Cosmetics Companies to Phase Out Phthalates

Three major cosmetics companies have announced they’ll stop using certain chemicals that have been linked to health concerns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Three major cosmetics companies have announced they’ll stop using certain chemicals that have been linked to liver and kidney damage, and reproductive system problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


L’Oréal, Revlon and Unilever say they’ll comply with a European Union policy that requires cosmetics companies to stop using chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects or impaired fertility. Those banned chemicals include phthalates, which are used in some hair and nail products and fragrances. Bryony Schwan is with The Breast Cancer Fund, the group leading the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. She says phthalates are just the first step.


“There are a lot of chemicals in cosmetics that are potentially dangerous. We have a lot of chemicals that have not been tested. We have other chemicals that are linked to cancer and reproductive health effects. So removing phthalates is just the beginning.”


The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is asking all cosmetics companies to sign a pledge to remove all EU-banned chemicals, and replace them with safer alternatives within three years.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Owls Crossing Border Into U.S. For Food

  • Owls have been migrating from Canada to the U.S. in search of easy prey. (Photo by Florian Engels)

Owls have been moving from their native habitat in Canada into the United States. Researchers say the number of owls making the trip is unprecedented. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley
reports:

Transcript

Candian owls have been moving from their native habitat into the United States, including MN, WI, MI, and IA. Researchers say the number of owls making the trip is unprecedented. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


The Great Gray Boreal , northern hawk, and snow owls live in
the upper reaches of Canada. But hundreds of owls have been flying into the U.S. in search of food. The small mammals they prey on in their native range, like mice, voles, and lemmings, are in the midst of a population crash. Susan Foote-Martin is with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. She says it’s common for small-mammal populations to rise and fall. So, even though the owls expend a lot of energy to get here, their stay is temporary.


“They’ll definitely move back. They’re only down here because the population of the animals they eat are down. But there’s also another consideration, and that’s deep snow cover in the areas where they normally live.”


Foote-Martin says the owls have a hard time catching their prey because they burrow deep into the snow. She says if the owls continue to fly into the U.S. over several years, it could signal a problem in their native habitats.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.

Related Links

Cities Take Aim at Roosting Crows

  • Crows are roosting in huge groups in cities all over the country. The USDA is trying to find ways to get them to go back to their natural habitat. (Photo by Paige Foster)

Flocks of crows are nothing new in most cities. In the fall and winter months, crows forage for food during the day and roost in city trees at night. The birds like cities because they’re safe and comfortable. The residents generally don’t like the crows, though. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde
reports:

Transcript

Flocks of crows are nothing new in most cities. In the fall and winter months, crows forage for food during the day and roost in city trees at night. The birds like cities because they’re safe and comfortable. The residents generally don’t like the crows, though. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde reports:


(sound of crows)


There are a lot of crows here. About 63,000 of them are in the city. The trees are thick with them. At dawn and dusk, so is the sky. Bird feces coats city sidewalks and parked cars. Amy Emedon lives in town. She’s used to the crows.


“They make a lot of noise at night, or in the morning they kind of wake you up. But other than that, they don’t really bother me that much. They’re kind of gross, because their poop’s all over the place and they’re so loud and there’s so many of them. Like sometimes you can’t even see, like, the sky. It reminds me of that movie ‘The Birds.'”


Crows have been wintering in Auburn, New York for more than 100 years. Written records from as early as 1911 describe a very large roost downtown. Auburn has the largest crow roost in the state. This winter, city officials hired the U.S. Department of Agriculture to haze the crows.


(sound of distress calls and pyrotechnics)


Hazing means the eight USDA scientists drive around town using recorded crow distress calls, pyrotechnics and laser pointers – anything that will upset the birds and drive them out. Sometimes this includes shooting the birds, but not in New York state. Richard Chipman is the New York state director of the USDA’s wildlife services project. He says the idea is to move the birds to a more “natural” habitat.


“The goal is not to just relocate these birds and cause somebody else problems. The goal is to try to relocate them to a low-impact area to improve the quality of life of folks here in the city.”


The only problem with this plan is that the crows really like being in cities. The birds are smart. They’re communal. They recognize that they’re safer downtown than out-of-town. Kevin Mcgowan is an ornithologist at Cornell University who has studied crows for 16 years. He’s heard of large crow roosts in cities across the nation, ranging from 100 birds to two million. Mcgowan says it’s usually warmer in cities. Crows like that. And they like the big trees and streetlights.


“I think the lights is a big deal. Crows are scared of things that go bump in the night because those things eat them. And that’s pretty much great horned owls, okay? Great horned owl is probably the single scariest thing to a crow, because they come in at night when crows can’t see and owls can. And owls eat a lot of crows.”


Mcgowan says crows started settling in U.S. cities in much larger numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, after a change to the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.


“In – I believe it was 1972 – there was an amendment to the act that afforded crows protection for the first time. What that meant was now you couldn’t just shoot crows anytime you wanted to. You had to do it under the direction of a state hunting season, which had regulations.”


As a result, people changed their behavior. They didn’t shoot crows as much, so the crows became less scared of them and moved closer. In other words, crows have realized that cities are safer habitats than their “natural” environment. Mcgowan says he’s seen it before.


“You have a big predator that scares away the smaller predator that’s the one that really bothers you, then it behooves you to hang around the big predator. Happens all the time around people. There are lots of things that come in to be around people because they’re relatively safe there.”


Whether the USDA can break that pattern in cities like Auburn remains to be seen. Scientists have surveyed this city and harrassed the remaining crows. But they might have to return next winter to do the same thing again. And Auburn officials, like those in other crow-filled cities, might need to consider changing those things that attract crows in the first place, rather than just focusing on scaring the birds away.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Skye Rohde.

Related Links

Farm Technology Harvests Trendy Subsidies

  • Ethanol often is made from corn, and one of the by-products, distillers grains, can be eaten by cows (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduce air pollution; provide a market for farm goods; create scores of jobs… all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith
reports:

Transcript

It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduces air pollution, provide a market for farm goods, create scores of jobs – all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. Tamara Keith reports:


The project is called Harrison Ethanol. It will include an ethanol factory, using millions of bushels of corn to produce the gasoline additive. At the same location, thousands of dairy and beef cattle will live in fully enclosed barns. And then there’s the small power plant, which will be fueled by manure produced by the cattle. Wendel Dreve is the project’s director.


“I think the nicest way of describing our project is it’s a vertically-integrated, agriculturally-based industrial development.”


Dreve began working on the project nearly 4 years ago. He’s retired from the oil and gas industry and built a home in eastern Ohio farm country. His neighbors approached him about starting up a corn-powered ethanol factory – something that has not existed in Ohio in a decade.


“I told them that I didn’t think we could build a ethanol plant in Ohio because there are no state subsidies, so we had to figure out a way to raise the revenue streams internally and the only way we could figure out to do that was to employ animals.”


The 12-thousand cattle housed on site, will eat the main byproduct of ethanol production, a corn mush called distillers grains. The cattle will generate money too, from sales of milk and meat. But the cattle will create manure… lots of manure… about 50 million gallons of it a year. Dreve has a solution for that, too: a power-generating anaerobic digester.


“It eliminates nearly all of the odor, it processes all of the wastes from the entire facility. So it’s like an industrial waste treatment plant on site.”


60 times a day, manure will be flushed out of the animal barns and into the digester. A large, cement structure, where the manure is broken down by microbes.


“And at the other end, you get water and methane and carbon dioxide and some solids.”


The methane will run power generators, creating “green energy,” which can be sold at a premium. The carbon dioxide from the manure will be sold to make carbonated sodas. This would be the first anaerobic digester powered by cattle manure in Ohio, and one of only a handful nationwide. Dreve says his digester will be much better for the environment than open-air manure lagoons, the cheaper method most commonly used by farmers.


But not everyone agrees. Bill Weida is an economist and director of the Grace Factory Farm Project which opposes large concentrated animal farms. Weida says most anaerobic digesters are paid for with some kind of government assistance. Harrison Ethanol is no exception. The project received a 500-thousand-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the digester.


“No one in their right mind who is looking for an economic investment would build a digester. The only reason you’d build one is if you had some sort of a government subsidy that would help pay for it.”


Harrison Ethanol also is receiving seventy-million dollars in financing assistance from the state of Ohio. In fact, the company indicates it got some very good legal and accounting help, to find the perfect location for the project to take advantage of state and federal tax credits. Add to that federal ethanol subsidies and federal subsidies for corn production, and Harrison Ethanol is getting plenty of help from taxpayers.


Ken Cook is executive director of the Environmental Working Group. He says ethanol might reduce air pollution and reliance on foreign oil, but it is not economically viable without those huge taxpayer subsidies.


“The worry is that what we’re really doing is bailing out failed agriculture policy with heavily subsidized energy policy. We’re going into the corn industry with another set of subsidies to basically turn corn, that would have been exported at a loss, into corn that is used to make fuel at a loss to taxpayers.”


That’s not how state officials see it. Bill Teets is a spokesman for the Department of Development which has been working to bring several ethanol plants to Ohio.


“We think that this is a great project because you help farmers, you create manufacturing, you have something that helps benefit the environment and it seems to be a good type of project that we can really benefit from.”


And if everything goes as planned, Wendel Dreve will build 2 more ethanol and cattle operations in Ohio. He’s already secured tax dollars from state and federal sources for those plants.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Birders Keep an Eye Out for Vagrants

  • Some hummingbirds have been showing up in places where they're not normally found. Cornell University is trying to recruit birders to help them collect sightings of birds outside their range. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Bird lovers nationwide are being asked to report “vagrants” in their neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner explains:

Transcript

Bird lovers nationwide are being asked to report “vagrants” in their neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner explains:


Bird researchers at Cornell University have a special request this winter: they’re asking their nationwide network of bird watchers to report vagrants – birds that show up in places they’re not normally found. David Bonter is head of Project FeederWatch at Cornell.


He says birds that drift outside their normal range can indicate a natural shift in bird distribution or it could be a sign there’s a problem with the species. Bonter says in recent years, there have been a lot of reports of hummingbirds that breed west of the Rocky Mountains showing up at feeders in the Southeast and Midwest.


“These are birds that, historically, have never been in Eastern North America and they’re showing up here at feeders in the winter time, when historically, they’d be wintering in Mexico or points south.”


Bonter says calls bird vagrancy a biological dead end, because most don’t find mates in their new environment.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Feral Pigs Run for the Border

  • Feral pigs have become a nuisance in Wisconsin, and DNR officials fear that if their numbers do not decrease, they will do a significant amount of damage. (Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin DNR)

Ag officials are tracking a big pig problem across Wisconsin. Since 1999, growing numbers of feral swine have appeared across the state. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports, officials now fear the spread of the wild pigs:

Transcript

Ag officials are tracking a big pig problem across Wisconsin. Since 1999, growing numbers of feral swine have appeared across the state. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports, officials now fear the spread of the wild pigs:


The woolly porkers have appeared in 23 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties. They’re damaging crops, digging out ground-nesting birds, and killing small deer. They may also cary pseudorabies and swine brucellosis, threatening domestic pigs.


Wayne Edgerton is agricultural policy director of Minnesota’s DNR. He says the problem could easily spread into his territory.


“They can certainly walk across the ice, so this time of the year they can come across to Minnesota. And I’ve heard they’re actually good swimmers. So even in summertime, they could get their way over to northern Minnesota.”


Some people have speculated that Minnesota’s intense winters would kill off any feral swine crossing the border. But Tim DeVeau, a veterinary medical officer of the USDA, says that’s unlikely.


“As long as they’ve got food, and they’re gonna put fat on, they’ll be well-insulated.”


DeVeau adds that in order to keep wild pigs’ numbers under control, at least 75% of the population has to be destroyed every year. He says that’s not happening.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brian Bull.

Related Links

A “Pollution Free” Coal-Burning Power Plant?

  • States are competing to have FutureGen, a power plant that claims to be pollution-free, built in their state. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy)

Coal-burning power plants from Great Lakes states are often blamed for much of the pollution that hits the East Coast. But now, the federal government is proposing a massive research project that they say could eventually perfect a way to burn high-sulfur coal without sparking pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has this report:

Transcript

Coal-burning power plants from Great Lakes states are often blamed for much of the pollution that hits the East Coast. But now, the federal government is proposing a massive research project that they say could eventually perfect a way to burn high-sulfur coal without sparking pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has this report:


The feds are proposing a massive one-billion-dollar plant that’s billed as the world’s first non-polluting, coal-burning power plant. About twenty states say they’ll compete for it. Ohio is one of them. Mark Shanahan of the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority says the plant will first turn coal into gas. And then either recycle or safely store the by-products.


“And when it turns to gas, it’s able to pull out the pollutants much more efficiently and economically. It will pull off hydrogen for fuel cells and it will also test the ability to put carbon dioxide into very deep geology to basically bind it up forever deep in the earth.”


The U.S. Energy Department will pay for most of the plant, but it will be several years before it’s actually online.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Cohen in Columbus.

Related Links

Automaker Takes Another Step Toward Fuel Cells

  • Ford has started converting some of the traditional, gasoline-fueled engines into hydrogen-powered engines. (Photo by Szekér Ottó)

Automakers from around the world spent last week showing off their latest concepts and production cars at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Many car companies announced plans to begin producing more hybrid vehicles. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Poorman reports other environmental technologies got some attention as well, including a new way to use hydrogen to fuel the vehicles of the future:

Transcript

Automakers from around the world spent last week showing off their latest concepts and production cars at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Many car companies announced plans to begin producing more hybrid vehicles. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Poorman reports other environmental technologies got some attention as well, including a new way to use hydrogen to fuel the vehicles of the future:


Many automakers now say that cars ultimately will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Fuel cells consume hydrogen to generate electricity to power a motor, while leaving on water as waste. There are problems with cells. They’re really expensive right now. And there aren’t many hydrogen re-fueling stations. Ford Motor Company thinks it has a solution. It’s converting some standard gasoline engines to burn hydrogen. Ford’s chief engineer for the system, Vance Zanardelli, says the new engine is a necessary step.


“In order to get people familiar with hydrogen as a fuel, realizing it is a clean, safe fuel, in order to help spur the development of more hydrogen fueling stations, the development of revised codes and standards, and really lay the groundwork, so that when fuel cells are ready for primetime, the world is ready for them.”


Ford plans to begin testing some of the new hydrogen-burning engines in shuttle busses next year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Poorman.

Related Links

Carp Barrier Works Out Another Snag

  • Some worry that the carp barrier could pose a safety hazard to watercraft. (Photo by Louis Rock)

Two federal agencies say they’ve worked out safety problems that might’ve caused delays at a new electric barrier designed to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Two federal agencies say they’ve worked out safety problems that might’ve caused delays at a new electric barrier designed to keep Asian carp out of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


There’s already one underwater barrier at a canal south of Chicago and a second set of electrical cables is being installed. The shipping industry has been worried about the barriers causing safety problems like electrical arcing between vessels. The Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard have been working with the private firms and have come up with recommendations to reduce the risk of danger. The suggestions include no mooring, passing, or stopping near the barriers and using wire rope to prevent barges from separating. Coast Guard commander David Fish says the plan should work.


“We think we have something. You get enough people… working on a project… get enough people all wanting the same solution and engineering-wise, we’re able to find a solution.”


But Fish says there are no firm guarantees the second carp barrier will be ready this spring, before the first barrier wears out.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Sewage Blending Stirs Up Debate

  • Many environmentalists fear the practice of sewage blending would become more routine if a new EPA policy is enacted. (Photo by M. Vasquez)

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:

Transcript

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering a new policy for sewage treatment plants. Many environmentalists say if the policy is adopted, it will lead to increased water pollution and greater risk to public health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports on the debate over sewage blending:


(sound of water in sewer)


Some sanitary sewers are tied in with storm sewers. So when there’s a big rainstorm, or when there’s a fast snowmelt, all that water can inundate some sewage treatment plants. To tackle this problem, some treatment plants have adopted a practice known as “blending.” The excess sewage is re-routed around the slower parts of the treatment plant. The dirty water is then mixed with the water that’s been cleaned. It’s sometimes given a shot of chlorine, and then released into creeks, rivers, and lakes.


Kurt Heise oversees the operation of a sewage treatment plant on the Detroit River. He says the practice of blending is necessary in order to keep the plant from being overwhelmed.


“When you have a wet weather event, an extreme wet weather event, if we were to allow all of that combined water in through the normal process the treatment process would be ruined.”


Sewage blending has been around for a long time. To plant operators, it’s a necessary step in handling large amounts of dirty water. But to some people, blending is not seen as a good option. They want the practice to stop.


Instead, they say, cities should invest in their systems to make sure they can fully treat all the water that comes to the plant. Kurt Heise says, if his plant were required to do this, it wouldn’t make sense economically.


“It would almost result in doubling the size of our plant and spending just untold amounts of dollars for an event only happens a few times a year.”


Sewage treatment plant operators say you have to weigh the costs and the benefits before spending hundreds of millions of dollars on expanding the treatment plants. The decision of whether or not to allow blending has been left up to state and local regulators. But recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has weighed in on the subject. And ever since they suggested new guidelines for allowing blending, environmentalists have been critical of their plan. Mike Shriberg is the Great Lakes advocate for the Public Interest Research Group. It’s an environmental consumer activist organization.


Shriberg says the draft blending policy, the way it’s written now, is too broad. And will allow the practice of blending to become routine.


“Our fear is that when you’ve got a treatment plant that uses blending, they’re never going to upgrade to full treatment sewage. And so if a treatment plant is allowed to blend they’re not going to go up to full treatment capacity they have no incentive to do that anymore. It’s sort of the cheap way out.”


Sewage treatment operators say blending is better than seeing the raw sewage overflow into waterways. And they say it’s better than spending large sums of money to fix a problem that only occurs a few times a year. But critics say the EPA doesn’t have a good handle on how often blending is used, and what kind of health risks are associated with the practice.


Some initial studies have been done on blended sewage and how it might affect public health. Joan Rose is a water microbiologist at Michigan State University. She’s written a report on the health risks associated with blended sewage.


“So what I found was that if people were actually swimming in the water and there was a discharge of a blended sewage upstream, that their risk of getting sick, actually getting sick with a virus or a parasite was about a hundred times greater – when there was a blended discharge as opposed to if the water was fully treated.”


Rose says some of these viruses, such as Hepatitis-A, are highly contagious. At this point, there are no good estimates on how many people get sick from blended sewage each year. It’s never been studied, so the impact of blending on public health is unclear. Ben Grumbles is the Assistant Administrator for water at the EPA. He says the EPA is considering the billions of dollars at stake in expanding the nation’s sewer treatment plants versus the risk to public health.


“What we’re trying to do is to clarify what’s legal and what isn’t legal and to recognize the economic realities that sewage teatment plants face across the country in terms of their infrastructure needs, but foremost and above all what leaves the facility has to meet Clean Water Act permit limits.”


But the Clean Water Act permit limits don’t measure all the viruses, bacteria, and parasites found in blended sewage. And so some environmentalists and scientists say meeting the limits doesn’t necessarily mean protecting public health. Grumbles says officials are still reviewing the tens of thousands of comments they received after releasing the draft blending policy.


He says he doesn’t know what the final rule will look like, or if they’ll issue a rule at all. One thing is likely, if the policy is finalized the way it’s written now, it’s expected that environmental groups will take the EPA to court.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links