The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The White House’s new Great Lakes Strategy was announced by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman as a “shared, long-range vision” for the Great Lakes. It includes a timeline for cleaning up contaminated areas, goals for reducing PCBs in fish, making sure it’s safe to swim at beaches more often, and restoring sensitive environmental areas. But an international coalition of environmental groups and others, Great Lakes United, says the Bush administration’s strategy doesn’t offer anything binding and offers no additional money. Margaret Wooster is the group’s Executive Director.
“We’d be happier if there was more of a strategy here for overcoming the obstacles that have in front of us. We can only be hopeful that some of these goals will be met.”
But Wooster adds, without more direction from the administration on how to meet the goals, it will be left to the people of the Great Lakes basin to prod the government to meet its goals.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
President George Bush avoided a Senate fight by making an appointment on a key Great Lakes group while Congress was in recess. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
Transcript
President George Bush avoided a Senate fight by making an appointment on a key Great Lakes group while the Congress was in recess. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
A White House press release indicates the President appointed Dennis Schornack to be the Commissioner and U.S. Chairman of the International Joint Commission. The IJC monitors whether the U.S. and Canada are meeting their commitments in treaties regarding water quality in the Great Lakes and other boundary waters. Schornack was an aide to Michigan Governor John Engler where he backed the governor’s plans to allow more directional drilling for oil and gas under the Great Lakes. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan worked to pass a ban on such drilling and was expected to work against Schornack’s confirmation in the Senate. By making the appointment during the Congressional recess, the President avoided that fight and Schornack will be installed at least until the end of next year.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A new poll finds most Canadians surveyed believe Canada should ratify the Kyoto agreement in order to slow the effects of global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
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A new poll finds most Canadians surveyed believe Canada should ratify the Kyoto agreement in order to slow the effects of global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
While the Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto Accord, Canadian leaders are still deciding whether to ratify it. The survey of 2,000 people, conducted by a research firm on behalf of Greenpeace Canada, suggests 78 percent of Canadians would support ratification. The findings come after an intense lobbying campaign against ratification by high oil producing and energy consuming provinces. They argue the accord will devastate Canada’s economy as it competes with countries that aren’t part of the agreement. The plan calls for nations to reduce their output of greenhouse gases to three and a half percent below 1990 levels. The 15 members of the European Union have announced they will ratify the agreement this year.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
Like several other states, Ohio is moving ahead with plans to provide anti-cancer pills to people who live near nuclear power plants, just in case an accident or terrorist attack spills radiation. Health officials have made a key decision about when the pills will be passed out. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
Transcript
Like several other states, Ohio is moving ahead with plans to provide anti-cancer pills to people who live near nuclear power plants, just in case an accident or terrorist attack spills radiation. Health officials have made a key decision about when the pills will be passed out. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen reports:
The 150-thousand people who are neighbors of the 3 nuclear plants serving Ohio won’t have to flee first to evacuation centers to get hold of the pills that protect against thyroid cancer. Health officials have decided to help distribute the potassium iodide pills this fall, hopefully before any crisis.
At three public hearings last month, residents and local emergency officials made it clear they wanted the pills in their medicine cabinet or their desk drawer at work…just in case of a disaster. Health officials say they’ll go along…but they’re stressing – evacuation is still the top priority…swallowing the pills can come later.
The federal government has agreed to pay for this first round of pills for any state that requests them…but the states may have to pick up the tab for replacements when the pills lose their effectiveness after a few years.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen.
An Ontario utility is proposing to lay a high-voltage cable along the bottom of Lake Superior. This is the second such proposal for the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:
Transcript
An Ontario utility is proposing to lay a high-voltage cable along the bottom of Lake Superior. This is the second such proposal for the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:
Thunder Bay Hydro would string a transmission line from the U.S./ Canadian border, submerging the line across Lake Superior to Michigan’s Keewenaw Peninsula. General Manager Larry Hebert says the 90-mile long cable will connect Ontario to the U.S. power grid, so they can sell electricity to Michigan and Illinois.
“It’s just going to lay there, either lay there directly on the bottom and weigh it down or lay in a trench partially covered. Or it’ll be partially covered all the way. But we don’t see it as really effecting any major breeding ground for fish in Lake Superior.”
While several underwater electrical lines are in use in the Great Lakes connecting islands to the mainland, there are no high-powered submerged transmission lines on the Great Lakes. A similar cable is proposed for Lake Erie.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson in Superior, Wisconsin.
St. Regis Mohawks used to fish and swim in this cove of the St. Lawrence River. Today, it's contaminated with PCBs from General Motors' landfill, which rises in the background. Photo by David Sommerstein.
The federal government has identified almost 50 toxic landfills that continue to contaminate the Great Lakes and their major tributaries. Thousands more may pollute smaller creeks and rivers upstream. Almost all of them have affected the way people live. In northern New York, General Motors and a native tribe have spent two decades fighting over how to clean up one of those sites. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports… the lack of progress is caused by differing approaches to a permanent solution:
Transcript
The federal government has identified almost 50 toxic landfills that continue to contaminate the Great Lakes and their major tributaries. Thousands more may pollute smaller creeks and rivers upstream. Almost all of them have affected the way people live. In northern New York, General Motors and a native tribe have spent two decades fighting over how to clean up one of those sites. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports… the lack of progress is caused by differing approaches to a permanent solution:
Dana Lee Thompson and her sister, Marilyn, walk along the St. Lawrence River. They teeter as they step over driftwood and tufts of grass. This part of the shoreline belongs to the St. Regis Mohawk tribe.
When the sisters were kids, they used to splash and play in the river. Their father landed walleye and bass for dinner. And when the sisters had children of their own, this is where they taught them to swim…
“…it’s all flat rocks and stuff like that…”
“…And just down there, there used to be a tiny little falls and it was all sand and we used to swim.”
Thompson brushes her long black hair out of her eyes. The smile fades from her face…
“Never knew that what we were swimming in was one of the most toxic things, y’know, toxic pools.”
Just on the other side of a chain link fence that marks the end of tribal land, a hill rises above their heads. Its grass is cut short like the tenth green on a golf course.
It’s General Motors’ old landfill. Drums of used factory oil are buried just under the manicured lawn. The oil contains PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs were used as a coolant in many factories until scientists found they cause cancer.
The federal government banned PCBs in 1977. A couple years later, workers covered the landfill with a temporary cap. But the PCBs had already seeped into the water where the sisters’ kids were swimming…
“I get emotionally disturbed. Mental anguish. Anger. My children have a lot of health problems, which gets me upset.”
The sisters aren’t alone. Tribal members who have grown up near the dump have high rates of thyroid disease, diabetes, and respiratory disorders – all suspected to be linked to PCBs. The Thompsons – and the tribal government – want General Motors to dig up the chemicals. And they want GM to truck them away…
“We’re just looking out over the cove. These are some homes and businesses of the Mohawks and to our right is the industrial landfill.”
Jim Hartnett stands on the GM side of the chain link fence. He’s managing the clean up for the company. He says the Environmental Protection Agency ordered GM to do three things: put a permanent cap on the landfill, monitor it for PCBs indefinitely, and dredge the PCBs from the river.
Hartnett says GM has wanted to move ahead with that plan for a decade. He says that would make the water clean again…
“My hope is that as we complete this clean-up, that people will come and use the cove and that it will be accessible and that people will be comfortable using it.”
David: “Do you think it’s realistic that within our lifetimes that the cove could be used for swimming?”
“I’m hoping that in the next two years we can have it ready to go. I’m not talking within our lifetime, I’m talking about as soon as we get access to that cove, we want to go in and remedy it.”
But the tribe won’t give them access. The St. Regis Mohawks say cleaning the cove isn’t the right answer. Ken Jock, the tribe’s environment director, has technical concerns with the plan.
But in the end, Jock says, the disagreement is more than technical. The tribe sees environmental cleanups differently. The EPA plans 30 to 50 years ahead. But the Mohawk tradition is to plan seven generations ahead…
“And so when you make a decision to clean up or to cover up at a site, you have to think is this area, are the PCBs going to be contained for the next 250 years. We have to think that way because this is the only land that we have left.”
The EPA wants everyone to stand behind the same solution. Anne Kelly is the EPA project manager of the site. She has commissioned more technical studies to try to prove the containment plan won’t poison the river in the future. She’s reassured the tribe the dump will be monitored in perpetuity.
“But that’s where we get into a sort of difficulty between our interpretation of time and the tribes. They don’t trust that we’re always going to be here, you know, that the EPA as it stands will not be what it is now. But they know they’re going to be there. So we say, ‘we’re going to monitor that forever’. They say, ‘you may not be here forever. Where are our guarantees?’ ”
Meanwhile, traces of PCBs are still leeching into the river. But the St. Regis Mohawks’ Ken Jock says he’ll wait on a clean up if it will ensure clean water and healthy fish for his grandchildren’s grandchildren.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
Marian Byrnes has been called the "environmental conscience of the Calumet." She has been a key leader in getting the city of Chicago, and the state of Illinois, to see the value of Calumet's natural areas. Photo by Mark Brush.
The Big Marsh is known as the jewel of the Lake Calumet wetlands. It's the largest in the Calumet Open Space Reserve. The closed Acme Coke Plant is on the horizon. Photo by Mark Brush.
Generations of families grew up with the steel industry, and instead of moving out, families often added on to their houses to make more room. These balloon frame houses can be found throughout the neighborhoods in the Calumet area. Photo by Mark Brush.
In an area in south Chicago you can see the remnants of a steel industry that has had better days – silent smokestacks looming on the horizon, empty parking lots, and for sale signs in front yards. The Calumet region was once a haven for big industry… and because of that it is also home to a list of seemingly endless environmental problems. Many people thought the problems were too great to overcome, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports… that attitude is changing:
Transcript
In an area in south Chicago you can see the remnants of a steel industry that has had better days – silent smokestacks looming on the horizon, empty parking lots, and for sale signs in front yards. The Calumet region was once a haven for big industry… and because of that it is also home to a list of seemingly endless environmental problems. Many people thought the problems were too great to overcome, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports…that attitude is changing:
If you’ve ever driven by Chicago’s south side, you’ve likely seen the smokestacks and factories that dot this old industrial area.
But when you get off the main highway and drive down the back roads of Calumet, you see something you wouldn’t expect – remnants of unique wetlands and prairies. It’s an area where thousands of migrating birds come each spring. Herons, egrets, and cranes carefully pluck their food from these marshes – marshes that are right next to chemical factories and toxic city dumps.
(Bring up sound of sparrows and outdoors)
The sun is setting in this part of the Calumet – some sparrows nearby are settling down for the night – and Marian Byrnes is showing me around the places she’s come to know from living and working here for more than 20 years.
“This land is mostly slag on the banks of Indian Creek, but it’s not considered hazardous.”
“How would the slag get here?”
“Oh, it was waste from Steel Mills – mostly Republic Steel which was north of here.”
(Fade her under + continue outdoor sound)
Marian Byrnes is a retired public school teacher. And at age 76, she volunteers her time as the executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. She repeatedly meets with businesses, community groups, and city and state advisory boards – patiently delivering her message that the Calumet region is worth protecting.
And over the years Marian, and others like her, have steadily worked against a city that didn’t seem to care about the natural areas in Calumet. For many of them, it began more than twenty years ago, when they got a note from the Chicago Transit Authority in their mailbox. The note outlined the Transit Authority’s plan to build a bus barn on their neighborhood’s prairie:
“It was like having our own little forest preserve right behind our houses. You can walk out there, and when you get out – maybe a block or so – you’re not aware that you’re in the city at all. I mean you can’t even see the houses, so it’s just a wonderful place to be in touch with nature.”
They convinced the transit authority to build the bus-barn elsewhere. And in the years that followed they fought off other proposals such as plans to build a toxic waste incinerator, and plans to re-open old city dumps.
But despite those successes, big environmental problems still persist. And the list of contamination is intimidating – heavy metals, PCBs, and leaking landfills. The problems are so overwhelming that when planners in Chicago were thinking about spreading miles and miles of concrete for a new airport, Calumet was thought of as an ideal location.
Kathy Dickhut works in the planning department for the city of Chicago:
“The area does have a lot of environmental problems. Ten years ago the thinking was it was all dirty, environmentally dirty, and that was sort of across the board, …so one way to deal with that is, you know to cover the whole thing up.”
But local environmental and community groups became united in their opposition to the plan. And instead of an airport, the local groups asked the National Park Service to designate the area as an ecological park.
And slowly but surely, the city began to look at the area in a new light:
“I think people didn’t realize just how much opposition there would be to paving over this area. I mean the airport proposal was quite dramatic, and because it was quite dramatic, there was quite dramatic outcry about it – so once that played out – we had to look at it again in a different way. And what we’ve done is really look at the resources that we do have here, which are substantial, and how we can improve those.”
Today, the city appears to have a completely different attitude about the Calumet area. Chicago lawmakers recently passed a land use plan that calls for the best of both worlds. They want to protect and clean up the natural prairies and wetlands – while at the same time – attract new businesses to build on old industrial sites.
City planners hope to balance what may be seen as competing goals (attracting new industries AND cleaning up the environment) by prioritizing where to build and where to preserve. And when they do build – planners are encouraging green building practices. Practices that complement the surrounding natural areas rather than cover them.
Those involved with the project paint a pretty nice picture of what’s to come.
Lynn Westphal is a researcher for the U.S. Forest Service, and works closely with the city of Chicago on the Calumet project: “Imagine an industrial area with the buildings roofs are green. Where instead of turf around – you have native grasses and because of that you have more birds and butterflies… you’ve got bicycle access, people fishing on their lunch breaks…. And it’s not far from becoming a reality. This is all very doable. So it’s not totally hypothetical.”
And in fact, movement toward that new vision is already underway. The Ford Motor Company is building a new industrial park for its suppliers. And many of the green building practices Westphal describes will be used. And the Corps of Engineers is spending more than 6 million dollars to clean up an area known as Indian Ridge Marsh.
But those involved with the transition of this area say that leadership from the community will be the key to its eventual success.
Meanwhile, the Southeast Environmental Task Force will have a new executive director by this summer…
“…and that’ll be someone who’ll learn to do what I’ve been doing for past 20 years, cause I can’t keep on doing it indefinitely.”
“Do you have any advice for them?”
“Have a lot of patience…”
The same patience Marian Byrnes has used when riding a city bus to meeting after meeting, listening to the community, and working with city officials – all in an effort to create what she believes will be a better future for the people in Calumet.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
A watchdog group is out with its annual list of endangered rivers, and this year it’s placing most of the blame for damage to the rivers on one government agency. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A watchdog group is out with its annual list of endangered rivers, and this year it’s placing most of the blame for damage to the rivers on one government agency. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
This year the American Rivers’ list of endangered rivers included a section devoted to criticizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Melissa Samet is with American Rivers. She says this time they looked back at the past several years of the organization’s endangered rivers list.
“We revealed a pretty startling statistic, that 60-percent of the rivers that we have listed over the past 16 years as in danger were on the list because of the Corps of Engineers.”
The American Rivers report accuses the Corps of Engineers of destroying rivers and wasting taxpayers’ money by citing reports of whistle-blowers and independent analyses that charge the Corps exaggerates the cost-benefits of the projects it constructs on the rivers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
The Soo Locks and Saint Lawrence Seaway are opening to higher lake levels and mild ice conditions, making for an easier start to the commercial shipping season. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:
Transcript
The Soo Locks and Saint Lawrence Seaway are opening to higher lake levels and mild ice conditions, making for an easier start to the commercial shipping season. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has the story:
Lake levels have been low for the past four years, and the latest numbers from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers indicate this new season will start with three of the five Great Lakes below average.
February numbers show
Lake Superior is 6 inches below normal, Lakes Michigan and Huron are 7 inches below the average since they started keeping records in 1918. Those numbers are 6 inches better than a year ago. Duluth-Superior Port Director Davis Helberg hopes this is a trend.
“This is cyclical, they will rebound. History tells us that they always do. And I hope we’re at the bottom of the trough but so far this winter hasn’t showed much promise of starting to get back to have the pendulum swing the other way. We just have had such a wimpy winter.”
Lake Erie is at its normal level, while Lake Ontario is 3 inches above normal.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson in Superior, Wisconsin.
Zoos in the Great Lakes region are helping save two species of hornbills by collecting feathers from their captive birds for ceremonial headdresses in Malaysia. photo by - D. DeMello / Wildlife Conservation Society
Malaysian indigenous people welcome the hornbill feathers from zoos and say they will likely reduce the hunting of the birds in the wild. photo by - E.L. Bennett / Wildlife Conservation Society
Zoos in North America are collecting feathers to help save a threatened bird in Malaysia. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham explains:
Transcript
A watchdog group is out with its annual list of endangered rivers, and this year it’s placing most of the blame for damage to the rivers on one government agency. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
This year the American Rivers’ list of endangered rivers included a section devoted to criticizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Melissa Samet is with American Rivers. She says this time they looked back at the past several years of the organization’s endangered rivers list.
“We revealed a pretty startling statistic, that 60-percent of the rivers that we have listed over the past 16 years as in danger were on the list because of the Corps of Engineers.”
The American Rivers report accuses the Corps of Engineers of destroying rivers and wasting taxpayers’ money by citing reports of whistle-blowers and independent analyses that charge the Corps exaggerates the cost-benefits of the projects it constructs on the rivers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
