vegetable garden.

“Right here, this is stuff that we’ve planted. There’s onions, radishes, beans.”

So far, he’s helped harvest peas, garlic and 200 pounds of zucchini. The kitchen staff
took that squash and turned into zucchini bread for the inmates.

Harrigan talks about how hard it was for him keep a job when he was outside
prison. Drugs always got in the way. Now he says he feels like he’s doing something
that matters and he hopes this experience in prison will help him when he gets out.

“Actually, it’s teaching me better work ethics too, cause I’ve never really had them
out there. I never really kept a job probably because I didn’t like it, you know.”

Harrigan says he does like gardening. He says he now knows how to germinate
seeds and how to get plants to take off – skills he says could help him get a job once
he’s back in society.

“For a person like me, who still wants to feel human and still got good parts in me,
this stuff brings you back to reality.”

He’s got another year and half to go before he’s free. Harrigan says he’s already told
his girlfriend, when he does get out, they have to plant a garden – something he
hopes will keep him from coming back to Stafford Creek.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

Related Links

Sustainable Prisons Project, Part One

  • Inmates at Stafford Creek who’ve been cleared on good behavior can work in the prison’s recycling center. (Photo by Sadie Babits)

Some industries and businesses have
been greening up their operations to
save money. Now, another big industry
is getting into the act – American prisons.
California has announced 16 new green
energy projects at prisons that they
say will save millions. And prisons
in Indiana, Virginia, and Nevada are
installing solar panels and wind turbines.
But, as Sadie Babits reports, the state
of Washington is taking their green
program a few steps further:

Transcript

Some industries and businesses have
been greening up their operations to
save money. Now, another big industry
is getting into the act – American prisons.
California has announced 16 new green
energy projects at prisons that they
say will save millions. And prisons
in Indiana, Virginia, and Nevada are
installing solar panels and wind turbines.
But, as Sadie Babits reports, the state
of Washington is taking their green
program a few steps further:

(sound of cutting an onion)

Jason Chandler has already spent four years behind bars for a crime he won’t talk
about. He recently was hired to work here in this organic garden at Stafford Creek
Prison. Before this, Chandler says, he was working here as a janitor.

Babits: “What are you doing?”

Chandler: “Cutting the onions off to prepare for the kitchen. Just cutting the roots
and the stock off. Least the winds going my eyes ain’t watering.”

The Stafford Creek prison in western Washington has this garden, a recycling center,
greenhouses, and a beekeeping operation. Chandler says working these jobs beats
mopping floors and cleaning toilets.

“I had to ask my counselor to put me on the list. There are quite a few people on a
waiting list to get positions like this and they got by an application basis and, if
you’re willing to work, it’s a good job to have.”

It’s a job made possible through the Sustainable Prisons Project – a partnership
between Evergreen State College and the Washington Department of Corrections.
The grant-funded project has been running formally for more than a year. While it’s
clear prisoners like these jobs, officials say it’s too early to tell whether beekeeping
or growing vegetables will reduce recidivism rates.

But prison officials say that wasn’t the project’s main goal.

“My early motivation was money, surely money.”

Dan Pocholke is the Deputy Director of Prisons. It costs more than $30,000 a year to
house just one prisoner in Washington state. The Department of Corrections was
ordered several years ago to save money by doing things like conserving water and
energy.

To do this, Polcholke says they got help from Evergreen State College to “green”
Cedar Creek – a minimum security facility in Washington. He says they got prisoners
involved in cutting back their water use.

“And we started studying our use rates and our consumption rates and, low and
behold, a year later we had brought our water use rates down by an astonishing
level.”

Pocholke says the partnership with the college has another benefit. Prisoners are
learning new skills. And Evergreen State College says one of their goals is being
fulfilled too – to spread environmental science to unlikely places – like prisons.

Some inmates in this program get to do research on everything from raising frogs to
growing native prairie grasses. There’s already been a few success stories. One
inmate has gone on to co-author a scientific paper and is now working on a
doctorate degree.

(sound of recycling)

And, while some prisoners are learning new skills, the goal of saving money is also
being met. Stafford Creek prison has cut the amount of garbage they send to
landfills by more than half by recycling.

Inmate Kevin Madigan says he’d like to keep even more out of the landfill.

“The more self sustaining you can become, the less burden you are on the people out
there. And that in itself is a good thing.”

Madigan rips open a clear plastic bag and dumps the garbage onto this conveyer
belt. He gets paid 42-cents an hour to work here, but for him it goes beyond just a
job.

Madigan says it’s one way for him to make amends for all the trouble he caused
outside these prison walls.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

Related Links

How Green Is the LEED Label?

  • LEED buildings get points for green things like bike racks and good energy use, but it doesn’t actually enforce energy efficiency (Photo by Lester Graham)

The biggest energy users in America are not cars and trucks – they’re buildings. Buildings use about 40% of the nation’s energy. In 2000, the US Green Building Council introduced a program that certifies “green” buildings. It’s called LEED. That stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. A new version of the LEED standards is being released today, April 27. But Samara Freemark reports some critics see serious flaws in the LEED program:

Transcript

The biggest energy users in America are not cars and trucks – they’re buildings. Buildings use about 40% of the nation’s energy. In 2000, the US Green Building Council introduced a program that certifies “green” buildings. It’s called LEED. That stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. A new version of the LEED standards is being released today, April 27. But Samara Freemark reports some critics see serious flaws in the LEED program:

Before LEED came around in 2000, developers didn’t really spend a lot of time worrying about whether their buildings were green. They were designing and constructing buildings they could market. Green just wasn’t a priority.

“It was always the last thing on the agenda for the staff meeting, because nobody really understood what success looked like.”

Brendan Owens is a LEED spokesman. He says the people who came up with LEED wanted to change the culture of building in America. Make building ‘green’ marketable.

And they realized that to do that, they’d have to define what a green building looked like.

So they created a checklist. Install solar panels and you get points. Bike racks: more points. Get a green roof – somewhere you can grow plants — add some points.

Enough points and the developer gets a LEED certification. Certified buildings get a plaque. Developers get the PR boost that comes from building green. The public gets a more sustainable building. That’s the idea, anyway.

The program really caught on. More than 10,000 projects are currently going through the LEED process. And universities, municipalities, even the federal government are writing the standards into their own codes.

But critics say the system might be spreading too fast.

“The people who are writing the LEED Standards are in effect writing our country’s most important laws.”

That’s Henry Gifford. He’s a building engineer in NYC. He’s also one of LEED’s most outspoken critics.

Gifford says it’s possible to earn LEED certification – and cash in on the PR benefits of being green – without actually fixing a building’s biggest environmental problem.

“The 3 most important things to make a building environmentally friendly, are energy use, energy use, energy use. All the other things in the LEED checklist, which I think are wisely chosen and very important, they pale in comparison to the energy use.”

The LEED checklist does give points for good energy use- a lot of them, actually. But it doesn’t enforce energy efficiency.

Instead, developers win points by predicting their buildings will perform well. Developers do have to submit energy use data once their building is up and running. But if the building turns out not to save any energy? Brendan Owens says…

“What we do, is we notify the building that they’re not performing up to their potential.”

But no one’s coming around to unscrew that accreditation plaque. The building gets to keeps its certification.

On average LEED buildings seem to do better than others on energy use. But there are plenty of LEED-certified buildings that do use more energy than comparable non-certified ones.

Gifford says that’s unacceptable. No energy hogs, no matter how many bike racks or green roofs they have – should be allowed to call themselves green.

“It’s a scandal to have any underperforming building win or retain a rating for being green. I’m sorry. Every building labeled as green should have very good energy performance. Until we get there, we’re making believe.”

LEED doesn’t claim that certified buildings are perfect. Instead, Brendan Owens says the standard is meant to provide a holistic measure of greenness.

“I’ve heard LEED certified buildings described as sustainable. And there are a few, but the lions share of those projects haven’t achieved it. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rating system is flawed. It just means that people are misunderstanding what it’s about.”

In other words, people are reading more into certification than they should. Critics like Henry Gifford worry that will lead to complacency when it comes to truly greening buildings.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Renting Rooftops for Solar Power

Some big utility companies are
looking at projects using more renewable
energy. Some are investing in solar on
the rooftops of their customers’ homes. Julie
Grant reports on one of the biggest pilot
projects in the nation:

Transcript

Some big utility companies are
looking at projects using more renewable
energy. Some are investing in solar on
the rooftops of their customers’ homes. Julie
Grant reports on one of the biggest pilot
projects in the nation:

Duke Energy plans to rent 425 rooftops from homeowners
and businesses in North Carolina to install and maintain
solar panels.

Dave Scanzoni is a spokesman for Duke Energy. He says
building a new nuclear or coal plant could take a decade.
But this solar project could contribute electricity to the grid in
just a couple of years.

“Instead of a big, main baseload power plant that we
traditionally think of, we have several hundred small, little
power plants. It’s distributed power plants, a different way to
distribute energy closer to the customer.”

If the project is approved by regulators, the money to pay for
it will come from ratepayers – an 8-cent hike on the average
utility bill.

Other utilities have rooftop solar projects in the works as
power companies begin to experiment to find ways to reduce
carbon emissions.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

White House Weakening Endangered Species Act?

  • Environmentalists warn the Endangered Species Act is in danger during the last months of the Bush Administration (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The Bush administration is making a proposal that environmentalists

say will weaken the Endangered Species Act. The proposal would eliminate a

requirement for independent review of big federal projects such as highways,

bridges or dams. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Bush administration is making a proposal that environmentalists

say will weaken the Endangered Species Act. The proposal would eliminate a

requirement for independent review of big federal projects such as highways,

bridges or dams. Lester Graham reports:

Right now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service
reviews anything like that that could harm endangered species.

The Secretary of the Interior says the existing regulations create unnecessary conflicts
between agencies and delays on important projects.

The new proposal would let the agency in charge of construction decide for itself if the
project would affect an endangered species.

Bob Irvin is with the environmental group, the Defenders of Wildlife. He says this
proposal eliminates safeguards.

“Previously the Fish and Wildlife Service had a role in reviewing the impacts of those
actions. So, literally, what the administration is proposing is to put the fox in charge of
the chicken coop.”

That’s not the way the Department of Interior sees it.

Kaush Arha is a Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Department of Interior. He took
issue with the fox in charge of the chicken coop metaphor.

“I think that’s an exaggerated statement. And it is unfounded hyperbole. What you are
referring to as “fox” in that particular issue are very, very well qualified, very well
respected and dedicated natural resource management agencies like the U.S. Forest
Service, like Bureau of Land Management, Army Corps of Engineers and others.”

But, no matter how dedicated those wildlife officials are, the Bush administration has a
reputation of putting political pressure on scientists in several agencies, and science
has been changed or rigged in favor of industry.

But the Interior Department says the agencies operate within a political environment.

Deputy Assistant Secretary Arha says, besides, the agencies already make decisions
about federal projects and the Endangered Species Act this way. The proposed
changes would just make current practices clearer for the agencies without completely
overhauling the procedures.

“This captures the existing practices, clarifies and gives more direction and it is narrowly
tailored to do so.”

Environmentalists such as Bob Irvin see something much more sinister than the
administration making things clearer for the different agencies affected by the
Endangered Species Act.

“With barely five months left in the administration, they’re trying to ram through a
proposal to weaken the Endangered Species Act. This is completely in keeping with the
anti-environmental record of this administration. But it is also completely outrageous.”

Environmental groups likely will end up taking the issue to court. The Bush
Environmental Protection Agency tried a similar attempt to by-pass independent
review. The federal courts struck that effort down.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

A Second ‘Hot Spot’ Considered for Cleanup

It looks as though a second pollution hot spot in the Great Lakes
will receive money for cleanup. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Mike Simonson reports on the progress of the Great Lakes Legacy Act:

Transcript

It looks as though a second pollution hot spot in the Great Lakes will receive money
for cleanup.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports on the progress of the
Great Lakes
Legacy Act:


The Great Lakes Legacy Act was passed in 2002. It earmarked 54 million dollars a
year for five
years to clean up pollution hot spots. In the first several years, not all the
money promised was
delivered. So clean up on the 31 polluted areas has been slow.


Right now, the Black Lagoon on the Detroit River is the only pollution hot spot
being cleaned
up. Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say they’re hoping to
start on a
second project in Lake Superior next year.


Wisconsin will need to pony up a third of the 5.2 million dollar cost to dredge the
sediments in
Superior Harbor. Wisconsin Project Supervisor John Robinson is hopeful. He says
two decades
after identifying the pollution, money may finally be available.


“The Legacy Act is clearly a catalyst that will allow us to go ahead. Without it,
the project
would be delayed into a period of time that we’re uncertain of.”


Some of the money will come from companies partly responsible for the pollution.
Robinson
hopes to begin cleanup in February.


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

Related Links