An environmental watchdog group is criticizing President Bush’s proposal to slash funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s library system. The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
An environmental watchdog group is criticizing President Bush’s
proposal to slash funding for the Environmental Protection
Agency’s library system. The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett reports:
The proposed budget would cut two million of the two-and-a-half
million dollars that pays for EPA’s libraries and reading rooms.
Internal EPA memos suggest the cuts could close EPA’s main
library and some of its regional libraries, and shut down the
system’s electronic catalog.
Jeff Ruch is with Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility. He says the proposed cuts threaten an invaluable
resource the serves government scientists and the public.
“And so for reports on particular sites – like for example:
contaminated sites or Superfund sites – they’re the only place in
the world where you can get some of the detailed investigations
that have been done.”
An EPA spokeswoman says the agency plans to make its physical
collections more widely available online, but it’s not clear how the
agency will pay for digitizing the documents.
Organic farms are concerned about nearby farms that produce genetically modified crops. They fear that the genetically modified crops will cross with and alter the genes of their own crops. (Photo by Rene
Cerney)
Proponents of genetically modified crops say the crops can be grown with fewer pesticides. (Photo by Daniel Wildman)
The nation’s agricultural seed companies are fighting local restrictions on their genetically engineered products. They say it’s the federal government’s job to regulate food safety. But critics say federal agencies aren’t doing a good job of testing genetically modified food for safety. They’re backing the right of local governments to regulate genetically engineered crops themselves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
The nation’s agricultural seed companies are fighting local restrictions on
their genetically engineered products. They say it’s the federal
government’s job to regulate food safety, but critics say federal agencies
aren’t doing a good job of testing genetically modified food for safety.
They’re backing the right of local governments to regulate genetically
engineered crops themselves. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Sarah Hulett reports:
Genetically engineered crops are created when genes from other plants,
animals or bacteria are used to alter their DNA.
Critics call them “Franken-foods,” and two years ago, three California
counties banned farmers from growing genetically altered crops. That
alarmed the agribusiness industry, and now it’s fighting to keep that from
happening elsewhere.
So far, the industry successfully lobbied 14 states to pass laws preventing
their local governments from putting restrictions on engineered crops.
Four other states are considering similar measures.
Jim Byrum is with the Michigan Agri-Business Association.
“Frankly, it’s pretty frustrating for us to look at some of the rumors that
are floating around about what happens with new technology. It’s
reduced pesticide use; it’s reduced producer expense in production. It’s
done all sorts of things.”
Genetically engineered seeds are created in the laboratories of big seed
companies like Monsanto and DuPont. The modified plants can produce
higher-yield crops that make their own insecticides, or tolerate crop-
killing problems such as drought or viruses.
Proponents of the technology say genetically altered crops have the
potential to feed the world more efficiently, and they say it’s better for
the environment. That’s because the crops can be grown with fewer
polluting pesticides, but critics say not enough is known yet about
engineered crops’ long-term ecological impact, or on the health of
people who eat them.
(Sound of farm)
Michelle Lutz is among the skeptics. She and her husband run an 80-
acre organic farm north of Detroit. She’s watching about a dozen head of
the beef cattle she’s raising. They’re feeding on cobs of organic corn
grown several yards away.
“I’m surrounded by conventional farmers. The farmers right over here to
my east – they’re good people, and I don’t think they would intentionally
do anything to jeopardize me, but they are growing genetically modified
corn.”
Lutz worries that pollen from genetically modified corn from those
nearby fields could make its way to her corn plants – and contaminate
her crop by cross-breeding with it. Lutz says people buy produce from
her farm because they trust that it’s free from pesticides, because it’s
locally grown, and because it has not been genetically altered. She says
she shares her customers’ concerns about the safety of engineered foods.
Lutz says letting local governments create zones that don’t allow
genetically engineered crops would protect organic crops from
contamination.
But Jim Byrum of the Michigan Agri-Business Association says no
township or county should be allowed to stop farmers from growing
genetically modified crops. He says every engineered seed variety that’s
on the market is extensively tested by federal agencies.
“Frankly, that evaluation system exists at the federal level. There’s
nothing like that at the state level, and there’s certainly nothing like that
at the local level. We want to have decisions on new technology, new
seed, based on science as opposed to emotion.”
Critics say the federal government’s evaluation of genetically modified
crops is not much more than a rubber stamp. The FDA does not approve
the safety of these crops. That’s just wrong.
Doug Gurian-Sherman is a former advisor on food biotechnology for the
Food and Drug Administration.
“It’s a very cursory process. At the end of it, FDA says we recognize that
you, the company, has assured us that this crop is safe, and remind you
that it’s your responsibility to make sure that’s the case, and the data is
massaged – highly massaged – by the company. They decide what tests
to do, they decide how to do the tests. It’s not a rigorous process.”
Gurian-Sherman says local governments obviously don’t have the
resources to do their own safety testing of engineered foods, but he says
state lawmakers should not allow the future of food to be dictated by
powerful seed companies. He says local governments should be able to
protect their growers and food buyers from the inadequacies of federal
oversight.
Lawmakers in three states (California, Michigan, North Carolina) are considering measures to block communities from regulating the use of genetically modified seeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
Lawmakers in three states (California, Michigan, North Carolina) are
considering measures to block communities from regulating the use of
genetically modified seeds. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah
Hulett reports:
More than a dozen states have already passed laws to prevent local
governments from banning the use of seeds that have been modified to
produce high-yield crops.
Peter Jenkins is with the Center for Food Safety. He says organic
farmers worry that pollen from genetically altered plants could drift into
their fields, and contaminate their crops.
“So, local control’s important to allow towns and counties to stake out
particular areas that should be set aside for organic or for GMO crops. In
some cases, you know, you could have zoning, or bans altogether.”
Supporters of the legislation say there are other ways to protect organic
crops from gene drift – including buffer zones and timed plantings. They
say it should be up to the federal government to regulate the use of
genetically modified seeds.
Anyone who slathers on lotions, deodorants, and shampoos can now search an online database to find out how safe those products are for their health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
Anyone who slathers on lotions, deodorants, and shampoos can now search an online
database to find out how safe those products are for their health. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
The Environmental Working Group looked at the ingredients of more than 14,000
products, and it rated the safety of those products by matching their ingredients with
government listings of toxic chemicals. Consumers can search the database by product
type or by brand name.
Jane Houlihan is vice president for science at the Environmental Working Group. She
says the database is important because federal regulators in the U.S. leave safety testing
up to the cosmetics industry.
“What we have right now is a system where individual companies have the ability to
decide what’s safe enough to sell. We don’t have a national safety standard for cosmetics.
So safety really varies widely.”
Some of the products that have raised health concerns include dark hair dyes – which
some scientists have linked to bladder cancer, and there are concerns that chemicals used
in nail polishes could cause birth defects in baby boys.
A blue-green algae bloom. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The experts who identified the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes for us
say nonpoint source pollution is one of the worst threats. That’s
pollution that doesn’t come out of a pipe but instead is washed from
streets and farm fields… and lawns. Americans use at least three million of tons
of fertilizer on their lawns every year. But the same compounds that make for a lush,
green lawn can make a stinky, slimy mess when they get washed into lakes and rivers.
Sarah Hulett looks at efforts to limit the amount of lawn chemicals that make their way
into the waterways:
Transcript
In our series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes, we’ve been looking
at environmental problems affecting the health of the lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the
issues one-by-one:
The experts who identified the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes for us
say nonpoint source pollution is one of the worst threats. That’s
pollution that doesn’t come out of a pipe but instead is washed from
streets and farm fields… and lawns. Americans use at least three million of tons
of fertilizer on their lawns every year. But the same compounds that make for a lush,
green lawn can make a stinky, slimy mess when they get washed into lakes and rivers.
Sarah Hulett looks at efforts to limit the amount of lawn chemicals that make their way
into the waterways:
When newspaper headlines decried the death of Lake Erie in the 1970’s, Americans got
familiar with a new enemy of the environment. Scientists named phosphorus the major
culprit in the lake’s decline. And the reaction went a long way toward cleaning up the
lake: billions of dollars went into upgrades for wastewater treatment plants to reduce
phosphorus from sewage. And phosphate detergents have been mostly phased out of use.
But now that regulators have gotten a handle on the phosphorus coming from the most
obvious sources, they’re left with a much more difficult task: reducing phosphorus from
countless smaller sources that together add up to a lot of pollution.
One of those sources is lawn fertilizer. And Glenn Short says it’s easy to see what
happens when that fertilizer gets washed into the lake where he lives.
(sound of ducks quacking and waves)
“You have this, like, green slime floating all over the top of the lake water. Just pops up
everywhere and it can fill the entire lake surface – especially in the calmer bays. It can be
just miserable for swimming and things like that.”
Short sits on the board of the Lake Sherwood Association, in southeast Michigan. His
neighbors asked him to lobby the township to pass a ban on phosphorus fertilizer to
reduce the algae that takes over the lake in the summers. But he says at first, he was
reluctant to do it.
“I’m like any other homeowner. I don’t want government telling me what to do with my
own property. If I want a really nice lawn, I felt that I should be able to have one.”
But he started doing some research. And he found that enough phosphorus will
eventually kill a lake.
“Over a period of time, you get more and more organic material growing, you kill it off,
you just start filling up your lake. And eventually you have no lake anymore. You just
have a wetland. Well, I like my lake. I mean, I live on a lake. I like to use my lake.”
So Short drafted an ordinance to ban fertilizers containing phosphorus, and his township
board passed it. Several other local governments in the region have also enacted limits or
outright bans. And the state of Minnesota has statewide limits on phosphorus fertilizers.
It’s an approach the landscape industry calls unnecessary.
Gary Eichen is with Mike’s Tree Surgeons in southeast Michigan. It’s a company that’s
signed onto an initiative aimed at environmentally responsible lawn care.
(sound of spreader)
The company uses zero-phosphorus fertilizer on almost all the lawns it treats. Back at the
office, Eichen says the problem isn’t the chemicals – it’s that most homeowners don’t
know how to use them.
“They purchase from a source that is not educated in what the products are. He goes
home and starts going through this giant label on the back, and most of it might as well
be Egyptian hieroglyphics. He has no idea. So he ends up over-applying or incorrectly
applying.”
Eichen says there would be far fewer problems with runoff if homeowners left fertilizing
to the professionals. And he says it’s tough for the experts to stay in business when
there’s a patchwork of local ordinances to regulate chemicals like phosphorus.
But that’s exactly what the Environmental Protection Agency is asking communities to
do. Brad Garmon of the Michigan Environmental Council says that kind of bottom-up
regulation presents some challenges.
“It’s very difficult to see what’s working and what’s not, and to chart success. And I
know that a lot of the state programs are re-evaluating right now to see if the approach
they’ve been using over the last five or ten years has been working.”
It’ll take at least another five to ten years for Glenn Short to see the results of his
community’s phosphorus ban. The lake he lives on is part of a river system that
eventually dumps into Lake Erie. But he says just like that Great Lake, it’ll be worth the
wait and the effort to see his small lake bounce back to health.
A conservation group and an industry coalition have come
to an agreement on one of the stickiest issues hanging up a regional water use agreement. The question is whether bottled water exports are considered a diversion of Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
A conservation group and an industry coalition have come to an agreement on one of the stickiest issues hanging up a regional water use agreement. The question is whether bottled water exports are considered a diversion of Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Officials from the Great Lakes states and provinces are trying to hammer out a regional water use agreement known as Annex 2001. They’ve been trying to come to a deal for the last four years. So the National Wildlife Federation and the Council of Great Lakes Industries agreed on some of the most contentious issues.
One of those is bottled water. The groups recommended that bottled water exports be allowed in the agreement, but that states be allowed to enact their own limits or bans. But some environmental groups are unhappy about the proposal. David Holtz is Michigan director of Clean Water Action.
“We don’t care how water leaves the basin. What’s the difference if it leaves in twelve-ounce bottles or a pipe? I mean, it’s still gone.”
The Council of Great Lakes Governors has a December deadline to agree on a plan.
Chene Street, on Detroit's east side, was once a thriving retail corridor. Now, it's a decimated stretch of crumbling and burned-out buildings. (Photo by Marla Collum)
The Chene-Ferry market was once a bustling center of commerce and a social hub for the neighborhood. It closed in the 1970s. There are no major chain grocery stores to serve the community, so many people shop for food at liquor and convenience stores. (Photo by Marla Collum)
On the east side of Detroit, there are 93 liquor stores for 90,000 residents. Compare that to the racially mixed, middle-income suburb of Southfield, where there are 18 liquor stores for about 78,000 residents. This data was collected in 2002. (Photo by Shannon Zenk)
Finding a big supermarket is next to impossible in many inner-city
neighborhoods. That means a lot of people do their shopping at convenience
and liquor stores, where there’s rarely fresh produce. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on one group’s efforts to get around
the grocery store problem – and help revitalize a neighborhood:
Transcript
Finding a big supermarket is next to impossible in many inner-city neighborhoods. That means a lot of people do their shopping at convenience and liquor stores, where there’s rarely fresh produce. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on one group’s efforts to get around the grocery store problem and help revitalize a neighborhood:
(Sound of traffic)
Up and down this street as far as the eye can see are crumbling and burned-out buildings. This used to be a thriving business district. It’s where Vlasic Pickle, White Owl Cigar, and Lay’s Potato Chips grew into national brands. Today, the most evident sign of commerce is the prostitutes walking the street. Smack in the middle of this is Peacemaker’s International. It’s a storefront church where Ralph King is a member.
“Now if you look at it you see that there’s no commercial activity, no grocery stores within a mile of here. And our concern was that people had to eat.”
There are about seven liquor stores for every grocery store here on the east side of Detroit. Some people can drive to the well-stocked supermarkets in the suburbs, but many families don’t have cars, and King says the city busses are spotty.
“So they’re buying food at convenience stores or gas stations. And quite frankly, it just doesn’t seem a good fit that a community has to live off gas station food.”
That means processed, high-starch, high-fat diets that lead to illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Those are all problems that disproportionately hit African Americans, and public health researchers say those higher rates of illnesses are linked to the food availability problems in poor black communities.
Amy Schulz is with the University of Michigan, and she’s studied the lack of grocery stores in high-poverty neighborhoods.
“What we found, in addition to the economic dimension was that Detroit, neighborhoods like the east side that are disproportionately African American are doubly disadvantaged in a sense. Residents in those communities have to drive longer, farther distances to access a grocery store than residents of a comparable economic community with a more diverse racial composition.”
In other words, if you’re poor and white, you have a better chance of living near a grocery store than if you’re poor and black. Ralph King and the folks in this neighborhood want to get around that problem. So about three years ago, they decided to try and reopen a nearby farmer’s market. They turned to Michigan State University Extension for help. Mike Score is an extension agent.
“I thought it would just be the process of organizing some people, helping them buy some produce wholesale, setting up in the neighborhood, selling the food, and generating a net income that could be reinvested. And I was really wrong.”
The farmer’s market was a flop. Score says produce vendors set up in the neighborhood, but the fruits and vegetables sat all day, unsold. He says the problem was they were using the wrong currency. Most people in this neighborhood have very little cash on hand, and they need to use their food stamp cards to shop for groceries.
So, Score helped develop a plan for a neighborhood buyers’ club that can negotiate low prices by ordering in bulk. His business plan also calls for job training for people in the neighborhood.
“It’s going to give people who are chronically unemployed but who have some entrepreneurial skills access to food at a lower cost, and that enables them to think about starting restaurant businesses or smaller retail businesses. So that’s an important part of this project: in addition to getting people groceries, it also creates some job opportunities.”
It’s been a struggle to get the program off the ground. It took a long time to get approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a machine to read peoples’ food stamp cards. People have stolen some of the project’s meager resources, but Mike Score and Ralph King say they’ll stick with it until families in this neighborhood can put decent food on their tables. And they say they hope it can be a model that other low-income communities around the country can use.
Particulate matter is an air pollution problem the EPA is trying to reduce. (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
Federal regulators are looking at two plans for reducing the amount of soot in the air. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports, public health advocates say tougher regulations would prevent thousands of premature deaths from heart and lung disease:
Transcript
Federal regulators are looking at two plans for reducing the
amount of soot in the air. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah
Hulett reports, public health advocates say tougher regulations would
prevent thousands of premature deaths from heart and lung disease.
One of the plans would cut the amount of pollution in a 24-hour period by more than half. A second plan would allow a little more soot each day, but it would cut the total amount allowed each year. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson is expected to make a make a choice between the two plans by the end of the year.
EPA researchers looked at the links between air pollution and premature death in nine U.S. cities. Janice Nolen is the director of national policy for the American Lung Association.
“In those nine cities they were estimating that each year, about five thousand people died of particle pollution, where the standards are right now.”
Nolen says the standards EPA is considering would greatly reduce those deaths. The new standards would take effect in the fall of 2006.
As President Bush prods Congress to pass his Energy Bill, a new poll suggests nine out of ten Americans want to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
As President Bush prods Congress to pass his Energy Bill, a new poll
suggests nine out of ten Americans want to reduce the nation’s dependence on
foreign oil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
The Yale University survey suggests that anxieties in Washington over America’s reliance on foreign oil match people’s concerns at the dining room table and around the water cooler.
Dependence on imported oil was ranked highest on people’s list of concerns – above jobs and the economy, high gasoline prices, and pollution.
Dan Esty is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. He says the survey also suggests that Americans don’t want to develop more domestic fossil fuels.
“They don’t want to drill in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. They don’t want to have more coal-based power, even though that might come from domestic sources. They really want to see a big new push for some alternative energies, and for some new technologies.”
Nine out of ten people surveyed also cited higher fuel economy standards as a good way to reduce foreign oil dependence. But lawmakers have so far rejected efforts to impose new efficiency mandates.
Michigan DNR Director Rebecca Humphries gets some coaching on her target shooting skills from her teenage daughter, Jenny Humphries. Jenny shoots clay pigeons competitively. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
Moms and daughters check their targets. Each participant shot five rounds with .22-caliber bolt-action rifles. Several first-time shooters hit bull's eyes. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
Mary Chillison came to the rifle range with her daughter Nikki. Chillison says she doesn’t have much interest in hunting, but she likes shooting targets. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)
If you look at the average hunting camp, you’d see about six men for every woman. But some state officials want that to change. They think getting more women and girls into the shooting sports will help turn around declining sales of hunting licenses. And they say that will help shore up state funds that pay for conservation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
If you look at the average hunting camp, you’d see about six men for every woman. But
some state officials want that to change. They think getting more women and girls into
the shooting sports will help turn around declining sales of hunting licenses. And they
say that will help shore up state funds that pay for conservation. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
“Okay, ladies… Is everybody done dry firing? All right. Safety on, actions open. The
coach will insert one round into the chamber…”
Today is the first time Abby Wood has ever shot a gun. Abby’s 13 years old, and she’s at
a mid-Michigan shooting range with about a dozen other daughters and their moms for a
day of gun safety instruction and target shooting.
Abby loads and shoots five rounds. Then she and her mom, Ann Miller, walk downrange
to check out her target.
“I got ’em all on the target, and they’re sort of in the same area. But they’re a little off.
And I got one really close to the bull’s eye, I’m kinda proud of that. (Ann:) I thought we
did great.”
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources put on this mother-daughter event as a
way to get more women and girls interested in target shooting and hunting. Like many
states, Michigan is seeing a slow decline in hunting license sales – about one percent a
year. And some worry that if that trend continues, it could hurt the state’s ability to pay
for conservation programs and to keep its wild deer herd in check.
Lynn Marla coordinates a state program that puts on workshops for women to develop
their outdoor skills. She says of all the outdoor sports, hunting is the most difficult
activity to get women interested in.
“It’s basically ‘never been invited. Never been taught.’ I mean, I know a man who’s my
age and he had three daughters and a son. And he never even thought to ask his
daughters.”
But some states are extending invitations to women and girls who want to learn to shoot
and hunt. The Becoming an Outdoors Woman program – or BOW – started in Wisconsin
in the early 1990s. BOW is now in 43 states, seven Canadian provinces, and New
Zealand. Every year, about 20-thousand women spend a weekend hunting, fishing, and
learning other outdoor activities like paddling and orienteering.
Christine Thomas is BOW’s founder, and a professor at the University of Wisconsin. She
says it’s important to get different kinds of people interested in outdoor activities.
“Because – especially as budgets shrink, but really anytime – as people have less of a tie
to the natural resources, they are less likely to care what happens to them. So from a
standpoint of political support for fish and wildlife programs, environmental protection, I
think it’s important to get lots of people involved. And women and girls are some of
those people.”
At the rifle range, Mart McClellan says she didn’t grow up around hunters, and she used
to be opposed to hunting. But she says working with people who hunt has changed her
attitude, and she’s interested in trying it.
“You know, it seems like in the past, from my perspective, it’s been such a sexist kind of
sport…that doesn’t need to be. And I think a lot of women and girls get intimidated.
Because you know you hear the stories about deer camp, it’s all the guys, and guy
bonding. So I think this will kind of combat that stereotype. And hopefully get more
women out hunting.”
This is the Michigan Department of Natural Resources’ first shooting event for women
and girls. Abby Wood – the teenager who’s shooting for the first time – says she likes
target shooting – and she thinks she might want to try hunting too. And after a day on the
shooting range littered with rifle shells, she’s got some ideas about what she might want
to wear to deer camp.
“I want to make earrings out of the leftover shells…”
