BPA doesn't line just baby products - it is in many canned foods and drinks (Source: Tomomarusan at Wikimedia Commons)
Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:
Transcript
Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:
Lyndsey Layton got ahold of those notes. She reports for the Washington Post.
“According to these notes, they called it the ‘holy grail’ spokesperson would be a pregnant, young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.”
Ironic in that many studies associate BPA with birth defects.
John Rost is the Chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance.
He says the reporters got bad notes. He says it only came up because environmental activists used pregnant women to testify against BPA.
“We discussed that as an option and dismissed it and actually find it a little ironic that we are being criticized.”
Some retailers have taken toys and baby bottles made with BPA off the shelf in response to a consumer backlash.
It’s likely most consumers don’t yet realize the chemical also lines beverage and food cans.
Many Native American tribes say
they want to be part of the national debate
over climate change legislation. The
tribes at least have the attention of the
US EPA. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Many Native American tribes say
they want to be part of the national debate
over climate change legislation. The
tribes at least have the attention of the
US EPA. Chuck Quirmbach reports:
The tribes are worried about climate change. They think it might be affecting natural resources
like wild rice beds, fish habitat and animals they hunt to feed their people.
The tribes got some provisions into a major climate change bill that recently failed in Congress.
They’re now preparing their arguments for the next go-round on Capitol Hill.
Stephen Hartsfield is with the National Tribal Air Association. He says one thing the Native
communities want is more incentives to produce cleaner energy – such as solar power in the
Southwest US.
“ We have 300 days of sunshine a year – so it just makes logical sense for tribes and states and
communities in the Southwest to look at those opportunities.”
At a meeting with Great Lakes area tribes in Milwaukee, an EPA official said it’ll be up to
Congress and the Obama Administration to determine how much clout the tribes will have in the
debate.
The veggies in your garden could have lead in them (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
More Americans have started
planting their own gardens in recent
years. But it turns out a lot of
urban gardens are contaminated with
lead. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
More Americans have started
planting their own gardens in recent
years. But it turns out a lot of
urban gardens are contaminated with
lead. Julie Grant reports:
Last year 22% of Americans planted a garden.
Wendy Heiger-Bernays is professor of environmental health
at Boston University.
She says if you have an urban garden, she would expect to find heavy metals, especially lead, in the soil. It comes from old garbage, dripping oil, and peeling paint.
“Older homes have been demonstrated to leach lead from the home through the drip line and into the soil.”
Even small amounts of lead in the blood can cause learning disabilities in children.
Heiger-Bernays says you don’t have to throw away this year’s veggies. Just wash them well. And peel root vegetables.
And to get ready for next year, Heiger-Bernays says have your
soil tested. If there’s lead, add a foot of clean compost to the top of the garden bed. Next Spring plant only in that top layer.
This coal fired power plant sits at the corner of the SIU campus in Carbondale, Illinois. It has sulfur scrubbers and other technology that allow it to burn Illinois coal. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Presidential candidates John McCain
and Barack Obama are trying to sell us on a
clean energy future. And they’ve got a laundry
list of ideas, including conservation, solar
and wind power, and safer nuclear energy.
But they both want to tweak an old reliable
fuel, too. That would be American coal.
Shawn Allee looks at why McCain
and Obama are gung-ho on coal:
Transcript
Presidential candidates John McCain
and Barack Obama are trying to sell us on a
clean energy future. And they’ve got a laundry
list of ideas, including conservation, solar
and wind power, and safer nuclear energy.
But they both want to tweak an old reliable
fuel, too. That would be American coal.
Shawn Allee looks at why McCain
and Obama are gung-ho on coal:
One reason McCain and Obama tout coal is they’re convinced we have plenty of it.
And they even agree on how to make that point.
McCain first.
McCain: “Our coal reserves are larger than Saudi Arabia’s supply of oil.”
Obama: “We’re the Saudi Arabia of coal, we got more coal than just about
everybody else.”
The Saudi Arabia of Coal.
That’s a sexy political metaphor – it sounds like coal’s just waiting to be scooped up.
Where do politicians get this idea?
“It is really based on data published by the Energy Information Administration.”
That’s Mike Mellish. He crunches coal projection numbers for that agency.
Politicians cite a government figure that we have 250 years worth of coal.
Mellish calls that a very rough estimate. Mellish says we get that number by estimating
how much coal we can get out of the ground economically.
Then, analysts compare that to how much we burn in factories and power plants right
now.
“So that’s really the basis of that statement of 250 years.”
Mellish says, if we use more coal, we’d literally burn through the supply faster.
There are critics who pounce on the idea we have plenty of coal. One of them’s Richard
Heinberg.
Heinberg studies energy for the Post-Carbon Institute, a green think tank. He says
politicians should not expect cheap coal for centuries.
“It assumes we can continue extracting this stuff out of the ground at constant rates
until, one day, it all just runs out.”
Heinberg says America does have lots of coal, but the amount under the ground isn’t the
only thing that counts.
“We tend to get the cheap, easy stuff first, then the production peaks and tails off
afterward.”
Heinberg predicts companies will have to invest money to keep finding new coal, and
that will raise coal prices – not in centuries – but in a few decades.
And Heinbergs says there’s another reason Obama and McCain shouldn’t have so much
faith in coal.
Coal plants put loads of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and that makes the global
warming problem worse.
Both candidates want new technologies to put coal’s carbon emissions in the ground.
“But there are a lot of questions as to whether this is really going to work. The cost
of capturing all that carbon dioxide and moving it around and burying it will be
enormous and they will add to the cost of electricity we can make with coal.”
For Heinberg all this talk about the Saudi Arabia of coal, and that 250 year figure, it’s all
a big bet – and it could have a high cost if we’re wrong.
“If we’re going on the assumption that there’s plenty of coal out there for many
decades to come at current prices and we build infrastructure accordingly and then
a couple of decades from now, suddenly coal becomes much more expensive and
scarce we will have gotten ourselves in a very difficult place, sort of like we’d done
with oil.”
A lot of energy experts are more upbeat on coal than Heinberg.
They admit it’s not clear how much coal we have, but it’s a heck of a lot, and we know
how to get it.
They say they don’t blame Obama and McCain for giving clean coal a chance. It’s just
that we should have started testing it a decade ago.
Hmm, a decade ago?
Politicians don’t like to say we’ve missed the mark by a decade.
It’s no wonder we haven’t heard that on the campaign trail.
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.
Rome is known for its many landmarks, but the Tiber River is often overlooked and neglected by its residents. (Photo by Nancy Greenleese)
Too often, the Tiber River in Rome is littered. An American in Rome wants residents to reclaim a stretch of the river. (Photo by Nancy Greenleese)
The Tiber has become a dumping ground. An American, Kristen Jones, is working to trying to get Rome residents to appreciate the river. (Photo by Nancy Greenleese)
Fountains can be found all over Rome, but the Tiber River is not celebrated as Rome’s most ancient treasure. (Photo by Nancy Greenleese)
When we think of Rome, we think of the Colosseum with its graceful arches and
Saint Peter’s Square, designed by Michaelangelo. We don’t often think of the
Eternal City’s oldest wonder: the Tiber River. But one American artist has. New
Yorker Kristin Jones creates public art that often focuses on nature and time. She
has found a muse in the trash-filled Tiber and wants to clean it up starting with a
small stretch. Nancy Greenleese reports from Rome:
Transcript
When we think of Rome, we think of the Colosseum with its graceful arches and
Saint Peter’s Square, designed by Michaelangelo. We don’t often think of the
Eternal City’s oldest wonder: the Tiber River. But one American artist has. New
Yorker Kristin Jones creates public art that often focuses on nature and time. She
has found a muse in the trash-filled Tiber and wants to clean it up starting with a
small stretch. Nancy Greenleese reports from Rome:
Along the Tiber, it’s “pazzo,” or crazy. Motorscooters and cars whip by near a
bridge that spans the river. Kristin Jones stands here, gazing down at the far more
tranquil river below. She decides to head down the stairs:
“We’re descending 36 feet below the street level into the channel or the gully that is now
the Tiber.”
Grafitti covers the stone walls and trash bobs in the water. It’s dirty and secluded
and Jones wants to change that with the creation of a water-themed “piazza,” the
gathering places that dot Italian cities. Jones remembers when she first saw the Tiber.
It was 1983 and she’d just arrived in Rome on a Fulbright scholarship:
And as a New Yorker I said to myself, “Oh my God. There’s something parallel here?
What is this?”
And then it hit her like a vision from the nearby Vatican:
“This is like a Central Park. Central Park is such an abstract miracle, I mean, it’s really
nature in the middle of the city and you walk there and you see leafs tremble and you see
real grass and you see a real squirrel. You even can collect mushrooms in Central Park.”
Jones could collect an impressive collection of beer bottles here. Homeless people are
camped nearby and the stench of urine is overpowering. Italian have little love for the
Tiber. It used to frequently flood, prompting the construction in the 1800s of walls that
hold – and hide – the river below the streets. Jones, however, wants people to visit and
appreciate the Tiber:
“Well, if you think about it, perhaps you could consider it to be the most ancient
monument in Rome (laughs).”
The city was founded along its banks nearly 3000 years ago and water has flowed
through its history. The Roman Empire’s aqueducts revolutionized water transportation.
A flooded Colosseum once held mock sea battles. Today, Jones says tourists still come
for the water:
“The fountains in, throughout the historic city have always been a sort of showy element
of power and exuberance and fun and yet the main artery is completely neglected.”
Until now.
(Mariamba music)
Locals and tourists stroll along the proposed piazza on a recent evening. Jones’ group
group Tevereterno, or Eternal Tiber, organized this event to promote the 600 meter
stretch. Supporters would like it to eventually host modern art exhibits and conferences
focused on water. Tonight, musicians perform and more than 1000 candles line the
river’s banks. Allegra Zapponi checks out the scene and reflects on what the Tiber means
to Italians:
“I think in the last 50 years of the last century, like the place for the rubbish. Everything
that you want to give away, you throw it in the river (laugh).”
But Kristin Jones and her supporters believe that the piazza would be a tributary for
getting people to the river and encourage its cleanup. However, arts advocate Luca
Bergamo, who has worked for two mayors, says Jones’ enthusiasm might not be enough
to get the project afloat:
“The biggest challenge is that you don’t find people investing in risky things in this
country. This is not risky but it’s unknown, not understood.”
Change is resisted in Italy, a country often strangled by its historic past. And politicians
can’t justify spending money on the Tiber when resources are scarce for more famous
monuments.
As couples at the party listen to an avante garde audio composition, attitudes might be
changing. The city has added the proposed renovation of this stretch of the Tiber, the
Piazza Tevere, to its new city plan. Jones says it’s time to hand the project over to
Italians:
“They’re all applauding me and trying to get me to keep doing it. And I keep trying to
step back and say, ‘It’s YOUR river. Hallelujah! See the potential, see the potential. I see
the potential.'”
She has agreed to plan next year’s celebration on the Tiber. In the meantime, there’s a
reminder of what could be. Jones has surreptitiously posted on the river’s embankment a
replica of the stone signs that mark Rome’s piazzas and streets. It says “Piazza Tevere.”
Composite wood products are everywhere in the American home – in
cabinets and shelves and doors. And almost all of it is made with
formaldehyde, a carcinogen also known to aggravate the lungs of people
with asthma. But as Tamara Keith reports, the widespread use of the
chemical could be changing:
Transcript
Composite wood products are everywhere in the American home – in
cabinets and shelves and doors. And almost all of it is made with
formaldehyde, a carcinogen also known to aggravate the lungs of people
with asthma. But as Tamara Keith reports, the widespread use of the
chemical could be changing:
Particle board, plywood and fiberboard are all made with a glue that uses
formaldehyde to give it extra binding power. From the moment the wood
is manufactured until it comes to your home as a cabinet and well
beyond, it releases toxic fumes. Dmitri Stanich is a spokesman for the
California Air Resources Board:
“Even small amounts of formaldehyde are known to have adverse health
effects so whenever you get that smell and you go, hmmg. Most
people won’t even think twice about it, but it is a known carcinogen
and that’s what we’re trying to reduce.”
Over some industry objections, California recently adopted new
standards limiting the use of formaldehyde in manufactured wood. Come
2012, California will have the toughest formaldehyde restrictions in
the world. And it’s expected other states will follow its lead.
If you plan to buy a new car or truck this
year, you might find some showrooms filled with
vehicles that run largely on ethanol instead of
gasoline. Car companies are pushing these corn-fueled vehicles as environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant takes a look at those claims:
Transcript
If you plan to buy a new car or truck this
year, you might find some showrooms filled with
vehicles that run largely on ethanol instead of
gasoline. Car companies are pushing these corn-fueled vehicles as environmentally friendly.
Julie Grant takes a look at those claims:
More people are considering buying cleaner, more fuel-efficient
cars now that gas prices and global temperatures are on the rise. The gas-
electric hybrids made by Toyota and Honda are becoming popular. And
American car companies are also jumping on board and offering alternative-
powered vehicles.
General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner has put much of his company’s stock in
ethanol:
“At GM, we believe that the bio-fuel with the greatest potential to
displace petroleum-based fuels in the US is ethanol, and so we have
made a major commitment here to vehicles that can run on E85 ethanol.”
E85 is a blend that’s 85% ethanol with 15% gasoline. GM’s not the only company offering cars that run on them:
(Sound of vehicle introduction)
Angela Hines is from Green Bay, Wisconsin. She’s taking notes as she looks at one
flex fuel car. The E85 only matters to her if it’s going to save her a
few bucks:
“I drive anywhere from 80-200 miles
a day for work, so yeah, gas is important.”
Gui Derochers is looking at a Chevy Silverado pickup truck:
(Grant:) “Does it matter to you that it’s a flex fuel?”
“I think it’s a good thing… flex-fuel. Particularly, we know there are some ethanol plants in Michigan coming, right? Isn’t
that what flex fuel is? Ethanol?”
Derochers works on engines and transmissions:
“You have to remember, I work for Daimler-Chrysler. But we have flex fuel as well. It’s a good thing. It’s wonderful.”
But not everyone thinks the move toward ethanol-fueled cars is
wonderful. Tadeusz Patzek is a professor of civil and environmental
engineering at the University of California in Berkeley. He says
ethanol is not cheaper and it’s not any better for the environment than
regular gas.
Patzek says each gallon of ethanol burned might emit less greenhouse gas
into the air, but you have to burn more fuel to go the same distance:
“So, mile for mile, emissions of CO2 are exactly the same for gasoline as
they are for ethanol. Because they are proportional to the energy stored in
the fuel.”
When it comes to gas mileage, Patzek calls claims that ethanol is any
better then gasoline an imaginary economy… and he’s not alone. When Consumer Reports magazine tested a Chevy Tahoe that runs on gas mixed
with only ten percent ethanol, the truck got 14 miles per gallon. But
it got less than 11 miles per gallon when the ethanol content was
raised to 85%, as in E85. That’s a 27% drop in fuel economy with E85.
Consumer Reports concluded that to go the same distance, you wind up paying more than a dollar
extra per gallon on E85 then on regular
gas.
Patzek says it’s not a good deal for consumers or for the environment:
“You emit less because you have oxygen but you burn more, so it comes as a wash.”
Patzek says ethanol has other environmental costs. To grow the corn needed to make it, farmers have to use more fossil fuel-based fertilizers, tractor fuel, and then more fuel to truck the fuel to gas stations.
Even so, many scientists say ethanol still provides an energy benefit over fossil fuels and some auto engineers say ethanol cars
are just a stop-gap measure until a better technology comes along, but Patzek disagrees with that logic:
“So, you’re saying the following: why don’t we have a terribly bad
solution and call it a stop-gap solution because it’s politically
convenient. I’m saying is, if I’m an engineer, I have to, essentially, if I’m honest with myself and others, do I want a
better technological solution or do I want to say, let’s do probably the worst possible solution
that delays other solutions 10-15 years into the future… while the
world is running out of time?”
Patzek says the real reason American car companies are moving toward
vehicles that run on E85 is that the federal government rewards them
for it.
GM and the others get extra credit for meeting fuel efficiency
standards just for making cars that can run on E85, even if those cars
aren’t more fuel efficient.
Patzek knows he’s become unpopular among many farmers, engineers,
scientists and politicians who want easy answers. He wants people to
start reducing their energy-use rather than waiting for technological
magic bullets.
Most migrant labor camps provide housing only for single men, but the Zellers farm in Hartville, OH allows entire families to migrate and, for those of age, to work together in the fields. (Photo by Gary Harwood )
Often, two or more generations of families work together on the Zellers farm. (Photo by Gary Harwood )
In Ohio, and nationally, migrant workers have an annual net income of $11,000-14,000, but despite this statistic, seasonal work in the US provides better opportunities for these workers than in Mexico or other Latin American countries. (Photo by Gary Harwood )
It might sound obvious, but America needs to grow and harvest food. The problem is
that many Americans don’t want to work on farms anymore. That’s why some farm
owners recruit workers from Mexico and other places. During the growing season,
nearly 300 workers and their children live in migrant camps around the K. W. Zellers
family farm in rural northeast Ohio. Julie Grant spent some time at the Zellers’ farm this
fall and has this story:
Transcript
It might sound obvious, but America needs to grow and harvest food. The problem is
that many Americans don’t want to work on farms anymore. That’s why some farm
owners recruit workers from Mexico and other places. During the growing season,
nearly 300 workers and their children live in migrant camps around the K. W. Zellers
family farm in rural northeast Ohio. Julie Grant spent some time at the Zellers’ farm this
fall and has this story:
For many Americans, just tending a small garden can be too much labor. But the
Mexican workers on the Zellers Farm in Hartville, Ohio are moving quickly down rows
of lettuce hundreds of yards long.
One man crouches down and cuts four heads of romaine. He’s leaning over the plants all
day long. It’s backbreaking work, but he moves spryly to the next row, and the next, and
the next. He’ll only make about 3 cents per head, so he wants to cut as many heads as
quickly as possible. Another worker follows him, loading the lettuce into boxes, then
lifting the 30 to 40 pound boxes and throwing them on to a flatbed truck, one after
another.
Farm owner Jeff Zellers says most people who live around here don’t want to do this:
“No. We can probably hire ten people and one of them will last more than a week, who
will stay here work, and work through it.”
Out in another field, a different crew is working in the harshest heat of the day. They get
a little protection from straw hats and some are wearing rubber pants. They need to protect
their legs from the hot, black, mucky soil. The temperature of the dirt can get up to 110
degrees.
Two generations of the Soto family of Mexico work together thinning lettuce. They
work down the long rows using a hoe, or crouching down and pulling out weeds by hand.
25-year-old Ivan Soto has become an expert, after thinning lettuce at the Zellers farm for
the past nine years:
“We don’t do other jobs, only one job.”
Ivan Soto pretty much taught himself English. He’s gone through the process to become
a US citizen. Now his wife has joined him and his family on the lettuce-thinning crew.
Other crews specialize in growing cilantro, parsley, and radishes. Zellers says the farm
depends on this expertise:
“We have to deliver
product on a daily basis that is as good or better then our competitors. And if we do not
have a trained labor force to do that, we’re not going to long term be in business.”
The Zellers farm pays less then some others because it has set up temporary homes
around the perimeter of the farm. Most of the homes look like small trailers. But they
come furnished and the farm pays most of the workers’ living expenses. Most migrant
farm workers make 11 to 14 thousand dollars a year. Ivan Soto says it’s hard, boring
work, but they make a good enough living that when they return to Mexico they can
afford to rest for awhile.
That’s a big reason their family, including his wife and young son, his parents, four
siblings, an aunt and uncle, have traveled from their home outside Mexico City to this
small northeast Ohio town for going on a decade now:
“When we are here, we say, well, we are now in our second home, because over there is our first home this is our home because here in Ohio is our second home for us.”
While most farms provide migrant housing only for single men,
Jeff Zellers allows entire families to migrate and work together in the fields. He hopes
his own children understand all the labor it takes to provide a meal:
“When we return thanks before we eat dinner, we pray for the people that prepared and produced the food. If my childen do nothing else but understand that their food did not show up in the grocery store because that’s where it was, it just came off an assembly line, I would want them to do that.”
The migrant children spend a lot of time with their families. In their culture, life revolves around family and community events. (Photo by Gary Harwood )
Educators say most migrants need more schooling to improve their lives, but foreign-
born Hispanic students have the highest dropout rate in the US. (Photo by Gary Harwood )
When the growing season comes to an end, migrant workers' children are pulled out of school and often don't return until the end of the school year. (Photo by Gary Harwood )
Lots of farm workers in the U.S. are migrants from Mexico and other southern places.
Many farm owners say they couldn’t be profitable growing food without these migrants.
But the workers are growing something of their own: children. The children are often uprooted. Julie Grant reports on the challenges of educating children whose lives are dictated by the growing season:
Transcript
Lots of farm workers in the U.S. are migrants from Mexico and other southern places.
Many farm owners say they couldn’t be profitable growing food without these migrants.
But the workers are growing something of their own: children. The children are often
uprooted. Julie Grant reports on the challenges of educating children whose lives are
dictated by the growing season:
In this farm town another house or trailer empties nearly every night. The growing season
is over and migrant workers are leaving, headed to Florida, Texas, Mexico, or someplace
else. That means their children will be pulled out of school. Cyndee Farrell is principal
of the elementary school:
“They’ll just not show up. Sometimes we get word, ‘Oh, we’re leaving tomorrow.’ Other
times, if the weather changes over the weekend or whatever happens and they just decide,
oh, we’re going to leave, they pack up and go. They know they can count on us being here when
they return, and we make it work.”
The migrant children leave as most students are just settling in to the semester.
For some migrants, it’s the only schooling they’ll get until they return to Ohio in April or
May, just a few weeks before the end of the school year.
Lisa Hull teaches reading to 4th and 5th graders. She says the migrants add a whole new
culture to this rural school. They laugh a lot and almost always seem happy.
But she says they don’t treat the classroom like the American kids:
“They don’t value education as well as i would say a normal, typical American would.
They have a different lifestyle. They’re easy going. We’re into all the possessions and
stuff, whereas they don’t really care if they have anything.”
The migrant children spend a lot of time with their families. The families are close and
they stay close. In their culture, life revolves around family and community events. One
person’s birthday is usually reason enough for an entire migrant neighborhood to
celebrate.
(Sound of knocking on door)
“Where is everybody?”
It’s Friday night and neighbor Pat Moore drops in on the Soto Family. They’ve just come
in from weeding lettuce in the fields. They’ve been migrating to rural Ohio from outside
Mexico City for more than a decade. The three ‘boys’ are all grown now and have
become U.S. citizens. They all graduated from Mexican high schools. 21 year-old
Alberto Soto also wanted a diploma from an American high school, so he stayed in this
town of Hartville on his own one winter:
“That year, I saw the snow for my first time. Here, it was too cold.”
The whole family is gathered in the living room: all three brothers, two younger sisters.
The mother and father don’t speak English, but they sit and listen, as Alberto Soto
explains why he stayed in Ohio that year:
“To finish my high school, I was in 12th grade. So I think that was important for me.
To get my diploma so I can get a better job, so they can pay me more. An easy job. Not
too hard like in the fields.”
Soto says he cried when his family left. He was lonely. But even after staying that
winter, he still hadn’t learned enough to graduate. He quit school and he’s been working
in the fields with his family since then. His 19 year-old brother Marco Soto has also
become an expert at weeding lettuce. Marco says it’s hard, boring work and he wants to
do something else:
“I think everything is going to be the same every year. And you are not going to learn something to do something because here, is almost the same. Like what you do everyday is going to be the same, like if you want to stay here for the rest of your life, it’s gonna be the same thing and you are not going to learn anything.”
Educators say most migrants need more schooling to improve their lives, but foreign-
born Hispanic students have the highest dropout rate in the U.S. The migrant
neighborhoods in the Hartville area are looking dark these days, but they’ll spring back to
life when the growing season begins again. The public school teachers say they’ll do
their best to keep working with the students who return.
BPA doesn't line just baby products - it is in many canned foods and drinks (Source: Tomomarusan at Wikimedia Commons)
