Nationwide, every year rip currents cause
about a hundred deaths in the oceans and Great
Lakes. New research doesn’t make the currents any
less dangerous, but, as Charity Nebbe reports, it has
radically changed our understanding of how they work:
Transcript
Nationwide, every year rip currents cause
about a hundred deaths in the oceans and Great
Lakes. New research doesn’t make the currents any
less dangerous, but, as Charity Nebbe reports, it has
radically changed our understanding of how they work:
Rip currents have long been described as underwater rivers flowing out to sea. Using off-
the-shelf Global Positioning System equipment researchers have managed to map rip
currents for the very first time, and as Tim Stanton of the Naval Post Graduate School
explains they found that many of them take a very different course.
“Near shore, there are currents pushing you into the middle of this rip current system and then further
offshore, it tends to bring you all the way along the beach and then back in.”
Unfortunately these fountain-like or circular currents are not the only kind. There are still
the “mega rips,” as Stanton calls them, that do pulse strongly out to sea. He says those
currents are the ones that really put swimmers at risk. He and his team are hoping to
discover what sets those currents apart so they can be more accurately predicted.
Planting fish in the Elk Creek in the late 1800's. Photo courtesy of the State of Michigan Archives.
A re-creation of the State of Michigan's Wolverine "fish car" that ran from 1913-1935. Photo by Tamar Charney.
Collecting fish eggs from the Detroit River in the late 1800's. Photo courtesy of the State of Michigan Archives.
Tim Tebeau fishes for steelhead trout in the Boyne River in Northern Michigan. Photo by Tamar Charney.
The Wolverine fish car at the Soo Hatchery in 1916. Photo courtesy of the State of Michigan Archives.
Brook trout at the Michigan Fisheries Visitors Center's stream viewing chamber. Photo by Tamar Charney.
Head to almost any body of water and chances are you’ll find someone there fishing. We take it for granted that lakes and streams have fish in them. But most waterways can’t produce enough fish to keep up with demand. For more than 100 years states around the nation have been stocking the water with fish. Tamar Charney reports:
Transcript
Head to almost any body of water and chances are you’ll find someone there fishing. We take it for granted that lakes and streams have fish in them. But most waterways can’t produce enough fish to keep up with demand. For over 100 years states around the nation have been stocking the water with fish. Tamar Charney reports:
(Sounds of water in a stream)
When you stand at the side of the Boyne River in northern Michigan, you can smell the balsam fir that line the banks.
“There go a couple of salmon, right at our feet you can see.”
Tim Tebeau is standing under some branches casting his line into the river.
“We’re fishing for steelhead trout today. They are most likely just lying there waiting for something to come their way.”
The lakes and streams in this part of the state have drawn fishermen for years. Tim Tebeau says that includes writer Ernest Hemingway who set many of his short stories in Northern Michigan.
“As a writer I kind of revere Hemingway, and I spend a lot of time fishing the very same streams he did when he was spending his summers here.”
But if it weren’t for human intervention there wouldn’t have been fish for Hemingway, or for Tim Tebeau to fish for. In the mid to late 1800’s people started noticing that pollution, habitat destruction from dams and logging, and over-fishing were killing off almost all the fish in New England, and in the Great Lakes region.
Gary Whelen is the fish production manager for the state of Michigan. He says people began to squeeze out the eggs from fish, hatch them, and put the small fish back into lakes and streams.
“In 1870 many state agencies were looking at building hatchery systems.”
The hatchery systems rebuilt the populations of many native fish, including the brook trout that Hemingway liked to fish for. But they didn’t just breed local fish. For instance they brought in brown trout from Germany in 1883, and Whelan says the steelhead that Tim Tebeau fishes for came from California in 1877.
“Some of us depict that era as the ‘Johnny Fishseed’ period, where we were moving fish all over the continent, and internationally for that matter, bringing fish in that were considered commercially or economically important.”
Now this was long before there were highways, so if you wanted to move stuff long distances you basically had one choice.
(sound of train whistle)
That’s right, trains.
“This is a re-creation of the last of the 3 fish cars that transported fish around the state of Michigan. So this is a re-creation of the Wolverine.”
Maureen Jacobs is with the Michigan Fishery’s Visitors Center. The train car she’s standing in shows people, complete with train sound effects, how the fish were moved in the late 1800s and early 1900s. What you see is that the fish rode in the lap of luxury.
“They had chandeliers on the old fish cars!”
See, the fish cars were Pullman cars, used ones, but they still had all the trappings, including the mahogany bunks that the guys who cared for the fish slept on. Underneath the bunks were row after row of milk cans full of water and tiny little fish.
“Public citizens called ‘applicants’ would apply for permits to meet the train at different depots around the state of Michigan. From there, they would remove the old fish cans and plant the fingerlings in different lakes, rivers, and streams, so the public would basically stock the fish.”
Things are different today. People no longer pick up cans at the train station. Hatcheries are big modern facilities, the fish are moved by truck, and fisheries’ staff take care of releasing them. But they are still needed to make sure there are enough for people to fish for, because over-fishing and environmental damage are problems that haven’t gone away.
(Sounds of birds and water.)
“I’m going to adjust the depth a little bit here, get it closer to the bottom.”
Unfortunately the dark shapes you can just make out swimming around in the Boyne River aren’t biting Tim Tebeau’s line. But he’s says they’re there.
“If it weren’t for stocking programs like the ones we have, we wouldn’t be fishing for anything today; we’d simply be standing here enjoying the river.”
And perhaps tomorrow he’ll catch one, take a good look at it, and release it back to it’s watery world; an experience that will show up in unexpected ways in his writing, the same way fishing these streams inspired Ernest Hemingway many years ago. Good thing there were fish to fish for, huh?
With ongoing concerns about over-reliance on fossil fuels, researchers and entrepreneurs are looking for alternate ways to generate energy. One university scientist has created a power plant fueled by organic waste, including table scraps from restaurants. Tamara Keith reports:
Transcript
With ongoing concerns about over-reliance on fossil fuels, researchers and entrepreneurs are looking for alternate ways to generate energy. One university scientist has created a power plant fueled by organic waste, including table scraps from restaurants. Tamara Keith reports:
At Boulevard, an upscale restaurant, diners lunch on seared sea scallops, paella and grilled escolar among other options.
Back in the kitchen cooks are careful to keep all food scraps out of the trash.
(Kitchen sounds, scraping sounds)
The food scraps from this restaurant and 2,000 others in the San Francisco Bay Area are already being collected to turn into compost.
But now some of that food, about 8 tons a week, is going to a new biogas power plant at the University of California Davis. Tim Quaintance is a chef at Boulevard. He says he’s pleased that his leftovers aren’t just going to a landfill.
“It’s nice that in the past things that have basically been thrown away are now actually being used, and with this technology really contributing to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.”
(Generator runs in background)
In Davis, the table scraps are being converted into fuel at an experimental power plant known as the Biogas Energy Project. With its four large steel tanks and 22 kilowatt generator, this plant is the first real-world demonstration of a technique called anaerobic phased solids digestion.
Rayhong Jha is a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California Davis. She first developed this technology on a smaller scale in her lab.
“What you see here is 20,000 times larger than the reactor system I use for laboratory testing.”
It may sound like something out of a science fiction movie, leftovers into power, but Dave Konwinski says it’s real. He’s CEO of Onsite Power Systems Incorporated which licensed the technology and operates the plant.
“Every ton of collected food waste will provide enough either electrical or thermal energy to run an average of 10 California homes.”
Konwinski sees this test plant as the first step to commercializing biogas power plants. Here’s how it works: the food waste as well as grass clippings and other would-be-trash go into a sealed tank where bacteria break the mush down into water and organic acids… kind of like what happens if you leave lettuce in the fridge too long. When that’s done, the organic acids are pumped into another tank where different bacteria convert the soup into methane gas.
“Biogas can be used to run a generator, we have a generator we’ll be running here, or we can use it in the boiler to offset natural gas heat, and we’re looking at taking the gas and converting it into vehicle fuels.”
The trash and recycling company that serves San Francisco, NorCal Waste Systems, is providing the raw materials. Robert Reed is company’s director of corporate communications.
“This research and other research like this is very important because it could be a double or a triple. What I mean by that is it could produce new energy. It could reduce the amount of material going to landfills. And it could help reduce the creation of greenhouse gasses.”
And Reed says if this technology proves to be commercially viable, the results could be huge. In just California alone, 38 million tons of garbage is sent to landfills each year. He says half of that could be converted to power, and that’s enough energy to continuously power the entire city of San Francisco.
Suddenly leaving a little broccoli on your plate doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.
A federal court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating the discharge of ballast water from ships. Rebecca Williams reports it’s the first time the agency has had to take responsibility for the problem:
Transcript
A federal court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to start
regulating the discharge of ballast water from ships. Rebecca Williams
reports it’s the first time the agency has had to take responsibility for
the problem:
Ballast water helps stabilize ships, but it can also carry foreign invasive
species that might harm local waterways.
For 30 years, the EPA has exempted ballast water from the Clean Water Act.
Now, the judge has given the EPA two years to come up with rules to limit
the discharge of ballast water.
Tim Eichenberg is with The Ocean Conservancy. The group is one of three
environmental groups that sued the EPA.
“Within two years, EPA should come up with something, some approach, that
could phase in a series of controls that could eliminate invasive species in
ballast water over a period of time.”
The shipping industry is concerned about having enough time to comply with
any new federal regulations.
Shippers already face some new laws at the state level. States such as
Michigan and California have passed their own laws restricting what ships
can do with their ballast in local waters.
Biologist find signs of regeneration shortly after a forest fire. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
Some seeds, such as Jack Pine, need fire to germinate. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
After a fire, the ground is ready to receive a new generation of seeds. (Photo courtesy of Stephanie Hemphill)
Forest fires capture a lot of attention and concern. Loggers worry about lost resources. People who hike and camp in the forest worry they’ll see nothing but ugly, blackened vistas for years to come. But a big fire this summer in the northwoods gives people a chance to see just how fast the forest can recover. Even as the fire still burns, foresters see signs of life. The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Forest fires capture a lot of attention and concern. Loggers worry about lost resources.
People who hike and camp in the forest worry they’ll see nothing but ugly, blackened vistas for years
to come. But a big fire this summer in the northwoods gives people a chance to see just
how fast the forest can recover. Even as the fire still burns, foresters see signs of life.
The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
The Cavity Lake fire started in mid-July this summer. It turned out to be the fire people have been
worrying about for seven years. In 1999, huge straight-line winds knocked down millions
of trees. They toppled into an impassable tangle of drying fuel in and near the Boundary
Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeastern Minnesota. Locals call it “the
blowdown.”
The Cavity Lake fire gobbled up the blown-down trees. It roared across lakes,
threatening homes and resorts.
(Sound of boat motor)
Two forest service workers hop in a small boat to document the fire and its aftermath. In
places, the fire seems to have consumed everything, down to the soil, but these two are
looking for life.
Black, powdery ash covers the ground. Burned snags, limbless trees the color of
charcoal, stand against the sky. But even here, biologist Lissa Grover can find signs of
life.
“If you look around, you can see the 20-foot tall trees that took off after the blowdown,
and a lot of them still have cones on the top, and those cones are open now, and the seeds
will fall from them into the bare soil and germinate.”
In fact, some seeds, such as Jack Pine, wait for fire to open:
“There’s a seed bank in the soil, just waiting for a disturbance like this. There’s one plant
called Bicknell’s geranium that sprouts after fire, produces flowers the second year, sets
seed. Those seeds will stay in the soil until the next fire, even if it’s 200 years from now.”
And some plants aren’t waiting for the next generation. Grasses are already pushing
green shoots through the blackened dirt.
(Sound of motor)
Our next stop is a big island. After the 1999 blowdown in northeastern Minnesota, the
Forest Service purposely burned some areas near homes and resorts. The idea was to
reduce the amount of fuel available for wildfires. Crews set this island on fire four years
ago.
Wilderness ranger Tim McKenzie says that intentional burn saved the island, and the
resorts, from the Cavity Lake fire:
“It was traveling pretty good distances and spotting on these islands. As soon as it hit
here it just lay down.”
The blowdown fuel was already burned, and the young trees were too small and green to
keep the fire going.
Animals here are also adapted to fires. Bears, wolves and moose can walk away from a
fire. Birds can fly away or take refuge in the water.
Grover does worry about the young eagles, still in their nests and unable to fly.
“The trees are still there, the nest is still there, the adult eagles are still here, but it’s
unlikely that the juveniles in the nest survived the fire.”
But a few minutes later, we hear a sound that gladdens Grover’s heart: a young eagle
screaming for food.
(Sound of eagle)
At least one young eagle survived the Cavity Lake fire.
This land has been swept repeatedly by fires. They start, grow, move, and burn out in a
patchwork pattern. A fire last year burned until it ran into an area that had burned thirty
years ago. And here, in a thirty-year-old burn, is a picture-perfect Boundary Waters
portage.
(Sound of walking)
Young balsams scent the air with their clean, northwoods smell. Young birches lean
across the path. The moss is soft underfoot. The air is moist, and the mosquitoes are
buzzing.
Tim McKenzie fought that fire, thirty years ago. He says whenever fire burns, it’s nature
at work:
“People are used to seeing a snapshot in time. But the landscape that they’re used to
seeing became that landscape because of this process.”
And canoe outfitters here are busy planning routes that will show that landscape changing.
Many American manufacturing companies are trying to break into the Chinese market. With about a billion people, the idea of selling goods in China is an attractive one, but the GLRC’s Christina Shockley has the story of one company that’s having a hard time reaching Chinese citizens. That’s because local environment and safety regulations often stand in the way:
Transcript
Many American manufacturing companies are trying to break into the Chinese market.
With about a billion people, the idea of selling goods in China is an attractive one, but
the GLRC’s Christina Shockley has the story of one company that’s having a hard time reaching
Chinese citizens. That’s because local environment and safety regulations often stand in the way:
Motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson opened a dealership in Beijing in April. It’s the
company’s first shop in China in at least 60 years.
Robert Kennedy is Executive Director of the William Davidson Institute at the University
of Michigan. The institute studies business and policy issues in emerging markets.
Kennedy says there’s a huge demand in countries like China for products associated with
the American way of life. He says Harley-Davidson motorcycles are a prime example:
“I mean, they’re associated with a particular lifestyle here, it’s a very American thing.
And they have very low penetration in China and India, and these other countries now,
but because there’s slowed demand growth in the US, if they want to grow, that’s a great
place for them to go.”
Kennedy says it’s very common for companies to try to ease restrictions in other
countries to make it easier for them to export goods and there are several restrictions on
motorcycles in China. The rules vary from community to community, but most large
cities ban, or severely limit, motorcycle use in the city center.
Experts say the rules are in place partly because of safety and environmental issues.
Barrett McCormick specializes in Chinese politics at Marquette University. He says
environmental problems can be intensified because Chinese roads are clogged, and most
motorcycles there are dirty:
“Anyone who’s been to China 10 years ago or something, a common site is some horrible
little motorcycle putting down the road, with a big cloud of smoke behind it, and I think that’s
the kind of thing that the Chinese government has regulated to eliminate.”
McCormick says air quality is one of China’s most pressing problems. A recent report
from the World Health Organization says many of the most polluted cities in the world
are in China. It says one of the main sources of air pollution there is motor vehicles
emissions.
Zhixin Wu is with a company that’s working with government agencies to develop
Chinese transportation policies. He says emissions from dirty, small motorcycles in
china account for roughly 50 or 60 percent of emissions in urban areas:
“In China almost all the motorcycles use the two stroke internal combustion engine.”
Wu says that type of small engine is very dirty. But, Harley-Davidson says those bikes
are a far cry from the motorcycles it produces:
“The motorcycles in use in China, I guess I wouldn’t even characterize them as
motorcycles. I would call them two-wheelers.”
Tim Hoelter is the company’s Vice President for International Affairs. He says Harley
bikes easily meet environmental regulations in every market in which they’re sold. And
Hoelter says the company is working with officials in the United States and China to get
this point across:
“Not too long ago the Chinese ambassador to the United States came to Milwaukee and
met with local business people. I sat two seats away from him at dinner, and was able to
talk to him about these riding bans.”
Hoelter says the company is also meeting with American trade officials, and authorities
in the Chinese government, to get the rules changed. He says his company has already
helped ease motorcycle restrictions in other countries, such as Vietnam and India.
Robert Kennedy, from the William Davidson Institute, says Harley-Davidson will
probably be able to get the rules changed in a few years, assuming the regulations have
the inadvertent affect of keeping out Harley motorcycles. He says China has a huge trade
surplus with the United States, and that’s a sensitive political issue.
Kennedy says it’s not unusual for countries to have rules that keep foreign goods out,
even if that’s not their intent:
“The US has some of these regulations that keep out other countries products, and other
countries have regulations that keep out our products. It’s not like under the Romans or
the British where a country would send in the army and force them to buy our goods, it’s
just governments working together to sort out the details to allow trade to happen.
Kennedy says even though most Chinese wouldn’t be able to afford Harley motorcycles,
there are many who could, and as people there become more wealthy, the possibility
exists for a huge market.
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)
The golf course is enrolled in the Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program.
The course has built barriers around its wellheads to guard against potential groundwater
pollution. (Photo by Erin Toner)
The Michigan Turfgrass Environmental Stewardship Program recommends golf
courses build cement pads and walls around fuel tanks to prevent leaks and
contamination. (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.
Scientists have found that microwave popcorn could be a source of a chemical that might cause cancer in humans. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Scientists have found that microwave popcorn could be a source of a chemical that might
cause cancer in humans. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:
(sound of microwave popcorn)
Alright, I like microwave popcorn too, and I don’t like where this study is going, but the
Food and Drug Administration found that the grease-resistant coating inside microwave
popcorn bags can get into the popcorn oil. The coating is made with chemicals similar to
those found in non-stick pots and pans.
Tim Begley is a research chemist with the FDA. He was the lead author on a study
published in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants:
“A microwave popcorn bag is a very, very, very extreme situation, because of the heat
generated on a microwave popcorn bag.”
He’s talking about 400 degrees in just a minute or two. The chemicals used to make the
grease resistant coatings can break down into a suspected carcinogen known as PFOA,
but Begley stresses it is not known whether people are exposed to PFOA after eating a
bag of microwave popcorn. He says more study is needed.
The Environmental Protection Agency says DuPont hid information about the dangers of a chemical used to manufacture Teflon. The allegations prompted an investigation by the EPA, and now, the company will pay 16.5 million dollars to settle the complaint. The EPA says it’s the largest administrative penalty it has ever won. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred Kight has the story:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says DuPont hid information about the dangers of a
chemical used to manufacture Teflon. The allegations prompted an investigation by the EPA, and
now, the company will pay 16-point five million dollars to settle the complaint. The EPA says
it’s the largest administrative penalty it’s ever won. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Fred
Kight has the story:
Teflon is made using C-8, and the EPA alleged that for more than 20 years, DuPont withheld
information about the chemical’s health effects. The government also said DuPont didn’t tell what
it knew about the pollution of water supplies near one of its plants.
Tim Kropp is with the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C. He says what’s really
needed is for DuPont to quit making a product that’s been labeled a likely human carcinogen.
“DuPont has a pattern of supression and cover-up. They do not want to give public health
officials the information they need to answer these questions, and to solve these problems.”
DuPont says its interpretation of reporting requirements is different than the EPA’s and the
settlement closes the matter without any admission of wrongdoing.
