A land war is brewing between environmentalists and landowners along Lake Erie… and the latest battleground is the Ohio Legislature. Environmental activists are warning – if lawmakers side with the landowners, it could cause a domino effect, prompting other Great Lakes states to pass laws keeping nature-lovers off the shore. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
Transcript
A land war is brewing between environmentalists and landowners along Lake Erie… and the
latest battleground is the Ohio Legislature. Environmental activists are warning – if lawmakers
side with the landowners, it could cause a domino effect, prompting other Great Lakes states to pass laws keeping nature-lovers off the shore. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen
reports:
Ohioans who own land along the 260-mile Erie shore are angry because the state has been charging them lease payments for land their deeds show they already own and pay taxes on. That’s the strip between the lake’s high water mark and low water mark. The Ohio House of Representatives has okayed a ban on the lease payments to make it clear the residents’ deeds prevail.
But environmental activists such as Jack Shaner say that would rob beachcombers and birdwatchers of a 200-year-old right to walk the shoreline.
“This sets a bad precedent for the Great Lakes states. It also could cause a nationwide ripple effect.
We’re talking about public trust lands which are not only along Lake Erie but along any common waterway or public land. If this gets a toe hold in Ohio, this could sweep the nation. We’ve got to nip it in the bud right here in Ohio.”
It’s not law yet in Ohio. State Senators are now looking at this bill.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.
We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford’s black Model T. Cars of every shape, size – and color – now practically dominate American life. Which poses a problem – what to do with the cars once they’re piled high in junkyards. A recent public art project offered one passionate recycler a chance to reuse junked cars in his art. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has this story of “Art on Wheels”:
Transcript
We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford’s black Model T. Cars of every shape, size – and color
– now practically dominate American life. Which poses a problem – what to do with the cars
once they’re piled high in junkyards. A recent public art project offered one passionate
recycler a chance to reuse junked cars in his art. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has this story of “Art on Wheels”:
The American landscape is filled with automobiles. Lines of fancy molded steel are everywhere
– in parking lots and bumper to bumper along the highways. Or, as Canadian folk singer Bruce
Cockburn once observed, a kind of “sheet metal ballet.” But, sadly, when the dance finally ends,
there’s nothing left but junkyards of crushed steel. A recent community art project suggested that
re-use could be an answer to the old environmental debate of what to do with all the junk.
(sound of kids at the art show)
Dozens of artists were asked to come up with their own unique ways to re-use at least some of
that automotive scrap for the recent “Art on Wheels” Project. Art teacher Bruce Adams describes
what he and his high school students call the “Environmentally Friendly Car.”
“There’s a picket fence on each side. The front we call the front lawn, because the surface is a
big, grass lawn, with a bird house, so the birds can live there over the summer. Then the back of
it, we call the backyard, it’s a garden, it’s a got a pond, it’s got a stream running down to the pond
– it had fish living in there all summer.”
Adams says they built the car as sort of an ironic commentary on the whole American dream
thing. That’s what many of sculptures in the exhibit were designed to do – to make a statement.
Other sculptures, such as the cement truck chicken, were simply intended to be outlandish. But
for one of the exhibit artists, Doug McCullum, re-use isn’t a novelty. It’s a lifelong expression.
You might even say an obsession.
“My sister broke her femur…I made a lamp out of her steel leg splint. It was a little strange
thinking that, you know, this thing spent six months in my sister’s leg –
but she kind of enjoyed the lamp.”
McCullum is, well, shall we say, passionate about re-use? Okay, so you might even call him the
Dr. Frankenstein of the junkyard. His Gremlin car sculpture from the exhibit features some of
his junkyard creations. They’re popping out of the roof, the hood, the doors and the gas tank.
Come meet Scratch, Knock, Guzzle, and the rest of the Gremlins gang.
“The car is covered in a wide variety of monsters, all named after things that go wrong with your
car – henceforth the name Gremlins. They are all made out of various things like air compressor
tanks, and old recycled drive shafts, and snow blower hoods, and old air tanks.”
No, McCullum isn’t an auto mechanic, or a junk dealer. He’s an architect by trade, who likes to
create recycled art in his spare time. But McCullum doesn’t have to go far for re-use materials
when he begins a project. He just walks downstairs and scrounges around in his basement.
McCullum says he saves everything – and he’s especially partial to automobile salvage.
“I have so much steel, and so much stuff that I’ve recycled in my basement that it would take a
small crew to move that stuff out, and that’s just the way I create.”
McCullum says there are plenty of worn out or broken parts from his own cars down there. And
he’s never one to pass up somebody else’s cast off muffler or tire tread abandoned at the side of
the road. McCullum hauls it all home for his next project. And if he does run into roadblock
while creating? McCullum says he loves to go shopping – at the junkyard of course.
“It’s like shopping at the mall for me. I like climbing through the piles, and digging through
something, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Like, oh… this could be a great head, and sit
that aside… I go looking for a part and I come out with like a couple hundred pounds worth of
steel. Like, yeahhhh, like there was a big sale at the mall and I’m coming out with the spoils of
my labor.”
But make no mistake, for McCullum re-use isn’t an idle past time, it’s a professional and personal
commitment. As both an artist and an architect he says he believes in the beauty and the
possibility of preserving everything. McCullum says things can and should last. He says it’s
purely a matter of vision.
“Basically, anything that is discarded can be re-used in a wide variety of ways, just people don’t
have the vision or that kind of mentality to really think in a different way. And that’s really what
this whole project is about – the Art on Wheels thing in general – you can re-use everything.”
(sound of kid yelling, “Look a bug car! There’s a bug on top!”)
MCullum says the unusual automobile inspired sculptures were fun to make – and to look at.
Mind you, he doesn’t expect to see gremlin cars or cement truck chickens roaring down the
highway anytime soon. But McCullum says hopefully the exhibit will help turn people on to the
possibilities of recycling.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
John Munter grows hazelnuts on his farm in northern Minnesota. He says the bushes are better for the environment than corn or soybeans, and that hazelnuts could be an important food in a future of climate change. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
You might have tried hazelnut flavoring in your coffee. And we all know about the hazelnuts in European chocolate bars. Hazelnuts – or filberts – are traditionally grown in Turkey, Italy, and Oregon. Now, researchers are developing varieties that could thrive in more challenging climates, such as the Great Lakes region. A man in northern Minnesota is growing hazelnuts. It’s part of his attempt to live off the land. And he says hazelnuts are the perfect crop for a future of global climate change. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill visited his farm:
Transcript
You might have tried hazelnut flavoring in your coffee. And we all know about the hazelnuts in
European chocolate bars. Hazelnuts – or filberts – are traditionally grown in Turkey, Italy, and
Oregon. Now, researchers are developing varieties that could thrive in more challenging
climates, such as the Great Lakes region. A man in northern Minnesota is growing hazelnuts. It’s
part of his attempt to live off the land. And he says hazelnuts are the perfect crop for a future of
global climate change. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill visited his
farm:
John Munter lives on 40 acres of hay fields and woods. He and his wife and their four children
live in a ranch-style house in the middle of the fields. Munter works at a Northwest Airlines
reservation center. But his heart is here at the farm. It was settled by his grandfather, a Finnish
immigrant, 90 years ago.
Munter has a full beard. He wears round wire-rimmed glasses. And when he goes out to do the
chores, he puts on a fraying denim jacket that must be 50 years old. It belonged to his great-
uncle.
(sound of Munter walking outdoors)
“Here’s our maple sugaring operation… this is the garden here, you can see it’s pretty small.
We’re so busy it’s hard to spend a lot of time gardening… and to my right is the log sauna…”
John Munter has a lot of projects. He wants to be as self-sufficient as he can on the farm.
Twelve years ago he planted some hazelnut bushes south of the old farmhouse. They’re protected
from the north wind here, and they’ve grown to about seven feet tall.
This is a new crop for northern Minnesota. There are wild hazelnuts growing around here, but no
one had tried the newer varieties, that are bred to produce more and bigger nuts.
Four years ago, Munter’s bushes began producing nuts. He’s especially happy with one of the
bushes.
“It really just pounds out the nuts. They’re not real big, but they’re plentiful, last year we got
maybe two pounds of nuts from this little bush right here… Now this bush here produces nuts
early. They’re a signal to me because when the squirrels start attacking my nuts, they take after
this one first because they ripen earlier. You can see a bush loaded with hazelnuts, and the next
morning it’s stripped. And then they go to the next bush, and the next one, and so on. (Hemphill:
‘Then how do you get anything out of them?’) Well, I’m letting the animals have them at this
point, because I’m too busy with all my other projects to process all these little nuts.”
You have to take the long view with hazelnuts. Right now, these bushes are 12 years old, and
they’re just beginning to produce nuts. But Munter says in ten years, he could get hundreds of
pounds.
He could sell them to candy-makers, or just eat them. They’re high in protein and vitamins. And
Munter says the oil is as healthy as olive oil. Most hazelnuts come from Europe and Oregon.
John Munter is determined to show they’ll grow in northern Minnesota.
“They’re great for climate change too. Because they bend and don’t break… in hurricanes,
tornadoes and wind storms, whatever… if a forest fire burns it over, they’ll pop back up from the
base there.”
John Munter says hazelnuts could be an important source of food if the climate gets harsher.
Munter’s not the only one in the Great Lakes region trying out hazelnuts. Some researchers say
they’re the crop of the future. They say the bushes are better for the environment than corn and
soybeans.
Hazelnut bushes stay in the ground for years, so the soil isn’t eroded by plowing. And they’re
very good at absorbing fertilizers. That means excess fertilizer doesn’t run into nearby streams.
A few farmers are planting them, and thinking of switching gradually, from corn and soybeans, to
hazelnuts.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Commercial shrimpers and fishers in the Gulf of Mexico cannot find anything alive in the 'dead zone.' Research indicates fertilizer runoff from Midwest farms causes the 'dead zone.' (Photo by Lester Graham)
The commercial fishers in the Gulf of Mexico are hoping the farmers in the Midwest help them solve a problem. The fishers and shrimpers say the farmers could help reduce a so-called ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The commercial fishers in the Gulf of Mexico are hoping the farmers in the Midwest help them
solve a problem. The fishers and shrimpers say the farmers could help reduce a so-called ‘dead
zone’ in the Gulf. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico varies in size from year to year, sometimes getting larger
than the state of New Jersey. Scientists say excess nitrogen and other nutrients used to grow
crops and lawns in the Midwest are drained from the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river basins
and into the Gulf. Nancy Rabalais is a researcher with the Louisiana Universities Marine
Consortium. She says the result is a huge algae bloom in the Gulf…
“The nutrients stimulate the growth of these algae and they’re either eaten by zooplankton or fish
and become part of the marine food web or they die and sink to the bottom. It’s the cells that sink
to the bottom that eventually lead to the consumption of oxygen by bacteria.”
Fish and shrimp can’t live in the oxygen-starved area. The researchers say the only thing that can
reduce the size of the ‘dead zone’ is to reduce the amount of nitrogen from the Midwest that drains
into the Gulf of Mexico.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Commercial shrimpers and fishers in the Gulf of Mexico cannot find anything alive in the 'dead zone.' Research indicates fertilizer runoff from Midwest farms causes the 'dead zone.' (Photo by Lester Graham)
Farmers and lawn care companies in the Midwest use fertilizer to grow better crops and greener lawns. But excess fertilizer is washed downstream by rain, eventually reaching the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists say once in the Gulf, it triggers a process that causes a so-called ‘Dead Zone.’ The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Farmers and lawn care companies in the Midwest use fertilizer to grow better crops and greener
lawns. But excess fertilizer is washed downstream by rain, eventually reaching the Gulf of
Mexico. Scientists say once in the Gulf, it triggers a process that causes a so-called ‘Dead Zone.’
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
To get better crop production farmers use anhydrous ammonia to increase nitrogen levels in the
soil. To get greener lawns, homeowners use fertilizers that also can increase nitrogen and other
nutrient levels. But excess nitrogen gets carried away by rainstorms. For all or parts of 31 states,
that nitrogen is washed into ditches and creeks and rivers that are all part of the Mississippi River
basin. All of that land drains into the Mississippi and the Mississippi drains into the Gulf of
Mexico.
Tracy Mehan was the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Assistant Administrator for
Water. Mehan points out that’s a lot of runoff that ends up in one place…
“It affects most of the inland drainage of the United States from Minnesota, from Ohio, from
Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. So, we’re dealing
with a tremendously broad system here and with tremendous challenges to protect the Gulf of
Mexico.”
Challenges because the nitrogen and other nutrients cause a problem.
Nancy Rabalais is a professor with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. She says the
nitrogen causes a huge bloom of algae…
“Well, the nutrients stimulate the growth of plants just like fertilizers stimulate the growth of a
corn plant. But the plants in the Gulf are microscopic algae.”
Some of the algae is eaten by tiny aquatic animals and fish. But, with a huge algal bloom… some
of it just dies and sinks to the bottom. Those algae cells are consumed by bacteria that also
consume oxygen. Rabalais says that depletes the oxygen in the surrounding water…
“So what basically happens is that the production of algae is just too much for the system to
handle.”
This oxygen starvation is called hypoxia. Marine life can’t live in a hypoxic area. Fish avoid it if
they can by swimming away. Other life that can’t move that fast dies. The size of the hypoxic
zone varies from year to year. Weather across the nation affects the amount of runoff that ends
up in the Gulf, but the trend has been a dead zone that’s gotten bigger over the past twenty
years… and according to Rabalais’ research it has doubled in size since the 1950’s when nitrogen
started being used extensively in agriculture.
(sound of boat engine starting up)
In Louisiana, the commercial fishers and shrimpers are concerned about the ‘dead zone.’ Some of
the smaller operations find it difficult to travel the longer distances to find fish outside the ‘dead
zone.’
Nelwyin McInnis is with the environmental organization, the Nature Conservancy. Walking in a
marsh area in Louisiana, she talked how important it was to that region that farmers and
homeowners in the Midwest do something to try to cut back on the amount of fertilizer that ends
up in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Certainly any ways that you can reduce the fertilizer runoff would certainly be of value. And I
know each farmer can’t imagine their impact hundreds of miles away in the Gulf of Mexico, but
each one adds up and has an effect.”
But powerful agricultural interests say the ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico is not caused by
nitrogen fertilizers in the farm belt. The American Farm Bureau has kept up a steady campaign
of denial of responsibility. Reports and essays published by the Farm Bureau question researcher
Nancy Rabalais’ findings. Rabalais says the Farm Bureau can question her all it wants. Her
published work has been reviewed by other scientists in close to a dozen major scientific journals.
“We don’t believe in collecting data and putting it on a shelf. We get it to the scientific public and
we also try to translate it so that the public, including the agricultural community can understand
what it’s saying.”
Whether the agriculture community wants to hear what those data are saying is another question.
However, the government is taking it seriously and is looking at ways to reduce the amount of
nutrients being washed into the Gulf of Mexico.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
