Across the country, nuclear power plants are running out of room to store nuclear waste. The GLRC’s Brad Linder reports temporary storage at some plants is decades old:
Transcript
Across the country, nuclear power plants are running out of room to store
nuclear waste. The GLRC’s Brad Linder reports temporary storage at some
plants is decades old:
With no consensus on a plan to store the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in
one location, power plants are storing the waste onsite. For example, in
Limerick, Pennsylvania officials say they’re concerned about the plans to
build concrete casks to store nuclear waste outside a power plant. For
decades, they’ve been using storage pools inside the plant.
The proposed casks are described as temporary, but Assistant County
Planning Commissioner Mike Stokes says temporary storage at the plant
doesn’t mean much:
“They’ve been the permanent storage facility for every ounce of fuel used
at the power plant since it was first opened 20 years ago. So we can’t
always believe that things will be temporary.”
A spokesperson for Exelon Power, the owner of the Limerick plant and many others, says
the concrete casks are safe. Exelon says the casks are designed to withstand tornado-
force winds, or strikes from projectiles.
Some of the large state asylums for the mentally ill built in the late 1800s were designed with the idea that natural beauty has a healing effect. And architects designed the buildings to be majestic… not just institutional looking. In the decades since the asylums closed, their stately grounds remain valuable. But many of the fine buildings either have been torn down or are facing demolition. Some are being partially renovated for new uses. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports on one of the very few in the country that’s being fully restored:
Transcript
Some of the large state asylums for the mentally ill built in the late 1800s
were designed with the idea that natural beauty has a healing effect. And
architects designed the buildings to be majestic… not just institutional
looking. In the decades since the asylums closed, their stately grounds
remain valuable. But many of the fine buildings either have been torn
down or are facing demolition. Some are being partially renovated for
new uses. The GLRC’s Bob Allen reports on one of the very few in the
country that’s being fully restored:
Gently winding roads guide you through views of century-old trees and
rolling lawns that make up the surroundings of this old asylum. Open
meadows are remnants of the farm where residents raised all their own
food. The physical labor and park-like setting contributed to their
therapy.
Ray Minervini loves the surroundings… but he says the buildings
themselves added a healing dimension.
“If you stand on the front lawn of this building you don’t have to be a
student of architecture to appreciate that it’s a thing of beauty. I mean the
proportions of the building, the size of the windows, the pitch of the roof,
the height of the spires. It’s the way that we used to construct buildings. We
don’t do that anymore.”
The four story brick and stone structures soar above the trees. Developer
Ray Minervini says they were built to last 500 years or more.
He thinks they deserve to be preserved as much as the natural
environment does.
“The brick you’re looking at here were laid 121 years ago. The stone
foundations, you can see about 4 and a half feet of limestone, they
actually laid stone into the ground as opposed to concrete.
Those stone walls are 2 and a half feet thick.”
But across the country many of these large state mental hospitals have
fallen into ruin and are being demolished.
Kate Allen is graduate student in the architecture program at Columbia
University in New York City. She studies asylums designed according
to the plan of psychiatrist Thomas Kirkbride. He adapted principles of
care from the Quakers. They include plenty of light and fresh air in a
clean idyllic setting.
Allen has found records for 64 asylums built in the Kirkbride style.
Twenty of them have been torn down. Of those remaining she considers
a dozen under threat right now, and she thinks the Minervini Group in
Michigan offers the only existing model for renovating an entire site.
“Not only are they preserving the smaller structures and the Kirkbride
core, but through the historic easement, the landscape it can’t be
encroached on with development. It gives you that feeling that it was a
community once.”
But the Northern Michigan Asylum barely escaped destruction. After the
hospital closed it sat vacant for nearly a quarter century. Gaping holes in
the roof caused a lot of water damage. An outside developer wanted to
demolish and build new, but a hometown group stepped in and blocked
the wrecking ball. Then along came Ray Minervini with his vision for a
mix of new uses in the historic buildings.
Raymond Minervini is Ray’s son and business partner. He works on
marketing the project, and he says the people who believe in the vision
and are willing to invest in it are making it happen.
“And in a way they’re co-developers too because they’re stepping
forward with their capital to purchase space or lease space to establish a
business or create a home. That’s what makes the preservation possible.
Otherwise this is just a building waiting to fall down.”
The Minervini Group has been working on the redevelopment for nearly
six years. It’s a huge enterprise.
The core of the old state hospital and surrounding buildings represent a
million square feet for redevelopment, and Ray Minervini says that
translates into a 200 to 300 million dollar project… but it’s going
forward without a lot of fanfare.
“We’re doing it in phases, one section at a time, so it doesn’t appear so
big. We are under the radar screen, but collectively when you look at the
whole site and realize what that equates to it’s the largest rehab project
for sure in the Midwest.”
The Minervini Group has completed the first segment of what they call
The Village at Grand Traverse Commons. Already built and fully
occupied are business and condo spaces plus a restaurant and art gallery.
Ray Minervini says there’s still a long way to go, but with lights on and
people in the building there’s a growing sense the place is coming back
to life.
More and more state governments are saying the federal government’s guidelines for reducing mercury emissions from power plants don’t go far enough fast enough. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
More and more state governments are saying the federal government’s
guidelines for reducing mercury emissions from power plants don’t go far
enough fast enough. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Mercury is a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage in fetuses and small
children. More than 20 states are planning to cut mercury emissions beyond the
federal guidelines.
Zoe Lipman is with the National Wildlife Federation. She says many
states are taking action because they feel the federal rule is not protecting
public health.
“Originally you saw movement in the eastern states and now you’re
seeing movement in many of the heavy coal burning states – PA, MI,
even Indiana is still considering stronger than federal rules, IL – we’re
really seeing change in the core fossil fuel burning part of the country.”
Lipman says mercury reduction technology for power plants has become
cheaper in recent years, but utility companies say they’re still concerned
about the expense and meeting the states’ shorter time frames.
Activists who strike out in the name of the environment or animal rights could find themselves labeled terrorists under a new law. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Activists who strike out in the name of the environment or animal rights
could find themselves labeled terrorists under a new law. The GLRC’s
Lester Graham reports:
State governments and activists across the nation will be watching this
so-called ‘eco-terrorism’ law when it goes into effect in Pennsylvania.
You’re considered an eco-terrorist if you’re involved in civil
disobedience against firms that extract resources, do agricultural research
or animal experimentation. The law also increases penalties for crimes
such as trespassing and vandalism.
Larry Frankel is with the American Civil Liberties Union. He says the
new law tosses around the term terrorist too loosely…
“It not only is unfairly targeting some people as terrorists, it’s really
cheapening the use of the term ‘terrorism’ and it’s going to become at
some point– the government’s going to be crying ‘Wolf,’ calling
everything they don’t like ‘terrorism.’”
The law is in response to activists who’ve destroyed labs and property.
Frankel thinks the law will actually incite those who’ve used such tactics
to go even further.
Pennsylvania has joined a growing number of states that are cutting mercury emissions beyond federal guidelines. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can cause brain damage in fetuses and small children. The GLRC’s Susan Phillips
reports:
Transcript
Pennsylvania has joined a growing number of states that are cutting
mercury emissions beyond the federal guidelines. Mercury is a
neurotoxin that can cause brain damage in fetuses and small children.
The GLRC’s Susan Phillips reports:
Pennsylvania officials say the EPA’s current mercury standards threaten
public health. That’s why they announced a plan this week to reduce
mercury pollution by 90 percent within the next decade.
Michael Fiorentino is an environmental lawyer and a member of a
committee that will review the plan.
“Pennsylvania has some very significant coal fired power plants and the
mercury emissions are also significant so it’s the perfect opportunity for
the state to step in and do more than what the federal government was
willing to do.”
Industry representatives in Pennsylvania say the new standards will put
the state’s power plants at a competitive disadvantage. They support the
less stringent federal guidelines.
With three dozen coal burning plants, Pennsylvania is one of the largest
mercury polluters in the country.
Interns for Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania walk along a Lake Erie beach picking up dead birds. (Photo by Lester Graham)
A poisoned seagull on a Lake Erie beach. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Two interns pick up a dead seagull from a beach on Lake Erie. (Photo by Lester Graham
Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
We’ve been bringing you reports from the series, ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes’ which is now looking at the threat to beaches. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He reports that scientists are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly caused by humans.
Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, large numbers
of dead birds and fish are washing up on shore. If they’re left there, the
disease that killed them can be passed on to other wildlife. That’s why
park officials such as Mike Mumau at Presque Isle State Park at Erie,
Pennsylvania ask their staff to watch out for the dead carcasses.
“Our interns do a great job. They’re the eyes of the staff that are out. So,
there’s probably three to four days a week that they’re out on the
beaches, checking to see if they have anything.”
Since 1998, untold numbers of fish and sometimes hundreds of dead
birds a year have washed up on just these eight miles of Lake Erie beach.
Eventually, researchers figured out the problem: type “E” botulism. It
slowly paralyzes the birds until the respiratory system shuts down. Most
of them don’t make it that long. They get so weak they can’t hold their
heads up out of the water and they drown.
(Sounds of walking and shovel)
Leslie Jones and her fellow interns are headed out to an area to pick up
some dead seagulls on the beach.
“When we’re out here doing migratory bird studies, we might see some
and then we pick them up as soon as possible. A lot of times, we get
radioed from different people like lifeguards and they have us come out
and pick them up so that the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of
the ecosystem.”
They find five dead birds rotting on the beach. They bury the maggots
because they could carry the botulism toxin and other birds might eat the
maggots. They shovel the bird carcass into a black plastic garbage bag.
“If they’re very fresh, this one, obviously not very fresh, but, if we get a
fresh one, we actually freeze them and they’re sent off to be tested
botulism, but, something like this we’ll just bag up until we can get them
incinerated to get rid of all the disease.”
The fresh carcasses are shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in
Madison, Wisconsin.
There, Grace McLaughlin is among the researchers who are beginning to
put the puzzle together.
Here’s what they think is happening. The invasive species zebra mussels
and quagga mussels create huge mussel beds that begin a complicated
biological phenomenon. Organic matter collects there, and then decays. It
lowers the oxygen level in the immediate area of the mussel beds. Type
“E” botulism spores occur naturally, but when the oxygen level goes
down, they begin reproducing like crazy. The waste they produce is the
toxin.
“That toxin will accumulate in the organic matter as well as in the water
in the immediate vicinity of the mussel beds. As the mussels do their
filter feeding, they will accumulate the toxin in their tissue. They are not
susceptible to the toxin. However, when the fish start coming down
there and eating the mussels, they become intoxicated, lose their ability
to swim properly and become easy prey for the birds that come in.”
The fish that feeds on the mussels the most is another invasive species,
the round goby. Researchers made the connection when they noticed the
botulism started being a problem shortly after round gobies arrived in big
numbers.
The type “E” botulism toxin has killed tens-of-thousands of birds such as
cormorants, terns, loons, ducks, and seagulls.
Back at Presque Isle State Park, Mike Mumau says it’s terrible to see so
many birds die.
“We just do our best on our end to stop the botulism cycle. When we
can, provide samples, and also, keep it a positive recreational experience
for all our visitors. They don’t want to see birds decomposing and
rotting out on the beaches, so we’re pretty diligent with that.”
Researchers say that’s about the best that can be done. Since ocean-
going vessels brought zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and round gobies
to the Great Lakes, all three of the invasive species have flourished. It
will likely be a long time before we’ll ever begin to understand the full
extent of the damage to the native wildlife of the lakes.
In the forefront, Evelyn Kolojejchick, Ivan Pettit, and John Lundquist help to improve water quality as part of the Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement. (Photo by John
Kolojejchick)
These senior volunteers help their environmental communities by searching for abandoned oil wells, which can leak oil into the ground. (Photo by John Kolojejchick)
Environmental work isn’t just for young professionals anymore. Retired engineers, former biology teachers, and others with time on their hands are working on environmental problems as volunteers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jennifer Szweda Jordan reports on how senior citizens are keeping environmentally active:
Transcript
Environmental work isn’t just for young professionals anymore.
Retired engineers, former biology teachers, and others with time on their hands are working on
environmental problems as volunteers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jennifer Szweda Jordan
reports on how senior citizens are keeping environmentally active:
(Sound of bird)
75-year-old Ivan Pettit is officially retired from his job as an environmental regulator, but he
hasn’t stopped monitoring streams, promoting recycling, and solving a nagging safety issue in his
state.
(Sound of walking)
On a sunny day in Oil Creek State Park in northeast Pennsylvania, he drops a stone down a corroded
pipe.
“Okay, go.”
(Sound of rattling, splash)
Pettit is estimating the depth of this remnant of an old oil well. It’s one of thousands of
abandoned oil wells in this region. The wells date as far back as 1859. Pettit and a team of senior
volunteers regularly hunt for old wells. The seniors’ work improves water quality and safety for
hikers and hunters, and Pettit says it helps keeps him fit.
“It is work that I have always enjoyed doing as well as getting you outdoors and being able to
observe the things that’s going on around you, that is not a sedentary task whatsoever.”
Pettit belongs to the national Environmental Alliance for Senior Involvement. The group claims
members as young as fifty-five. Pennsylvania has the third highest number of residents older than
sixty among U.S. states. Its active Senior Environmental Corps is touted as a national model, and
has been honored by the United Nations Environmental Program.
But senior groups across the nation are working on environmental problems. In Cape Cod, they
monitor West Nile virus. Seniors clean hazardous waste sites in Indiana. Michigan volunteers
install solar water heaters on poor peoples’ homes.
It’s a fast growing program. In 1993, 26 older adults made up the Senior Environment Corps. A
decade later, over 100 thousand were involved in work across the country.
Ivan Pettit’s work looking for old oil wells is the kind of effort that makes a real difference.
Besides being a hazard for hikers and hunters, some of the old wells seep oil into the ground and
it gets into streams.
In less than two years, the seniors have found almost two hundred wells. Environmental Alliance for
Senior Involvement president Tom Benjamin compares that to two college interns who worked full-time
one summer, and found fewer than fifty.
“Most of these individuals that were volunteers know that community and know the area. They grew up
there, they hunted those woods, they know what a oil well looks like, so they have some instant
recognition.”
(Sound of forest)
Every other week, from spring to fall, the well hunters line up horizontally, twenty feet apart,
and comb a section of forest. Some well holes are several feet across and twenty feet deep. Others
have narrow openings, but drop as deep as a thousand feet. Evelyn Kolojejchick and her husband John
lead Ivan Pettit and other volunteers in seeking out the wells and marking coordinates.
“Ok, longitude is?”
“Seventy-Nine.”
For both Evelyn and John Kolojejchick, well-hunting and other environmental projects are an
extension of teaching high school science for thirty years. Evelyn once aimed to spark interest in
many young minds. Now she feels she’s working on a smaller scale, but hopes to remain effective.
“I belong to Audubon, used to belong to a lot of other environmental organizations and it just
seemed like you needed… you needed to do something that was going to make a difference. I never
had any money to donate to all of these causes and you just you know, you want to do something that
an individual can do.”
Recently, the seniors saw results of well-hunting. They found sensitive species in a stream that
had once been polluted. Several oil wells nearby had been sealed with cement to keep acid mine
drainage out of the water.
“The first year we tested it for aquatic life, there was almost nothing there. And yesterday when
we were there, we had better diversity in that stream than we have in some of our streams that we
test all along that we know don’t have those kinds of problems. So they have made a significant
difference on that stream by plugging those wells. It’s remarkable.”
And it’s the kind of reward that these senior citizen volunteers had hoped for: making a difference
Not only are birds affected by Type E Botulism, but fish are also killed by it. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Ray Bierbower and a colleague pick up a dead seagull at Presque Isle State Park near Erie, Pennsylvania. Tens of thousands of birds on Lakes Erie, Ontario and Huron have died from botulism poisoning. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some of the seagulls that have been nursed back to health after becoming sick from botulism poisoning. (Photo by Lester Graham)
For several years now, a strain of botulism has been killing shorebirds along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Tens of thousands of birds have died on Lake Erie in the last several years. But there’s one place where some sick birds are taken to be nursed back to health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
For several years now, a strain of botulism has been killing shorebirds along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Tens of thousands of birds have died on Lake Erie in the last several years. But, there’s one place where some sick birds are taken to be nursed back to health. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
(Sound of an engine)
We’re crawling along sand dunes in a three-wheeled cart. Ray Bierbower is taking me to Gull Point. It’s an area on a spit of land called Presque Isle that juts out into Lake Erie at Erie, Pennsylvania. This area is part of a state park that gets four million visitors every year. But here, except for birds, it’s deserted.
“A lot of the shorebirds come through here, migrating, and they want to leave it alone. It’s shut off to the public. Basically, there’s just a select few that are allowed out in this area and we’re one of the groups that are allowed.”
We’re here to pick up some dead birds. A couple of years ago you might have found dozens of dead birds at a time. Today, only five seagulls. Well, parts of them: two heads and some rotting carcasses.
“We haven’t been out here for two weeks. So, this is not too bad considering before.”
If these birds are like hundreds of others tested, they died from botulism poisoning. Researchers are figuring out how the botulism got into the food chain. The theory is that massive beds of zebra mussels and quagga mussels – both invasive species brought into the Great Lakes in the ballast water of ocean going ships – are causing conditions that rob oxygen on the bottom of the Lakes.
That encourages botulism bacteria to flourish and give off toxins. The mussels aren’t hurt by them, but round gobies, another invasive species, eat the mussels. When they get sick, they become easy pickings for the birds. Then, the birds get sick.
Sometimes, Ray Bierbower and his fellow summer interns find a bird that’s sick, but not beyond saving. The state park doesn’t have the facilities to help the birds, so they take them to a wild bird rehabilitation center in town.
The center, called Wild Wings is looks like some of the other two story houses in this blue-collar neighborhood. But once you’re inside, there’s no doubt that you’re in the right place.
(Sound of birds)
A man is dropping off four tiny wrens from the nest. Their mother stopped coming to feed them and he figures a cat must have killed her.
Wild Wing’s director, Wendy Campbell, takes them in. She’s a whirlwind of activity as she flits from cage to cage. She makes sure birds have water. She gives some of them medicine. And now with the tiny wrens here she makes sure they don’t miss feeding time.
In the basement, chickens, crows, an owl, and some pigeons are separated by chicken wire walls. She checks on a couple of seagulls in one the pens. Campbell is helping them recover from botulism poisoning.
“What you do is provide them with supportive care. You want to keep the birds out of sunlight, because sunlight perpetuates botulism toxin. And by re-fluiding them, because they’re usually dehydrated. And a lot of times, too, we can use Phillips Milk of Magnesia because that binds with botulism toxin and draws it out of their system. And many of the birds recover.”
Campbell says after she’s sure they’re fully recovered, she’ll release these gulls back into the wild.
“There’s no danger of them spreading it, because I’ve asked the Wildlife Health Center to make sure that I could release these birds that have recovered from botulism that they weren’t now going to be carrying it. And he said absolutely not. It’s out of their system.”
Wendy Campbell is quick to add that it doesn’t mean that the gulls can’t contract the botulism toxin again. Campbell says if this were a natural phenomenom, she would let nature take its course. But it’s not; humans brought the zebra mussels and quagga mussels that are causing the problem in the Great Lakes.
“Over ninety percent of the time, it’s as a result of human activities. We don’t believe in interfering with nature. But when they get hurt because they get hit by a car or they get poisoned by lawn care chemicals, that’s not nature. And so, somebody has to help them, and that’s why I do this.”
Campbell says the authorities in her area are doing a good job of cleaning up the bird carcasses along the lake beaches. If they’re not picked up, flies lay eggs, maggots are infected by botulism, and other birds eat the maggots, causing the botulism problem to spread.
Campbell says of the one thousand birds brought into Wild Wings center each year, only a handful of them are sick from botulism. That’s because most of them die from it before they can be helped.
In Chicago, many migrating birds are attracted by the lights on tall buildings. This attraction causes some birds to crash into the buildings, often resulting in death. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Scientists estimate up to a billion birds are killed every year when they collide into building windows in the United States. Now, a group of bird watchers, biologists and architects are working together… hoping to lower the death toll. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lynette Kalsnes has the story:
Transcript
Scientists estimate up to a billion birds are killed when they collide into building windows in the United States every year. Now a group of bird watchers, biologists and architects are working together, hoping to lower the death toll. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium Lynette Kalsnes has the story:
If you call the group the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, you’ll hear this message:
“If you have found an injured bird, please place the
bird gently in the bottom of a brown paper sack. A
grocery bag is just fine. Please put the bag with the bird in it in a quiet, dark place that’s warm. Inside, please.”
That’s the voice of the group’s founder and director Robbie Hunsinger. She’s followed those same instructions herself hundreds of times.
During migration season, in a single night, thousands
of birds fly over Chicago. They are attracted to the
lights on tall buildings and crash into the windows.
Hunsinger and other volunteers get up before dawn so
they can rescue the injured birds before the rats and
gulls get them.
After a morning of picking up injured birds, Hunsinger
has filled her car with brown paper bags containing
hurt swallows and cuckoos. Then, she’s driven up to 3
hours round-trip to get the birds to wildlife
rehabilitators.
She’s even cared for some of those birds herself.
Hunsinger has filled her music studio with mesh cages
and used up all her dishes for food and water. She says she decided to do something to help the birds three years ago after she saw 80 dead birds one morning in just a small area downtown.
“It was horrendous. Everywhere we looked, there were
birds, and they kept coming down. They were still
hitting when we were out there. So you’re standing
there, and birds were falling out of the sky.”
Hunsinger says she found the fallen birds clustered on
the sidewalks just as the busy city began to wake.
“It was rather surrealistic. Especially as the sun
started came up, and people started coming to work.
People were stepping over birds everywhere. People in
suits, people in high heels, coming in from the train
stations, going to their jobs in the Loop.”
Hunsinger says something changed in her that day. She
says she could no longer be an armchair
conservationist.
So, she formed a group of volunteers to help her save
the birds.
But rescuing injured birds didn’t seem to be enough.
Now she’s working with biologists, architects and bird-watchers to make buildings safer for birds.
Chicago already asks the managers of its tall
buildings to turn out the lights at night during
migration to avoid attracting the birds. But it’s
become clear that something more has to be done to
prevent so many birds from crashing into the building
windows.
This spring, the city and the Chicago Ornithological
Society will host what’s believed to be the first
conference on bird-friendly design. Those who’ve studied it say the problem is that birds
don’t recognize glass.
“The glass surface will act as a perfect mirror.”
That’s biology professor Daniel Klem Jr. of Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. He estimates that collisions with windows kill a billion birds a year in the U.S.
“A bird is not capable of determining that that image
on the glass surface is not a real tree. It attempts
to fly to it. Or it attempts to fly to light seen in
the window, as if it was a passageway to safety. And
the bird gets whacked and dies.”
Klem says installing windows at an angle or using
patterned glass can help. So can shades or
decals. Klem’s also pushing for research to develop special
glass or coatings that would be invisible to humans
but visible to birds.
It’s a new field. Limiting bird crashes isn’t part of
building design. Ellen Grimes is an assistant architecture professor at
the University of Illinois at Chicago. Grimes says
architects think about light, heat, power, water and
human traffic, but not bird traffic.
“When architects have approached sustainable design,
it’s been an engineering question. But there has not been a lot of consideration of
the biological interactions.”
Grimes acknowledges the issue of protecting birds
might be a hard sell because it might mean
compromising other design elements. But she’s hoping bird friendly design becomes as much
a part of green buildings as energy efficiency.
The rescue group’s Robbie Hunsinger says we share the
migrating birds with other nations. We have an
obligation to be good stewards of the birds.
“This can be fixed. These our our buildings. And we
should do it. We, by God, should do it.”
Meanwhile. Hunsinger is among a group of bird
watchers pushing for a center in downtown Chicago to
care for injured birds that collide with the building
windows. She’d like to keep the cages out of her home music
studio so she can actually practice music.
Smokestacks, diesel engines, and a number of other things cause particulate emissions, which can create some negative health effects, and aggravate existing health problems. (Photo by Kenn Kiser)
In the summer, local weather forecasts often
include information about dangerous ozone levels.
But scientists are learning more and more about
another type of pollution that can reach harmful
levels even in the winter months. And as the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports… we
might be hearing more about this type of pollution in
our daily weather reports:
Transcript
In the summer, local weather forecasts often include information about dangerous ozone levels. But scientists are learning more and more about another type of pollution that can reach harmful levels even in the winter months. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports, we might be hearing more about this type of pollution in our daily weather reports:
Parts of the region recently reached “code red” for poor air quality. And
that had some people perplexed. Warnings about dangerous levels of ozone are
frequent on hot summer days, especially in urban areas. But this was the
middle of winter.
The warnings were for high levels of tiny particles that federal regulators
only recently began monitoring. They’re spewn from diesel engines,
factories, power plants, and fireplaces. Air monitors in Michigan,
Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Indiana recently registered unhealthy levels of
these particles – some of them for a few days straight.
Jim Haywood says the problem was an unusual weather event for this time of
year. Haywood is a meteorologist with the Michigan Department of
Environmental Quality. He says a high pressure system moved very slowly over
the Great Lakes region for several days. When you get high pressure, the air
below sinks, generating a layer of warm air that acts like a lid.
“So that warm air that was sinking effectively stops at a few hundred feet
from the surface of the ground. It acts like a cap. It does not let any of
the pollutants that are released at the surface pop up through that cap.”
So all the pollutants that would have gotten picked up and diluted by the
wind instead just hung out for days – building up, and reflecting sunlight
to create haze.
Eventually, a cold front pushed the high pressure system out of the way, and
took the pollution with it. But what about those few days when the Environmental Protection Agency was warning about unhealthy levels of particulate pollution? For people with
heart or lung disease, agency health officials say short-term episodes can
lead to asthma attacks or even heart attacks. And they say healthy children
and adults can experience throat and lung irritation.
Susan Stone is an environmental health scientist with EPA. She says
particle pollution warnings could soon become a staple of the daily weather
report – much like the familiar summer ozone warnings.
“With ozone, we have the network in place to be able to deliver those
forcasts, people are used to hearing that on TV, and we are working to
provide that same level of coverage for particle pollution.”
Stone says EPA is rolling out a new program called Enviro-Flash
nationwide. It sends real-time air quality information to people’s email
accounts or pagers. EPA is offering the service through state
environmental agencies. And beginning in 2010, areas that register
unacceptable levels of particle pollution will be required to clean up their
air.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.
