Wind Turbine Manufacturing & Tracking Beef

  • Beef from the cattle on this 350 acre farm on MSU's campus will be served in the cafeterias at MSU in the fall. (Photo by Emily Fox)

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, is in Michigan today. She’s visiting for a ribbon cutting at Ventower Industries in Monroe. It’s a company that will be making towers for wind turbines.


Scott Viciana is the company’s vice president. He says the plant is built on a former industrial landfill. So first, they had to clean up the land.


“We stumbled across less (sic) concerns in the end than we thought potentially we could.”


The wind power industry is facing a lot of opposition… often from people who don’t want to live near the turbines.


Scott Viciana says he thinks the industry will grow, once people get used to the idea of wind power.


“It’s a renewable source of energy, it’s creating jobs, really fueling our manufacturing know-how here, especially in this region.”


He says they plan to employ about 150 people over the next few years.


(music sting)


This is the Environment Report.


Local food is the hottest thing on menus this year. That’s according to a survey by the National Restaurant Association. Emily Fox reports Michigan State University researchers are trying to give consumers more information about locally grown food:

Transcript

Some say local is the new green. Take a listen to how two characters in the show Portandia portray the local food movement in America:


PORTLANDIA:


Waitress: “My name is Dana, I’ll be taking care of you today if you have any questions about the menu, please let me know.”


Girl: “I guess I do have a question about the chicken. If you could just tell us a little more about it.”


Waitress: “Uh, the chicken is a heritage breed, woodland raised chicken that’s been fed a diet of sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts. . .”


Man: “This is local?”


Waitress: “Yes. Absolutely.”


Man: “I’m going to ask you one more time. And it’s local?”


Waitress: “It is.”


Woman: “Is that USDA organic, Oregon organic or Portland organic?”


Waitress: “It’s just all across the board. Organic.”


FOX: Okay, so not every restaurant is like the one featured in this sitcom. But researchers at Michigan State University say people do want more information about their food. They’re starting a pilot program to do just that with local beef.


(tractor sound)


I went on tractor tour of MSU’s 350 acre cattle farm on campus. This is where MSU students and researchers are raising cattle that will be packaged and processed in Michigan and fed to students in campus cafeterias in the fall.


“We can run roughly 150 cows here…”


That’s Jason Rowntree. He’s an MSU professor that is a part of this local beef program.


In the fall the students will be served the beef raised on this farm. There will be kiosks in the cafeterias and bar codes on table tents that students can scan with their smart phones. That will take them to a website that comes up with all kinds of information about the beef including where the cow was raised and what its diet was. The bigger idea is to eventually have these barcodes on packaged meat in grocery stores so consumers can learn about the beef before they buy it.

Dan Buskirt is a professor in Animal Sciences at MSU. He’s leading this project to track beef from farm to fork.


“All the technology is currently there to be able to do this. We just have to put it together and put it in people’s hands so that they can start using it.”


Buskirt says it makes sense to start this tracking program in Michigan. In 2007, the Michigan Department of Agriculture mandated that all cows have tracking tags. That’s so if there is a disease outbreak, a cow can be traced back to the farm where the outbreak began. Because of this, all cows in Michigan have what is called radio frequency identification. It’s a microchip inserted into the cow’s ear that has a number attached to it so the cow can be tracked. Buskirt says they will be utilizing that existing system in their pilot program.


This year the program will provide 4,000 pounds of local beef to MSU cafeterias. Buskirk expects the program to expand over the years and branch out to local retailers.


For the Environment Report, I’m Emily Fox.

EPA Asks Enbridge for Missing Data

  • The Kalamazoo River on July 30, 2010, after the Enbridge pipeline broke. (Photo courtesy of the State of Michigan)

The Environmental Protection Agency is asking the company responsible for last year’s oil spill in the Kalamazoo River for information they say is missing.
Last summer an Enbridge Energy pipeline ruptured, releasing more than 840,000 gallons of tar sands oil. Cleanup is still underway. Lindsey Smith reports the data were supposed to be gathered in the spring:


Last spring after the snow and ice melted, cleanup efforts on the Kalamazoo River really ramped up. The EPA came up with a plan to monitor air quality. The agency directed Enbridge to collect air samples to look for contaminants that could have been stirred up during the spring cleaning. Enbridge also was supposed to collect weather data so the EPA knew the conditions when the samples were taken.


Ralph Dollhopf heads EPA’s Incident Command for the Enbridge spill. He says some of that weather data is missing.


“It’s not necessarily a bad thing but we want to make sure that we understand the complete situation.”


Dollhopf says they’re asking Enbridge to supply the missing data or explain why it’s missing.


Marshall resident Susan Connolly says she’s disappointed, but not surprised the data Enbridge is responsible for gathering could be missing.


“That would be just like letting a pedophile babysit a child. I mean why would you let the person that caused the pipeline to spill to be the ones to monitor?”


The EPA oversees the cleanup.


An Enbridge spokesman says the company has not received the EPA’s notice yet so he declined to comment for now.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lindsey Smith.


(music sting)


State officials say they’ve discovered a virus for the first time in wild fish in Michigan. It’s called koi herpesvirus.


Gary Whelan is with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


He says the virus might have contributed to the death of several hundred common carp in Kent Lake last June. Whelan says the virus is known to affect common carp, goldfish and koi. And it can be fatal.


He says this virus led to die-offs of several thousand carp in Ontario a few years ago.


“They had thousands of large adult dead carp floating up on people’s front yards, so that’s not a good situation to be in.”


Michigan officials are investigating whether the virus could affect native fish, such as minnows.


Whelan says koi herpesvirus was previously detected eight years ago in a private koi pond in Grand Rapids.

The letter the EPA sent to Enbridge

More about koi herpesvirus

A recent Detroit Free Press series about Asian carp

Transcript

He says this virus could’ve turned up in Kent Lake after someone released an infected fish into the lake.


“You know probably somebody dumped their goldfish that was infected or maybe a carp escaped out of a pond during a flood period.”


Whelan says it’s illegal to move live fish from one body of water to another. And it’s just a bad idea.


He says the virus does not cause any health effects in people.


Crews in Chicago are on the hunt for Asian carp this week. The term Asian carp refers to two species: bighead and silver carp. The crews are looking for the carp in Lake Calumet, which is linked by a river to Lake Michigan. Asian carp have been found in the rivers that feed into Lake Michigan from Illinois.


John Rogner is the assistant director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. He says they’re looking for live carp after finding carp DNA in Lake Calumet.


He says it could mean there are live Asian carp in the lake.


“But there are some other possibilities. One is that there is DNA that comes upstream from downriver from boat hulls; it might be coming from restaurants in parts of Chicago that come out through the storm sewers.”


Some restaurants in the city serve Asian carp, so waste water could contain DNA from the fish. Rogner says people could also be releasing live carp into the lake, even though that’s illegal.


He says so far this week, they have not found any live bighead or silver carp in Lake Calumet.


That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Sea Lampreys Gaining the Upper Hand

  • The mouth of a lamprey. It uses suction, teeth, and a razor sharp tongue to attach itself to its prey... and then it starts drinking blood. (Photo by USFWS)

For fifty years Canada and the U.S. have been battling an eel-like creature across the Great Lakes. Sea lampreys are parasites that drill holes in fish to feed on blood and body fluids. They often kill the fish. The sea lamprey was one of the first invasive species to arrive in the lakes, and it’s the only invasive to be successfully controlled by humans.


But in recent years, the lamprey has been getting the upper hand in the struggle. As Peter Payette reports there might be more setbacks in the near future:


If you’re on a lamprey control team you get to see all the prettiest streams and rivers in the Great Lakes. That’s because lampreys like clean water.


“Part of our problems recently have been some of the streams that were too dirty to harbor lampreys have been cleaned up and now we have lampreys in parts of the Saginaw River. We never had lampreys in that up until 15 or 20 years ago.”


Ellie Koon supervises one of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife treatment teams. They spend the warm months killing young lampreys by the thousands.


They treat rivers using a chemical called lampricide. It’s a poison that rarely hurts other fish. In fact, during a treatment the fish get a feast they normally wouldn’t. Young lampreys look a bit like worms at this stage and stay in the mud. But when they’re poisoned they swim out where fish can grab them.


Ellie Koon and one of her team members, Hank Cupp, say fish and other animals in the river pig out.


“You can almost hear the fish burping the day after we treat. You can see them swimming around with lampreys hanging out of their mouths that they can’t swallow.”

Transcript

These teams can usually kill about 95 percent of the young lampreys in a river. Without this, the Great Lakes would not have a multi-billion dollar fishery today. But in recent years, the fish-killing lamprey has been rebounding in some of the lakes and hurting the fishery.


Jeff Slade manages the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Biological Station in Ludington. He says these days in northern Lake Michigan they think one out of every four adult lake trout is killed by a lamprey.


“So sea lampreys are actually killing many more fish up in that part of the lake than fishermen are harvesting.”


The problem varies from lake to lake, but lamprey numbers are high in Lakes Huron, Michigan and Erie.


One reason is a decision made nearly a decade ago. That’s when the commission that oversees this work wanted to cut back on the amount of chemicals being used. So for a few years, U.S. Fish and Wildlife teams used the minimum amount of lampricide believed to be necessary.


That turned out to be a mistake and has since been changed.


Scientists like Mark Ebener think the reduction of lampricide treatment is the main reason sea lampreys have rebounded. Ebener’s a fisheries biologist for the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority.


“I think the thing we know is that the minute you relax chemical control you lose control. As unfortunate as that is to people who want to rely less on chemicals.”


And now the prospect of a budget cut looms over the lamprey program. President Obama’s proposed budget would cut funding by 15 percent.


Marc Gaden is with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. It’s his job to tout the importance of the federal funding. Gaden says there will be a direct connection between less money to fight sea lampreys and real harm to the fishery.


“Each lamprey will destroy about forty pounds of fish during its predatory period, forty pounds! You can just kinda do the math… even if you leave a few ten thousand more lamprey in the system, that’s a lot of fish they’re going to be eating.”


Some budget cuts could fall on more experimental parts of the program, projects like developing special scents to draw adult lamprey into traps. That would leave in place the main weapon in the endless fight against sea lampreys, chemical treatments.


For the Environment Report, I’m Peter Payette.

Life on the River: Suing & Settling With Enbridge (Part 3)

  • Wayne and Sue Groth used to live near Talmadge Creek, where the oil spill occurred last summer. They eventually sold their home to the energy company, Enbridge. (Photo by Steve Carmody)

A year ago… a ruptured pipeline spewed more than 840,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River.


The crude oil had a big environmental impact. It also affected the lives of thousands of people living in the spill zone. The pipeline’s owners have spent the past year reimbursing many of them for their losses. Steve Carmody has the final part of our series:


Wayne Groth says the odor of the oil was overpowering the first night. Talmadge Creek runs right past the home he and his wife Sue lived in for 22 years. The oil flowed down Talmadge Creek into the Kalamazoo River.


Wayne Groth says it wasn’t long after the spill that clipboard carrying employees of Enbridge started walking through his neighborhood, promising to clean up oil. He says they made another promise too…


“They said if you’re still not happy with the job… you could sell your property to them. They would buy it from us.”


Wayne Groth says he and his wife initially were only half interested in Enbridge’s offer to buy their home. He says they were satisfied with the cleanup, but…


“They kept asking ‘Do you want us to do an appraisal on your property?’ I kept telling them no. But my accountant is the one who told me ‘you really should have them do that and take a look at the opportunities that are out there to buy another piece of real estate. It’s a buyer’s market now.’”

Transcript

It’s definitely been a buyers’ market for Enbridge. Eventually, Enbridge bought the Groths’ home… and has bought or is buying another 137 homes in the spill zone.


Enbridge has not only been buying homes. It’s also been settling claims with hundreds of people affected by the spill in other ways.


Jason Manshum is an Enbridge spokesman. He says the pace of damages claims against Enbridge that was once a torrent has slowed to a trickle.


“We’re not seeing the high volume of claims that we were 10 months ago, or even six months ago, that number has decreased the further away from the incident last summer. So in that regard, it’s winding down.”


Enbridge has settled more than 2300 damage claims.


But not everyone is happy with Enbridge’s efforts.


Attorney Bill Mayhall represents 16 families that are suing Enbridge. Mayhall says overall, Enbridge has in many instances treated people fairly and compensated them well. But he does have a problem with the damage claim system that the pipeline company set up after the spill. Under the system, people made their damage claims directly to Enbridge.


“In other words, Enbridge was judge and jury as to whether you had a legitimate claim or not. As opposed to having a neutral third party that didn’t have conflict of interest making those decisions.”


Mayhall says Enbridge was quick to compensate for property damage… but has resisted paying damages for health related claims. An Enbridge spokesman insists the company has settled some claims related to health complaints.


Mayhall says his clients will be deposed this week by Enbridge attorneys. He says unless a settlement can be reached in the next few months, their cases may end up going to court… a process that may take years.


But for others affected by the spill, their lives have moved on.


(sound of birds chirping)


“It’s just wild grasses and wildflowers growing out there.”


Wayne Groth is standing on the deck overlooking the backyard of his new home south of Battle Creek. He and his wife Sue moved late in the spring.


It’s a lovely home, with only one possible problem.


“We’ve got another little creek running by our house and we discovered after we bought this place there’s another pipeline real close by. I thought that was a little ironic.”


But Wayne and Sue Groth say they’re not worried another pipeline breach could force them out of their home again.


For the Environment Report, I’m Steve Carmody.

Life on the River: Oil & Wildlife (Part 2)

  • A volunteer prepares to clean oil from the feathers of a heavily-oiled Canada goose at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Marshall, Michigan in 2010. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

It was the largest inland oil spill in Midwest history… but we still don’t know exactly what it will mean for life around the river.


This is the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.


One year ago, a pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy broke. More than 840-thousand gallons of tar sands oil polluted Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River.


People who were there say the river ran black. Turtles, and muskrats and Great blue herons were covered in oil. It’s not clear what all this will mean for the river and the wildlife that depends on it.


“It’s really a big unknown. We don’t have much experience with oil spills in freshwater rivers in general.”


Stephen Hamilton is a professor at Michigan State University.


“This new kind of crude, the tar sands crude oil, with its different chemistry, all makes this a learning experience for everybody involved.”


Tar sands oil is very thick, and it has to be diluted in order to move through pipelines. We’ve previously reported that federal officials say the nature of this oil has made the cleanup more difficult. In fact, the cleanup has lasted longer than many people expected. The Environmental Protection Agency says there are still significant amounts of submerged oil along 35 miles of the Kalamazoo River.


Stephen Hamilton says no one knows what the long term effects of the oil spill will be.


“We suspect there were very large impacts on the base of the food chain which will have ripple effects up the food chain.”

Transcript

He says research on marine mammals and fish after oil spills shows there can be organ damage and negative effects on reproduction. But he says there hasn’t been much research on freshwater oil spills.


Researchers at Michigan State University and Western Michigan University have studies underway.


And there are six government agencies and two tribes collecting data on the river. They’re working on something called the Natural Resource Damage Assessment. That’s a report that’ll try to quantify the impact of the oil spill on wildlife and on the river ecosystem.


Enbridge is also involved with this damage assessment.


Stephanie Millsap is with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She says her agency and the others involved – they’re called trustees – are working with the oil company.


“Which means that the trustees and Enbridge jointly develop the study plans and jointly go out and collect the data together. That provides the basis so both Enbridge and trustees are confident in how the data was collected.”


Millsap says Enbridge will be held accountable for the costs of the damage assessment. And the company will have to pay for habitat restoration and compensate the public for loss of recreation on the river.


She says so far, their studies have found fish are less abundant in Talmadge Creek and several places in the Kalamazoo River. And they’ve found a drastic reduction in some species of insects that fish and birds rely on for food.


“It’s going to be a number of years before we fully understand what those impacts have been to the environment and to wildlife.”


Enbridge officials say the company is committed to cleaning up the oil and restoring the area to the way it was before the spill. But both the company and the EPA admit it’ll be impossible to clean up every last drop of oil.


Jason Manshum is an Enbridge spokesperson. He says right now, they’re focusing on meeting the EPA’s deadlines for cleanup.


“If there’s ever a time when we need to come back, even in an isolated area, we’ll do that. So the testing and monitoring of the watershed will go on for many years.”


But he could not say who would be responsible for doing that testing… or whether Enbridge would be liable for problems that might turn up years down the road.


Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at how well Enbridge officials have kept their promise to compensate residents for damages.


That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Life on the River (Part 1)

  • Last July, a pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy burst, spilling more than 843,000 gallons of oil from the Alberta tar sands into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. This photo was taken on July 19, 2011 - oil still remains in the creek and the river. (Photo by Lindsey Smith)

Workers are still trying to clean up thick tar sands oil that’s settled at the bottom of the Kalamazoo River. It’s been one year since more than 840-thousand gallons leaked from a broken pipeline owned by Enbridge Energy. Lindsey Smith reports life for those living near the accident site has not returned to normal yet:


“See those clumpies?”


Deb Miller points out black goopy masses as big as my fist floating on the Kalamazoo River. We’re behind Miller’s Carpet store in the village of Ceresco – 6 miles downstream from where the pipe broke.


Most of the oil that’s left is submerged below the water. There are around 200 acres that state regulators still classify as heavily contaminated. This is one of the worst.


Here, I can still see oil clumps everywhere – in the water, on the banks, on strips of bright orange boom. Workers in neon vests dot the river banks. I pick up a faint smell – sort of like nail polish remover.


Miller says she certainly doesn’t sit out and enjoy the view anymore. She’s used to waking up to the sound of air boats and helicopters. She’s still drinking bottled water because she’s worried her well could become contaminated.
Miller’s learned more than she’s ever cared to know about pipelines and wishes could move away from her nightmare.


“The home that we live in was my husband’s family home. But if it was up to me – I would’ve been gone the week of the spill.”


Many have left. Miller says that’s changed her neighborhood forever.
“ I don’t blame anyone for getting out. There’s just too much unknown. There’s just too much unknown.”

Transcript

(sound of knocking on doors)


I tried talking to people really close to the spill site. Door after door – no one answers. Some of the homes are obviously empty. Three people answered the door but refused to talk to me.


A big black SUV pulls up as I’m walking back to my car. Self-described outdoorsman Craig Ritter jumps out and introduces himself. He’s from Jackson. He’s been kayaking this section of the Kalamazoo River for years. He says the river looked like “black death” the day after the spill happened.


“The river was black. You couldn’t even hear the water. The water going over the rocks didn’t sound like water going over the rocks. It almost sounded like a kid sucking on a super thick milkshake I mean it was just (makes milkshake noises).”

We go behind an abandoned house with a porta-john for workers parked in the driveway. Ritter says the river looks a lot better on the surface. He pokes a stick into the shallow water. A blue oil sheen bubbles up along with some black-tar-like substance.


“That horrible or what? Want to go for a swim?”


No one has been able to fish or swim in this part of the river for a year. Officials hope to open part of the river to recreation by the end of next month.
Ritter looks down, wipes the sweat from his forehead and shakes his head.


“Unfortunately I don’t think that life on the river is going to be the same.”

(sound of fountain)


In downtown Marshall I meet Renold Stone – he goes by Big Rey. He and his son Little Rey cool off in the shade near a city fountain. Big Rey tells me the oil spill didn’t change his life too much. His son chimes in though, reminds his dad they haven’t gone fishing at all this year.


“Actually they float, they get their floaties on, they float inside the river with their fishing poles and fish. Now they messed that up, can’t do that no more. “


Enbridge promises they’re here until the spill site is clean.


But Big Rey is cynical. He thinks Enbridge is going to do whatever it has to do to get by and that’s it. So he’s not too sure he’ll let his son go swimming or fishing in the river anytime soon.


For The Environment Report, I’m Lindsey Smith.

Overhauling How Michigan Regulates Industry

  • Governor Rick Snyder speaking at the Michigan Farm Bureau in 2010. (Photo by Lindsey Smith)

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee just passed a bill that contains some pretty major cuts to Great Lakes funding.


There are a couple of things being targeted:


One is Great Lakes Restoration money. That’s being used to clean up pollution, restore habitat and fight invasive species. That pot of money is facing a 17 percent cut.


There are also much bigger cuts aimed at a program that helps cities upgrade their sewage treatment plants… and keep the sewage from overflowing into rivers and lakes. That program’s getting cut by 55 percent.


Jeff Skelding directs the Healing our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition. He calls the bill a huge step backward.


“And let me be crystal clear on the following point: gutting clean water programs will not save the country money. In fact, it will cost us more.”


He says problems like sewage contamination on beaches and invasive species are getting worse.


The bill could come up for a full House vote as early as this weekend.


(music bridge)


This is the Environment Report.


Back when Governor Rick Snyder was on the campaign trail… he promised to make dramatic changes to the way the state regulates businesses.


“Our regulatory system is backwards in this state. Not only the amount of regulation, but how people are being treated. Lansing is treating us as if we’re bad and should be controlled.”


Now the state Legislature is trying to make good on that promise. There are two packages of bills – one that has passed the House and one that has passed the Senate. They have similar goals. The bills would prohibit the Governor – and also any state agency – from making a new rule that’s more stringent than federal standards. For example… the federal government has laws to protect Great Lakes water, but Michigan might want to make those laws stronger.


If these bills pass, only the Legislature would have that power.


James Clift is the policy director of the Michigan Environmental Council. He calls these bills a power grab by the Legislature. He says it could lead to lawmakers intentionally stalling on new regulations.


“We could potentially see I think an erosion of our environmental protections. Where because of gridlock in the Legislature places where the Governor would step forward and protect Michigan’s natural resources or public would be prevented. And unfortunately that Pure Michigan we’re advertising around the country maybe starts to not be so pure anymore and maybe we don’t become that tourist destination state.”

Transcript


He says federal laws aren’t always one size fits all. He says there are cases where Michigan needs stronger laws to protect unique resources.


“Most of the environmental laws at the federal level are designed to be a floor. States can’t drop below this point. But why would we want to have the laws that were designed to protect water in Arizona or New Mexico be the laws designed to protect the Great Lakes?”


Those special state laws could still be put into effect. But Clift says it could become much more difficult to do so.


Some people say state agencies have too much power.


Russ Harding is with the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. He says the state’s regulatory system hurts businesses… and job growth. He says elected officials should be the ones in charge of making new regulations.


“And that doesn’t mean that Michigan can’t regulate let’s say a Great Lakes issue where the state might want to decide to be more stringent than the federal government. They can do that. All it says is that legislators need to vote on that and make that decision not some unelected bureaucrat that is not accountable.”


Harding says state agencies should enforce laws, but not be able to make new laws.


Michigan lawmakers are expected to take this issue up again when they return in the fall.


That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Giving Policymakers a Bird’s Eye View

  • LightHawk volunteer Bob Keller donates his Cessna and flight time for environmental causes. (Photos by David Sommerstein, courtesy of LightHawk)

Environmental issues can be tough to convey to the public – and to policymakers – because they’re landscape-scale. Flying high above, say, a forest, a factory, or a wetlands complex can give better perspective.
But few environmental groups can afford to pay for private flights. For 30 years, the not-for-profit group LightHawk has been bringing together volunteer pilots and environmental causes. David Sommerstein reports:


I arrive at the teeny Potsdam airfield in northern New York State as a single-engine Cessna swoops onto the runaway and rolls to a stop.


“Lemme get out here…” [clunk]


Pilot Bob Keller squeezes out and stretches.


DAVID: “How’s the flight down?”


“A little cloudy here, more cloudy than I thought, but we’ll go back under the clouds.”


Keller’s athletic-looking with a full mustache. He’s a retired financial planner, and now a volunteer for LightHawk.


Every time Keller takes someone into the air for LightHawk, it costs him about 200 dollars an hour. He’s says he loves the outdoors, so it’s a worthwhile donation.


“In order to enjoy the outdoors, you have to try to protect it, so that there’s still places to go that aren’t shopping malls and housing developments.”


(ON HEADSET: “Potsdam traffic… departing runway 6…” [pilot chatter]


Headsets on, we take off. In the air, Keller’s like a tour guide, pointing out old paper mills, a water bottling plant, a snaking river.


“Notice all the horseshoes and curves and all the marshy and swampy area. It’s hard to really grasp how big this area really is without flying over it.”


It can be hard for environmental groups to persuade politicians or potential donors that something’s worth protecting or saving from pollution, without seeing the big picture firsthand.

Transcript

“So much is evident from the air. It takes a knowledgeable individual to see those things.”


Kelley Tucker is the eastern region programs manager for LightHawk. The group runs a thousand missions a year on behalf of green groups in 10 countries in North and Central America.


“We’ve seen people come down with enormous amounts of scientific data that makes a difference in a board room, in a government office, in a legal decision.”


In southwestern Michigan, for example, photos from LightHawk flights have compelled state inspectors to monitor manure lagoons on cattle and hog farms more closely.


“We’ve seen lagoons at extreme capacity and actually have seen run-off of animal waste into the waterways from those.”


Lynn Henning is with the Sierra Club and the Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan. The groups have done more than 30 flights with LightHawk, sometimes bringing aboard inspectors from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Henning says those flights make a difference.


“Being able to see what they can’t see from the ground. Areas around the facilities that have died or have been torn out or tree lines removed or lagoons added, and they’re very helpful.”


[pilot chatter]


Back aboard Bob Keller’s Cessna, we bank over emerald green forests and hills. Keller says his passengers come away with more than pictures and data.


“You see it from the air, it just enhances the sense of majesty.”


It’s that sense of awe that LightHawk and its partners hope lingers with decision makers long after the plane touches back down.


For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

Illegal Wolf Kills Spiking in Michigan’s UP

  • Some hunters in Michigan's upper peninsula say the wolves' "sacred cow" status is causing more animosity toward the animals. (Photo courtesy of www.isleroyalewolf.org)

No other wildlife species, it seems, causes such extremes of emotion as the wolf.

Some people want to protect it at any cost.

Others want to shoot the animal on sight.

And in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula illegal wolf kills are spiking.

Wildlife officials say they can defuse the situation if they can just get gray wolves removed from the endangered species list.

Bob Allen reports.

More about the history of wolves in Michigan

More about removing Michigan wolves (included in the western GL wolf population) from the Endangered Species List

Michigan’s Wolf Management Plan

More on Michigan’s Isle Royale Wolves (the longest study of any predator-prey system in the world)

Transcript

The return of gray wolves to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula more than twenty years ago was not cause for alarm, at first.
But that’s changed drastically in the last few years as more sportsmen are convinced wolves are now decimating the white tail deer population.

Larry Livermore manages the 35,000 acre Hiawatha Sportsman’s Club, about an hour’s drive west of the Mackinaw Bridge.

LIVERMORE: “There was no hatred of wolves until people created the hatred by not allowing them to be managed.”

As long as the wolf is under federal protection it can only be killed if it’s causing imminent threat to human life.
The wolf population in Michigan is more than six times the goal set for them under the Endangered Species Act.

And the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now trying for the fourth time to remove gray wolves from the protected list in the Upper Great Lakes states.
So far, national wildlife protection groups have managed to block those efforts in federal court.

The groups contend wolves still need to expand into northeastern states before protections are removed.
Larry Livermore says while all this legal wrangling is going on members at the eighty year old Hiawatha Club are giving up their memberships and selling their places because the deer hunting has become pathetic.

LIVERMORE: “You have a whole bunch of honest law abiding citizens who have finally had enough and say, you don’t care about us, you don’t understand our dilemma here and so we will take it into our own hands. And that’s happening here. People who I never dreamed would say I would shoot a wolf are telling me that they will shoot one.”

There was a spike in illegal wolf kills in the U.P. last year.
Wildlife officials found fifteen collared wolves shot out of an overall population pushing near 700.
And the Department says poaching is on the upswing again this year too.

But Brian Roell is not alarmed about it.
He is the go-to wolf guy for the DNR in Marquette.
He says illegal kills are not reducing the overall population.

And Roell says once federal protection is gone people will stop feeling like the wolf is being treated as a “sacred cow”.

ROELL: “Being able to empower people to actually take some control back is going to go a long way in helping people come to live with wolves.”

DNR officials have a management plan ready to go once the wolf is delisted.
The plan would give people the authority to defend against attacks on their pets and livestock.
And it would allow them to cull wolves in places where they’re putting a lot of pressure on deer.

But some sportsmen’s groups want to go further than that.
They want the state to open a hunting season on them.
Sportsmen say if wolves are treated more like bears with limited harvests then the animals will have some value to people.

But Nancy Warren thinks the top predator has its own value in the natural order of things.
In the summertime, she takes visitors out at night to howl with wolves on her property in the western U.P.
She says the number of deer killed by wolves and reported threats to humans are being exaggerated.
But she agrees the state ought to be able to manage problem wolves.

WARREN: “Let people see that the state is able to manage these wolves. And we could get rid of some of these myths and the misinformation and see that, yeah, we can live with wolves.”

Warren fears a return to the bad old days when wolves were considered varmints and poisoned or shot on sight.

But Brian Roell with the DNR doesn’t see wholesale slaughter of wolves coming back into play.
Because once the wolf comes off the endangered species list, he says, no one is going to want to risk having to put it back on again.

Urban Coyotes Make Themselves at Home

  • Bill Dodge is a PhD student at Wayne State University. He's leading a team of researchers looking into the behavior of urban coyotes in Oakland County. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Coyotes have been moving into the city. There have been sightings in a lot of American cities, including Chicago and Detroit.

You could potentially see coyotes almost anywhere in Michigan, but not a whole lot is known about the state’s urban coyotes.

There’s a small research team from Wayne State University that’s trying to figure the animals out. They want to find out how many coyotes are living in cities. And they want to know what they’re eating, and how they survive.

More about urban coyotes in Chicago

More about urban coyotes in Los Angeles County

A video of a Canadian and a coyote

Ghosts in the Cities

Transcript

(sound of traffic whizzing by)

A few weeks ago, one day just after dawn, I met up with the team at the side of a road in Oakland County. We crossed the road to get to a grassy, undeveloped piece of land. The group fanned out to look for evidence of coyotes… that is: tracks, and scat. After just a few steps, we found tracks.

Bill Dodge is a PhD student at Wayne State, and he’s the team leader.

“Coyote tracks are a lot neater than dog tracks, with coyotes usually the trail pattern is pretty straight as if they know where they’re going.”

A minute later… more evidence.

“We’ve got a scat up here.”

The lucky guy who gets to collect that scat is Nick Marengo. He’s an undergrad at Wayne State.

“I’m going to fill out a data form… bag it… and collect it. RW: So is this the job that falls to students mostly? (Nick laughs) Bill: No I’ll pick up scat… RW: it’s not beneath you? (laughs) Bill: It’s not beneath me to pick up coyote scat.”

I’ll spare you the finer details… but basically, they’re finding out what the coyotes are eating. Bill Dodge says people often think urban coyotes are eating garbage and people’s pets… but that’s actually not very common.

“Voles, mice, eastern cottontail rabbits, those are the top three food items.”

He says anywhere there’s green space with a little bit of cover… there are coyotes. Even highway interchanges and Detroit Metro Airport.

They’re also trying to trap coyotes so they can put radio collars on and track them.

So far… they haven’t caught any. You know that thing you’ve heard about coyotes being wily? Bill Dodge says that’s true.

“They’re resilient. We’ve been trying to eliminate them for about 100 years and they’re still around and they’ve actually done well and prospered in urban areas.”

Both coyotes and wolves were bountied and killed for decades in Michigan. Bill Dodge says coyotes really rebounded in the 1980s. And he says it appears that coyotes have been moving into Michigan cities over the last decade or so.

“Territories outside urban areas are full so they’re moving into urban areas where there’s marginal habitat but it’s habitat in itself.”

And he says that’s making some people worried that coyotes might eat their pets. He says problem coyotes might have to be killed. But he says relocating coyotes won’t work.

“It’s kind of futile. We could remove the coyotes in this area and the void would just be filled by other coyotes.”

He says coyotes are just here now… and people will need to learn to co-exist with them.

He says there haven’t been any reported attacks on people in Michigan. But there have been a few reports of pets being attacked.

Research suggests that conflicts are more likely to happen when coyotes lose their natural fear of people. And that happens when people feed coyotes – either on purpose or accidentally.

Holly Hadac is volunteering for the coyote research project.

“With coyotes, it’s all about the food. That’s why we say a fed coyote is a dead coyote.”

She says it’s a good idea to bring pet food indoors, and secure compost piles with a cover. And never feed a coyote directly. She says even though coyote attacks on pets are rare, you should still keep an eye on your pets.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.