Storm Water Gardens: Good for City Growth?

Cities around the country are trying to figure out how to encourage economic growth, and protect the environment at the same time. Stephanie Hemphill reports on one case where both could be winners:

Transcript

Cities around the country are trying to figure out how to encourage economic growth, and protect the environment at the same time. Stephanie Hemphill reports on one case where both could be winners:


Like a lot of cities, runoff from this city’s streets – polluted with salt, oil, and fertilizer – flows into a waterway. In Duluth, Minnesota, the waterway is Lake Superior.


A local group wants to turn some vacant land near a popular downtown park into a storm water garden that would clean up runoff.


But city councilor Jim Stauber says by state law, the publicly-owned land must be used for economic development.


“We have been very, very clear, and our city attorney staff has been very clear, you can’t put it here.”


Advocates such as Jill Jacoby say that’s a narrow view of economic development.


“Tourism is economic development, and what we’re creating is recreation and tourism.”


And increasingly, experts say environmental benefit often also benefits the economy.


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Harnessing Energy From Food Scraps

Leftover broccoli, unfinished hamburgers, wilted salad… sounds like a stinky mess… but it also has the potential to generate electricity. A new power plant fired up this week and you won’t find any coal or natural gas fueling its generators. This plant is powered by leftovers. Tamara Keith reports:

Transcript

Leftover broccoli, unfinished hamburgers, wilted salad… sounds like a stinky mess… but it also has the potential to generate electricity. A new power plant fired up this week and you won’t find any coal or natural gas fueling its generators. This plant is powered by leftovers. Tamara Keith reports:


The Biogas Energy Project on the University of California Davis campus is the first real-world demonstration of a new technology that could change the way we think about trash.


Food scraps from San Francisco restaurants are loaded into large sealed tanks where bacteria go to work, converting the food into fertilizer and releasing hydrogen and methane gas. That gas can then be used to fuel cars, or create energy using a generator.


Dave Konwinski is CEO of Onsite Power Systems Incorporated, which operates the plant.


“We’re burying all this organic waste in landfills, but every one ton has enough power to provide the heat for 10 homes, so the numbers are staggering how much energy we can make.”


Konwinski says he hopes to make the trash to power system commercially available early next year.


For the Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

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New Furnace Standards Too Weak?

The Department of Energy is proposing new efficiency standards for furnaces. Rebecca Williams reports critics of the new rule say it won’t save consumers money:

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The Department of Energy is proposing new efficiency standards for furnaces. Rebecca Williams reports critics of the new rule say it won’t save consumers money:


The new rule would be just a two percent increase from what’s currently mandated. The rule would require new furnaces to be 80 percent efficient. That means 80% of the energy is used to heat your home while 20% is vented up the flue.


Energy groups say it’s basically no change, because most of the new furnaces on the market are already 80 percent efficient, or better.


Ketari Callahan is president of the group Alliance to Save Energy.


“It really only puts in place and codifies what the market is doing today. So it really is just far too weak and it keeps people from saving the money they otherwise would.”


Industry groups say a stronger standard isn’t needed. They say consumers in colder climates already tend to buy the most efficient furnaces.


Three states have passed their own laws for furnace efficiency that are stricter than the federal standard.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Radioactive Waste Dump Near Great Lakes?

A member of Congress is trying to get the US to investigate a Canadian plan to build a radioactive waste dump. Lester Graham reports the radioactive materials would be put in an underground site less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes:

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A member of Congress is trying to get the U.S. to investigate a Canadian plan to build a radioactive waste dump. Lester Graham reports the radioactive materials would be put in an underground site less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes:


Ontario Power Generation wants to construct a Deep Geologic Repository, basically an underground dump, for low-level and intermediate-level radioactive waste from Ontario’s nuclear power plants. Bart Stupak is a member of Congress from Michigan. He says the proposed site would be built near Lake Huron at the Bruce Nuclear Site, where there have been reports of problems with radioactive contamination of water in the past.


“It’s gonna be within a mile of the Great Lakes. I think that’s not appropriate. You know, you’re lying within the watershed and we know no matter what great efforts we may make to keep pollution at a minimum, it does occur. And, unfortunately in this case we’ve seen at that site some radioactive contamination already.”


Stupak has called on the U.S. EPA and other agencies to look into what risks the Canadian radioactive waste dump might pose to the U.S. cities and the ecology of the Great Lakes.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Study Questions Nerve Gas Waste Dump in River

Plans to dump a chemical weapon by-product into a river have been put on hold. Brad Linder reports a group of lawmakers is calling for further study of those plans:

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Plans to dump a chemical weapon byproduct into a river have been put on hold. Brad Linder reports a group of lawmakers is calling for further study of those plans:


Under international law, the United States is obligated to neutralize its stockpile of VX Nerve agent. The Army has been destroying VX at a plant in Indiana. Then the plan was to ship the remains of the material to a facility in New Jersey for further treatment before dumping the waste into the Delaware River.


But New Jersey’s congressional delegation pushed for a complete study of the project. Representative Rob Andrews says the region relies on the Delaware River for commerce and drinking water.


“A quantity of VX that could fit on the head of a pin would kill you if it touched your skin. Any possibility that any residue of that VX would be put into the river is unacceptable, because the health consequences would be catastrophic.”


The Army says the VX would be completely neutralized before being dumped in the river, but Andrews isn’t convinced.


A government study should be complete early next year.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brad Linder.

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Nature Therapy Breaks New Ground

A therapy session might not be the place you’d expect to hear talk about Mother Nature. But some therapists believe the natural world and our personal lives are intimately connected, and they’re finding that nature can play a key role in the healing process. Kyle Norris has this story:

Transcript

A therapy session might not be the place you’d expect to hear talk about Mother Nature. But some therapists believe the natural world and our personal lives are intimately connected, and they’re finding that nature can play a key role in the healing process. Kyle Norris has this story:


Clinical psychologist Dr. Lisa Franseen talks to people about their personal problems. Over time their discussions broaden-out. They talk about relationships with things like people, money, pets, and the environment around them – the earth. But when she gets to the earth, she doesn’t ask her clients about their relationships with it.


“The only way you can have a relationship with something is if you’re separate from it. But it’s as silly as talking about, ‘yeah I have a relationship with my gallbladder, how about you?’ It’s like ‘no we don’t, my gallbladder’s just a part of me.’ And really that’s what’s going on with the earth; we are as much a part of it as everything else is.”


Franseen believes that many of our physical and mental ailments happen when we forget this connection. Several years ago, she started incorporating the earth into her work. She found that this technique helped people transform an insane world, as opposed to adapt to one.


“We can’t just stop with relationship with self, relationship with family, relationship with community. We need to just keep taking it out as far as we can go. It includes relationship with all.”


The idea that “we are the earth” can sound a little weird to some people. At least one of her clients, 71 year-old Steve Morse, thought so at first. Morse considers regular therapy to be part of his spiritual practice. He works with Franseen in both individual and group sessions. Franseen asked Morse’s group to walk into the woods, sit alone for an hour, and listen for a message. A message from the birds, trees, and sky. When he heard this assignment Morse was skeptical.


“Well as a guy, you know, you don’t do this, it’s ‘whoa!’ it’s too new agey, too off-the-page, too goofy, it’s not masculine. There’s all kinds of reasons that this is not something that you do.”


As Morse sat alone in the woods, something he saw struck him. He noticed a pine seedling that was getting choked-out by the shade of an old tree. He thought to himself that the seedling would probably die, but that it didn’t know that. Morse said that observing the trees gave him consider new ideas about anxiety and unnecessary suffering.


Experts say one of the most powerful things about the natural world is how quickly it takes us to a place deep within ourselves. Jed Swift is the director of the eco-psychology concentration at Naropa University.


“The backdrop of nature, the emersion, what we call the emersion in nature, just stirs up so much emotional and unconscious material for people about safety, about risk, about their health, their survival, about fear, about well being and wholeness and unity, that a lot of therapists are finding that it can speed up the therapeutic process.”


Swift says that far too often, people perceive nature as a backdrop to the human experience. By remembering our connection to the natural world, he says we can enhance our health and our personal sense of identity.


Therapist Lisa Franseen says that for her, nature is a teacher and an inspiration.


“You know the tree grows to be a tree because that’s what it’s here to do, so that gives me hope that like, ‘ok’, then I’m here to do something, and I will just follow through with what I’m here to do.”


One of Franseen’s clients says that her whole life changed when she realized that she was not separate from the earth. The client said that nature also helped her to hear her own answers to life’s questions.


These techniques might not be for everyone, but many people who have used them say that nature helped open their senses to something that they might have missed on their own.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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Keeping Invasive Species Out

  • Ballast holds can carry aquatic species from foreign ports to U.S. ports. Those species can cause severe damage to the ecological system of harbors, lakes and rivers. (Photo courtesy of NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory)

Harbors in the United States risk biological pollution every time a foreign ship comes into port. The ships often carry foreign aquatic animals that can cause environmental and economic damage. Lester Graham reports the problem is known, acknowledged, and still the government has not taken the measures needed to stop the problem:

Transcript

Harbors in the United States risk biological pollution every time a foreign ship comes into port. The ships often carry foreign aquatic animals that can cause environmental and economic damage. Lester Graham reports the problem is known, acknowledged, and still the government has not taken the measures needed to stop the problem:


Ships use water for ballast to keep the ship balanced and level. But taking up ballast water in a foreign port also takes up aquatic hitch-hikers, such as zebra mussels.


Most cargo ships on the Great Lakes are American or Canadian and just travel within the lakes. Ships from overseas only make up a small fraction of the cargo traffic to ports in the Great Lakes, but those ships have brought in dozens of invasive species that have hurt the ecology of the lakes. Some invasives eat the eggs of native fish. They compete for food. They cause disruptions that have led to massive die-offs of fish and waterfowl such as seagulls, loons, and terns.


It has also cost industry, and ultimately you. For example, it costs to clean out zebra mussels from water intake pipes, and some fish have become more scarce.


Jennifer Nalbone is with the environmental organization Great Lakes United. She says it’s a real problem.


“One of the greatest tensions that exists in the Great Lakes today is between commercial navigation development and the invasive species that are being brought into the region by a small subset of ships that are operating on the Great Lakes.”


Nalbone says government agencies could require ships from overseas to install filters or treatment systems that would stop the aquatic nuisances from being brought on board. But those agencies have not done anything. They say Congress hasn’t instructed them to do anything.


And Jennifer Nalbone says many in Congress don’t understand much about invasive species and ballast water.


“It’s very difficult to get things done in D.C. when key federal leaders and committees are not from the Great Lakes region, and they want their own projects advanced first.”


You can imagine if you’re a Congressman from Oklahoma, or Idaho, or Arizona, invasive species from ballast water likely are not at the top of your to-do list.


The only thing that is required is overseas ships have to exchange their ballast water with ocean water once they’re at sea. The idea is to flush out the invasives. It’s not been entirely effective because new invasive species have been brought into the Great Lakes since the policy went into effect.


Allegra Cangelosi is a senior policy analyst with the Northeast-Midwest Institute. She’s been working on the Great Lakes Ballast Technology Demonstration Project for a decade now, trying to find solutions to the ballast treatment problem.


Cangelosi says since the ballast water exchange policy was put into effect, not much else has been done. She says the hold up now is because some government officials don’t want to do anything until a perfect standard is set for ballast treatment. Cangelosi says it doesn’t have to be perfect.


“No, I mean, I’ve been in this business, I’ve been following this issue since 1989 and this is the worst stalemate I’ve ever experienced on this issue area. And, I think what we need to do is just get real and start to require ships to use treatments that are available. So, if we can get ships to use even an imperfect treatment system that is better than what we’re doing now, that’s the road to getting to the perfect treatment system, and it’s the road to improving prevention in the near term.”


The overseas shipping industry says it’s working on the problem. The International Maritime Organization has set a standard for ballast water treatment, but, it’s voluntary. Almost no foreign ships have volunteered because they don’t want to choose a system that might not meet the standard the U.S. government will someday set.


Adolph Ojard is the Executive Director of the Duluth, Minnesota Seaway Port Authority. He says ballast treatment will happen, eventually.


“I don’t have a timeline right now, but I tell you what, we know the problem is contained within the ballast tank of a ship. So, it’s identified. I would think within the next few years we would have a system that is effective, and then we’ll go through an implementation phase.”


But those who are concerned about damage to the Great Lakes fishery and the entire ecological system say right now more invasives are being introduced by foreign ships every year.


Jennifer Nalbone with Great Lakes United says those foreign organisms have caused enough damage already.


“We certainly have enough information to take action. We know that there are tremendous impacts. So, we don’t need to have yet another species come into the lakes before we say ‘let’s do something now.'”


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been ordered by a judge to treat ballast water like pollution. It’s unclear whether the EPA will accept or challenge that ruling. Meanwhile, quietly, some economists and others are wondering if the price the invasives cost the economy is worth the commerce that the relatively few foreign ships bring to Great Lakes ports.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Botulism Spreads on Great Lakes

A disease that has killed tens of thousands of birds is spreading throughout the Great Lakes region. The latest die-off occurred along a Lake Michigan shoreline. Linda Stephan reports officials now estimate that nearly 2600 birds died from that outbreak alone:

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A disease that has killed tens of thousands of birds is spreading throughout the Great Lakes region. The latest die-off occurred along a Lake Michigan shoreline. Linda Stephan reports officials now estimate that nearly 2600 birds died from that outbreak alone:


Recent tests confirm that the birds died from Type E botulism poisoning. Type E botulism is passed up the food chain from the invasive zebra and quagga mussels.


Steve Yancho is the Chief of Natural Resources for the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. He says it’s a shame to see so many dead birds washed up on the beaches.


“You know the most disturbing of the bird species that we’re seeing are common loons. There’s not a lot of those in the state and we’re finding those mixed in with these others already at fairly alarming numbers.”


Yancho says the area has not seen this kind of die-off before, and officials don’t know when it might end.


It’s likely that thousands or tens of thousands of birds are dying and not being counted. That’s because wildlife officials can’t patrol all the shorelines throughout the Great Lakes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Linda Stephan.

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Government Losing Grip on Natural Gas Pricing?

When natural gas prices were deregulated in the 1990s, your bills were supposed to go down. You may have noticed that’s not what happened. Lester Graham reports the government has had a difficult time determining why:

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When natural gas prices were deregulated in the 1990s, your bills were supposed to go down. You may have noticed that’s not what happened. Lester Graham reports the government has had a difficult time determining why:


There are three things that affect the price you pay for natural gas. The first is the local distribution system that gets the gas to your home. The second is the national pipeline distribution system. Those prices haven’t changed that much since deregulation.


But the third portion of your bill, the portion that makes up the bulk of it, has nearly doubled since deregulation of the natural gas market in 1993. The commodity price used to make up about 30% of the consumer price. Today, it’s more like 60% of your bill.


The Government Accountability Office reports, since deregulation, even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission doesn’t control natural gas prices, it’s supposed to make sure the prices are fair. But, since there are millions of natural gas commodity transactions, the Commission says it’s hard to tell if there’s any market manipulation that could cause prices to rise unfairly.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Ethanol Boom Could Threaten Fragile Land

The federal government is pushing the production of ethanol to help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Charlie Schlenker reports the expected boom in ethanol production may have a mixed environmental effect:

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The federal government is pushing the production of ethanol to help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Charlie Schlenker reports the expected boom in ethanol production may have a mixed environmental effect:


As the demand to produce more ethanol takes up more corn, agriculture experts predict prices will rise. Illinois State University Ecology Professor Roger Anderson says that will create an incentive for farmers to abandon the Conservation Reserve Program. The CRP pays farmers to keep environmentally fragile land out of production.


“They’re talking about expanding corn production for example, for ethanol by eight to ten million acres, and the only place they’re going to get it is to take this land out of CRP. And there will be a lot of pressure to do this.”


Anderson says planting corn on CRP acreage could increase erosion and reduce habitat diversity for wildlife, but an Agriculture Department Economist doubts there will be much pressure on CRP acreage.


For the Environment Report, I’m Charlie Schlenker.

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