Potato Farms Create ‘Super-Sized’ Problem (Part 2)

Ron D. Offutt is the biggest potato grower in the world.
His privately owned company raises 1.8 BILLION pounds of potatoes a
year. They go to make French fries for fast food chains like McDonalds
and big potato processors like J.R Simplot. But Offutt’s
success has a downside. Many people who live near his potato farms
worry about the pesticides sprayed on his fields…but they soon find
they’re up against a system much bigger than they are. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mary Losure reports, in the second part of a two part
series:

Mercury Consumption Levels Raised

A U-S agency says it’s safe to ingest higher levels of mercury. Some
environmental groups say the agency is making a mistake. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Fox River a Superfund Site?

Environmentalists are pushing the Environmental Protection Agency todeclare the Fox River in Wisconsin a Superfund site. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Frogs Help Us Understand Human Effects

Frogs and toads have lived on earth for more than 100-million-years. Theysurvived whatever extinguished the dinosaurs, yet in our age, they seem tobe vanishing. Reporting for the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, Mary Losure(low-sure) examines this scientific mystery, in the first of a three-partseries. It’s a detective story in which the victims are frogs, notpeople…but people may have a big stake in the mystery’s solution.Amphibians are sensitive indicators of environmental problems. If we canfind out what’s killing frogs, we may also learn if it will someday harm us:

Vanishing Frogs – The Possible Culprit

Frogs and toads are disappearing all over the world…and no one knows allthe reasons why. The destruction of wetlands and other places whereamphibians live is one of the major causes…but frogs and toads have alsobeen dying out in protected sites far from any human disturbance. Worldwideenvironmental problems – airborne contaminants, global climate change, orhigher than normal ultraviolet light from the earth’s thinning ozone layer -have all been linked to frog disappearances, but now there’s hard evidenceof another possible culprit. Mary Losure (low-sure) reports for the GreatLakes Radio Consortium on the worldwide vanishing of frogs. This secondreport in our series begins in the Panamanian rain forest:

Superfund Remediation – The Next Step

Just outside the city of Rochester, New York is one of nearly a thousand inactive hazardous waste sites tagged by that state’s officials for cleanup under New York’s Environmental Superfund Program. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell has been following New York’s efforts to clean up this site and has this report:

PCB Contamination Through Sewer Overflow

Despite a 1970’s ban, PCBs have remained a problem throughoutthe Great Lakes Region. Now residents in one Detroit neighborhood aresuing the city over PCB exposure. Families on one street say theirhouses have been contaminated with PCB’s from city sewer lines. TheGreat Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn reports:

A Mother’s Crusade

Lead poisoning has been called the number one environmental health hazard for children. While low-income families are most affected, lead poisoning can happen to anyone. And the damage it does is permanent. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson recently met a family that’s been forever changed because of lead:

Federal Policy Spurs Clean-Up

A new batch of federal funding intended to get the lead out of homes is expected to bring big benefits to several Midwestern cities. The Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a plan late last year to dole out fifty-million dollars nationally to better educate the public on lead’s dangers and provide cleanup funds for individual homes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Edelson Halpert has more: