Monsanto has agreed to clean up one contaminated site of hundreds that need to be cleaned up. The toxic site cleanups have been in limbo because of a recent bankruptcy. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber explains:
Transcript
Monsanto has agreed to clean up one contaminated site of hundreds that need to be cleaned up.
The toxic site cleanups have been in limbo because of a recent bankruptcy. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tom Weber reports:
Monsanto contaminated this one site in southern Illinois with dioxins, PCB’s and other toxic
chemicals for 40 years.
Legal questions arose because Monsanto created a company called Solutia in 1997. Solutia took
responsibility for Monsanto’s chemical clean ups. But Solutia went bankrupt last year. And it
refused to clean any of the 300 sites across the country while in bankruptcy.
Glenn Ruskin is a Solutia spokesman. He says Solutia can’t clean up the site, but Monsanto’s
decision to do so offers hope for people who live at the other sites.
“It just indicates that there are parties out there who are still in existence that are willing and able
to do that clean up.”
The matter is even more complex because much of Monsanto was bought by Pharmacia. Pfizer
then bought Pharmacia.
A bankruptcy judge will ultimately decide who has to clean which sites.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Weber.
The Bush Administration is seeking 45 million dollars from Congress to fund efforts to clean up parts of the Great Lakes. The money would go toward cleaning up four severely polluted sites. There are 26 such polluted sites located entirely within U.S. borders. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more:
Transcript
The Bush Administration is seeking 45 million dollars from Congress to fund
efforts to clean up parts of the Great Lakes. The money would go toward
cleaning up four severely polluted sites. There are 26 such polluted sites
located entirely within U.S. borders. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jerome Vaughn has more:
The 45 million dollars the Bush Administration is asking for in its 2005
budget proposal…more than quadruples the amount provided this year to
clean up contaminated sediments under the Great Lakes Legacy Act.
EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt traveled to Detroit to make the
announcement. He says the purpose of the increased funding is pretty
clear.
“Improving the quality of the water… and making certain the metals,
phosphates and any other pollutant that’s there now… can be taken out
before it becomes a bigger problem.”
The additional monies would be used to clean up four so-called “areas of
concern”… where pollution from PCBs and heavy metals are known to exist.
Some environmental groups… applaud the Bush Administration’s move… but say
more resources are still needed to address other issues… like invasive
species and vanishing wildlife habitats.
The Great Lakes Legacy Act was signed into law in 2002… but the program has
not previously been fully funded by Congress.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium. I’m Jerome Vaughn in Detroit.
Some people, because of culture or because of necessity, rely on fishing as a way to supply an important part of their family’s diet. While fish is healthful food, experts warn that fish from lakes and rivers can be contaminated by pollutants. In the first of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups… the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… conveying that warning to some cultures is especially difficult:
Transcript
Some people, because of culture or because of necessity, rely on fishing as a
way to supply an important part of their family’s diet. While fish is healthful food,
experts warn that fish from lakes and rivers can be contaminated by pollutants.
In the first of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating
contaminated fish to ethnic groups… the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… conveying that warning to some
cultures is especially difficult:
As the United States pulled out of Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam war, many people who
had been allies from Laos, Cambodia, and South Viet Nam found their way to the U.S. Some of
these people have always relied on fish for a large part of their diet.
After settling in the United States, they naturally turned to public lakes and rivers and began
fishing. They ran into a couple of problems. First, U.S. conservations laws put limits on the size
and how many fish they could catch, something they were not used to. Second, health officials
and conservation officials began to warn them about contamination. They told them chemical
pollutants could harm development in children and fetuses.
Josee Cung is with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. She says many of the
Southeast Asian immigrants were skeptical. They thought the government was conspiring to get
them to buy ocean fish from stores rather than take free fish from the lakes and rivers. Cung says
the immigrants had never heard of such a thing as contaminants you couldn’t see.
“PCB, mercury, they don’t understand that. So, that’s the big challenge. So, there are real
cultural, but there are also real educational barriers.”
As she distributed fish advisories suggesting that certain fish had higher levels of contamination,
Cung found the Southeast Asian immigrants were astonished. She says they are a practical
people. They feel if that can’t see something wrong with the fish, it must be okay to eat.
“‘But they’re fat! They’re shiny! They are big!’ You know, ‘But they are good to eat!’ So, that’s
the kind of thing. It’s more prevalent than relying on the advisory to change behavior.”
The State of Minnesota had pamphlets of the advisories printed up in the various languages of the
immigrants and handed them out at every opportunity.
Pat McCann is a research scientist with the Department of Health. She’s worked closely with
Josee Cung to try to explain the fish contaminants issue.
“But we found, with the Southeast Asian populations, the written translations aren’t that effective
because that group seems to communicate more verbally. So, in order to do outreach with those
groups, we try to do presentations and reach community groups in that way.”
And so Minnesota took a more hands-on approach. Josee Cung says instead of handing out
pamphlets alone, they started meeting with leaders in the various Southeast Asian communities in
Minnesota. For example, the Hmong, who helped retrieve downed U.S. pilots during the war are
a people of clans. Cung found if they could demonstrate to clan leaders ways to trim away the fat
of fish where contaminants such as PCBs concentrate and show which fish have lower levels of
contaminants, the word would spread throughout the community. Cung also found that it was
important not just to talk to the anglers who got the fishing license – usually men.
“And we go in homes doing cooking. And really check out their kitchen and say ‘Oh, this is how
you should do.’ And it’s most effective because it’s the women that prepare. He hasn’t got a
clue. He bring the fish home and leave it to the women. And the women decide how to cook it.”
Minnesota’s outreach program with Southeast Asian cultures is pretty advanced. Not every
government in the Great Lakes basin is as active. In recent years, the International Joint
Commission, the body that monitors the U.S. and Canadian boundary waters treaties and
agreements, has been admonishing the states and provinces to do more.
Alan Hayton is with the Ontario Ministry of Environment. He says the governments have taken
the message to heart, but finding the money to do the job is always a problem.
“We do have some communications with some groups such as in Ontario, such as the Chinese
community, which is well-organized and receptive to the information that’s in the guide. But, it’s
difficult. We don’t. We do the best job we can given the resources that we have.”
The International Joint Commission warns that it’s important that the states and provinces work
harder to reach cultures, such as those from Southeast Asia, that rely heavily on fish for protein.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
There’s a trend among some Native Americans. They’re trying to return to more traditional diets. Many believe various health problems among Indian populations are due, in part, to adopting a diet much heavier in sugars, starches, and fats than their ancestors’ diet. But they’re concerned that pollution has tainted many of the traditional foods, such as fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports in the second of a two-part series on communicating the risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups:
Transcript
There’s a trend among some Native Americans. They’re trying to return to more traditional diets.
Many believe various health problems among Indian populations are due, in part, to adopting a
diet much heavier in sugars, starches, and fats than their ancestors’ diets. But they’re concerned
that pollution has tainted many of the traditional foods, such as fish. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham reports in the second of a two-part series on communicating the
risks of eating contaminated fish to ethnic groups:
A high rate of Native Americans suffer from diabetes and obesity. It’s commonly believed that
the European diet of processed grains, processed sugar, and fatty foods has contributed to the
health problems. So, some tribal members are looking at a traditional diet of fish and game and
the kinds of agriculture practiced by their forbearers. The idea is that traditional foods might be
more healthy for Native Americans.
But it’s become clear that some of those foods, particularly fish, are contaminated by pollutants.
PCBs and methyl mercury have been found in certain fish. Studies show those chemicals can
cause permanent health problems. Tribes have issued advisories, but some tribal leaders are
reluctant to discourage people from eating fish, even if it’s contaminated.
John Pursell works for the Minnesota Chippewa tribe. The tribe has issued advisories about
mercury in fish. But, Pursell says there’s a balance that has to be considered.
“We have to be careful that we aren’t advising people, tribal members, if we say ‘Don’t eat fish
of a certain size or from certain lakes,’ that we’re relatively certain that what they’re going to
replace that protein source with is not going to be more detrimental to their health. And that’s the
big concern.”
Pursell says, for example, his tribe is very concerned about dioxins. The tribe believes that
dioxins are responsible for a higher rate of cancer and other problems. And dioxins might be
present in the foods people in the tribe would eat instead of fish.
“But, we also know from the draft documents that the federal government has issued on dioxins,
that dioxins exist in fairly large quantities in such fatty foods as hamburger and cheeses. And of
course, these are foods that are found routinely in reservation commodity outlets.”
So, if it’s a matter of trading one kind of contamination for another, the logic goes, might as well
eat the healthier food, fish.
But the different tribes have different concerns and no one likes the idea of consuming
contaminated foods of any kind. So, there’s a lot of confusion about the best route to take to
dealing with the health problems among Native Americans.
Kory Groetchs is an environmental biologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission. He says as interest in traditional foods builds, his agency is being asked for
answers.
“They have questions about industrial pollution and their impacts on traditional foods and, you
know, the balance between risks of consuming that food and the benefits of consuming it.”
Groetsch says the Commission is looking for funding to study ways to reduce the risk of
consuming contaminants. For example, one study tried to determine what size and where to catch
walleye with lower levels of mercury. He says more studies like that need to be conducted so
Native Americans can avoid the contaminants that might be present in traditional foods.
“And then definitely point out the situations where there is not concern so people can clear their
minds of these, if they have concerns, and they seem to, about industrial pollution such as methyl
mercury in fish, clear their mind of that and go back to a more traditional diet and eat in a more
natural, traditional way.”
Even those who are responsible for bringing the advisories on contaminants in fish to the
members of the tribe are hesitant. Maria Mabee is with the Seneca Nation in New York. She’s
an environmental activist and concerned about the effects of contaminants on health. At the same
time, she says there’s a limit to what she’ll recommend.
“You know, I can’t tell people to stop using fish for ceremonies. I just can’t do it. I won’t do it.
(laughs) I just, you know, I tell them about the risks, you know. I tell them what I know and I tell
them to make the best decisions for themselves.”
The tribes stress that the health benefits of fish should not be ignored. For many tribes, fish is a
staple. The question to answer they say is, if you don’t eat fish because of the risk of
contamination from pollution, will the food you eat instead be any more safe?
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
States have been removing old dams from rivers for safety and environmental reasons. But researchers say water managers should be sure to take a close look when considering dam removal as an option because, in some cases, it might be bad for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
States have been removing old dams from rivers for safety and
environmental reasons. But researchers say water managers should be
sure to take a close look when considering dam removal as an option
because, in some cases, it might be bad for the environment. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
This year, 45 dams are slated for removal across the country. Half of
those dams are in this region.
Emily Stanley is a river ecologist at the University of Wisconsin.
She’s been studying rivers after a dam has been removed and recently
published her findings in the journal “BioScience.” She
says in farm country, dams can help trap fertilizers that have been
over-applied on nearby fields.
“Small reservoirs can act like wetlands, and can be effective filters
for removing the nitrogen that has come in off of farm fields through
groundwater into the system, and can be actually some valuable points
of improving water quality.”
Stanley says, in many cases, sediments have been collecting behind the
dams for decades. When the dam is removed, the sediments are suddenly
released downstream and can lead to harmful algae blooms. In some
cases, the sediments can contain more dangerous substances, such heavy
metals and PCB’s. Stanley says communities should be sure to weigh the
environmental consequences before removing a dam.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
Marian Byrnes has been called the "environmental conscience of the Calumet." She has been a key leader in getting the city of Chicago, and the state of Illinois, to see the value of Calumet's natural areas. Photo by Mark Brush.
The Big Marsh is known as the jewel of the Lake Calumet wetlands. It's the largest in the Calumet Open Space Reserve. The closed Acme Coke Plant is on the horizon. Photo by Mark Brush.
Generations of families grew up with the steel industry, and instead of moving out, families often added on to their houses to make more room. These balloon frame houses can be found throughout the neighborhoods in the Calumet area. Photo by Mark Brush.
In an area in south Chicago you can see the remnants of a steel industry that has had better days – silent smokestacks looming on the horizon, empty parking lots, and for sale signs in front yards. The Calumet region was once a haven for big industry… and because of that it is also home to a list of seemingly endless environmental problems. Many people thought the problems were too great to overcome, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports… that attitude is changing:
Transcript
In an area in south Chicago you can see the remnants of a steel industry that has had better days – silent smokestacks looming on the horizon, empty parking lots, and for sale signs in front yards. The Calumet region was once a haven for big industry… and because of that it is also home to a list of seemingly endless environmental problems. Many people thought the problems were too great to overcome, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports…that attitude is changing:
If you’ve ever driven by Chicago’s south side, you’ve likely seen the smokestacks and factories that dot this old industrial area.
But when you get off the main highway and drive down the back roads of Calumet, you see something you wouldn’t expect – remnants of unique wetlands and prairies. It’s an area where thousands of migrating birds come each spring. Herons, egrets, and cranes carefully pluck their food from these marshes – marshes that are right next to chemical factories and toxic city dumps.
(Bring up sound of sparrows and outdoors)
The sun is setting in this part of the Calumet – some sparrows nearby are settling down for the night – and Marian Byrnes is showing me around the places she’s come to know from living and working here for more than 20 years.
“This land is mostly slag on the banks of Indian Creek, but it’s not considered hazardous.”
“How would the slag get here?”
“Oh, it was waste from Steel Mills – mostly Republic Steel which was north of here.”
(Fade her under + continue outdoor sound)
Marian Byrnes is a retired public school teacher. And at age 76, she volunteers her time as the executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force. She repeatedly meets with businesses, community groups, and city and state advisory boards – patiently delivering her message that the Calumet region is worth protecting.
And over the years Marian, and others like her, have steadily worked against a city that didn’t seem to care about the natural areas in Calumet. For many of them, it began more than twenty years ago, when they got a note from the Chicago Transit Authority in their mailbox. The note outlined the Transit Authority’s plan to build a bus barn on their neighborhood’s prairie:
“It was like having our own little forest preserve right behind our houses. You can walk out there, and when you get out – maybe a block or so – you’re not aware that you’re in the city at all. I mean you can’t even see the houses, so it’s just a wonderful place to be in touch with nature.”
They convinced the transit authority to build the bus-barn elsewhere. And in the years that followed they fought off other proposals such as plans to build a toxic waste incinerator, and plans to re-open old city dumps.
But despite those successes, big environmental problems still persist. And the list of contamination is intimidating – heavy metals, PCBs, and leaking landfills. The problems are so overwhelming that when planners in Chicago were thinking about spreading miles and miles of concrete for a new airport, Calumet was thought of as an ideal location.
Kathy Dickhut works in the planning department for the city of Chicago:
“The area does have a lot of environmental problems. Ten years ago the thinking was it was all dirty, environmentally dirty, and that was sort of across the board, …so one way to deal with that is, you know to cover the whole thing up.”
But local environmental and community groups became united in their opposition to the plan. And instead of an airport, the local groups asked the National Park Service to designate the area as an ecological park.
And slowly but surely, the city began to look at the area in a new light:
“I think people didn’t realize just how much opposition there would be to paving over this area. I mean the airport proposal was quite dramatic, and because it was quite dramatic, there was quite dramatic outcry about it – so once that played out – we had to look at it again in a different way. And what we’ve done is really look at the resources that we do have here, which are substantial, and how we can improve those.”
Today, the city appears to have a completely different attitude about the Calumet area. Chicago lawmakers recently passed a land use plan that calls for the best of both worlds. They want to protect and clean up the natural prairies and wetlands – while at the same time – attract new businesses to build on old industrial sites.
City planners hope to balance what may be seen as competing goals (attracting new industries AND cleaning up the environment) by prioritizing where to build and where to preserve. And when they do build – planners are encouraging green building practices. Practices that complement the surrounding natural areas rather than cover them.
Those involved with the project paint a pretty nice picture of what’s to come.
Lynn Westphal is a researcher for the U.S. Forest Service, and works closely with the city of Chicago on the Calumet project: “Imagine an industrial area with the buildings roofs are green. Where instead of turf around – you have native grasses and because of that you have more birds and butterflies… you’ve got bicycle access, people fishing on their lunch breaks…. And it’s not far from becoming a reality. This is all very doable. So it’s not totally hypothetical.”
And in fact, movement toward that new vision is already underway. The Ford Motor Company is building a new industrial park for its suppliers. And many of the green building practices Westphal describes will be used. And the Corps of Engineers is spending more than 6 million dollars to clean up an area known as Indian Ridge Marsh.
But those involved with the transition of this area say that leadership from the community will be the key to its eventual success.
Meanwhile, the Southeast Environmental Task Force will have a new executive director by this summer…
“…and that’ll be someone who’ll learn to do what I’ve been doing for past 20 years, cause I can’t keep on doing it indefinitely.”
“Do you have any advice for them?”
“Have a lot of patience…”
The same patience Marian Byrnes has used when riding a city bus to meeting after meeting, listening to the community, and working with city officials – all in an effort to create what she believes will be a better future for the people in Calumet.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
St. Regis Mohawks used to fish and swim in this cove of the St. Lawrence River. Today, it's contaminated with PCBs from General Motors' landfill, which rises in the background. Photo by David Sommerstein.
The federal government has identified almost 50 toxic landfills that continue to contaminate the Great Lakes and their major tributaries. Thousands more may pollute smaller creeks and rivers upstream. Almost all of them have affected the way people live. In northern New York, General Motors and a native tribe have spent two decades fighting over how to clean up one of those sites. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports… the lack of progress is caused by differing approaches to a permanent solution:
Transcript
The federal government has identified almost 50 toxic landfills that continue to contaminate the Great Lakes and their major tributaries. Thousands more may pollute smaller creeks and rivers upstream. Almost all of them have affected the way people live. In northern New York, General Motors and a native tribe have spent two decades fighting over how to clean up one of those sites. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports… the lack of progress is caused by differing approaches to a permanent solution:
Dana Lee Thompson and her sister, Marilyn, walk along the St. Lawrence River. They teeter as they step over driftwood and tufts of grass. This part of the shoreline belongs to the St. Regis Mohawk tribe.
When the sisters were kids, they used to splash and play in the river. Their father landed walleye and bass for dinner. And when the sisters had children of their own, this is where they taught them to swim…
“…it’s all flat rocks and stuff like that…”
“…And just down there, there used to be a tiny little falls and it was all sand and we used to swim.”
Thompson brushes her long black hair out of her eyes. The smile fades from her face…
“Never knew that what we were swimming in was one of the most toxic things, y’know, toxic pools.”
Just on the other side of a chain link fence that marks the end of tribal land, a hill rises above their heads. Its grass is cut short like the tenth green on a golf course.
It’s General Motors’ old landfill. Drums of used factory oil are buried just under the manicured lawn. The oil contains PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls. PCBs were used as a coolant in many factories until scientists found they cause cancer.
The federal government banned PCBs in 1977. A couple years later, workers covered the landfill with a temporary cap. But the PCBs had already seeped into the water where the sisters’ kids were swimming…
“I get emotionally disturbed. Mental anguish. Anger. My children have a lot of health problems, which gets me upset.”
The sisters aren’t alone. Tribal members who have grown up near the dump have high rates of thyroid disease, diabetes, and respiratory disorders – all suspected to be linked to PCBs. The Thompsons – and the tribal government – want General Motors to dig up the chemicals. And they want GM to truck them away…
“We’re just looking out over the cove. These are some homes and businesses of the Mohawks and to our right is the industrial landfill.”
Jim Hartnett stands on the GM side of the chain link fence. He’s managing the clean up for the company. He says the Environmental Protection Agency ordered GM to do three things: put a permanent cap on the landfill, monitor it for PCBs indefinitely, and dredge the PCBs from the river.
Hartnett says GM has wanted to move ahead with that plan for a decade. He says that would make the water clean again…
“My hope is that as we complete this clean-up, that people will come and use the cove and that it will be accessible and that people will be comfortable using it.”
David: “Do you think it’s realistic that within our lifetimes that the cove could be used for swimming?”
“I’m hoping that in the next two years we can have it ready to go. I’m not talking within our lifetime, I’m talking about as soon as we get access to that cove, we want to go in and remedy it.”
But the tribe won’t give them access. The St. Regis Mohawks say cleaning the cove isn’t the right answer. Ken Jock, the tribe’s environment director, has technical concerns with the plan.
But in the end, Jock says, the disagreement is more than technical. The tribe sees environmental cleanups differently. The EPA plans 30 to 50 years ahead. But the Mohawk tradition is to plan seven generations ahead…
“And so when you make a decision to clean up or to cover up at a site, you have to think is this area, are the PCBs going to be contained for the next 250 years. We have to think that way because this is the only land that we have left.”
The EPA wants everyone to stand behind the same solution. Anne Kelly is the EPA project manager of the site. She has commissioned more technical studies to try to prove the containment plan won’t poison the river in the future. She’s reassured the tribe the dump will be monitored in perpetuity.
“But that’s where we get into a sort of difficulty between our interpretation of time and the tribes. They don’t trust that we’re always going to be here, you know, that the EPA as it stands will not be what it is now. But they know they’re going to be there. So we say, ‘we’re going to monitor that forever’. They say, ‘you may not be here forever. Where are our guarantees?’ ”
Meanwhile, traces of PCBs are still leeching into the river. But the St. Regis Mohawks’ Ken Jock says he’ll wait on a clean up if it will ensure clean water and healthy fish for his grandchildren’s grandchildren.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The Bush administration’s new strategy to improve the environment of the Great Lakes is being eyed with skepticism by some of the environmental groups in the basin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The White House’s new Great Lakes Strategy was announced by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman as a “shared, long-range vision” for the Great Lakes. It includes a timeline for cleaning up contaminated areas, goals for reducing PCBs in fish, making sure it’s safe to swim at beaches more often, and restoring sensitive environmental areas. But an international coalition of environmental groups and others, Great Lakes United, says the Bush administration’s strategy doesn’t offer anything binding and offers no additional money. Margaret Wooster is the group’s Executive Director.
“We’d be happier if there was more of a strategy here for overcoming the obstacles that have in front of us. We can only be hopeful that some of these goals will be met.”
But Wooster adds, without more direction from the administration on how to meet the goals, it will be left to the people of the Great Lakes basin to prod the government to meet its goals.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
A chemical linked to cancer and other health problems has been discovered in sludge spread on farm fields. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills has details:
Transcript
A chemical linked to cancer and other health problems has been discovered in sludge spread on farm fields. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shamane Mills reports:
The PCBs were found in recent testing by state officials; just over half the samples of recycled sludge from 50 sewage treatment plants had PCB levels as high as 920 parts per billion. Federal standards allow 50-thousand parts per billion. Wisconsin Natural Resources wastewater engineer Greg Kester says the low levels shouldn’t cause alarm.
“PCBs are ubiquitous in the environment in which we live now. If you look with sensitive enough analytical equipment you will find low levels in virtually anything.”
Nevertheless, Rebecca Katers of the Clean Water Action Council is concerned.
“The
risk assessment shows that these are not negligible numbers; even from very low levels PCBs are persistent and they accumulate up the food chain.”
Wisconsin has recycled sludge since 1973. Eighty percent goes on farmland; the rest is dumped in landfills or incinerated. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Shamane Mills.
A new study finds PCBs in fish appear to have an effect on the reproduction of men who eat the fish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
