Thirsty City Waits for Water Diversion Law

  • Diversion of water from the Great Lakes is a controversial issue. Many worry that diversion could affect life in the ecosystem. Others worry about obtaining sources of fresh water for drinking. (Photo by Brandon Bankston)

Great Lakes governors and their counterparts in Canada are working on a legal agreement called Annex 2001. The document will determine how water from the Great Lakes will be used and who gets to use it. Controversy has already erupted over the possibility of one city’s bid for the water. The city is looking toward the completed Annex for guidance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Great Lakes governors and their counterparts in Canada are working
on a legal agreement called Annex 2001. The document will determine how
water from the Great Lakes will be used and who gets to use it. Controversy
has already erupted over the possibility of one city’s bid for the water.
The city is looking toward the completed Annex for guidance. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


Dan Duchniak says he’s an environmentalist.


“We have the low-flow showerheads in our house, we have the low-flow faucets, we have the high-efficiency washers and dryers, our kids know about those, you know, they think they’re fun.”


But Duchniak is in the middle of a bitter fight with other environmentalists and officials over his area’s largest natural resource: water from Lake Michigan. Duchniak is the water manager for the City of Waukesha, Wisconsin. It’s just west of Milwaukee. Waukesha is only about 20 miles from the Lake Michigan shore. Right now, Waukesha gets its water from wells that tap an aquifer deep within the ground. But Duchniak says the wells won’t sustain the long-term needs of the city.


“As the water levels drop, the water quality degrades, and what happens is we’ve seen an increase in different water quality parameters, one of those being radium.”


And radium is a health problem. In very high doses, radium can cause bone cancer. To solve its water problems, the City of Waukesha might ask for access to Lake Michigan water. But even though the community considers the lake part of its back yard, there’s a major problem. Even though it’s close, Waukesha sits outside the Great Lakes basin.


That means the area’s ditches and streams drain away from the lake. Rain water runoff and treated water from the sewer system flow toward the Mississippi River Basin. The governors and premiers might include a rule in the Annex 2001 that says communities sitting outside the Great Lakes basin must return treated water to the lake, if they use it.


Engineers who study water in the area say Waukesha could make the case that the city is already using Great Lakes water. That’s because the city’s wells tap into water beneath the surface that supply water to Lake Michigan. But environmentalists say that argument isn’t going to fly. Derek Sheer is with the environmental group “Clean Wisconsin.” He says Waukesha would be pumping a lot more water directly from the lake than the underground aquifer would replace.


“They’re not returning 13 million gallons of water back to the Great Lakes by any stretch of the imagination.”


But the city of Waukesha knows that if the finalized Annex 2001 looks anything like the early drafts, the city would have to return most of the water it uses back to the lake. Waukesha’s water manager, Dan Duchniak says that could be done in a combination of ways. The city could pump it back to the lake, pump it to a nearby stream that flows to the lake, or stop using the ground water completely and let it flow back to the lake.


People on both sides of the water issue seem to agree on one thing: because of the huge amount of water in the Great Lakes system, and its natural ebb and flow, the amount of water the City of Waukesha would take would not harm the Great Lakes’ ecosystem. Even if it’s not pumped back.


Art Brooks is a professor at the Center for Great Lakes Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.


“The amount of water they intend to withdraw would probably lower the level of Lake Michigan on the order of a millimeter or so, probably less that five millimeters per year.”


But it’s not just Waukesha that has environmentalists worried. Professor Brooks and environmentalist Derek Sheer say if Waukesha gains access to Great Lakes water, it could set a dangerous precedent. Sheer doesn’t want other states and countries to start withdrawing Great Lakes water.


“If Waukesha and Arizona and Georgia and all these other places start pumping large amounts of water out of the basin, we could see a dramatic lowering of the water in the lakes.”


The city of Waukesha says it needs the water and would abide by whatever the Annex 2001 agreement sets down. And Waukesha’s water manager, Dan Duchniak, says that includes what it determines about return flow. He says arguing about the issue right now is a waste of time, since the Annex isn’t done. Beyond that, Duchniak says Waukesha is part of the Great Lakes system, and is not about to suck the lakes dry.


“Lake Michigan is in our back yard. We can see Lake Michigan from here. We’re not that far away from it.”


The experts say Waukesha would only be the first in line to ask for Great Lakes water. With suburbs sprawling away from the big cities on the lakes more and more towns will be eyeing the Great Lakes when demand for water exceeds their underground supplies.


A draft of the Annex could be ready this year, but it will most likely go through a lengthy series of votes before it becomes law.


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

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Army Corps to Expand Mississippi Locks

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving ahead with
recommendations to expand locks on the Mississippi River despite
an earlier report that found the Corps’ calculations in making a similar
plan were wrong. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving ahead with recommendations to expand
locks on
the Mississippi River despite an earlier report that found the Corps’ calculations
in making a
similar plan were wrong. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


The Corps of Engineers proposes spending 8.3 billion dollars to expand navigation
locks for
heavier barge traffic and restore the ecosystem of the upper Mississippi River. The
National
Research Council was highly critical of an earlier plan, saying the Corps’
projections of greater
traffic on the river were flawed. In a statement, the Corps says this new plan
balances the need
for economic growth and environmental sustainability.


Environmentalists say it’s still wrong. Melissa Samet is with the group American
Rivers.


“The Corps has done a great disservice to the nation by recommending this project.
We have
other needs. It’s a significant amount of money. The recommendation is based on
unsound
science and unsound economics. And that’s just not the way a federal agency should
be working.
It’s certainly not serving the American people.”


Critics say they expect the Corps of Engineers to lobby Congress hard for funding
the expansion
of the locks and not as hard for the environmental restoration.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Greenways to Garner Green for City?

  • Proposals to build greenways in Detroit are raising interest, hopes, and concerns. (Photo by Val Head)

Many cities looking to revitalize their urban centers
have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:

Transcript

Many cities looking to reviatlize their urban centers have turned to greenways to spur economic development. Greenways are pedestrian or bike paths that typically run between parks, museums, or shopping districts. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports on hopes that greenways will breathe new life into one of America’s most blighted urban landscapes:


This abandoned rail line twenty-five feet below street level might not be many peoples’ first choice for a walk or a bike ride. But Tom Woiwode thinks soon it might be. Woiwode is the director of the GreenWays Initiative for all of Southeast Michigan. When he takes a look down this former Grand Trunk Western Rairoad line in Detroit, he doesn’t see the fast food wrappers, tires, and crashed and rusting shopping carts. He sees trees and grass and benches. And more importantly, he sees people, and places for people to spend their money.


“So maybe a bike repair shop, restaurants, some opportunities for music venues and those sorts of things, so people can ride their bike on down to the riverfront and along the way either stay here for lunch, or along the way stop and rest and enjoy the ambiance, or take their food and go on down to the riverfront where they can enjoy the extraordinary natural resources of the river as well.”


We’re standing near the city’s sprawling open-air produce market. It’s one of the most popular draws for people from inside and outside the city limits. When it’s complete, the greenway will link the market to Detroit’s greatest natural asset: the Detroit River. Greenways are a new redevelopment concept in Detroit. But elsewhere, Woiwode says, they’ve proven a well-tested urban redevelopment tool.


“In fact, back in the late 90’s, the mayors of Pittsburgh and Denver – two municipalities that are roughly similar in size to Detroit – both characterized their greenways programs as the most important economic development programs they had within the city.”


Minneapolis is another city that’s had success with greenways. In fact, backers of the greenway plan in downtown Detroit say they were inspired by a similar project there. Last month, Minneapolis completed the second phase of what will eventually be a five-mile greenway along an abandoned rail line much like the one in Detroit. It’s called the Midtown Greenway. And it’ll eventually link the Chain of Lakes to the Mississippi River thruogh neighborhoods on the city’s south side.


Eric Hart is a Minneapolis Midtown Greenway Coalition board member. He says even the greenway’s most avid supporters joked that people might continue to use it as a dumping ground for abandoned shopping carts like they did when it was just a trench.


“Since then, since it was done in 2000, there’s been a lot of interest in the development community to put high-density residential structures right along the edge of the greenway. And it’s viewed more like a park now.”


Since the first phase was completed in 2000, one affordable housing development and a 72-unit market-rate loft project have been completed. And five more housing developments – mostly condos – are in the planning stages. Hart says people use the greenway for recreation and for commuting by bicycle to their jobs.


Colin Hubbell is a developer in Detroit. He says he’s all for greenways, as long as they’re not competing for dollars with more pressing needs in a city like Detroit: good schools, for example. Or safe neighborhoods. Hubbell says the question needs to be asked: If you build it, will they come?


“I’m not sure. I’m not sure, if, given the perception problem that we have as a city, how many people on bikes are going to go down in an old railroad right away, I’m not sure even if that’s the right thing to do, given the fact that – I mean, we have a street system. And just because there’s a greenway doesn’t mean if somebody’s on Rollerblades or a bicycle that they’re not going to stay on a greenway.”


Hubbell says Detroit already has a lot of streets and not much traffic – leaving plenty of room for bicyclists. Hubbell says it might be cheaper to paint some bike lanes, and put up signs. But he says connecting the city’s cultural and educational institutions, the river, and commercial districts with greenways is a good idea – as long as they’re running through areas where people will use them.


Kelli Kavanaugh says that’s exactly what’s happening with greenway plans in the city. Kavanaugh is with the Greater Corktown Economic Development Corporation in southwest Detroit.


“You can’t just stick a greenway in the middle of a barren, abandoned neighborhood and expect use. But when you put one into a growing neighborhood, a stabilizing neighborhood, it really works as another piece of the quality of life puzzle to kind of support existing residents, but also attract new residents to the area. It’s another amenity.”


Greenway backers say for a city struggling just to maintain its population, Detroit can only benefit from safe, pleasant places to walk and bike. And if other cities are any indication, they say greenways should also help bring another kind of green into Detroit.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Battle Lines Drawn Over Mississippi Locks

The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing spending billions of dollars to expand locks along the Mississippi River, but environmentalists say it’s a waste of money. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

The Army Corps of Engineers is proposing spending billions of dollars to expand locks
along the Mississippi River, but environmentalists say it’s a waste of money. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has compiled a study that suggests the nation needs to
spend billions of dollars improving navigation on the Upper Mississippi River. It would
expand or add locks at dams on the Mississippi from Minnesota to just above St. Louis,
Missouri. The Corps has similar plans for the Illinois River, which stretches from near
Chicago to near St. Louis.


Tow boats push barges full of grain downstream, carrying 60 percent of the nation’s grain
exports. They use the Mississippi lock and dam system, which was built in the 1930’s.
The Corps of Engineers built the lock and dam system to ensure the water would remain
deep enough to keep barge traffic moving year round. The locks that allowed barges
through the dams were adequate for the time. But today, towboats are pushing groups of
barges twice as long as they were in the 1930’s. To get through the locks, they must
separate into groups and then reconnect on the other side.


Denny Lundberg is the project manager of the Corps’ navigation study. He says the
Mississippi River system is an important corridor for the grain trade and the aging current
locks could put Midwest farmers at a disadvantage.


“What the Mississippi River does is provides a transportation system for certain key
exports and helps the nation’s balance of trade and it does this by saving roughly 60 to 70
percent of the cost of shipping over that distance by rail… so the existing system out
there generates about a billion dollars annual transportation cost savings to the nation.”


Farmers are in favor of expanding the locks. Gerald Tumbleson farms in Southern
Minnesota. He attended a public hearing on the Corps’ recommendations.


“The problem of the system now is it is too slow. Now, you might say it delayed an hour
or two on a barge or something like that, but when you start adding those up over a
period of time that’s a lot of hours.”


Tumbelson says that delays lead to increased transportation costs, bringing down the
price he can get for his products. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal would
speed up the system by building seven new locks and five lock extensions, as well as
other smaller measures to speed river navigation.


The Corps’ proposal also includes money to help restore some of the ecosystems that
have been damaged by the Corps’ navigation projects in the past. But many
environmentalists are skeptical that anything will be done for the environment.


In a study called Twice Cooked Pork, a coalition of environmental and taxpayer
groups say they found major flaws with the Corps’ conclusions in its proposal. The
groups say that barge traffic on the river is declining, not increasing. They say there’s
more domestic demand for grain and other products, so there’s not as great a need to ship
it downriver. And the groups say the project will be the most expensive waterway project
in history, but will only benefit the barge industry. And they add… it will benefit the
Corps itself.


Mark Muller of the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy is skeptical that the
proposed project would have any benefit for people like farmer Gerald Tumbleson.


“I don’t think it really matters if we have longer locks or not, that doesn’t mean our
exports are going to increase, and unless we have an increase in exports we’re not going
to have any benefits to farm income.”


Critics say given the Army Corps of Engineers’ history, there’s plenty of reason to be
skeptical of the Corps’ findings. In 2000, a whistleblower within the Corps revealed he
was pressured to falsify statistics to justify spending billions of dollars on Corps projects
along the Mississippi. Further investigation by both the Pentagon and the National
Research Council revealed widespread flaws and corruption in the Corps’ research and
methodology.


But the Corps says the current proposal came after many public hearings, and extensive
consultation with other federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Army Corps of Engineers’ Denny Lundberg says those public meetings and
discussions had a role in developing the current proposal.


“And we have taken that and developed a combined plan to try to seek a balance out on
the river so this integrated plan really serves as a framework for being able to operate and
maintain the system both for navigation and for the environment.”


The Corps will continue taking public comments on the draft report until July 30th. In
the fall, they will present their final report to Congress, which has the final say on the
river’s future.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

Related Links

Parks Dig Up Sediment Solution

  • A crane dredges sediment from the bottom of the Illinois River. The mud is loaded onto a barge bound for Chicago - to turn a brownfield into a park. (Photo courtesy of Illinois Waste Management and Research Center)

Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic. But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

Soil is being washed from farmland and construction sites. The soil clogs up many rivers
and lakes around the Great Lakes region. It can harm plants and aquatic wildlife in the
waterways. The sediment can also fill the channels and harbors, blocking ship traffic.
But a pilot program in one Great Lakes state is using the sediment in a new way. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The Illinois River used to be an average of more than twenty feet deep. These days, the
river averages a depth of about two feet. The river stretches nearly from Chicago across
the state of Illinois and joins the Mississippi near St. Louis. The entire length of the
Illinois River is clogged with sediment that’s eroded mostly from farmland. Besides
blocking navigation, the sediment buries aquatic plants, destroying a food source for fish
and waterfowl.


(sound of a dredger)


A giant dredger is taking deep bites into the muck beneath the water’s surface that’s
clogging up the bottom of the river near Peoria. The bright orange clamshell bucket is
filling up barges that will take 100,000 tons of sediment to Chicago. There, it will be
used to cover up the remains of an old steel plant and create 17 acres of parkland.


Bob Foster is a project manager with the Chicago Park District. He says the steel mill
site is useless without the sediment from the Illinois River:


“What’s left there now is several foundations and forty feet of slag. It’s pretty hard to
plant trees in forty feet of slag. This project would not be happening unless we were
receiving this soil, this dredged material, because soil is our number one cost in park
development now.”


State and federal officials say this idea helps both the Illinois River by clearing out
sediment… and the city of Chicago by providing topsoil for a park. The program also has
the support of environmentalists, although they do sound a word of caution.


Marc Miller is an environmentalist who serves on the Illinois River Coordinating
Council, a group of public and private organizations trying to help the river. He supports
the dredging program, but says it would be better if the government, farmers and
developers would do more to stop soil erosion.


“That’s why the Illinois Coordinating Council has many irons in the fire in addressing
these issues. It’s going to take prevention in order to stop the kind of problems that have
been going on for decades.”


This kind of program won’t work everywhere. John Marlin is with the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources. He’s done a lot of studies on the possible uses for
dredged material. But, because some sediment is contaminated with pesticides or old
factory pollution, you have to test the muck and know where it’s going to be used.


“There are definitely places where the soil in the lakes and the Illinois River is too
polluted to use. But there are other places where it is clean, and one of our jobs is going
to be to find out where it is clean and safe to use and make judgments accordingly. There
will be a lot more questions as time goes on.”


But public officials behind this project are concentrating solely on the positives of the
project. Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn told supporters at a rally on the banks of the
Illinois River that the dredging program will be the beginning of a much larger program
that will benefit several states.


“This is a model, we want to replicate it, we want to do it elsewhere. We are open for
business. If you need topsoil somewhere, we got it. (laughter) And by digging up the
sediment and making the river a little deeper, we can help our fish, our wildlife, our
waterfowl, we can help our boating, our recreation.”


To have any significant impact on the Illinois River, this kind of dredging program will
have to be expanded exponentially. This first project will remove 100,000 tons of
sediment. Each year more than 14 million tons of sediment is washed into the Illinois
River basin.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.

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Cleaning House for Lewis and Clark

Two-hundred years ago this May, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark started up the Missouri River on a two-year journey into the American West. As America commemorates the bicentennial of the expedition, hundreds of volunteers are cleaning up the Missouri. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:

Transcript

Two-hundred years ago this May, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark started up the
Missouri River on a two-year journey into the American West. As America
commemorates the bicentennial of the expedition, hundreds of volunteers are cleaning up
the Missouri. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Kevin Lavery reports:


A troupe portraying Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery is retracing the explorers’
path. The real journey starts when they leave Illinois and take their keelboat up the
Missouri River as it meanders through the state of Missouri.


But…the Missouri is not as clean as the day Lewis and Clark first saw it. With the re-
enactors and their flotilla coming, some local volunteers want to do some cleaning up
ahead of time. They’re launching what could be the biggest clean-up ever on the Big
Muddy.


(sound of lapping water)


John Brady and Jeff Barrow are with Missouri River Relief, a grassroots nonprofit that
began cleaning the banks of the Missouri three years ago. Now, they’re embarking on
their most ambitious project yet: eight massive daylong cleanups that will stretch into
June. The idea is to stay two weeks ahead of the flotilla, clearing away any eyesores
along its cruise upriver.


Barrow says they’ve seen their share of garbage clogging the Missouri:


“Everything from cars and truck bodies, you find a lot of freezers and refrigerators, you
find tons of Styrofoam, plastic…we found a piano once.”


(sound of boat motor starting)


Barrow and Brady are scouting the river in search of places where debris piles up. As the
advance team, their job is to place markers in heavy trash areas so the coming clean-up
crews know where to start. Just a few hundred yards out, Brady spots a small pocket of
trash. But he knows that what he sees on the shore is only a fraction of what’s hidden in
the trees:


“So, when you go out scouting you spot the obvious stuff that you can see from the
riverbank, and then you go to the spots where you know that it’s more likely that stuff
accumulates. For example, brushy spots on the outside of bends. And you get out and
look, and if it’s a good heavy spot, you schedule a crew to come in there and work it.”


Barrow guns the motor and heads for the spot where the Missouri flows into the
Mississippi. The two currents blend into a broad waterway. On the far bank of the
Mississippi, green trees give way to rusty machinery and industry on the Illinois bank:


Barrow: “Do we have our passport for Illinois here?” (laughs)


Barrow says this area will get special attention:


“Right here is where they’re going to kick off the Lewis and Clark flotilla. See this gravel
beach? So they’re expecting 2,000 people to be here, and we’re going to be cleaning up
this area, get all this driftwood out of there…you see the trash that’s up there.”


Preparing the site for that many people will take a small army of volunteers. But the
excitement of the Lewis and Clark bicentennial should make that an easier job than usual.


Evan McFarland belongs to the River Kids…a non-profit group made up of some 40 St.
Louis fourth-graders that began cleaning local creeks last fall. He’s enthusiastic about the
environmental benefits of a cleaner river. But Evan also sees a public relations benefit.
With potentially thousands of foreign tourists coming to the U.S. for the bicentennial
events, Evan thinks the time is right to showcase the Missouri:


“Well, I hope that they would be very excited and maybe compare where they came from,
maybe a river or a lake to the Missouri River…and maybe if they’ve already been here
before, see how it’s improved, and say hey…this is a pretty clean river.”


The band of volunteers will start at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi before
the flotilla sets sail May 14th. They’ll steadily move upstream, capping their efforts with
a grand finale cleanup in Kansas City in June.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Kevin Lavery.

Related Links

Army Corps’ Spending Questioned

Environmental and consumer watchdogs have launched an all-out offensive against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a new report. They say the Corps wastes taxpayer money on unnecessary projects, including some in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has more:

Transcript

Environmental and consumer watchdogs have launched an all-out offensive against the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers in a new report. They say the Corps wastes taxpayer money on
unnecessary projects, including some in the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
David Sommerstein reports:


The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has built some of the nation’s biggest marvels, from the
Hoover Dam to the St. Lawrence Seaway. But in recent years, the Corps has come under fire
from Congress and others for cooking the books to justify its own work. The latest charges come
in a report by the National Wildlife Federation and Taxpayers for Common Sense. The groups
identify 29 Corps projects they say gobble up federal money and destroy natural resources. Steve
Ellis is with Taxpayers for Common Sense. He says the agency must be reformed.


“In 2000, a huge scandal erupted on the upper Mississippi River that rocked the agency that
showed that they were manipulating data. We’re back debating this exact same project or a very
similar project now three years later. The Corps bears close observation and close watching.”


The groups also cite a St. Lawrence Seaway study they say is bent on wider and deeper channels
at a price of 15 billion dollars to taxpayers. Corps and Seaway officials say the study only looks
at the existing system, not expanding it.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Asian Carp Barrier Escapes Budget Cuts

  • The Army Corps of Engineers' new barrier will be similar in design to the demonstration project in place now. (Diagram courtesy of USACE)

The war against terrorism nearly led to a biological invasion of the Great Lakes. The Army Corps of Engineers was struggling to find money for a barrier to stop Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. It wasn’t until a strong letter from 24 members of Congress was sent to the Corps that the money was found. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The war against terrorism nearly led to a biological invasion of the Great Lakes. The Army
Corps of Engineers was struggling to find money for a barrier to stop Asian carp from getting into
the Great Lakes. It wasn’t until a strong letter from 24 members of Congress was sent to the
Corps that the money was found. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Asian carp have already invaded the Mississippi River system and they’re making their way
toward the channel that connects the Mississippi basin to the Great Lakes basin. The big fish is a
poster child for alien invasive species. It leaps out of the water, sometimes even hitting and
hurting boaters. It competes with native fish. And it’s feared that it would wreak havoc on the
Great Lakes fishery and the ecology of the lakes if it ever gets through to them.


South of Chicago, a barrier that electrifies the water is in place in the connecting channel between
the Mississippi system and the Great Lakes. It shocks the fish and seems to stop them from going
any farther. But that barrier is just a temporary demonstration project. So Great Lakes officials
were pleased when the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would build a permanent barrier.


Michael Donahue is President and CEO of the Great Lakes Commission. The organization
lobbies for the eight Great Lakes states.


“Most invasive species we find out about after the fact, once they’re in the system, they’re
established and the damage is being done. In this instance we know who the enemy is, where
they’re at, what pathway they plan to take to get into the lakes and what we need to do to stop
them.”


So environmentalists, anglers, conservationists and scientists all believe stopping the Asian carp
from getting into the Great Lakes is a pretty good idea.


Stuart Ludsin is a research scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. Ludsin says we don’t know exactly how the Asian
carp will affect the Great Lakes… but we don’t want to find out either…


“We certainly do not want to let other exotic species into the system for fear of the economic and
ecological consequences that can come from an invasion.”


Sport fishing enthusiasts don’t need to know exactly what the Asian carp will do to the Great
Lakes. Jason Dinsmore is a resource policy specialist with the Michigan United Conservation
Clubs. Dinsmore says it’s pretty clear the Asian carp won’t be good for anglers.


“Our big concern is: these fish eat what our fish eat, I guess is the best way to look at it. These
large predatory fish are planktovores which means that they eat very small organisms that our fish
like, you know, juvenile perch will depend on. And if they’re out-competing the juveniles of our
sport fish, our sport fish will look to take a hit in overall numbers which means there’s going to
be less for our anglers to catch.”


So, there’s no problem, right? The Army Corps plans to build it. Everyone seems to think it’s a
good idea. But then the Corps couldn’t find the money for it. Chuck Shea is the project manager
for both the demonstration fish barrier and the new permanent fish barrier that’s being planned.


“Earlier in the month of February we didn’t have the full funding allocated to the project. The
project was not dead in any way. We were still working internally to try to find the money.”


The four-point-four million dollars to build the electric barrier to keep the Asian carp out of the
Great Lakes was to come from a 25-million dollar fund that the Corps uses for projects not
specifically authorized by Congress. It’s discretionary money. But this year money is tight and
with money being used for projects in Iraq and Afghanistan, it wasn’t clear the Great Lakes fish
barrier could get the money from the fund.


“The war on terror and homeland security issues are creating new demands on the budget, in
particular for the Army. The Army is heavily involved in supporting the war on terror and
homeland security and that does affect the budget overall, yes.”


That’s when 24 Members of Congress from the Great Lakes region stepped in. They signed off
on a letter calling for the immediate funding of the fish barrier project and started making calls to
the Army and anyone else who had influence on funding the project.


It looks as though the political lobbying might have worked. The Corps issued a news release
which indicates the corps expects to start construction of the second barrier this summer,
completing it this fall. In the meantime, the temporary barrier will keep running, hopefully
deterring the Asian carp from making it to the Great Lakes.


The Great Lakes Commission’s Michael Donahue says everyone hopes the barrier is completed
in time to stop the Asian carp because it’ll will cost a lot if it’s not.


“And instead of spending a few million dollars to prevent the invasion, we could be spending a
few hundred million dollars to deal with it once the Asian carp is established.”


The next challenge is finding money to rebuild the first electrical barrier and make the temporary
barrier permanent as well, backing up the new barrier in case it fails or needs to be shut down for
maintenance. No one wants to think about what might happen if the temporary barrier would
fail now before the permanent barrier is built. The Asian carp has been spotted as close as 20
miles from the barrier and only 50 miles from Lake Michigan.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Army Corps to Lay Out Plans for Upper Mississippi

After years of delay and scandal, the Army Corps of Engineers is getting ready to release its final report on how to best manage the Upper Mississippi River. The report will influence policy on the river for the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:

Transcript

After years of delay and scandal, the Army Corps of Engineers is getting ready to release its final
report on how to best manage the Upper Mississippi River. The report will influence policy on the
river for the next 50 years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:


It’s the job of the Army Corps of Engineers to help barges move up and down the Mississippi. The
Corps has channeled the river and dredged soil from the bottom to deepen it. It has built walls
along the sides, called levees, to prevent flooding. And its lock and dam system has converted the
river into a stairway of pools, allowing it to control the river’s flow.


The Corps has spent billions of dollars to build and maintain these systems. Critics say that these
expensive projects amount to huge subsidy for the barging industry. And they say these projects
are destroying the river’s ecosystem.


Dan McGuiness leads the Upper Mississippi River campaign of the National Audubon Society. He
says the damage to the river isn’t always obvious.


“People oftentimes think the river looks pretty good, and it looks not much different than it did 40
or 50 years ago, but most of the damage on the river is what you can’t see; it’s below the water.”


McGuiness is concerned that the Corps new plans will cause even more damage. But industry
groups want the Corps to build newer, bigger locks. Barges have doubled in size since the first
locks were built. To fit through, barges must now separate into two pieces and then reconnected on
the other side.


Chris Brescia is the President of MARC 2000, the Midwest Area River Coalition, a barge industry
group. During peak season, he says, the wait time at a lock can be over 24 hours.


“And remember, that’s at each lock. That’s not just at one lock.”


And there are 29 locks on the Upper Mississippi River.


In April, the Corps will release a study detailing how to improve the river. The Corps abandoned
an earlier version of the study after they were caught falsifying data to justify increased funding.
This time around, the Corps has promised to work with environmental groups and to look at
ecosystem restoration alternatives as well as navigation improvements. The study is sure to stir up
fierce debate about one of our country’s greatest water resources, and about how that resource, and
our tax dollars, should be used.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.

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Government Aims to Remedy Gulf ‘Dead Zone’

  • Although government programs offer incentives for farmers to plant grassy buffers between farm fields and waterways, many farmers don't bother with the voluntary efforts to reduce nitrogen. A new push to reduce nitrogen runoff is in the works in an effort to reduce the size of a 'Dead Zone' in the Gulf of Mexico believed to be caused by excess nitrogen runoff from Midwest farms. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The government is looking at programs to reduce the amount of fertilizer runoff from farms that ends up in streams and rivers. It’s necessary because 41 percent of the continental U.S. drains into the Mississippi River and all that runoff is dumped into the Gulf of Mexico. There, it’s causing a ‘dead zone’ where fish and other aquatic life can’t live. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The government is looking at programs to reduce the amount of fertilizer runoff from farms that
ends up in streams and rivers. It’s necessary because 41-percent of the continental U.S. drains
into the Mississippi River and all that runoff is dumped into the Gulf of Mexico. There it’s
causing a ‘dead zone’ where fish and other aquatic life can’t live. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Each year about one-and-a-half million metric tons of nitrogen is dumped into the Gulf of
Mexico. Plants feed on nitrogen, so there are huge algae blooms, far more than the tiny aquatic
animals that feed on algae can eat. The algae eventually dies and begins to decompose. That process
depletes oxygen from the water. Fish and other marine life need oxygen to live. So they leave
the oxygen-depleted area or die. It’s called a ‘dead zone.’ In recent years that ‘dead zone’ in the
Gulf of Mexico has been as large as the state of New Jersey.


Don Scavia is Chief Scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
National Ocean Service. He says it looks as though much of that nitrogen comes from farms in
the Mississippi basin.


“The most significant change in the nitrogen load into the basin is actually coming from
agricultural application of fertilizer. That application rate has more than tripled since the 1950’s,
corresponding to almost a tripling of nitrogen loss from that system into the Gulf.”


Farms that are hundreds of miles from the Mississippi River drain into the Mississippi River
basin. The basin stretches from Montana to the southwest tip of New York. It includes all or
parts of 31 states.


Nitrogen exists naturally in the environment. But growing corn and some other crops on the
same land year after year depletes nitrogen. So farmers fertilize the land to bolster nitrogen
levels. Sometimes they use animal manure, but often they use man-made fertilizers such as
anhydrous ammonia.


David Salmonsen is with the American Farm Bureau.


“Well, for several crops, especially out into the upper parts of the Mississippi River basin, the
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, southern Minnesota, the great Corn Belt, you need nitrogen as a basic
additive and basic element to grow, to grow these crops.”


But often farmers use more nitrogen than they really need to use. It’s called an “insurance”
application. Farmers gamble that using an extra 10 to 20 pounds of nitrogen fertilizer per acre
will pay off in better crop yields – more corn. A lot of times, that gamble doesn’t pay off because
rain washes the extra nitrogen off the field. Salmonsen says slowly farmers are moving toward
more precise nitrogen application.


“Try and get away from what, you know, for years has been a practice among some people, they
say ‘Well, we’ll do what they call insurance fertilization. We got to have the crop. It may be a
little more than what we need, but we’ll know we have enough,’ because they just didn’t have the
management tools there to get this so precisely refined down to have just the right amount of
fertilizer.”


Salmonsen says with global satellite positioning tools, computers, and better monitoring farmers
will soon just be using the nitrogen they need. But, it’s not clear that farmers will give up the
insurance applications of nitrogen even with better measurements.


The government is getting involved in the nitrogen-loading problem. A task force has been
meeting to determine ways to reduce the amount of nitrogen that reaches the Gulf of Mexico.
Among the strategies being considered are applying nitrogen fertilizer at lower rates, getting
farmers to switch from row crops to perennial crops so they don’t have to fertilize every year,
planting cover crops during fall and winter to absorb nitrogen, establishing artificial wetlands in drainage areas to absorb nitrogen and getting
farmers to plant buffer strips of grass between farm fields and nearby waterways to filter out nitrogen.


Tom Christiansen is with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He says while the government task
force is considering recommending some specific basin-wide reductions in nitrogen use the
USDA is only looking at the problem farm-by-farm.


“We get good conservation on the land, good water quality in the local streams and that will
benefit the Gulf. So, we’re working on a site-specific basis. We haven’t established any kind of
nation-wide goal for nutrient reduction.”


Unlike other industries, the government is reluctant to mandate pollution reduction. Instead of
regulations and fines used to enforce pollutions restrictions with manufacturing, agriculture is
most often encouraged to volunteer to clean up and offered financial incentives to do that. But in
the past farmers have complained that there wasn’t enough money in the programs. Christiansen
says the new farm bill has more money for conservation efforts and that should make it more
appealing for farmers to reduce nitrogen pollution.


“It falls back to good conservation planning, using the correct programs and then providing the
right kind of incentives and benefits to producers because they are taking land out of production
in many cases.”


The government is assuming the voluntary programs will be enough to reduce the nitrogen flow
into the Gulf of Mexico. No one expects the ‘dead zone’ will be eliminated. The best that
they’re hoping for is that it will be significantly reduced.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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