Month: February 2001

Federal officials say methamphetamines, or meth, is the fastest growingdrug in the U.S. Meth is easy to make, and can be manufactured in smallplaces. That has led to the mushrooming of the 21st century’s version ofmoonshine distilleries — clandestine labs where meth is made. In manystates, meth labs were unheard of until the early 1990’s. Yet in 1998, morethan 1600 labs were seized across the nation. Today, hundreds of labs arebeing discovered across the region. With these homemade laboratories comegallons of waste and some major environmental problems. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Dan Gorenstein reports:

Transcript

Federal officials say methamphetamines, or meth, is the fastest growing
drug in the U.S. Meth is easy to make, and can be manufactured in
small places. That has led to the mushrooming of the 21st century’s version of moonshine
distilleries – clandestine labs where meth is made. In many states, meth labs were
unheard of until the early 1990’s. Yet in 1998, more than 16-hundred labs were seized
across the nation. Today, hundreds of labs are being discovered across the region. And
with these homemade laboratories come gallons of waste and some major environmental
problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Gorenstein reports:

(sound of footsteps crunching in dead snow crusted grass)

One autumn afternoon about two years ago, conservation officer Bruce Hall
stopped by this small hobby farm in north-central Minnesota. He was
expecting to bust a deer poacher. But deer poaching wasn’t the only thing
he found happening down on the farm.

“In the distance along the tree line, which is probably about 200
yards away there was a shack that was used for making meth. This person knew that it
was something he wouldn’t want around the local area, so he made it back
there. It looks like a deer shack.”

A search of the area revealed 23 guns, cocaine, marijuana and of course, a
makeshift methamphetamine lab.

Mom and Pop meth labs like the one Officer Hall stumbled on are
increasingly common. That’s because the drug is cheap and easy to produce, says
Deborah Durkin from the Minnesota Department of Health.

“It takes an enormous amount of money, time and nasty connections to
get coco leaf from the jungle to the form of cocaine in the cities but it
takes 15 minutes on the internet and a trip to Wal-Mart to make meth. Not only is the
drug simple to make, but little space is needed. Most of the
labs can fit into a Coleman sized cooler, or a two by two container, which
means these operations are portable. In a training session for a group of
paramedics, public safety and law enforcement officers DEA agent John
Cotner explains that every county in Minnesota has had contact with meth. And how
a once witty joke is now obsolete.”

“The big joke is, I would say we’d seized one in everything but a
tree house. Last summer they seized one out of a tree house in Wright
County. There is no place that an individual or a group of individuals
can’t set up one of these labs and cook.”

Compound the mobility and prevalence of meth labs with their waste and you
have a potential environmental problem. Whether in a residential home in the
city or a farm in the country, the laboratories are leaving a trail of
solvents, lithium, ether and anhydrous ammonia, some serious chemicals.
Serious enough, says Cotner, that when entering a lab site public safety
officers are wearing heavy duty gear.

“We are wrapped up in chem suits, respirators, in some cases self
contained breathing apparatuses, scuba tanks like the firefighters wear. We
are all duct-taped and wrapped and in gloves and boots.”

Officer Bruce Hall meanwhile says the environmental effect is pervasive but
not obvious.

“There is exposure to wildlife, there is damage too on a natural
resource issue. It’s not something where you see the smokestacks and know
they’re polluting. It’s not that kind of an issue.”

The damage can come in many forms. Sometimes the chemicals are simply
flushed down a drain. They can also be buried in containers, or just dumped
out the window. Nobody knows for sure where this particular lab operator
dumped his waste. It could have been right into the ground. And that, Steve
Lee says, could be a serious problem.

“Perhaps the biggest environmental hazard to a meth lab is when they
are in a situation when they are dumping into the ground, or dumping into a
septic tank system and there are neighbors nearby using that groundwater as
a drinking water supply. If those wells are close, then they are at some
hazard of becoming contaminated from those waste chemicals.”

Lee is an environmental officer for the state of Minnesota. He guesses only
about 10 percent of the labs affect natural resources in this way. But on
this lonely county road, the neighbors do drink from wells. That puts them
at risk, say officials, of consuming toxic chemicals that ultimately could
result in liver or kidney damage, neurological problems and an increased
risk for cancer. And even incidental contact can cause burns, or in some
cases, even death.

Which is exactly why the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
issued a warning to hunters and outdoor recreationists this fall. And it’s
why environmental officials across the Great Lakes region are becoming ever
more concerned about the growth in clandestine meth.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Gorenstein.

Across the Great Lakes region, construction crews built about two thousandmiles of new roads in 1999. From conception to completion, building a roadcan be a long process that can easily take twenty years. Much of the workis done before bulldozers move a single mound of dirt. The Great LakesRadio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has the story on one profession youmay not expect to see at a highway construction site:

Transcript

Across the Great Lakes region, construction crews built about 2-thousand miles of new
roads in 1999. From conception to completion, building a road can be a long process that
can easily take twenty years. And much of the work is done before bulldozers move a
single mound of dirt. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has the
story on one profession you may not expect to see at a highway construction site.

Dave Ruggles works for the Michigan Department of Transportation, but he doesn’t
operate a backhoe, he’s not part of a survey crew, and he doesn’t direct traffic around a
construction site. Ruggles is an archaeologist.

“It’s not quite the Indiana Jones-fedora-bullwhip-and-.45 kind of approach. Although it
does a lot for Hollywood, it does nothing for Archaeology.”

Ruggles says it’s part of his job at the Department of Transportation to make sure that the
ancient history of an area is taken into consideration before a road goes through it.

“We work very closely with the engineers in helping them design a sensitive design that
accommodates all the needs that best can fit the need for the traveling public.”

Ruggles says it’s a delicate process, one that involves a series of judgment calls. Because
the archaeologists work for the Department of Transportation, they want to see the
project completed as quickly as possible. But they also have the responsibility to protect
the historical integrity of a site. Although they don’t have the authority to stop a project,
their input can slow it down. Dean Anderson says that’s just part of the job. Anderson is
an archaeologist for Michigan’s office of Archaeology. He is one of the many experts
consulted by the DOT.

“There’s a fascinating past to Michigan that’s not in history books but is out there
buried.”

Anderson says construction crews don’t just go into a site and start digging, especially if
they plan on using federal funds. It’s part of a procedure mandated by the government
under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. First, archaeologists determine
whether or not there are any sites along the proposed route that may be of historical
value. Then, those sites are tested to see if they can be deemed “significant”.

“Archaeology is all about understanding people and the past, and if there’s information
on those sites that can help us do that, the site is significant.”

A significant site may have been part of a major transportation route, such as a river or a
stream or it may have been part of an urban center. It may contain many relics, such as
pottery, animal bones, weapons or tools. And in some cases, it may contain human
remains.

Such was the case in 1998, when the New York State Department of Transportation
began to reconstruct one of the streets that ran through the heart of downtown Albany.
Archaeologist Mary Ivey says the project took place near a churchyard cemetery, one that
dated back to the 1600’s. In advance of digging, Ivey says the department took great
pains to identify the location of any graves. So she says it was a big surprise when the
remains of two people were uncovered.

“We were quite sure that we were outside of the cemetery area and in fact, we were. The
human remains that we encountered turned out to be those of some individuals who had
been reburied at some point, possibly taken out of the cemetery and reburied.”

The bodies were between 250 and 300 years old. One of them was still reasonably intact
and Ivey says department officials soon began to call the body “Pearl” after the street
under which she was found. She says archaeologists determined that Pearl lived among
Albany’s poor. They knew she had rickets and sinusitis, she had poor dental health, and
may have suffered from gout.

“To all of us I think it was incredible glimpse not into the history that we read about in
the history books, but the everyday existence for someone living at the time here in
Albany.”

In general, however, Ivey says the New York State DOT would like to avoid disturbing
any remains…or any artifacts for that matter.

“Archeology in its own way is a destructive science. You have to dig up the material to
get the story, but then the material is out of its context forever, so we really try very hard
to avoid the impacts wherever possible.”

In Michigan, the state has gone to considerable lengths to keep the location of these sites
from public eyes. Although they exist as state records, they’re considered so sacred,
they’re not even available under the Freedom of Information act. Dean Anderson says
that’s to keep amateur archaeologists from randomly digging around to enhance their
personal collections.

“which is like tearing pages out of a book to us. It really takes away information that
really helps us understand Michigan’s past.”

Anderson says he can personally understand the natural curiosity people have about what
lies beneath the ground. He says it’s that curiosity that got him involved in archaeology.
But he says it’s often a curiosity better left unfulfilled.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.

A cold winter across the U.S. and the Great Lakes region has placedincreased demand on natural gas supplies for heating. But that demandcould soon hurt Midwest corn farmers. The Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Mary Jo Wagner reports:

Transcript

A cold winter across the U.S. and the Great Lakes region has placed increased demand on
natural gas supplies for heating. But that demand could soon hurt Midwest corn farmers.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner reports.

Growing corn requires a great deal of nitrogen. That’s because unlike many other crops,
corn can’t take nitrogen out of the air. So farmers must *add* nitrogen by fertilizing their
fields. There are two ways they typically do this — by spreading manure, or applying
some form of anhydrous ammonia.
The problem is, natural gas is used to produce anhydrous ammonia. And with high
natural gas prices this winter, fertilizer companies have been making more money selling
their natural gas supply to utilities FOR HOME HEATING than producing fertilizer. So
that has left corn growers wondering whether there will be any fertilizer for them when
they start planting their crops this spring. Bob Olson is the Executive Director of
Wisconsin’s corn grower’s association.

“We’ve lost 2 months production – Nov. Dec. and part of January production on
all kinds of nitrogen fertilizer so the pipeline has some nitrogen in it. I don’t think
anybody knows how much and I don’t know how full the storages are.”

One sign of a possible shortage is the current price for fertilizer
double last year’s price, according to university of wisconsin corn
agronomist Joe Lauer. Even so, he’s skeptical about claims of a shortage.

“Every year it seems like there’s some sort of scare out there generated from any
number of sources – last year it was a drought situation.the year before that something
else, this year it’s nitrogen.”

To be on the safe side, Lauer says farmers should not wait
until spring planting time to see if there’ll be fertilizer to
buy.

“I think if a grower can lock in some prices and supply, he should do it.”

Corn grower Bob Olson has already locked in his supply of liquid
nitrogen–but it’s only 28 percent nitrogen the rest is water.
The normally cheaper anhydrous ammonia has an 80 percent concentration.
Luckily, Olson says, in some areas there’s still natural fertilizer.

“We’re still an animal state..just barely those dairy farmers we haven’t driven
out of Wisconsin are still in business. We still have beef cattle, sheep and hogs and that
manure very effectively is a natural fertilizer. If we don’t have that, we have to substitute
with the elemental fertilizers – nitrogen,
phoshorous and potash.”

Meanwhile, Purdue University Specialists in Indiana worry that
some farmers in the Great Lakes Region may switch to
soybeans since that plant doesn’t need the expensive added
nitrogen. But they say such drastic measures are not needed.
They suggest simply using slightly lower-than-recommended doses
of nitrogen. While that may hurt yield, they say there’s a
potential for record low corn prices to rise because of the latest pressure
on fertilizer prices.

There is some evidence meanwhile that worries about the natural
gas supply may be leveling off — one of the largest anhydrous
ammonia manufacturers in Oklahoma says it will restart
production of fertilizer over the next few weeks.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Jo Wagner.

With energy prices so high around the Great Lakes this winter, it couldbe almost every homeowner’s dream: telling the electric company to goaway. That’s exactly what some folks in northern New York have done. Enticed by the prospect of lower electric bills and ”green” power,they’ve installed family size hydroelectric power plants. The GreatLakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Moe profiles two northern New Yorkhouseholds that are bringing home the power of a nearby stream. They’veall the comforts of home, with no utility bills:

Transcript

With energy prices so high around the Great Lakes this winter, it could be
almost every homeowner’s dream: telling the electric company to go away.
And that’s exactly what some folks in northern New York have done. Enticed by
The prospect of lower electric bills and “green” power, they’ve installed family
size hydroelectric power plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd
Moe profiles two northern New York households that are bringing home the power
of a nearby stream. They’ve all the comforts of home, with no utility bills:

When Bryan Thompson first bought farmland in northern New York 20 years ago,
there were no power lines running along the nearby gravel township road.
And there still aren’t. Thompson built his farm knowing that that he’d have to
use alternative energy. He lived on the farm for four years with only candles,
flashlights and kerosene lanterns.

“Then in 1983 I put in my first solar panel and I had one light and a car
radio, and I felt like I was in heaven. I had such incredible luxuries.”

Bryan’s family has grown since the early 80’s to include his partner, Gary
Berk and their two kids, Isaac and Julia. And together, their electrical use has
Also increased. They now have a TV, stereo, VCR and a barn full of power tools.
So they needed to expand their energy options. After months of research, they
decided to harness the power of falling water.

(sound of walking)

On a brilliant sunny day Bryan makes an inspection of the hydro plant that
he and neighbor Chris Neurath built seven years ago. It’s about half a mile
from the house by way of a sheep pasture and meadow. The trail winds through
tall grasses and brambles until it ends at a grove of cedar trees and a gorge
that slopes nearly 70 feet down to Beaver creek. At a spot where the small creek
empties into a swamp, sits a wooden structure, the size of a kitchen
stove. it’s the heart of the hydro plant.

(sound of the whirling of the turbines as brian lifts off the lid of the
housing.)

“This is the turbine right here. It’s a modified Ford truck alternator made
in Canada. It’s a great little unit. It’s been rewired. Puts out 240 AC.
From each of these, we get about 200 watts per generator. We have two in the
winter and one in the summer. One runs a heater to keep it from freezing.”

A turbine is the part of the hydroelectric system that spins. Water comes
into the power plant through irrigation hoses. It then hits a series of cupped
blades, like a paddle-wheel on a steamboat, that spin the turbine, and the
spinning generates electricity. Buried cables carry the electricity to the
Thompson-Berk farm, and their neighbor, Chris Neurath, a mile away, where it ‘s
stored in banks of batteries.

Rather than add more solar panels or build a wind generator, Neurath says
they found Beaver creek to be the cheapest option for making electricity.

“If you have a stream that’s running most of the year, or all of the year,
you’re making power 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. And even if it’s a
relatively small amount, in a home power system, you’re often, off-grid, you’re
storing it in batteries. So, all night long when you’re not using
electricity, you’re storing it up and then you’re use it during the day or whenever you
use it. So, hydro per dollar of equipment invested, usually you get the most
electricity.”

Setting up a hydro facility and maintaining it isn’t easy. And it’s
expensive, at least to build. It took six weeks for Bryan Thompson and Chris Neurath
to install their micro hydroplant, at a total cost of 20-thousand dollars.
Some experts say operating hydro powered homes are more expensive than those
receiving electricity from the power grid. Neurath says he estimates an
average cost, including initial capital costs of up to 500 dollars per year
for each household. He says the biggest yearly expense is buying replacement
batteries for the storage system, and he adds conservation of power is a
constant consideration.

Bryan Thompson says it’ll likely be years before micro-hydro power systems
become as widely used as solar panels. They’re not as standardized or easy
to build and maintain as photovoltaics, but the time and expense are worth it.

“When they had the ice storm in 1998, everything worked here. That made me
really appreciate our independence. We had power when other people didn’t.
Also, it’s clean power. It’s not made by nuclear energy or polluting the
air, burning fossil fuels, etc, and that’s really important.”

This winter marks the eighth year the Thompson-Berk and Neurath households
Have relied on hydro power. It’s part of what they call their commitment to
renewable electricity, and an attitude of stewardship and living with the
land, rather than from it.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Todd Moe.

Rising natural gas and electric rates are bringing with them a risinginterest in alternative energy. The result is that powering your homewith solar energy is no longer a project for the experimenter. Thetechnology can now be bought off the shelf, as the Great Lakes RadioConsortium’s Bud Lowell reports:

Transcript

Rising natural gas and electric rates are bringing with them a rising interest in
alternative energy. The result is that powering your home with solar energy is no
longer a project for the experimenter. The technology can now be bought off the
shelf, as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell reports.

Just five years ago, Nancy Allinger and Duane Basch built a home heated and powered
by the sun.

It was a lot of work. They had to get it designed and find a builder who’d tackle it. They
searched high and low to find equipment that would let them achieve their vision of generating
their own electricity. And they had to deal with skeptics, who said solar power wouldn’t work in
the Great Lakes snow belt.

“My mother, the first year we moved in the house, was calling me every morning to ask me If I was warm –
and it was yes mom – we’re warm.”

Today, Nancy Allinger’s friends and neighbors are no longer skeptical about the house,
which gets its electricity from photo-voltaic panels on the roof and from a windmill.
And something else has changed. If Allinger and Basch were to build their solar house
today, they could buy the solar-electric system off the shelf.

The solar power industry is still small. But in the last five years, household solar electric
systems have gone from something cobbled together by experimenters to something you buy
from a dealer. And there are options that didn’t exist five years ago.
Doctor Gay Canough is President of the New York Solar Industry Association.

“Most of the solar homes have been stand-alone systems, but that’s rapidly changing. In California there are
entire housing developments that are putting in solar electric systems and doing net metering. So the numnbers are
starting to really grow, now”

When Nancy Allinger and Duane Basch built their house in Mendon, New York, stand-
alone solar energy systems were state of the art.

They use solar or windmill power to charge a number of car batteries, usually housed in
the basement or garage. The batteries store power for night and for cloudy days, and a device
called an inverter turns the 12-volt D.C. battery current into standard house current.

The latest household solar technology is net metering. It goes a step farther, by making
the homeowner a partner in the energy grid. With a net metering system, you buy power from
the utility company at night and on cloudy days. But when the sun is bright, your electric meter
runs backwards as you feed current back to the power company.

Bill LaBine of Avon, New York installs stand-alone electric systems. Today, he’s gearing
up to sell net metering equipment.

“Well, net metering really means you can sell the electricity for the same cost that the utility company’s
charging you for the electricity.”

Not all states in the region have net metering yet. Some of them still need to change
state laws so that small-scale producers can sell back to the electric companies.

Gay Canough of the New York Solar Industry Association says this has the potential to
make solar-electric panels a common household accessory…..

“The reason why we’re pushing the net metering system is because it’s essentially a no maintenance kind of
system. You put ’em up, they feed your house load. You don’t have to have any special wiring, you don’t have to worry
about your load – although you should try to be energy-efficient – and they just sit there and they work.

You don’t have to do anything to them. So those kinds of systems are taking us into the mainstream where we
can get a lot of people using solar energy.”

Most of today’s solar electric users took up the idea because they’re environmentalists.
But solar equipment dealers are beginning to stress the cost savings of combining home solar
electric with home energy conservation.
They say for the cost of a new small car, you can outfit your home with a stand-alone or
a net metering solar electric system, and essentially free yourself from monthly electric bills.
Finding out about solar power can be as easy as checking “solar energy systems” in the
yellow pages. On the Internet, the American Solar Energy Society supplies basic information, and
can help locate a solar energy dealer in your area.
Some states – like New York – offer tax credits and other incentives to buy solar
generating equipment. Your state utilities commission should be able to tell you if any are
available in your area, and how to proceed.
I’m Bud Lowell for the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.