Tag: landscape

Wind Turbines Stir Up Neighbors (Part 2)

Most people think renewable energy is a good idea. It’s better
than burning fossil fuel to create electricity. But “green energy”
alternatives
can be controversial. Windmill farms are springing up all across the
nation.
Some people think the windmills are eyesores. But others say windmill farms
can help preserve the agricultural landscape by supplementing the income of
farmers. In the second of a two-part series on wind energy, the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:

Transcript

Most people think renewable energy is a good idea. It’s better than burning fossil
fuel to create
electricity. But “green energy” alternatives can be controversial. Windmill farms
are springing
up all across the nation. Some people think the windmills are eyesores. But others
say windmill
farms can help preserve the agricultural landscape by supplementing the income of
farmers.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Stephan reports:


For 30 years, Matt Mauer raised crops and livestock on his farm about 10 miles from
the Lake
Michigan shoreline. Today, he’s in his backyard looking at the land now farmed by
his daughter
and son-in-law. Standing there, he feels a crop they’re not harvesting.


“The good Lord makes it windy all the time for us, so let’s use it, you know.
Because I’m like
everybody else. When I get up in the morning, I want lights.”


Mauer’s hoping to put four wind turbines on his family’s farm near Ludington,
Michigan. That
would power about 24-hundred homes. Nearby, a renewable energy company’s working with
other farmers to build a hundred turbines in the area. Mauer says many of his
neighbors want in
on the deal because they think wind energy could help save their farms.


“It’s hard to make a living just farming right now. And I consider the wind one of
the crops that
we could harvest. It will help keep farmers on the land. Like if, in this place, if
we could get
seven–thousand dollars a year, six-thousand dollars a year for four of them, that’d
make it a hell
of a lot easier to keep the people here and farm.”


The state government’s backing similar projects. It’s training financial advisors
to show farmers
how they can turn a profit with windmills.


But not everyone likes the idea. Some people who live in the area around the
planned windmills
say they’re worried the towers would destroy the region’s charm. That’s linked to
property values
and to tourism. And they don’t like the size of the proposed windmills. Each one
would be four-
hundred feet tall. The blades would have a diameter nearly as long as a football
field.


It’s a story that’s heard in many places. Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the prairies of
Illinois, and
around the Great Lakes. For example, a Michigan couple who wanted large-scale
turbines on
their property ended up losing a court-battle against local government that opposed
the plan. And
two turbines already in place in Mackinaw City – between Lake Michigan and Lake
Huron –
have some unhappy neighbors as well.


Thomas and Virginia Alexander’s home is about 15-hundred feet away from the windmills.
They’re in their eighties and they both wear hearing aids… but even without them,
they say the
windmills are loud…


Tom Alexander: “There’s things about it we don’t appreciate, at times the noise –
not always –
depending upon the wind and the direction.
Virginia Alexander: “Yesterday. Very noisy yesterday. The wind was high and they,
you could
really hear them.”
Tom Alexander: “Just a continual swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.”


Windmill developers say the sound is no louder than normal speech. But this noise is
different. It
goes beyond the frequencies of normal speech. The sound can travel long distances
through both
the ground and the air. They keep Virginia Alexander awake some nights.


Tom and Virginia Alexander’s son Kelly lives next door with his family. He calls
himself a
windmill victim. He has this advice for others:


“Don’t let them go in your backyard. There are places they can go. You don’t just
put those in
somebody’s backyard. I don’t think it’s right.”


A lot of people agree with the Alexanders. Even wind energy boosters concede that
location is
key to successful projects. David Johnson heads up the program for the state of
Michigan that’s
encouraging farmers to allow windmills on their land. He says turbines should be
constructed
where there’s lots of wind and few neighbors. But he says when people say ‘no’ to
windmills,
they should consider the alternative.


“So, does that mean that you should build another big coal-fired plant? Is that the
preferable way
of doing it with the global warming impacts and the mercury pollution and so on that
go with
that? Is that the choice that the public wants to make?


States across the nation are struggling to find the right balance between clean
energy and the
beauty of an uncluttered landscape. Few regulations are in place right now. More
and more,
communities will be facing the decision of whether clean energy and keeping farmers
on the land
is worth the price of adding wind turbines to the scenery.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Linda Stephan.

Related Links

Audubon: Bird Populations on the Decline

  • According to the Audubon Society report, the population of the Bobolink, which nests in hayfields and other U.S. grasslands, has fallen to about 11 million birds — half its earlier recorded numbers. (Photo by S. Maslowski, USFWS)

A new report warns that nearly a third of North America’s bird species are in trouble. And it says habitat loss is to blame. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A new report warns that nearly a third of North America’s bird species are
in trouble. And it says habitat loss is to blame. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:


National Audubon Society researchers analyzed data on more than 650 bird
species. They found that since 1966, certain bird populations have been
declining in all habitats.


Birds that thrive in grasslands are especially at risk. The study found 70
percent of grassland bird species are declining significantly.


Greg Butcher is the study’s lead author. He says today’s farming practices
have reduced available bird habitat.


“In the 50’s, field sizes were small, there was a lot of variety of crops
being planted, there were a lot of hedgerows and field edges that were good
for bird populations. Most farming is done road to road now. And so, in the
1950’s, agricultural landscapes were very favorable for bird populations,
and today, they’re just not.”


Butcher says creating grass buffers around farm fields can help some
grassland species. But he says other species need larger areas of land to
succeed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Part 2: Selling the Right to Develop Farmland

  • Farm museums like this one are sometimes the only remnant of the agricultural life that has been overrun by development. However, some communities are buying farmers' development rights in an effort to save the rural landscape. (Photo by Lester Graham)

One way to keep farms from becoming subdivisions is to pay the farmers to never build on their land. This has been happening on the east and west coasts for decades. But it’s just now beginning to catch on in the Great Lakes region. In the second of a two part series on farmers and the decisions they make about their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette takes us to a place where local government is paying to keep land in agriculture:

Transcript

One way to keep farms from becoming subdivisions is to pay the farmers to never
build on their land. This has been happening on the east and west coasts for
decades. But it’s just now beginning to catch on in the Great Lakes region. In
the second of a two part series on farmers and the decisions they make about
their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette takes us to a place
where local government is paying to keep land in agriculture:


Whitney Lyon’s farm has been in his family for more than a century. He has 100
acres of cherry and apple trees. The orchards are on a peninsula that stretches
fourteen miles across a bay in Northern Lake Michigan. His farm is about a half
mile from the clear blue water that attracts thousands of tourists here every
year.


Lyon says real estate agents love his property.


“We run clean back to the bay on the north side… that’s view property. It’s
worth 30, 40,000 bucks an acre.”


But it’s not worth that much anymore. The rights to build houses on the Lyon farm have
been sold. The way this works is this: the Lyon’s keep the land, but they get paid
for the real estate value they give up to keep the land as a farm instead of house
sites.


(sound of apple picking)


There’s a thick fog across the peninsula today. Whitney Lyon is picking apples. His
wife Mary is inside watching kids. Mary says the day they sold the development
rights was the best day in their thirty years of farm life. She says she knew they’d
be able to stay on the land. And because of the money they made, she downsized her
daycare business.


“The big change, especially the last two or three years, I no longer just buy stuff
from just garage sales. I have actually been spending money on purchasing things for
the house. Which previously, everything came from garage sales.”


Many of the Lyon’s neighbors have sold their development rights as well. For ten
years, the township government has raised money to buy those rights with an additional
property tax. Almost no other community in the Midwest has a program like this. But,
if approved by voters, five more townships in this area might also start programs after
the November elections. Each township is separately asking voters to approve a property tax.


The American Farmland Trust has helped the townships design the program. The group is
excited because this would provide an example of local governments joining together to
protect farmland. Farmland Trust’s President Ralph Grossie flew in for a campaign event.
In a speech, Grossie told a crowd of about 100 people there’s a disconnect between farmers
and their communities. He says the community benefits from the farms while the farmers
struggle to make ends meet.


“We believe there is a middle ground here, there is a way to strike a deal between those
who manage our landscape – private farmers and ranchers, landowners – and those who
appreciate and benefit from that well-managed landscape. If you think about it, that’s
the heart of the property rights debate. Almost all those conflicts over property rights
are really about who pays for achieving a public goal on private land.”


Grossie says paying farmers with public money is the best option if a community wants to
keep farms. Otherwise, he says government forces farmers to pay when they give up profitable
uses of their land because of zoning laws. But a few in this crowd weren’t buying.


Some are opposed to more taxes on their homes or businesses so the township government can
write big checks to farmers. Others question if younger generations even want to farm.


(sound of noise from crowd)


And some are just plain suspicious of government. Roger Booth is talking to another
opponent of the propposal after the speech. Booth is explaining that when the right
to develop a piece of land is purchased, it’s gone forever. But he points out there
is one exception.


“Eminent domain. And who’s going to decide eminent domain has the right to take it? The
people in power of government at the time. Not today. Thirty years from now.”


Government also has an image problem because prominent local farmers often sit on the
town boards. It’s hard not to notice they could be the ones cashing in on the public treasury.
Critics also point out these programs tax farms to save farmland. And they say buying the
deveolopment rights does nothing to improve the business of farming. Supporters admit this
doesn’t guarantee future success for farms. But they say at least it gives the farmers a
chance to keep farming instead of selling to developers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.

Related Links

Rain Gardens Prevent Pollution

  • Homeowners across the Midwest are discovering the benefits of rain gardens. Slightly sunken areas of native plants hold heavy rains and cleanse runoff as it sinks slowly into the ground. Photo courtesy Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

A good Midwestern summer storm can dump a lot of water in one place. Sometimes there’s so much rainwater, it overwhelms the underground sewage pipes. The rainwater mixes with untreated sewage and washes into lakes and rivers. Cities around the country are each spending millions of dollars to solve the problem. In one city, officials are encouraging people to build “rain gardens.” The perennial gardens are designed to hold rainwater and let it seep gradually into the ground. In another installment of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s “Your Choice; Your Planet” series… Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

A good midwestern summer storm can dump a lot of water in one
place. Sometimes there’s so much rainwater, it floods into the
underground pipes that carry sewer waste. It mixes with untreated
sewage and washes into lakes and rivers. Cities around the country
are each spending millions of dollars to solve the problem. In one
city, officials are encouraging people to build “rain gardens.” The
perennial gardens are designed to hold rainwater and let it seep
gradually into the ground. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The sewage treatment plant sits right on the waterfront of Lake
Superior in Superior, Wisconsin. You can see treatment tanks and
pump houses at the edge of the lake, and lately you can also see
gardens. They’re demonstration plots, showing how homeowners
can help solve a serious problem. Each garden is like a shallow
bowl; about six inches lower than the surrounding ground. The
buildings next to the gardens have down spouts that carry water from
the roofs right into the gardens.


Charlene Johnson is creating these rain gardens. She digs away the
surface soil, adds compost, and then plants native grasses and
perennials.


“We’ve got the Golden alexander starting to bloom, this one has
purple coneflower, Green-headed coneflower, Cardinal flower, the
bonisette.”


They’re pretty and they’re all plants that can live with a lot of water, or
just a little. Johnson says they do a much better job of holding onto
rainwater than a regular lawn, because they have deep roots.

“You know, the average lawn is about 1-2 inches. Therefore you’d
only have one or two inches of roots. Roots equal storage capacity.
Also as the roots penetrate through the ground, they die back, and
those holes can also be used for storm water retention.”

That helps keep some of the rainwater from rushing into the sewer
system. Johnson would like it if every yard in Superior had a rain
garden. The ideal size depends on the size of the house and the
type of soil in the yard, but they’re usually about the size of a small
patio.


A lot of us are building water gardens these days – small pools or
ponds – but a rain garden is different. It’s not designed to hold water
or goldfish. It’s designed to absorb big rains and let them sink slowly
into the ground.


“Plants and soil naturally cleanse pollutants from water. By the time it
recharges into the groundwater aquifers, the water is essentially
clean. ”


Charlene Johnson says rain gardens cost about the same to build as
any other perennial garden – between $3 and 5 a square foot. Most
of that is to buy plants, so it’s a one-time purchase. Even if it’s not
that expensive, you might be thinking it’s still a lot of money just to
help the city save on treating sewage, but Johnson says it can pay off
in the long run, because keeping rainwater out of the sewage
treatment system, means the city won’t have to treat as much
volume. That saves money and keeps your monthly sewer bill lower.


Your rain garden will also help the environment by keeping the rush
of water from overwhelming the sewer system and sending it into the
river or lake near your home.


On the other side of town, Jan Murphy says she loves her rain
garden. She built it seven years ago when she built her bookstore
and coffee shop in Superior.


(sound of blackbird)


“We’ve had ducks. That’s a baby redwing blackbird I believe, it’s
been very delightful. We’ve had lots of little critters in here from time
to time. ”


Runoff from the bookstore parking lot flows into the garden, where the cattails and other
native plants clean it up before it seeps into the city storm water system. Now, if you and
your neighbors build rain gardens, it still might not completely solve your city’s problems
with storm water runoff, but the experts say it can help.


Kurt Soderberg directs the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District in
Duluth. He says rainwater picks up all kinds of pollution as it flows
across parking lots, streets, and yards, and eventually into rivers and
lakes.


“Rainwater is a big impact on water quality. Whether it’s sediment
washing into the lake, whether it’s fecal coliform going into the creeks
and the lakes, there are a whole lot of reasons why you want to stop
storm water from rushing into the natural bodies of water. ”


Soderberg says rain gardens can filter and clean the water before it
reaches lakes and rivers. A lot of cities are spending millions of
dollars each, trying to keep storm water from overwhelming the sewer
system. Soderberg says rain gardens could be part of the solution.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Junk Cars Become Environmental Art

We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford’s black Model T. Cars of every shape, size – and color – now practically dominate American life. Which poses a problem – what to do with the cars once they’re piled high in junkyards. A recent public art project offered one passionate recycler a chance to reuse junked cars in his art. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has this story of “Art on Wheels”:

Transcript

We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford’s black Model T. Cars of every shape, size – and color
– now practically dominate American life. Which poses a problem – what to do with the cars
once they’re piled high in junkyards. A recent public art project offered one passionate
recycler a chance to reuse junked cars in his art. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has this story of “Art on Wheels”:


The American landscape is filled with automobiles. Lines of fancy molded steel are everywhere
– in parking lots and bumper to bumper along the highways. Or, as Canadian folk singer Bruce
Cockburn once observed, a kind of “sheet metal ballet.” But, sadly, when the dance finally ends,
there’s nothing left but junkyards of crushed steel. A recent community art project suggested that
re-use could be an answer to the old environmental debate of what to do with all the junk.


(sound of kids at the art show)


Dozens of artists were asked to come up with their own unique ways to re-use at least some of
that automotive scrap for the recent “Art on Wheels” Project. Art teacher Bruce Adams describes
what he and his high school students call the “Environmentally Friendly Car.”


“There’s a picket fence on each side. The front we call the front lawn, because the surface is a
big, grass lawn, with a bird house, so the birds can live there over the summer. Then the back of
it, we call the backyard, it’s a garden, it’s a got a pond, it’s got a stream running down to the pond
– it had fish living in there all summer.”


Adams says they built the car as sort of an ironic commentary on the whole American dream
thing. That’s what many of sculptures in the exhibit were designed to do – to make a statement.
Other sculptures, such as the cement truck chicken, were simply intended to be outlandish. But
for one of the exhibit artists, Doug McCullum, re-use isn’t a novelty. It’s a lifelong expression.
You might even say an obsession.


“My sister broke her femur…I made a lamp out of her steel leg splint. It was a little strange
thinking that, you know, this thing spent six months in my sister’s leg –
but she kind of enjoyed the lamp.”


McCullum is, well, shall we say, passionate about re-use? Okay, so you might even call him the
Dr. Frankenstein of the junkyard. His Gremlin car sculpture from the exhibit features some of
his junkyard creations. They’re popping out of the roof, the hood, the doors and the gas tank.
Come meet Scratch, Knock, Guzzle, and the rest of the Gremlins gang.


“The car is covered in a wide variety of monsters, all named after things that go wrong with your
car – henceforth the name Gremlins. They are all made out of various things like air compressor
tanks, and old recycled drive shafts, and snow blower hoods, and old air tanks.”


No, McCullum isn’t an auto mechanic, or a junk dealer. He’s an architect by trade, who likes to
create recycled art in his spare time. But McCullum doesn’t have to go far for re-use materials
when he begins a project. He just walks downstairs and scrounges around in his basement.
McCullum says he saves everything – and he’s especially partial to automobile salvage.


“I have so much steel, and so much stuff that I’ve recycled in my basement that it would take a
small crew to move that stuff out, and that’s just the way I create.”


McCullum says there are plenty of worn out or broken parts from his own cars down there. And
he’s never one to pass up somebody else’s cast off muffler or tire tread abandoned at the side of
the road. McCullum hauls it all home for his next project. And if he does run into roadblock
while creating? McCullum says he loves to go shopping – at the junkyard of course.


“It’s like shopping at the mall for me. I like climbing through the piles, and digging through
something, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Like, oh… this could be a great head, and sit
that aside… I go looking for a part and I come out with like a couple hundred pounds worth of
steel. Like, yeahhhh, like there was a big sale at the mall and I’m coming out with the spoils of
my labor.”


But make no mistake, for McCullum re-use isn’t an idle past time, it’s a professional and personal
commitment. As both an artist and an architect he says he believes in the beauty and the
possibility of preserving everything. McCullum says things can and should last. He says it’s
purely a matter of vision.


“Basically, anything that is discarded can be re-used in a wide variety of ways, just people don’t
have the vision or that kind of mentality to really think in a different way. And that’s really what
this whole project is about – the Art on Wheels thing in general – you can re-use everything.”


(sound of kid yelling, “Look a bug car! There’s a bug on top!”)


MCullum says the unusual automobile inspired sculptures were fun to make – and to look at.
Mind you, he doesn’t expect to see gremlin cars or cement truck chickens roaring down the
highway anytime soon. But McCullum says hopefully the exhibit will help turn people on to the
possibilities of recycling.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Golf Course Goes Green, Neighbors See Red

Long known for their expanses of shorn grass and highly manicured grounds, some golf course owners are taking a second look at their landscaping practices and striving to become more environmentally friendly. In the process, however, they seem to have made a few enemies. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King explains:

Transcript

Long known for their expanses of shorn grass and highly manicured grounds,
some golf course owners are taking a second look at their landscaping practices and striving to become more environmentally friendly. In the process, however, they seem to have made a few enemies. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King explains:


In a nutshell, here’s the story: Golf Course Goes Green, Neighbors See Red.


Golf course owner Tony Krebs recently saw the environmental “light” and decided to reduce his use of pesticides, gasoline, and water. He wants to mow less, grow wildflowers, re-introduce native grasses and attract wildlife. The neighbors – instead of cheering – have filed formal complaints with the city.


Golf courses have long been havens for precision landscaping, places where the great outdoors are shaped into forms… well, unfamiliar to Mother Nature. So to some residents around golf courses, a new, more natural landscape looks suspiciously like neglect. But it’s not.


For a little over a decade, the Audubon Society has been helping to “green” golf courses with their Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. While any course can become a member and receive environmental tips and guidelines, members earn certification by completing projects in specified areas. Out of an estimated 20,000 golf courses in the U.S., a select 2,300 have achieved certification.


In other words, the movement towards greater sustainability in the golf world is still young. And old standards of beauty die hard. According to an Audubon source, it’s not uncommon for bordering property owners to balk at a golf course’s naturalization. Just as one man’s treasure is another’s trash, apparently one man’s “wildflower” is another man’s “weed.”


But this is more than a beauty-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder tale. Health officials have linked weed killers to everything from childhood leukemia, to gender malformation in frogs. Yet here we have well-to-do citizens banding together to fight for such chemicals.


“We live in a community,” one concerned resident said. “We have to be accountable to one another.” But he was talking about standards of property upkeep, not about public safety or about the delicate ecosystem we share.


He’s right, though, we are accountable to one another. And not only to one another, but to those who come long after we’re gone. There is a price to be paid for that so-called “perfect” landscape, and it’s a price we will all have to pay. It’s time for responsible citizens not only to tolerate sustainability, but to demand it.


Host Tag: Julia King lives and writes in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

COLLEGES FAILING GREEN TEST? (Short Version)

A new report is giving mixed reviews to the environmental efforts on college campuses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has more:

Transcript

A new report is giving mixed reviews to the environmental efforts on college campuses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports.

The report card from the National Wildlife Federation gives A’s to schools for their work on energy efficiency and water conservation. But the schools receive B’s and C’s for poor landscaping practices and transportation issues. Tom Lowe is a Dean at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. He says campuses must be models for environmental improvements, especially those that can save money in the long run.


“For a corporation, the idea that you could make money by greater environmental stewardship is sort of counter to what they traditionally think. So we have to be the model for that to demonstrate that it is possible.”


The report also shows schools are doing a good job at recycling, but a poor job in making sure they buy recycled products. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

Related Links

Commentary – Forbidden Fruit?

Americans spend millions each year on corporate landscaping. But as Great
Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Springer explains, what grows on
company property is usually forbidden fruit: