Some consider shipping bottled water to areas outside the Great Lakes basin a form of water diversion. (Photo by Cris Watk)
Governors throughout the region are talking to their constituents about proposed Great Lakes water rules. They hope to have the so-called Annex 2001 rules ready to go by the end of the year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports that bottled water has entered into the diversion debate:
Transcript
Governors throughout the region are talking to their constituents about proposed Great Lakes water rules. They hope to have the so-called Annex 2001 rules ready to go by the end of the year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports that bottled water has entered into the diversion debate:
Michigan just concluded its final public hearing. The state’s grappling with the potential impact of a growing bottled water industry, and the question of whether shipping bottled water should be considered a diversion of Great Lakes water.
Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak’s district touches on three of the Great Lakes. He says the simplest solution would be to simply ban any use that allows significant amounts of water to be moved out of the Great Lakes basin, whether that’s by ship, pipelines, or bottles.
“As we move towards a growing population worldwide, by 2025, water will be the most sought-after commodity in the world. We’d better have our act together, have one standard, and let’s ban the sale or diversion of Great Lakes water.”
But business groups are lobbying for less restrictive rules. They say water bottling has a tiny impact on the Great Lakes, and tight restrictions will hurt business development in the region.
A recent Michigan Supreme Court decision intended to solve controversy between lake shore property owners and beach walkers has stirred up yet more controversy. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)
Many people enjoy strolling the beaches of the Great Lakes, and believe it’s as much their shoreline as anyone else’s. But there are a lot of lakefront property owners who believe that beach strolling amounts to trespassing. And in at least two states in the region, that dispute has wound up in the courts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has
more:
Transcript
Many people enjoy strolling the beaches of the Great Lakes, and believe it’s as much their shoreline as anyone else’s. But there are a lot of lakefront property owners who believe that beach strolling amounts to trespassing, and in at least two states in the region, that dispute has wound up in the courts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has more:
In Michigan, the state Supreme Court recently declared the entire 3,200 miles of Great Lakes coast is public property. But a group of lakefront property owners says the decision has created a host of problems.
They’re complaining that it appears to leave them with no recourse for dealing with people who cross the line of considerate behavior, such as loud picnickers, and careless dog-walkers. Ernie Krygier is with one of the most active property owners’ groups, Save Our Shoreline.
“There’s a lot of other instances that we’re concerned with, and it all goes back to ownership and control to the water’s edge. If you don’t own it, it’s going to be very difficult to control it.”
The Michigan property owners now want the state Supreme Court to issue a more-detailed ruling on what’s allowed and not allowed on the Great Lakes beaches. Krygier says they’re also hoping to win back at least some of the shoreline.
If not, he says, the property owners could file a lawsuit claiming the court’s action amounts to a seizure of their property, and they’re entitled to perhaps billions of dollars in compensation.
(Sound of beach)
A sign posted here on a Lake Michigan beach by a property owners’ association warns people who might wander past that they’re about to tread upon private property, but many people walk right past it anyway to enjoy a stroll on the shoreline. Jim Wright lives nearby, and says he’s walked this stretch of beach for twenty years.
“They, they put out little signs and that. But the signs, you know, are not anything official. It’s just something they got from a signmaker. And so we just kind of ignore them, and they accept them being ignored.”
The recent Michigan Supreme Court said it’s okay for Wright and everyone else to ignore the sign. The ruling said Great Lakes beaches are a unique resource, held in trust by the state for the public to use and enjoy.
The court said public access in Michigan extends from the water to the high water line. That line meanders from beach to beach, from lake to lake, and from season to season. It’s generally indicated by debris deposits, or the absence of beach grass and other vegetation, and Jim Wright says the court made the right decision.
“I’ve always felt that the whole shoreline belongs to the state and no one person, so that was a good ruling that they made and I think most people will be very happy with it.”
It’s a controversy that’s playing out in other Great Lakes states. In Ohio, officials are saying the Michigan decision supports their position that the Lake Erie coast belongs to the public. Shoreline property owners there are suing the state, asking a federal court to declare they own the beaches adjacent to their property.
Noah Hall is a Wayne State University environmental law professor who’s filed briefs on behalf of conservation organizations supporting public access to the entire Great Lakes shoreline. He says the Michigan decision will have a regional impact.
“I think that it would be completely reasonable and expected for another state to look very hard at Michigan’s reasoning and analysis in this case and probably adopt a similar line.”
He says the Michigan decision is a boost to those arguing the entire Great Lakes shoreline belongs to the public, and not to any private interest.
Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:
Transcript
Cats are the nation’s most popular household pets. But despite this, millions of cats are abandoned each year. These free-roaming cats grow up without much human contact. They live in cat colonies near apartment buildings, strip malls, or anyplace else where food scraps get tossed into dumpsters or trash cans. And they have an impact on the environment as they compete with other wildlife for food and shelter. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has this report:
It’s late at night and Donna Dunn and a couple of friends are sitting in a parked car in a suburban Detroit cemetery.
They’re smoking, eating fast food, and waiting for cats.
“There’s the pregnant female, right there under the truck…”
They’re hoping the cats wander into one of the dozens of live traps they’ve set up. The prize catch is a pregnant female.
“What’d you get? Is it a girl? Yeah, it’s a girl… a pregnant female. Yes! Alright!….”
Donna Dunn is a veterinary technician, who learned about feral cats through her job. She hooked up with a sprawling network of thousands of feline lovers who take care of feral cats living in cat colonies.
Dunn figures there are about 75 wild or abandoned cats wandering the grounds of this cemetery. Some of the cats live in tunnels burrowed in the dirt, or in buildings on the cemetery grounds. Wild cats can also live in vacant buildings or abandoned vehicles. And, Dunn figures, there would soon be a lot more cats if something wasn’t done about it.
“One female will have a minimum of two litters a summer, average litter is five kittens per litter. So you’re looking at 10 kittens average per female in here. The first nine females we took out of here, eight were pregnant. That would’ve produced 40 kittens.”
(Sound of trap)
The trapped cats will spend the night in cages stacked side-by-side in a volunteer’s garage. They’ll go the vet’s in the morning, before they are returned to their feral cat colony. Donna Dunn says the neutered cats are more content, and less likely to fight with other cats and wild animals.
She says “trap, neuter, and release” is a humane alternative to turning strays over to a shelter, where most of the cats would be killed.
But “trap, neuter, and release” is also controversial idea. Critics say it doesn’t really address the problem of feral cats roaming the streets. They say it’s simply not possible to sterilize millions of these cats.
Eileen Liska is with the Michigan Humane Society. She says wild cats have a profound effect on the environment. They can upset the ecological balance of a field or a neighborhood by killing off birds and other wildlife. They can also carry feline leukemia and other diseases. Liska says euthanizing un-adoptable felines is the most compassionate approach.
“Cats living out in the streets equals suffering. I mean, they are suffering. They don’t have proper food sources. They’re exposed to the weather and they’ve got the danger of being attacked, injured or killed by other wildlife, especially when they’re fighting for the same ecological niches. The cats absolutely are in competition with possums, skunks, and raccoons, and raccoons can grow quite large and be quite aggressive and we know that they kill cats that come, that get in their way.”
But Liska also says the growing number of wild cats shows the current approach isn’t working. She wants to raise more money to fund new animal control programs. But she’s not finding a lot of support for a tax to do that among Michigan’s politicians.
Michigan, like most states, requires dogs to be on a leash or fenced in when they’re outside. Farmers demanded the laws at the beginning of the twentieth Century because wild canines were attacking livestock.
There’s no similar cry yet to do something about feral cats, and no one seems to think that licensing cats would begin to get at the problem. Wisconsin proposed allowing hunters to shoot strays. That idea was tabled after animal rights groups protested.
“Right there. See it? Right out here. That’s a little one. Judy, is there food in there? Should I check it?”
Donna Dunn and her friends would like to see every state to adopt trap-neuter-and-release for dealing with stray cats. Until then, she says, her cohorts will try and deal with the problem one cat colony at a time.
For years, a big chemical company has been negotiating
with government officials on cleaning up an area contaminated with dioxin. Environmentalists say Dow Chemical has used its power and influence to drag out the talks. The chemical company has agreed to plan for some kind of clean-up… but it’s still not clear how far that clean-up will go. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:
Transcript
For years, a big chemical company has been negotiating
with government officials on cleaning up an area contaminated
with dioxin. Environmentalists say Dow Chemical has used its
power and influence to drag out the talks. The chemical company
has agreed to plan for some kind of clean-up… but it’s still
not clear how far that clean-up will go. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:
Dow Chemical is a huge employer in Michigan, it employs almost 60 thousand people, not including outside suppliers. In a state that has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, a big company like Dow is important. The state of Michigan has been negotiating with Dow for nearly a decade over cleaning up dioxin downstream from the company’s big plant in the central part of the state. Just recently Dow and the state struck a deal on the next phase of coming up with a clean-up plan. But it’s not clear how long it will take to design the plan and it’s not clear exactly how far the plan will go to clean up the contamination.
The people who live in the floodplain of the Titabawassee River, downstream from the Dow Chemical plant in Midland, Michigan, say they’ve waited long enough for a cleanup plan. Almost a decade has passed since dioxin was first discovered in the river sediment.
(sound of river)
At Immerman Park in the town of Freeland, downriver from Dow, signs dot the riverbank. They warn parents to keep their children from playing here, because there’s dioxin in the soil.
(sound of hand-washing)
An earlier agreement with the state led Dow to put handwashing stations up here for children to clean up after playing in the dirt. Mary Whitney lives nearby. She says the sinks and faucets in the hand-washing stations are too high and too complicated for children to use, and they’re located too far from the banks of the river. She doesn’t think the kids are getting the dioxin contamination off their hands let alone off their shoes and clothes. She says it’s typical of how the dioxin question’s being handled in Michigan.
“It’s like, well, let’s do a little bit to show we’re doing something, but let’s not maybe address the whole issue. We’ll do just a little but to keep the peace and to keep everybody from not getting so much up in arms. But I think, they’re trying to do, Dow is, trying to do some things to help. But it’s just putting a little Band-Aid on the whole issue. It’s not fixing the main problem.”
For decades one of the by-products of the chemicals Dow produced was dioxin. It’s believed dioxin has been in the soil around Midland since the early 20th century. The fact that dioxin contaminated the sediment along the river downstream was only discovered within the last decade.
Studies have linked dioxin to health problems, including cancer and damage to the nervous system. The state says dioxin has spread to the environment round the Titabawassee River to the point that it issued warnings to hunters to limit how much wild game they eat from the area. That’s because the state says deer, squirrels and other game might be contaminated with dioxin.
Dow and its supporters say the risks posed by dioxin are being overstated. Dow officials say there’s no evidence that the dioxin levels in the Titabawassee floodplain pose a threat to the public health. Dow researcher Jim Collins says the company has six decades of research on employees who’ve been exposed to high levels of dioxin, and the worst health effect is a mild form of chloracne in some of the company’s employees.
Chloracne is the skin condition that disfigured Ukraine’s president, Victor Yushchenko, after he was poisoned by a large dose of dioxin.
“We’ve studied heart disease, diabetes, immunologic effects, reproductive effects, and cancer. And other than some increased risk of chloracne in these workers, we find no health effects that have been related to dioxin exposures.”
Backers of the company say critics should be careful about calling for penalizing Dow. Janee Valesquez is the the local economic development group “Midland Tomorrow.” She says Dow’s impact on the local economy amounts to almost a billion dollars a year.
“So Dow is absolutely… an anchor for mid-Michigan.”
Businesses and workers don’t want to damage relations with the chemical giant. Jim Ballard is an economist at Michigan State University. He says there is some risk that Dow could abandon Michigan. Texas is the new home of the chemical industry, he says, because energy’s cheap and it doesn’t burden industry with a lot of environmental regulations.
“I think Dow might consider leaving if they felt the business regulatory climate in Michigan was excessively onerous. On the hand, it would be very costly for them to leave. They’ve got a large investment in infrastructure and human capital in the Midland area, and to reverse would be a decision that I’m sure they would not take lightly.”
But critics of how the dioxing clean-up has been handled think the economic concerns should not be more important than the health risks to people who live nearby – people such as Mary Whitney. She and others filed a lawsuit seeking a lifetime of medical tests paid for by Dow. That case is before the state Supreme Court. Whitney says she’s afraid a cleanup plan will get bogged down in talks, or delayed by studies.
“We want them to clean it up. Take responsibility for what they’ve done and clean it up and make it safe for all of us. Now I’m not sure what all that would entail. Surely maybe dredging the river to make it deeper. Shoring up the shores, so it doesn’t flood any longer. And fill in the yards with clean soil. And that’s going to be a big thing to do.”
Many critics of the state’s handling of the dioxin clean-up believe anything less than an extensive clean-up is putting business and jobs ahead of the health of the people in Midland and downstream along the Titabawassee River.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is asking the Federal Emergency Management Administration for disaster funds to deal with the Emerald Ash Borer. She says the aid is necessary to prevent the tree-killing pest from spreading into more states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:
Transcript
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is asking the Federal Emergency
Management Administration for disaster funds to deal with the Emerald Ash
Borer. She says the aid is necessary to prevent the tree-killing pest from
spreading into more states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports:
The Governor’s request is for money to remove and destroy infested trees, and to come
up with ways to contain the pest. The ash borer has already killed an estimated six
million trees in Michigan, and it’s also been found in Ohio, Indiana, Maryland, and
Virginia.
Governor Granholm says it’s too big a problem for her state to handle
by itself.
“We need additional resources, and certainly I know the federal
government would be interested in making sure that it doesn’t spread to other
states or the entire country. We need help. This is an emergency.”
She says the state’s not assured it will get that help, and is getting
mixed signals from the federal government on its request.
Linda Sacia of the Federal Emergency Management Administration says a review of the
request is still underway, and there’s no word on when an answer might be coming.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Some Great Lakes governors have agreed they should adopt a consistent set of rules for determining whether their water is clean and safe. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
Some Great Lakes governors have agreed they should adopt a consistent
set of rules for determining whether their water is clean and safe. We
have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Seven years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called on
Great Lakes states to develop uniform standards for monitoring water
quality. Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm says it’s time to end the
patchwork of water protection policies among the states that surround
the lakes.
“Every state has different standards with respect to the water quality.
For example, there may be eight different advisories in respect to fish
consumption in all of the different eight states.”
Granholm is asking the Great Lakes governors and the EPA to form a task
force to create a set of uniform standards. She says that would make it
easier for Great Lakes states to stand together to protect the
resource. And, she says, people would be assured their water is safe
for drinking, swimming and fishing, regardless of which state they are
in.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Two Great Lakes states – Pennsylvania and Michigan – top the list of destinations in North America for solid waste disposal. In Michigan, that designation is spurring action to slow the pace of trash being shipped to its landfills. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
Two Great Lakes states – Pennsylvania and Michigan – top the list of destinations in North
America for solid waste disposal. In Michigan, that designation is spurring action to slow the
pace of trash being shipped to its landfills. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
A new report says one-quarter of the trash going to Michigan’s landfills comes from out-of-state.
Some of it is from neighboring Midwest states such as Illinois and Indiana, some it from as far
away as the east coast. Most of Michigan’s out-of-state waste comes from Canada.
Landfill space is abundant in Michigan and dumping costs are low. But there’s a movement afoot
to try and slow the pace of trash headed to Michigan landfills.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.
“We have sited so many landfills over the past decade or so that we have literally become the
dumping ground of North America.”
Legislation is pending to limit the types of waste that can be dumped in the state’s landfills, and
to make dumping more expensive.
Those efforts have been dealt a setback. A court has ruled transporting trash is a form of
interstate commerce that can only be regulated by the U.S. government.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Soon, every Great Lakes state could have a water protection law on its books. Only one state still hasn’t passed such a law in order to comply with a 1985 regional agreement. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
Soon, every Great Lakes state could have a water protection law on its books. Only one state still
hasn’t passed such a law in order to comply with a 1985 regional agreement. We have more from
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has called on the State Legislature to pass a water
protection law. She says the state is almost 20 years late in coming up with regulations on large
extractions of water from lakes, streams and underground wells.
“In fact, it’s an embarrassment for this state that we have not adopted a water protection statute.
We are the only state in the Great Lakes that has not adopted a system for regulating our greatest
natural resource.”
Her action was spurred by a controversial new spring water bottling plant that pumps about 200
gallons a minute.
She says it’s also standing in the way of negotiating regional standards for water protection –
standards that could also be used to protect the Great Lakes basin from efforts to treat its water as
a commodity available for export outside the region.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
A judge in Michigan has given a spring water bottling plant three weeks to stop pumping water from the ground. He says the Ice Mountain facility is causing harm to surrounding lakes, streams and wetlands. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
A judge in Michigan has given a spring water bottling plant three weeks
to stop pumping water from the ground. He says the Ice Mountain facility is
causing harm to surrounding lakes, streams and wetlands. We have more from the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
The Ice Mountain plant pulls hundreds of thousands of gallons a day from
an underground spring in northern Michigan. The bottled water is shipped
across the Midwest.
Environmentalists say that should be considered an illegal diversion of
water from the Great Lakes basin.
Mecosta County Circuit Judge Lawrence Root said that’s not the case. But
he did say the facility is having an adverse effect on nearby surface water
levels, fish, and plant life. He ordered the plant to stop pumping water.
Plaintiff Terry Swier says that’s good enough for her.
“All of us that heard it could only say, ‘Wow.’ It is, uh, it’s great.”
Ice Mountain officials say the impact of this will be felt by farmers,
golf course owners and other businesses that require large withdrawals of
groundwater.
They plan to ask for permission to continue operating while they appeal
the decision.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta in
Lansing, Michigan.
President Bush’s nomination to lead a Great Lakes governing council has been held up in the U.S. Senate for 15 months. But there are signals that interim International Joint Commission Chairman Dennis Schornack might soon win confirmation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta has more:
Transcript
President Bush’s nomination to lead a Great Lakes governing council has been held up in the U.S.
Senate for 15 months. But there are signals that interim International Joint Commission Chairman
Dennis Schornack might soon win confirmation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta
has more:
Dennis Schornack is President Bush’s nominee to be the U.S. chair of the International Joint
Commission. The IJC resolves disputes over the use of the Great Lakes.
Senator Debbie Stabenow is using a prerogative of her office to hold up his confirmation. The
two are long-time political adversaries. And Stabenow says she has questions over Schornack’s
positions on Great Lakes drilling, and water diversion. But she’s willing to give his record a
second look.
Schornack says he expects she’ll find they agree on a lot – especially the position that Congress
should not have the final word on Great Lakes decisions.
“States and provinces should be in charge. They’re the people with the resources, they’re the
people with the real stake in the Great Lakes.”
Stabenow says she’ll make a decision by September. Schornack’s appointment expires at the end
of the year if the Senate does not act on it.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Some consider shipping bottled water to areas outside the Great Lakes basin a form of water diversion. (Photo by Cris Watk)