Author: Shawn Allee

The Pride of an Industrial Town

  • Cline Avenue and its bridge once cut across and over steel mills and refineries in East Chicago, Indiana. Inspectors found it was structurally unsound and the state didn't feel it warranted repair. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The US government estimates about twelve percent of the country’s bridges are in dire need of repair.
Those are hazards, of course, but for towns that pride themselves on their industrial might … a crumbling bridge is a concrete and steel embarrassment.
Shawn Allee found one town that needs to remove a bridge but thinks maybe that’s for the best:

Transcript

The US government estimates about twelve percent of the country’s bridges are in dire need of repair.
Those are hazards, of course, but for towns that pride themselves on their industrial might … a crumbling bridge is a concrete and steel embarrassment.
Shawn Allee found one town that needs to remove a bridge but thinks maybe that’s for the best:

East Chicago, Indiana, has been a steel- and chemical-manufacturing powerhouse, and still is, but mills and refineries need fewer workers these days.
That industrial decline is a sore spot that got poked pretty hard last fall.
Some inspectors found structural problems in the Cline Avenue bridge.
It’s an enormous bridge that let drivers soar over canals, trains, and industrial truck routes.
But the local government and the State of Indiana didn’t have the money for a fix, and they closed Cline Avenue bridge for good.

That bothers Monica Serrano.
She wonders, if the town’s losing a bridge, what does that say about the town?

“Why would I stay in this area? If I know the roads are deteriorating, and people are just gonna leave, why would I stay? I want to be in an area that would flourish. I really feel that don’t have the best judgement when it comes to the people here.”

Well, there’re people who think removing the bridge is an opportunity to remake East Chicago for the better.
One person who makes that argument is Kristi DeLaurentiis.
She’s with the Metropolitan Planning Council, a regional land-use think tank.
To make her case, she drives me past East Chicago’s steel mills and refineries.
From your car window … they loom large and dominate the landscape.

“There’s only small pockets of open space that are not privately or corporate-owned.”

DeLaurentiis says back in the day, big industry scooped up enormous stretches of real – estate, including the shoreline along Lake Michigan.

“Maybe but you can kind of see the lake front from here …
It goes on for what seems like it goes on for miles. Nothing but beachfront that’s cut off by fences or very large industrial buildings, smokestacks and the like.
You know, they really have not taken advantage of the shoreline they have.”

DeLaurentiis says the mills use fewer workers these days, and they need less land, too.
So, East Chicago is hoping to reclaim industrial space for an economic boost.
Maybe developers would build new neighborhoods closer to the lake and pay a premium for it.
Or, at the very least, residents could get more parks.

“Here, it seems a real shame not to have people picnicking and using the open space and really not to have personal enjoyment within their own community.”

Well, back to the issue of the Cline Avenue bridge …
DeLaurentiis says it makes things worse – it blocks off the lake from the rest of the town.
It’s so tall, you can’t see past it and you gotta drive a ways to get around it.
If you want to reclaim industrial space for parklands or beachfront neighborhoods, no one will do that if the bridge is in the way.

That’s the practical argument … but what about the idea that big infrastructure is part of East Chicago’s identity?
Surprisingly, big industry won’t miss the bridge much.
Mark Maassel (MAH-zull) heads the Northwest Indiana Forum, a group that represents business in the area, including the steel mills.

“So while I recognize those comments, if we rebuilt that bridge, the one thing we can say for certain is that you’ve spent an enormous amount of dollars and cents resources that would have been potentially used in some other way, and you’ve done it to recreate a barrier between one part of the community and the next.”

Maassel says the whole town of East Chicago, including the remaining steel mills, will benefit from a better local economy.
If that means letting an old symbol like a bridge die, then so be it.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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A Filmmaker’s Food Waste Story

  • Jeremy Seifert produced the Dive!, a film about food waste and how much of it is actually useful. (Photo courtesy of Dive! The Film)

A film about food waste is catching attention and awards at independent film festivals across the country.

The film’s called “Dive!,” and reviewers are shocked by the film’s statistics about how much edible food that grocery stores toss into dumpsters.
Shawn Allee reports the reviewers are also enthralled by the filmmaker’s personal story about diving after that food.

Transcript

A film about food waste is catching attention and awards at independent film festivals across the country.

The film’s called “Dive!,” and reviewers are shocked by the film’s statistics about how much edible food that grocery stores toss into dumpsters.

Shawn Allee reports the reviewers are also enthralled by the filmmaker’s personal story about diving after that food.

Jeremy Seifert didn’t start dumpster diving to make a film.

A few years ago, friends turned him onto it.
One morning, they surprised him with bags of food pulled from a dumpster.

“And so my entire kitchen floor was covered with meat and salads and I was filled with delight and wonder and I just said, “where do we begin?”

Seifert says he dumpster dived for kicks, but that changed.
Seifert is a filmmaker by trade, and he got a filming assignment at a refugee camp in Uganda.
The kids in the camp had hardly any food.

“They were truly hungry and suffering from hunger. And I came back home and two nights later, I was on my way to a dumpster pulling out a carload of food that had been thrown away. That experience filled me with such outrage, that I felt I needed to do something and my expression was to make a film.”

Seifert’s film picks up after his dumpster diving takes this kind of political turn.
It’s not for kicks anymore; he wants to show our food waste problem is so bad, that his family could practically live off food from grocery stores dumpsters.
He gets advice from experienced divers.

“Rule number one. Never take more than you need unless you find it a good home.”

But, Seifert runs into trouble with this rule.
He can’t let food go …

“I’m tired of it, there’s too much. I only took this much because there’s so much going to waste. It’s almost two in the morning, and I don’t have anywhere to put it, really.
I had to save as much of it as I could. In just a week of nightly diving, we had a year’s supply of meat.”

Guilt wasn’t his only problem.
His wife, Jen, explains a practical one.

“The dumpster stuff is really great. but because there’s such a large quantity of it, it can turn to a lot of work. So there’s like 12 packages of strawberries that I need to wash and freeze and cut. It’s not that big of a deal, but it’s just a lot more work than going to the grocery store and picking up just what you need.”

Seifert says the biggest problem with dumpster diving, was that it changed how he felt about food. One morning, he talked to his young son about it and kept the camera rolling …

“I don’t know if dumpster diving and eating food from the dumpster has made me value food more or value food less because it’s easier now to throw food away because we have so much of it. Part of me, I think I’m valuing food even less.”

“You can’t waste food, Dad.”

“I know, I don’t want to waste food. Do you want to waste food?”

“No.”

“I don’t want to waste food, either.”

Seifert tells me that this scene at the breakfast table haunted him, because maybe he was setting a bad example for his son.

“So it was a crisis moment in my food waste dumpster diving adventures. And so by the time the film was over, I was so tired of food and thinking about food.”

Well, Seifert’s had to keep thinking about food.

His film’s at festivals, and he helps activists get grocery stores to donate to food banks.
But things have changed at Seifert’s house.

He doesn’t dumpster dive so much – instead, he’s started a garden.
That way, his boy can really value what makes it to the dinner table.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Predicting the Oil Spill With Supercomputers

  • Pete Beckman says even with some of the fastest computers in the world, the model of the spill could take days to finish. (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

Oil from the big spill in the Gulf of Mexico is starting to turn up in places people did not expect.
That’s making it tough for cleanup crews to stay one step ahead of the oil.
Shawn Allee reports some scientists hope supercomputers might help.<

Transcript

Oil from the big spill in the Gulf of Mexico is starting to turn up in places people did not expect.
That’s making it tough for cleanup crews to stay one step ahead of the oil.
Shawn Allee reports some scientists hope supercomputers might help.

Scientists want to put together a 3D picture of what the gulf oil plume looks like, and they’re using new computer code and supercomputers to do it.

The numbers are getting crunched at Argonne national laboratory outside Chicago.
Pete Beckman runs the computing center there.

He says satellites and water samples give us some information, but we could really use a more complete picture.

“If we know for example that, because of eddies and currents, that things will accumulate at a particular map location, well, that’s where you would send the booms to soak up the oil. If you can concentrate your resources in one place, you’re much more effective.”

Beckman says even with some of the fastest computers in the world, the model of the spill could take days to finish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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The Psychology of Traffic and Obesity

  • Dr. Tanya Berry says the thing that most often kept people from walking was the feeling that there are too many cars on the street. (Photo courtesy of Nathan Johnson, iWalk)

Researchers tell us one way to stay trim is to walk more often. But that’s hard in some neighborhoods – maybe sidewalks are bad or there’re no stores to walk to. Shawn Allee found one researcher who thinks what really stops us … is actually in our heads.

Transcript

Researchers tell us one way to stay trim is to walk more often.

But that’s hard in some neighborhoods – maybe sidewalks are bad or there are no stores to walk to.

Shawn Allee found one researcher who thinks what really stops us … is actually in our heads.

Dr. Tanya Berry researches physical activity, and she surveyed people living in Edmonton, Canada.

She calculated how trim or fat they were, then she logged details about their neighborhoods, things like how many stores are nearby and how many cars pass through the area.
Berry says the thing that mattered most, and kept people from walking was a subjective feeling that there are too many cars on the street.

“There was too much traffic in their neighborhoods, it made it difficult to walk, so they chose to jump in their cars and contribute to the traffic problem.”

Berry says her research team will look at how buildings and streets can be designed to make pedestrians feel there’s less traffic than there actually is, and maybe feel more comfortable walking down the street.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Overestimating the Organic Label

  • The "organic" label means that food's grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but Lee says some shoppers think it means "healthy" in other ways.(Photo courtesy of Mica M CC-BY-SA)

Researchers have known for a while that food labels, such as “low in fat,” can mislead dieters into thinking they’re eating healthy. Shawn Allee reports the “organic” label could lead dieters astray, too.

Transcript

Researchers have known for a while that food labels, such as “low in fat,” can mislead dieters into thinking they’re eating healthy.

Shawn Allee reports the “organic” label could lead dieters astray, too.

Cornell University ran an experiment to look at how people think about food made with organic ingredients.

One researcher was Jenny Lee.

Lee gave people cookies – some were labeled organic, some not.

Then people guessed the calorie count.

“We found that those who ate cookies with the organic label rated those cookies to be lower in calories than those who ate cookies without the organic label.”

Actually, they were exactly the same cookies: organic Oreos.

The “organic” label means that food’s grown without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, but Lee says some shoppers think it means “healthy” in other ways.

“You have to be a little suspicious about what the label’s actually claiming and not to draw any other inferences.”

Lee says people need to think about what they expect from food labeled “organic,” since organic products are becoming common in mainstream grocery stores.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Studying Cancer Near Nuke Plants

  • The NRC tells people that living near nuclear power plants does not pose extra risk for cancer, and it points to a particular study, finished twenty years ago.(Photo courtesy of the Rancho Seco Reactor)

For decades, the federal government has said it’s safe to live near nuclear power reactors and it points to a particular cancer study to back that up. Shawn Allee reports, lately, the government worries that study’s out of date and it wants scientists to take another look.

Transcript

For decades, the federal government has said it’s safe to live near nuclear power reactors and it points to a particular cancer study to back that up. Shawn Allee reports, lately, the government worries that study’s out of date and it wants scientists to take another look.

The federal agency that’s looking for an up-to-date cancer study is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC.

It’s asked the National Academy of Sciences to do that study, but the Academy hasn’t made up its mind. The academy asked the NRC, the nuclear power industry, and the public to explain why a new study’s even needed.

It broadcast the hearing over the Internet.

“Our first speaker is Sarah Sauer, private citizen.”

Sarah Sauer is 16, but looks much younger.

“I am one of the statistics you’ll be studying. When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with brain cancer. I hope in this study you will remember who you’re doing this for.”

“Thank you Sarah, let me invite your parents to say something if they’d like to.”

“I am Cynthia Sauer, Sarah’s mom. For my family and i this study is long overdue. nine years ago today, Sarah was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The pain has been so shattering that we still cannot give it words.”

Cynthia Sauer tells the National Academy how her family once lived near the Dresden nuclear power station, about 50 miles Southwest of Chicago.

She’d learned that power plant leaked radioactive water years ago.

Cynthia Sauer can’t say for sure the plant caused Sarah’s cancer, but she wonders … because other kids were diagnosed with cancer, too.

“I began searching for answers to my questions regarding the leaks and the numbers of children diagnosed with cancer in our small town.”

Cynthia Sauer turned to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The NRC tells people that living near nuclear power plants does not pose extra risk for cancer, and it points to a particular study, finished twenty years ago.

“The scientists in the ad hoc committee statement clearly stated the study was flawed and that further monitoring and investigation was needed.”

What are the flaws? For one, the old study concluded people living near nuclear power plants do not face extra risk of dying from cancer … but it didn’t answer whether they’re at risk of getting cancer.

It ignored cancer survivors or people who moved before dying of the disease.

Sauer tells the academy that … this is why we need a new cancer study – we just can’t be confident in the old one.

And that’s a problem because at least three million people live within ten miles of a nuclear power plant.

Some US Congressmen want the safety issue settled, and in fact, so does the nuclear power industry.

Ralph Anderson is with The Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.

He says other studies suggest power plants are safe … so the industry has nothing to worry about from a new study – unless the Academy misinterprets results:

“There have been studies where people simply collect the data and let the computer go to work to bend the data in a wide variety of ways. We have been the victim of a number studies that have done precisely that. So, you end up with weird age groups and things like that because the data’s carefully selected to prove the point. That’s what we’d like to see avoided.”

So the public, the government and industry want some kind of follow-up study on cancer rates near nuclear power plants.

But that might not be enough for The National Academy of Sciences to move forward.
Many scientists say we can’t begin good studies, because it’s hard to collect the necessary data.
In fact, one group that says that … is the same group that conducted the original cancer study twenty years ago.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Making Biodiesel Kosher

  • Glycerin is a common ingredient in foods. It's made from fat from animals, or oil from vegetables. So automatically, there's kosher glycerin and non-kosher glycerin. (Photo courtesy of Wakefern CC-2.0)

The next time you’re near your cupboard, check for kosher food items.
The packages have specials symbols, like a “U” or a “K” with a circle around it.
The kosher label shows Jewish people the food was prepared with ingredients that meet religious guidelines.
Shawn Allee learned rabbis had to work overtime to keep kosher food separate from the byproduct of an alternative fuel.

Transcript

The next time you’re near your cupboard, check for kosher food items.
The packages have specials symbols, like a “U” or a “K” with a circle around it.
The kosher label shows Jewish people the food was prepared with ingredients that meet religious guidelines.
Shawn Allee learned rabbis had to work overtime to keep kosher food separate from the byproduct of an alternative fuel.

The world of futuristic alternative fuels got tangled up in ancient Hebrew food laws.
To understand how, I talk with a rabbi in the know … Sholem Fishbane of Chicago’s Rabbinical Council.

To start, I admit I don’t understand the key word: ‘Kashrut’ in Hebrew … or ‘kosher’ in English.

“How about your Yiddish?”

“Not so good.”

“Not so good, OK.”

“The word kosher means straight, correct. So when it comes to consumer items, and especially food, how does this play out?”

“The basic concept is that you are what you eat. You become the character of what you’re consuming.”

For example, in the Hebrew Bible, pigs are unclean, so pork’s not kosher.
But even some ‘clean’ foods are not kosher if you mix ’em …

“A very big thing in kosher is not to eat, uh … milk and meat together. meat representing death. milk representing life. Those are things that shouldn’t be coming together.”

So, you separate kosher food foods from non-kosher foods and even each other at times.

Well, Rabbi Fishbane’s job is to keep all this straight at big food factories.
He inspects food equipment and ingredients.

If everything’s kosher, he lets factories use the little “K” character on packages.

So, a few years ago, Rabbi Fishbane was at this factory, inspecting paperwork.

“All of a sudden you see an increase amount of glycerin receipts and hey, what’s going on? You usually have X amount a month and now it’s tripled.”

Glycerin is a common food ingredient, so Rabbi Fishbane thought, ‘no big deal.’
Until … he saw glycerin prices plummet, and his factories substituted it for more expensive ingredients.

“This is now a pattern. When we see a pattern, that’s when we get nervous.”

So, Rabbi Fishbane dialed up a teleconference with other rabbis.

They noticed the same thing … loads of cheap glycerin hitting the market.
The rabbis started sweating.

“glycerin has always been a kosher-sensitive item.”

This is one of the other rabbis on that conference call – Abraham Juravel of the Orthodox Union.

Glycerin keeps food sweet or moist.

It’s a clear, slick goo … and it’s made from oil or fat.

“The fat can be from animal or that fat can be from vegetable. and so automatically, there’s kosher glycerin and non-kosher glycerin. As a food ingredient it’s very common in all kinds of products. They actually use glycerin as a sweetener in certain candies.”

Rabbi Juravel started tracking down the source for all this new glycerin.
After some detective work, he found it was coming from factories that make biodiesel.

Biodiesel is an alternative fuel made from oil or fat.

You chemically process the fat … and you get fuel for cars and trucks, but …

“What you’ll also get is very crude glycerine, which is the waste product.”

Several years ago, new biodiesel factories were popping up and they looked for whatever fat they could find … kosher or otherwise.

“So, they buy used oil that you fried french fries in, and who knows what else you fried in there. if you made french fries and then you also made southern fried chicken in that oil, then that oil’s not kosher.”

Again, if the oil’s not kosher … neither is the glycerin and whatever food glycerin goes into.

There is a happy ending here.

Rabbis worked overtime to keep non-kosher glycerin out of the kosher food supply, but they actually made biodiesel operations part of the solution.

Some factories switched to all-kosher oils, so now their waste guarantees a steady supply of religiously pure, kosher glycerin.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Budget Trimmers Target Ethanol

  • CEO of Growth Energy, Tom Buis argues ... we spend plenty of money for overseas oil ... why not support home-grown ethanol?(Photo courtesy of the NREL)

President Obama’s visit to the Corn Belt is highlighting a tough debate about the future of corn-based ethanol used in our cars.

Transcript

President Obama’s visit to the Corn Belt is highlighting a tough debate about the future of corn-based ethanol used in our cars.

Congress is looking to cut the federal budget and one target is a key ethanol subsidy.

It’s a tax credit of about 4 and a half billion dollars, and it runs out by the end of the year.

Ethanol trade groups are fighting to extend that credit.

Tom Buis is CEO of Growth Energy.

He argues … we spend plenty of money for overseas oil … why not support home-grown ethanol?

“We create jobs, jobs that can’t be outsourced. I don’t know why we want to fund economies of foreign governments. We should be looking at spurring our own economic development here in the United States.”

Last year the Government Accountability Office questioned whether we need this particular ethanol tax credit, since the government requires gasoline refiners to blend-in billions of gallons of ethanol anyway.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Climate Bill to Cut EPA Authority

  • Some senators say to pass any bill, they have to cut the EPA's authority, but environmental groups say this would be a mistake. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons GNU 1.2)

A big climate-change bill will be introduced in the U-S Senate next week.
Shawn Allee reports it’s expected to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases:

Transcript

A big climate-change bill will be introduced in the U-S Senate next week.

Shawn Allee reports it’s expected to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases.

Congress worked on climate bills for more than a year, but all that time, the US Environmental Protection Agency worked on its plans.

EPA’s got authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions on its own.

It’s doing that in case Congress waits too long or legislation’s too weak.

But some senators say to pass any, bill, they have to cut EPA’s authority.

Environmental groups say this would be a mistake.

Howard Learner is with The Environmental Law and Policy Center.

“The only justification to constrain the US EPA’s ability to do it’s job and do it well under the Clean Air Act is if Congress steps up in a comprehensive, thorough, durable, way to protect our public health and protect our environment.”

Lerner says we don’t know whether Congress’ approach to climate change will work, so the EPA should keep some power over greenhouse gas emissions … as a kind of back-stop.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Consumer Concerns Over Corn Syrup

  • The 'Sweet Scam Lineup' ad produced by the Center for Consumer Freedom is one of many run by corn syrup manufacturers and food companies. They're running to combat what these industries see as myths about high fructose corn syrup. (Center for Consumer Freedom - screenshot)

High fructose corn syrup and sugar sweeten lots of food.

They’re in sweet stuff like soda-pop, but they’re also added to pasta sauce, gravy, bread, and other foods that don’t seem sweet.

Scientists are debating whether high fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar when it comes to making us fat.

But Shawn Allee reports high fructose corn syrup is losing ground before that science is finished.

Transcript

High fructose corn syrup and sugar sweeten lots of food.

They’re in sweet stuff like soda-pop, but they’re also added to pasta sauce, gravy, bread, and other foods that don’t seem sweet.

Scientists are debating whether high fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar when it comes to making us fat.

But Shawn Allee reports high fructose corn syrup is losing ground before that science is finished.

Let’s face it, most of us did not know high fructose corn syrup sweetened so much food.

We have no excuse now: the food industry sponsors ads like this one.

“sugar cube face forward.”

Here, a policeman lines up suspects.

There’s an ear of corn, a sugar cube, and a plastic honey-bear bottle.

The cop turns to the victim of the crime.

“… Do you see the one responsible for you gaining weight?”

“I’ve seen that high fructose corn syrup guy on the news. maybe it was him.”

“you mean you’re making all this up without any proof?”

At this point … the policeman lets the corn sweetener go.

The sugar cube and the honey bear bumble out, too.

“maybe it’s a sugar-cube. No, no, no. the honey bear!”

There’s a reason we’re seeing ads like this.

One market research survey showed more than half of consumers had “some concern” about corn syrup.

Some feel like the victim in that ad – they have this vague fear corn syrup’s worse for your waistline than sugar.

And they know scientists really are looking at this question.

“this particular study has stirred up extraordinary interest … much more than we expected.”

Dr. Bart Hoebel is from Princeton University.

A while ago his research team fed rats watered-down sugar.

Those rats didn’t get fat, but recently his team looked at what happened when rats drank watered-down corn syrup.

“The ones drinking fructose gained more weight … even though they’re taking in fewer calories there was something special or different about the high fructose corn syrup in that group.”

Hoebel says there’re several studies like his moving through the scientific pipeline.

They all look at whether eating high fructose corn syrup is worse than eating sugar … but he worries the public’s missing a big point.

Nearly all scientists agree we get too many calories from both corn syrup and sugar.

But … market research shows people miss the caveats and mixed results behind the science.

They’ve made up their minds.

“They’re looking for an ingredient that they know and sugar is a more recognizable ingredient.”

That’s Dr. Helen Jensen.

She studies food economics at Iowa State University.

She says some food companies don’t care if customers have the science right or wrong.

“so from the manufacturer’s point of view, they’re looking to make more product mixes that offer consumers the choice of having a sugar-based product.”

That’s why you’re seeing products that say sweetened with real sugar.

For example, the Pepsi company is pitching a sugar-version of Mountain-Dew while its regular version is still sweetened with corn syrup.

Other companies are switching, too.

Jensen says this is a big change.

“Tariffs raise the price of sugar. And subsidies for corn used to make corn syrup cheap.”

today it’s a little different. While sugar is still more expensive, it’s not as expensive as it used to be.

So, Jensen says if consumers are pushing a company to switch from corn syrup to sugar, the company just might pay more for ingredients to keep more customers.

But Jensen has a word of caution for people who hope sugar wins the battle over our sweet tooths.

She says countries like Australia sweeten a lot of food, too.

But they use almost no corn syrup … they use sugar, and Australians have gotten more and more obese, just like we have in the U-S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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