Hatchery Fish Unprepared for Wild World

A new study finds if fish raised in captivity breed with fish in the
wild that might hurt the wild fish populations. Rebecca Williams
reports that’s because the captive fish are genetically weaker:

Transcript

A new study finds if fish raised in captivity breed with fish in the
wild that might hurt the wild fish populations. Rebecca Williams
reports that’s because the captive fish are genetically weaker:


Billions of fish are raised in hatcheries and released into lakes and
rivers.


But a new study in the journal Science says there could be
problems with that. The researchers found a type of salmon bred in
captivity quickly adapted to their less stressful life in the hatchery.
So they weren’t prepared for a cutthroat life in the wild.


Michael Blouin is an author of the study. He says the babies of
captive-bred fish have trouble finding food and aren’t very good at
escaping predators.


“If you have large numbers of hatchery fish mixing with wild
populations, the fear is they’ll be passing those genes to the wild
population and thereby dragging down the fitness of the wild
population.”


Blouin says this has not been proven outside of the laboratory yet, but he says the lab results raise some concerns about the widespread
use of captive fish to boost wild fish populations.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Mississippi River at Risk From Runoff

  • The Mississippi River basin drains farmland from 31 states (41% of continental U.S.). Agricultural fertilizers and chemicals are washed into the river. (Photo by Lester Graham)

A new study says the Mississippi River is still at risk from too much soil runoff,
and that better government protection is needed. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A new study says the Mississippi River is still at risk from too much soil runoff,
and that better government protection is needed. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The study by the National Academy of Sciences says the Clean Water Act has
worked to reduce much of the point source pollution in the Mississippi from
factories and wastewater treatment plants, but the report says fertilizers and
sediments that enter the river from farmland still create many water quality
problems.


Study Committee Chairman David Dzombak says even though some states are
working together on the issue, there’s not enough coordination.


“One really needs to take a system wide view and look at total loadings into the
river. These are coming from multiple states and right now the states are not
communicating with each other very much.”


Dzombak says the US EPA should to be more aggressive in coordinating and
enforcing state activities along the Mississippi. The EPA says it’s committed to
increasing its efforts with its riverside partners.


For the environment report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Indian Treaty 2.0

Five Indian tribes claim the right to hunt, fish and gather on lands
and lakes they sold to the federal government years ago. Their
claim extends back to the Treaty of 1836. But it’s been
challenged in court by state officials who say those rights expired
long ago. As Bob Allen reports, now all the parties have reached
an uneasy compromise:

Transcript

Five Indian tribes claim the right to hunt, fish and gather on lands
and lakes they sold to the federal government years ago. Their
claim extends back to the Treaty of 1836. But it’s been
challenged in court by state officials who say those rights expired
long ago. As Bob Allen reports, now all the parties have reached
an uneasy compromise:


170 years ago, the tribes sold millions of acres to the U.S.
government. But they reserved for themselves the right to hunt
fish and gather foods and medicines until the land was settled.


Hank Bailey is an elder with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa
and Chippewa. He’s scouting out a favorite fall hunting spot
even though it’s pelting rain:


“I know these hills well all around here just from exploring
it…hunting, gathering mushrooms…”


Bailey is a direct descendant from a tribal leader who signed the
original treaty. He says the exercise of those rights in times past
were the difference between survival and starvation. And he
doesn’t think a new piece of paper can ever erase what his
ancestors preserved:


“They were told that this treaty was forever. And I know in
my heart that’s what they believed in. And they thought well
as long as we can hunt, fish and gather we will be able to
survive as a people. This is what bothers me about is, I’m
being told now that when we sign this paper, this is going to
be forever and here we go again.”


Four years ago, the state of Michigan went to court to argue tribal
hunting and fishing rights had expired because the land had been
settled long ago.


But then state officials noticed court rulings in other Great Lakes
states that upheld treaties and in some case awarded tribes as
much as half of the natural resources.


Tribal leaders thought they had a strong case, but they too were
leery of how today’s courts might interpret the phrase that said
their treaty rights exist “until the land is settled,” so the parties
were motivated to negotiate a deal outside court.


Jim Ekdahl is with the state Department of Natural Resources:


“We were in a strange kind of legal limbo where the state
wasn’t exactly sure what the ground rules should be in
light of the fact the federal courts hadn’t ruled on the inland
rights. The tribes weren’t 100% confident that they could
advise their membership in terms of what they ought to be
doing.”


From legal limbo, there are now 130 pages of rules and
regulations on how and where the tribes can exercise their rights.
There’s been some grumbling on both sides.


Some tribal members complain, with some exaggeration, that they
have to fill out a form now before they can pick a single
blueberry, and there are sportsmen who don’t like a special set of
rules for Indians.


What the tribes have agreed to is their rights to hunt, fish and
gather will only apply on lands open to the public. And they only
can take enough for subsistence, not for commercial sale.


Tribal resource managers say what their members take is a drop
in the bucket of the overall resource. And Jim Ekdahl with the
state says there’s still plenty to go around:


“There’s sufficient harvestable surpluses of resources
available to accommodate tribal interests. There’s essentially
no effect on harvest by state licensed recreational users. And
essentially no changes in state regulations are gonna be required as this
thing moves forward.”


The parties to the agreement say is it avoids a bitter legal battle
that could last a decade or more and cost millions of dollars.
Both sides remember an ugly dispute that raged 30 years ago
when tribes reasserted their right to fish commercially with nets
in the Great Lakes.


Matthew Fletcher is a specialist in tribal law at Michigan State
University. As far as he can tell, this is the first time a state has
voluntarily recognized tribal treaty rights extending to off-
reservation lands without being told to do so by a court:


“There are tribes and there are treaties nationwide that have
similar language. And I’m sure they’re watching this very
carefully. And this kind of consent decree is going to create a
kind of precedent for other states that are engaging in similar
kinds of negotiations.”


The agreement still needs to be accepted by a federal judge
before it becomes binding in law. For tribal elder Hank Bailey
the deal might chip away some free exercise of historic rights,
but it also reasserts that those rights can’t ever be taken away:


“For me that’s… that is about the most powerful part of it is
being able to know that I will continue to be an Odawa, black
wolf clan, a man… somebody that respects the resources
around me. And I’m willing to work with anybody else that
feels the same way, whether they’re tribal or not.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Watching Artificial Wetlands

  • Natural wetlands that are developed are supposed to be replaced by man-made wetlands somewhere else. (Photo by Lester Graham)

More than half of U.S. wetlands have been drained for
development, farmland, and other purposes. That’s 100
million acres now dried up. The Bush administration has
continued “no net loss” policy of any more wetlands.
So, when someone wants to drain a marsh or a swamp for,
say, a new housing development, they’ve got to build a man-
made wetland to replace it. But a new study is finding that
most of those man-made wetlands aren’t doing very well.
Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

More than half of U.S. wetlands have been drained for
development, farmland, and other purposes. That’s 100
million acres now dried up. The Bush Administration has
continued a “no net loss” policy of any more wetlands.
So, when someone wants to drain a marsh or a swamp for,
say, a new housing development, they’ve got to build a man-
made wetland to replace it. But a new study is finding that
most of those man-made wetlands aren’t doing very well.
Julie Grant reports:


(Sound of truck stop)


These 18-wheelers are lined up on a huge black parking lot
behind a truck stop off Interstate 80. Looking at it, this
wouldn’t seem like the ideal place to create a wildlife area.


But wetland ecologist Mick Micacchion has chosen this place
to show that man-made wetlands can be successful.
At the edge of the parking lot, we walk down into some
brush. The ground is mostly even, there’s no big ditches… just
some gentle slopes. The weather’s been dry the past few
weeks. But water starts seeping into my shoes:


(Mike:) “You getting wet?”


It might be bad for our shoes, but saturated soil is a good
sign for a wetland, and so are a lot of the plants we’re seeing.


As we walk, Micacchion stops at plant after plant…
Impatients, monkey flower, and lots of grass-like plants called
sedges. These all grow in wet soil:


“So even in sedge community, we’re seeing some diversity.
Which is unusal in a wetland that’s only been constructed for
a few years. But it tells you some good things are going on
here.”



Checking out what’s going on at wetlands like this one is a
new job for Micacchion. He works for the state government.
Federal officials used to take authority over wetlands as part
of the Clean Water Act. But a U.S. Supreme Court decision
six years ago took away some of that federal authority, and
left responsibility for these kinds of isolated wetlands up to
states.


That’s why Micacchion is studying man-made wetlands for
the Ohio EPA: to assess how well the state program is
working.



Wetlands that work are not only good for wildlife…they
provide a holding area for water when there’s heavy rain.
That helps prevent flooding. It also gives polluted sediments
time to drop out of the water, so it’s filtered, which means
it’s cleaner by the time it drains into streams, rivers and
lakes.


But this story of a successful man-made wetland is the
exception. A study Micacchion’s is conducting is finding that most are in fair
or poor condition.


The loss of functioning wetlands can lead to more flooding
and polluted waterways.


Micacchion says when developers drain natural wetlands,
they often don’t understand how to build artificial wetlands to
replace those original systems.


Our next stop is a good example of that. We pull into a parking lot just behind a busy street
of car dealerships. One company drained a wetland back
here to build an access road. And to replace it, they built a
pond.


Tom Wysocki walks out of the car dealership to see what
we’re up to out on his property:


“Is there someone in your office, who I mean, is this your
Beliwick in the office?”


“It would come to my desk.”


“You’re the wetlands expert at Klaben Ford.”


“I’m the expert on everything.”


Originally, this site might’ve correctly designed for a wetland. But
Wysocki decided it didn’t look right to him because it wasn’t
holding water. So he had it dug again to make a pond.


He and the actual wetlands expert definitely have a different
idea about what a successful wetland looks like. Micacchion
says a pond isn’t a wetland:


“Usually with natural wetland systems, the slopes
are very gentle. And you have to walk out maybe 15-20 feet
before you get a foot deep of water. Here, you could step in
and maybe immediately be in a foot to two feet of water. And then, the deep
water it becomes difficult for certain plants to grow.”



The area is dominated by a couple of kinds of plants. But
Micacchion says they’re both invasives. And they’re
crowding out the native wetland plants. Native plants would
provide habitat for wildlife:


“This is all reed canary grass. The biggest problem with it, it
comes in, and you can see it gets very thick. It’s pretty much
only species you see growing with just a few other things you see
poking their heads up here and there. This eliminates some
of diversity we might see otherwise.”


Micacchion says his study is finding that this is pretty typical.
Even if a developer starts out with right kind of plan,
somebody can make an arbitrary decision that defeats the
original purpose. But Micacchion says it doesn’t have to be
that way. Man-made wetlands can work if they’re designed
by ecologists and engineers who understand the details of
what makes natural wetlands so useful.


His office is creating wetlands guidelines. They want
developers to understand the natural wetlands they’re destroying and what they need to do to replace them.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Sex Toy Safety

  • The Smitten Kitten in Minneapolis is one of the adult toy retailers which has stopped selling certain kinds of toys because of questions about the chemicals used to make them. (Photo by Lester Graham)

(Listeners should be aware of the adult nature of this report. It includes
sexually explicit descriptions.)


Not everyone uses sex toys. But some people certainly do use them. The American
sex toy industry took-in more than one-and-a-half billion dollars in revenue
last year. But there are growing public health concerns about chemicals used
to manufacture some of the adult toys. No government agency regulates sex
toys because the adult toys are labeled as novelty items. “Novelty” means
these toys are not intended to actually be used. Kyle Norris reports some
retailers want the industry to stop using the potentially harmful materials in
the toys:

Transcript

(Readers should be aware of the adult nature of this report. It includes
sexually explicit descriptions.)


Not everyone uses sex toys. But some people certainly do use them. The American
sex toy industry took-in more than one-and-a-half billion dollars in revenue
last year. But there are growing public health concerns about chemicals used
to manufacture some of the adult toys. No government agency regulates sex
toys because the adult toys are labeled as novelty items. “Novelty” means
these toys are not intended to actually be used. Kyle Norris reports some
retailers want the industry to stop using the potentially harmful materials in
the toys:


(Readers should be aware of the adult nature of this report. It includes
sexually explicit descriptions.)



A couple of years ago, Jennifer Pritchett and Jessica Giordani opened up The
Smitten Kitten, a small sex-toy store. On the day that their first shipment of
adult toys arrived they excitedly gathered around. As they ripped open the
box, a noxious odor permeated the air. It was that new, vinyl shower-curtain
smell:


“And we saw these oil spots. That’s what it looked like oil seeping through
the cardboard boxes. We were a little concerned, obviously, and we opened
them up and each of the toys, almost down to every single one, was beading
some oil-like substance up on the toys, through the product packaging,
through the styrofoam peanuts, and then through the cardboard.”



The entire shipment of adult toys was ruined. Pritchett started asking around
to the folks she knew in the industry. Someone told her that the oils leaching
from the toys are called phthalates.


Cheaper-end sex toys are made with polyvinylchloride, or PVC. PVC is a
synthetic material used in tons of things like building materials, medical
appliances, everyday household items and children’s toys. And much like
the children’s toys, most of the cheaper adult toys are manufactured in
China. There are no regulations on the manufacture of the adult toys in
China, and no regulations on the imports of toys in the United States.


In order to make PVC softer and more flexible – which is a desired effect in
certain adult toys – plasticizers called phthalates are added. And a lot of
phthalates go into jelly toys to make them more jelly-like. In fact, the
leaching toys Jennifer Pritchett had ordered are actually called jelly toys. But
that very un-technical term did not sit well with Pritchett. She sent a few of
the best-selling toys on the market to an independent chemist. To see what
the adult toys were really made of.


For instance one of the most famous sex toys in the country is called “The
Rabbit.” Everybody knows about that. Sex and The City had a big episode
about the rabbit habit. Oprah Winfrey gave away one to every person in her
audience. They’re everywhere. And I sent that particular toy to a lab, and it
came back that 60% of the total weight of that toy, so 60% of the total
volume of material is a chemical called dioctyl phthalatem, which is a
known carcinogen and teratogen.


It turned out the rabbit toy was made with materials from a class of
chemicals that’s linked to cancer and birth defects. It’s not known whether
materials used in some adult toys are dangerous to human health or not.
Because no one is testing them on humans.


In 2006, the Danish Technological Institute did study the health risks of
chemicals in adult toys on lab animals. Researchers found that some
phthalates are harmful to mice and rats in large amounts. Pritchett says that
if the consumer public knew that the materials in their toys might be a risk,
they probably would not use them. She says that the big picture here is about
a lot of things. And one of those things is a culture’s discomfort with
sexuality:


“It’s about a regulatory system that can’t even say the words ‘adult toys’ let
alone regulate it like they do children’s toys. It’s about a market structure
where people can make thousands of percent profit on cheaply made toys
and nobody’s going to do anything about it.”


There’s a lot of money in sex toys. Carol Queen is the staff sexologist at
Good Vibrations, a well-established California sex store. She says that
people have worried about phthalates in the toys that children suck on, like
pacifiers. In fact in Europe, children’s toys with dioctyl phthalate and other
kinds of phthalates have been banned. Once people started worrying about
children’s toys, they soon started to wonder about adult toys.



“In terms of the dildos and the insertable vibrators, at the very least, those
things are going to and on the mucosa, and if somebody’s having fun it’s
staying there for a little while. There’s friction, there’s the possibility of
leaching. And all of those things are potentially correct. The problem with
the discourse is that so far no one has had the opportunity to truly understand
what the implications health wise and otherwise might be for these materials
on human body. Because people don’t test sex toys.”


The big concern here is that sex toys directly touch mucous membranes. And
this contact is not buffered by any layer of skin. So the materials used in an
adult toy can potentially more easily be absorbed into the body.


For this report, I contacted more than twenty medical and health
professionals. They were the heads of research universities that specialize in
sexual studies. Or OB-GYN doctors, or the directors of sexual health clinics.


None of these health professionals were willing to be interviewed about
what can happen to someone’s body when they use adult toys made out of
potentially hazardous materials. They just don’t have the information about
it. Although when I spoke with them, the majority of those health
professionals were curious to hear this report.


We finally spoke with Dr. Susan Ernst. She’s the director of the Gynecology
Clinic at the University of Michigan’s student health services. She confirmed
that this topic is not on the radar for many health professionals:


“It hadn’t come up as a topic with patients. It hadn’t come up in any of the
medical conferences that I had attended. It hadn’t come up in the medical
journals that I have read. So I am embarrassed to say it came up through the
lay press bringing it up as an important issue.”


Dr. Ernst says that if a patient is using an adult toy that is potentially
dangerous, then health care professionals need to be knowledgeable about
this topic.


Jennifer Pritchett of Smitten Kitten says friends sometimes mention rashes
or burning they experience when using adult toys. They’ve been to the
doctor. But physicians often wrongly assume that it’s an STD or a toy that’s
not been cleaned properly. And the problem doesn’t go away.


The doctors don’t think about a connection between the chemicals used to
make the toys and how they might affect the body.


Pritchett says when she mentions that possible connection to a friend, she
can see a light-bulb go on over their head. Now that’s speculation of course,
but she thinks people need to put all of the pieces of the sex-toy puzzle
together. That’s why she stopped selling the jelly toys that were leaching
phthalates:


“We have to say we know the chemicals in these toys are dangerous. We
know they’re dangerous in other respects. We know if children put these in
their mouths, it’s dangerous. I think we’re going to have to extrapolate and
say well if adults put these in mouths or other parts of their body it’s also
dangerous. We’re just going to have to make a little leap there. But the
industry who is invested in keeping toxic toys on the market hides behind
that. They hide behind the novelty use only. The ‘nobody’s proven that this
specific toy causes cancer.’ I think it’s a cheap argument and I hope it doesn’t
stand up for too long.”


Pritchett says it’s not as if people are only buying adult toys as gag gifts. But
because the toys are so controversial, nobody expects the government to test
the safety of them anytime soon. But people are starting to talk about the
issue. A few months ago an adult toy trade magazine did a cover story called
“Attack of the Phthalates.” And one of the biggest adult toy retailers recently
announced it was phasing-out products that contain phthalates. Because
more people who use these toys are becoming concerned about whether
they’re putting themselves at risk.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Efficient Faucets

There’s a new federal program aimed at encouraging more water conservation at your
bathoom faucet. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

There’s a new federal program aimed at encouraging more water conservation at your
bathoom faucet. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The US Environmental Protection Agency has issued specifications for bathroom faucet
manufacturers to qualify for the agency’s WaterSense label. The EPA wants about a 30
percent reduction in water flow from conventional models.


Kohler corporation engineer Rob Zimmerman says the smaller size of the flow restrictor
inside the faucet’s aerator will be the key to hitting the new target. He acknowledges some
water utilities wanted the new flow limit to be one gallon per minute, instead of the 1.5
per gallon limit specified by the EPA:


“The WaterSense program is flexible enough that as technology improves, they can change the
specification, but at this point the 1.5 was what everyone agreed to.”


The EPA says consumers will also save energy by heating and treating less water.


For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Power Plants Dirtier Than Claimed

Electric utility companies say they’re reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But
according to a recent study the power companies are actually increasing their emissions.
Kyle Norris has this report:

Transcript

Electric utility companies say they’re reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But
according to a recent study the power companies are actually increasing their emissions.
Kyle Norris has this report:


Researchers studied a voluntary program run by the Department of Energy. In the
program, electric utility companies self-report their reductions of greenhouse gases.
Researchers then compared this information to the levels that companies actually
emitted. Tom Lyon ran the University of Michigan’s study:


“I think what it tells you is you can’t really believe what the company is saying. The
company will tell you the good stuff and not the bad stuff unless you force them to tell
you the whole truth.”


The study found that 60% of the companies claiming a reduction in their emissions had
actually increased their emissions. Lyon says that the study shows that the government
needs to require the companies to fully disclose all of their greenhouse emissions.


For the Environment Report, this is Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Dirty Dozen Politicians

An environmental group is targeting members of Congress for their votes on environmental issues. Lester
Graham reports:

Transcript

An environmental group is targeting members of Congress for their votes on environmental issues. Lester
Graham reports:


Each election cycle, the League of Conservation Voters releases its Dirty Dozen List, twelve members of Congress
the group is targeting in the upcoming elections. Lester Graham reports:


The first two politicians to make the list have been released. One is Representative Joe Knollenberg, a
Michigan Republican, but topping the list is Republican Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe.


Kerry Duggan is with the League of Conservation Voters:


“As Chair of the Senate Environmental Public Works committee, he’s famously or infamously known for
calling global warming the biggest hoax to be perpetrated on the American people. That statement alone is
pretty offensive, given what kind of trouble we’re in.”


The environmental group is releasing the first two of its its list of twelve targeted members of Congress early this campaign season. The League of Conservation Voters says the politicians who make the list are
vulnerable to losing their seats in the 2008 elections.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Better Bulbs Coming

One of the biggest light bulb makers plans to slow production of
traditional light bulbs. Rebecca Williams reports GE says it’s
responding to consumer demand for light bulbs that are more energy
efficient:

Transcript

One of the biggest light bulb makers plans to slow production of
traditional light bulbs. Rebecca Williams reports GE says it’s
responding to consumer demand for light bulbs that are more energy
efficient:


The traditional incandescent light bulb is really inefficient. Just 5
percent of the electricity the bulb uses is converted to light. The
other 95 percent is lost as heat.


Several countries around the world have passed laws requiring the
phase-out of the most wasteful incandescent bulbs. The US Congress is
considering similar laws.


Kim Freeman is a spokesperson for GE Consumer and Industrial. She says
GE is planning to cut back production of the old-fashioned incandescent
bulbs:


“You know, we see incandescents continuing into the future but being
much more energy efficient.”


Freeman says GE plans to make incandescent bulbs four times more
efficient by 2012. That’s nearly as efficient as compact fluorescent
bulbs.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Preserving Indian Mounds

  • Roger and Margaret Martin visit the effigy and burial mounds. (Photo by Brian Bull)

Historians, archaeologists, and Native American tribes are fighting to save ancient
mounds. The mounds are found scattered across much of North America. These
earthen, man-made formations mark the presence of prehistoric, indigenous people. But,
Brian Bull reports many are disappearing because of development or neglect:

Transcript

Historians, archaeologists, and Native American tribes are fighting to save ancient
mounds. The mounds are found scattered across much of North America. These
earthen, man-made formations mark the presence of prehistoric, indigenous people. But,
Brian Bull reports many are disappearing because of development or neglect:



Jay Toth is walking through the Kingsley-Bend Indian Mounds site. Toth is an
archeologist with the Ho-Chunk tribe in Wisconsin. He surveys nearly 30 mounds here,
including several that he says contain human remains. Toth says these mounds range
from 800 to 2000 years old, and are considered sacred, which is why Toth isn’t happy
when a man lets his dog use one for a bathroom:


“There’s a sign right there…”



“The guy saw the sign coming in, he didn’t bother…think that’s a good reflection on why
mounds are continually destroyed. There’s just no consideration.”


The tribe has painstakingly restored and maintained this site with its own money. But
Toth says out of 20,000 groups of mounds across Wisconsin alone, only a quarter
survive today. Many are still being desecrated or destroyed by construction and
development:


“It’s just too bad that we don’t have the respect for the religious aspects of what these are
all about. No one would expect the Ho-Chunk Nation or
any other tribe to go in and buy up public cemeteries and subdivide it up for housing
development, but somehow mound sites and other native burial seem to be okay.”


And it’s not just in Wisconsin. Similar problems exist for Indian mounds in other states,
including Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota, and Tennessee. Development is supposed to stop if a
mound is discovered, but authorities can only act on the calls they receive.


Samantha Greendeer is a Ho-Chunk attorney. She’s working with tribal, state, and federal
officials to revive legislation first introduced by West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall.
It would proactively protect burial mounds, rather than after they’re disturbed:


“We seem to have to deal with this a little bit more just because a lot of the old ancestral
mounds and burials of native people are not in organized European-type cemeteries that
are zoned and properly accounted for. They don’t get that extra
bit of protection that a normal burial site would get.”


If passed, the federal government would have to deal with Native American and Native
Hawaiian tribes before taking action that would affect any land deemed sacred. Attitudes
about the mounds are changing.


(Sound of jackhammers)


Construction workers are tearing up old concrete foundations, to help set up new
buildings on the University of Wisconsin campus. But it’s a different story near the
University observatory. Campus developers plan to displace newer structures with the
older architecture. Gary Brown points to a sidewalk built in the 1950s. It’s right next to a
centuries-old bird effigy mound which some Native Americans still use for ceremonies:


“We’ll be coming back several feet away from the edges of the mound, carefully remove
the sidewalk, reconstruct the sidewalk a little bit further away. It’ll be a lot of hand labor,
there won’t be a lot of major big machinery…”


And moving the sidewalk will create a buffer zone to help protect the ancient mound.



Some people outside of the tribes realized the value of the mounds decades ago.
Roger and Margaret Martin walk in the rain with umbrellas, to show several effigy and
burial mounds in their backyard:


“When friends come to visit, we take ’em out back and point them out…We’re standing
on the bird effigy, swept back from both sides are the bird’s wings…the one on the left is
much more pronounced.”


Back when the neighborhood was being built, most people flattened the mounds. But, he
Martins signed up with what’s called an archaeological covenant program. They’ve
promised not to alter the mounds on their property. They also get a tax break on any land
containing a mound.


The Martins say they’d like to begin a ceremony where they visit the mounds and think of
their makers, the early North American cultures. Such reverence means a lot to Ho-Chunk
archeologist Jay Toth, who says the formations are rich in meaning and history for his
people:


“These mounds represent the deed to the land for all Native Americans. This you can’t
take away.”


Toth and other preservationists hope Congress passes laws to better protect ancient
mounds. They hope in time that people come to regard both burial and effigy mounds as
items to preserve, rather than destroy.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brian Bull.

Related Links