A diagram of a dry storage cask for nuclear waste.
(Photo courtesy of the US Energy Information Administration)
President Barack Obama is
proposing billions to build
new nuclear power plants in
the US. But Shawn Allee reports the President
is also trying to tackle a
problem facing the country’s
old nuclear reactors:
Transcript
President Barack Obama is
proposing billions to build
new nuclear power plants in
the US. But Shawn Allee reports the President
is also trying to tackle a
problem facing the country’s
old nuclear reactors:
President Obama mentioned the future of nuclear power in his State of the Union Address.
“But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.“
At the same time, Obama’s dealing with an old nuclear problem: what to do with the hazardous radioactive waste building up at reactors in thirty one states. Obama gave up on an old plan to bury spent fuel inside Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. That project dragged on for decades and cost nine billion dollars.
Recently, the President set up a panel that recommend what to do with all this waste. That panel’s supposed to report to the President in less than two years.
Meanwhile, spent nuclear fuel is stored at nuclear power plants.
This map shows the distribution of geothermal resources across the United States.
(Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)
Geothermal power plants turn
heat from under the Earth into
electricity. It’s a way of
making power with practically
no pollution. And, according
to a new report, there are more
companies investing in this kind
of energy. Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Geothermal power plants turn
heat from under the Earth into
electricity. It’s a way of
making power with practically
no pollution. And, according
to a new report, there are more
companies investing in this kind
of energy. Mark Brush has more:
The report was put out by the Geothermal Energy Association. They found the number of geothermal power plant projects being developed jumped by 46% compared to 2008.
They say the jump was driven by federal stimulus money. And some state laws that mandate that utilities provide a certain percentage of renewable power.
Karl Gawell is with the Geothermal Energy Association. He says, right now, there are specific places where these power plants work best.
“Well, the best reservoirs right now tend to be in the western United States. And in areas where the heat of the Earth actually comes closer to the surface of the Earth. But, you know, the potential is nationwide.”
Gawell says we don’t have good technology to find new heat reserves under the Earth. And, until we invest in better exploration technology, we won’t know where to find these hot spots.
So every year, dozens of homes are flooded. That's in part because 28% of the entire watershed in this region around Washington DC is paved over.
(Photo by Sabri Ben-Achour)
With federal Recovery Act money, the town is rebuilding its main street from top to bottom.
(Photo by Sabri Ben-Achour)
One component of the construction are bio-retention tree boxes - native trees grown in gravel and compost to absorb and filter water.
(Photo by Sabri Ben-Achour)
Stormwater runoff can be one
of the main ways that urban
areas create pollution. In
some cases it can dramatically
suffocate marine life. It
can also cause flooding. One
small town in Maryland is on
the receiving end of its region’s
runoff. As Sabri Ben-Achour reports,
it’s trying to set a national
example with its approach to
solving the problem:
Transcript
Stormwater runoff can be one
of the main ways that urban
areas create pollution. In
some cases it can dramatically
suffocate marine life. It
can also cause flooding. One
small town in Maryland is on
the receiving end of its region’s
runoff. As Sabri Ben-Achour reports,
it’s trying to set a national
example with its approach to
solving the problem:
Anytime it rains, the ground in Edmonston, Maryland quickly becomes waterlogged. Here’s Brigitte Pooley and her mother Maggie.
“When the river gets flooded with rainwater, for example, if it continued raining like this, it literally comes up all over, and then all the debris that comes from upstream, municipalities upstream, as the water recedes it just leaves milk cartons and trash, tires everywhere.”
Adam Ortiz is the mayor of this low income, low-lying town of 1400. He says his town is a trap for stormwater runoff from all the paved surfaces in the area.
“At least 30 to 56 homes would be under water at least once a year because of flooding from parking lots, highways, shopping centers and streets.”
So every year, dozens of homes are flooded. That’s in part because 28% of the entire watershed in this region around Washington DC is paved over. But flooding isn’t the whole story.
“If a watershed is more than 10% paved you’re going to have impaired water quality.”
Jim Connolly is Executive Director of the Anacostia Watershed Society. He says stormwater smothers or poisons aquatic life, and causes erosion.
“It’s all the oil or grease that comes out of cars, the trash we throw in the streets, the pesticides we use in our lives. Stormwater is the base cause of all the problems in our urban rivers.”
So the town of Edmonston decided to do something about it. A new pumping station is keeping floods down, but the town wants to be a model for how to prevent stormwater runoff in the first place. So with federal Recovery Act money, the town is rebuilding its main street from top to bottom. Mayor Ortiz sidesteps a bulldozer to show off what’s now a construction site on the roadside.
“This is a bio-retention treebox, so instead of the water going directly into the drains and into the river, it will go directly into this bed.”
In that bed will go native trees grown in gravel and compost – to absorb and filter water. The street itself is going to be repaved with permeable concrete to let some water pass right through.
“The water’s going to filter naturally into the water table, so everything will be taken care of onsite as it was a few hundred years ago.”
85-90% of run off will be trapped by this system. But what about cost? Dominique Lueckenhoff directs the Office of State and Watershed Partnerships for this region at the Environmental Protection Agency.
“It is not more costly with regards to the refurbishing and additional greening of this street.”
But this wouldn’t have happened had this community not organized to fight for it. Allen Hance is with the Chesapeake Bay Trust. He says that to have a major impact, many more communities will have to follow Edmonston’s example.
“We want this to become a matter of course in how people build streets, and how they design streets.”
Edmonston will be putting all of its designs, and experiences online for other communities to use as a blueprint.
West Michigan Park lies along the Tittabawassee River. Large swaths of its soil was removed and re-sodded due to dioxin contamination. The removal was part of a US EPA effort to have Dow clean up several hot spots in the rivershed.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
One thing we hear over and over
from the Obama Administration
is that when it comes to the
environment, science should set
the agenda. Right now, though,
the chemical industry is accusing
the administration of abandoning
that idea. Shawn Allee reports it has to do with the science
behind a potent toxin:
Transcript
One thing we hear over and over
from the Obama Administration
is that when it comes to the
environment, science should set
the agenda. Right now, though,
the chemical industry is accusing
the administration of abandoning
that idea. Shawn Allee reports it has to do with the science
behind a potent toxin:
President George W. Bush took it on the chin when it came to the environment. One accusation is that he ignored science that suggested we should get tougher on green house gas emissions.
President Obama’s Administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency is Lisa Jackson. She said things would be different.
“On my first day, I sent a memo to every EPA employee stating that our path would be guided by the best science and by the rule of law, and that every action we took would be subject to unparalleled transparency.”
It hasn’t taken long for the chemical industry to say Obama’s Administration is back-tracking.
“There’s been this notion to get things done, and it get it done fast.”
That’s David Fischer, an attorney for the American Chemistry Council. Fischer’s concerned about new standards on dioxins.
Dioxins are by-products from producing chemicals. They also get into the environment from burning trash and wood.
The government says dioxin causes cancer and reproductive and developmental diseases.
It’s known this for decades, but it’s been finishing a report to show exactly how toxic dioxins are. It’s been writing this dioxin reassessment for 18 years, and it was supposed to put out a draft last week.
But it didn’t do that, and it hasn’t said when it will.
That didn’t stop the EPA from proposing a new rule about how much dioxin should be allowed in the soil in peoples’ yards.
Fischer says that rule should wait.
“If they’re going to base goals based on the best available science, and they have, in fact, stated they plan to, it’s hard to imagine how you can do that before the reassessment’s finished because that does after all represent or should represent the best available science.”
The chemical industry’s concerned because dozens of sites across the country are contaminated with dioxins. And the rule would lower the amount of dioxin allowed in residential soil. It would go from 1000 parts per trillion to 72 parts per trillion – that’s a drop of more than 90%.
Fischer says that could cost companies millions of dollars in extra clean-up costs.
“Again, that begs the question, Why?”
One accusation is that the Obama administration wanted to finalize dioxin soil regulations in time to coincide with controversial, on-going dioxin clean-ups, such as one in central Michigan.
The EPA didn’t answer this question directly and wouldn’t provide an interview in time for this report. But it did say it’s got sound science to justify the proposed dioxin soil rule.
You might ask why this matters. Well, just look at central Michigan, where there’s a large, on-going dioxin cleanup.
Linda Dykema works with Michigan’s Department of Community Health. She creates state standards on how much dioxin should be allowed in water, fish, and soil. To protect people in Michigan, she needs help from the EPA.
“We rely a great deal on federal agencies to provide us with some hazard assessment for chemicals. The ability of the state to public health staff to do those kinds of assessments is pretty limited. They can do what needs to be done and what we can’t do here at the state.”
And a ruling on dioxin levels in soil should help Dykema. But this move by the EPA might cause more problems than it solves. For years, the chemical industry’s argued that the science behind dioxin isn’t complete.
This proposed soil rule gives the chemical industry another chance to say, ‘here we go again.’ And the justification it needs to keep fighting a rule the EPA insists protects people’s health.
A city like Las Vegas is actually cooler than the desert, because of all the lawns and trees inside the city. And a city like Chicago is hotter than the tree-lined suburbs surrounding it.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
Not all heat island effects are
the same. But, Rebecca Williams
reports, NASA scientists have
found there’s one thing all cities
can do to cool things down:
Transcript
Not all heat island effects are
the same. But, Rebecca Williams
reports, NASA scientists have
found there’s one thing all cities
can do to cool things down:
The NASA scientists found the heat island effect is much less intense in hot, dry parts of the country.
A city like Las Vegas is actually cooler than the desert, because of all the lawns and trees inside the city. And a city like Chicago is hotter than the tree-lined suburbs surrounding it.
It’s all about trees. Shady trees cool things down.
Lahouari Bounoua is one of the researchers.
“One of the most simple and natural ways of mitigating the excess heat is to plant trees within the cities.”
He says the key is to make sure the trees you plant are well adapted to the region, so you don’t end up wasting water. He says that’ll be even more important as the climate continues to change.
The USDA reports, this past year, 85% of the corn crops planted were genetically altered.
(Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
The soda-pop you drink, the
t-shirt you wear, the cooking
oil you use – all might contain
genetically engineered material.
Lester Graham reports on a
continuing trend in agriculture:
Transcript
The soda-pop you drink, the
t-shirt you wear, the cooking
oil you use – all might contain
genetically engineered material.
Lester Graham reports on a
continuing trend in agriculture:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports, this past year, 88% of cotton, 91% of soybeans and 85% of the corn crops planted were genetically altered.
That means corn syrup, cotton cloth, and hydrogenated soybean oil are all more than likely are from genetically engineered crops.
Margaret Mellon is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. She says farmers might embrace them, but genetically engineered crops have not really advanced American agriculture that much.
“I’m not saying there are not benefits, but they’re really modest. In particular, I think it’s important to note that it really hasn’t had an impact on yield – which is what we need if we’re going to increase the amount of food in the world and feed more people.”
The makers of genetically engineered seeds, companies such as Monsanto, say their crops do increase yields by stopping weeds and insect damage. The big bio-tech companies say their crops save farmers money, mean fewer harmful pesticides and reduce soil erosion.
Audubon International estimates the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons of water a day. (Photo source: Easchiff at Wikimedia Commons)
This time of year, golfing might be
the furthest thing from your mind.
But during the off-season, golf course
managers get to strategize how to best
treat their million dollar turf. Some
golf courses have a bad rap with
environmentalists. But, as Tanya Ott reports, there’s a budding
green movement in the golf industry:
Transcript
This time of year, golfing might be
the furthest thing from your mind.
But during the off-season, golf course
managers get to strategize how to best
treat their million dollar turf. Some
golf courses have a bad rap with
environmentalists. But, as Tanya Ott reports, there’s a budding
green movement in the golf industry:
Golf courses take knocks for using too many chemicals and too much water. Audubon International estimates the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons a day.
Gil Rogers is with the Southern Environmental Law Center. He says that’s a boatload of water.
“In Georgia, they’re defined as agriculture – which doesn’t make any sense – but that allows them to use a lot more water than they would otherwise be able to.”
That can be a problem, especially in places with water shortages. Places like Atlanta, where a federal battle over water rights might soon leave the city high and dry.
(sound of rain hitting metal roof)
Of course, on this day, water doesn’t seem like much of a problem. It’s been raining all night. I’ve come to the Stone Mountain Golf Course, just outside Atlanta, to talk to superintendent Anthony Williams. He won golf’s highest environmental stewardship award this year.
(sound of power screwdriver)
Technicians raise the reels on the mowers to help protect the wet turf. Williams says it’s been a tough fall. In October, a big storm – they call it the 500 year storm – dropped 16 inches of rain on Stone Mountain in one day. Williams says the only thing that saved his course were the acres of native plants.
“When that flood – literally – came into the property, those plants did exactly what nature created them to do. They fluffed out. Fanned out and really just acted like a sponge.”
When Williams took over a few years ago he ripped out the non-native ornamentals and replaced them with native perennials that don’t require any additional watering. Just rain.
(sound of rain on roof)
Stone Mountain isn’t just using less water. It’s also using fewer chemicals. Williams’ crew is creative. Take, for instance, one of their big problems: wild geese. They can do a lot of damage to million dollar turf.
“We refer to it as the in-and-out damage. The ‘in damage’ is when they’re actually eating the grass and physically tearing the green up. The ‘out damage’ is as they’re walking, well, (laugh) the eaten grass becomes, well, goose droppings and then the cleanup is very, very difficult.”
Conventional golf courses spray foul-tasting chemicals on the grass or light fireworks overhead to scare the geese. But at Stone Mountain, their secret weapon is a 13 year old hound dog named Cushman. When the geese see Cushman coming, they think he’s a predator. Williams says it works like a charm!
This focus on environmental stewardship is paying off financially. Anthony Williams says they’re using significantly less fertilizer and insecticides. He estimates they’ve saved nearly $50,000 on chemicals in the last two years.
How confident is he about the health of his golf course? I asked him if he was willing to put his course to the test. Apparently, some old-school players still lick their golf balls to clean them. Not a good idea when there’re pesticides on the grounds. Would Williams do it now?
“There’s a lot of things in nature that you probably wouldn’t want to eat or put in your mouth. So the golf ball’s going to encounter a lot of those along the way. I would definitely line up with the ‘do not lick your balls.’ I’m gonna be on that side of the fence.”
More golf courses are starting to look at their environmental impact for the first time. They’re planting different grasses.
And nearly 1,000 US golf courses use recycled or reclaimed water. Another reason not to lick your balls.
Peter Baranyai directs Wastewater Operations for the
Sanitary District of East Chicago, Indiana. The plant's
effluent channel looks like a natural stream and has
apparently fooled wilflide into thinking so, too.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
Chinook salmon and lake trout find their way from
Lake Michigan through shipping channels, past steel
mills and chemical factories to make their way to East
Chicago's waste water effluent channel. Then, they have
to flitter through a long pipe into this concrete channel.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
The salmon's last hurdle into East Chicago's water
treatment plant is seen through this grate. It's a
ledge that leads into a 'contact chamber' where ultraviolet
lamps disinfect treated and filtered waste water. It's
a jump of nearly four feet.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
You might not expect much good
environmental news to come from
sewage plants, but, believe it or
not, there is some on occasion.
And in one case, that good news
even involves thriving salmon.
Shawn Allee has the story:
Transcript
You might not expect much good
environmental news to come from
sewage plants, but, believe it or
not, there is some on occasion.
And in one case, that good news
even involves thriving salmon.
Shawn Allee has the story:
Sewage plants are often out of sight, out of mind, and people usually like it that way. But people who work at the water treatment plant in East Chicago, Indiana, want everyone to know about an ecological come-back story there.
I’m game. So I meet the plant director Peter Baranyai.
Allee: “You’ve got this strange mix of some really striking natural areas, rivers and streams, but then everything’s kind of dotted by industry as well, and has been for a long time. What kind of industries are we talking about in this region?”
Baranyai: “Basic steel mills, oil refineries, chemical industries also.”
Allee: “So, when they’re talking ‘heavy industry’, they really mean it here?”
Baranyai: “Yes.”
Allee: “What are we looking at here?”
Baranyai: “We’re trying to look at our discharge channel. That’s the effluent from our treatment plant. This pipe here’s a 60-inch pipe.”
Allee: “You can see the water moving out of it pretty quickly.”
The treated wast water is from nearby homes and factories. And when it leaves the pipe, you’d swear it’s a natural stream. Apparently, it’s fooled plenty of critters, including Chinook salmon.
Each Fall, salmon swim from Lake Michigan, past shipping canals, steel mills and chemical factories – just to spawn in the treated waste water.
Baranyai: “They’re not being too cooperative today because I don’t see too much.”
The salmon spawned earlier than normal this year, so, I only find dead salmon on the banks.
Baranyai: “This was a, oh, almost 4-foot chinook salmon.”
Allee: “Or the evidence of it.”
Baranyai: “And he died.”
Allee: “Again, they’re kind of programmed to die after they spawn.”
Baranyai: “Yeah, he died on the rocks here.”
The government introduced Chinook salmon to Lake Michigan decades ago, but for a long time, salmon wouldn’t spawn here, and birds and nearly everything else shied away, too.
Baranyai says one problem was that they used to disinfect water with chlorine.
Baranyai: “It’s a very effective way of disinfecting, but it continues to disinfect downstream. It’s not selective, usually anyhthing that’s alive, it usually kills. It pretty much sterilizes everything. And that’s how most water treatment plants in our country do that, still.”
Baranyai says in the late 80s, things turned around. His plant added better filters, and now, when they disinfect water, they kill bacteria with ultraviolet light, not chlorine. In just a few years, salmon started spawning – right in the plant. Plus, fresh-water sponges grow in the plant, and herons showed up. Word got around.
Roger Klocek was a biologist at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium at the time. He learned the news from a fellow scientist.
Klocek: “I thought he was nuts, literally. What are you talking about?”
Klocek says you have to understand, for a long time people ignored water treatment plants or they expected them to remove only the worst industrial pollutants.
Klocek: “I had no idea that waste water plants themselves could actually contribute to an improved ecology.”
Allee: “Maybe the opposite, they were putting chlorine in the water or bacteria, if they weren’t disinfecting.”
Klocek: “Absolutely, you know we hear constantly that technology is going to save us and I really don’t believe that. I think we put too much stock in that, but it sure is gratifying to see when there is some technology that makes a remarkable improvement.”
Klocek says, too often, people assume industrial areas like East Chicago will always be ecological basket cases.
He says, sure there’s room for improvement, but having one concrete example of something that works? That can give you hope about what nature can do if you give it a chance.
Experts say beekeeping is an important line of defense against killer bees.
(Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)
Africanized Honeybees – also known
as killer bees – are moving farther
north. The hybridized bees escaped
from a lab in Brazil in the 1950s.
Mark Brush reports:
Transcript
Africanized Honeybees – also known
as killer bees – are moving farther
north. The hybridized bees escaped
from a lab in Brazil in the 1950s.
Mark Brush reports:
These bees have established themselves in a number of states throughout the southern U.S. They spread naturally and they are spread through trade. The bees can hide out in shipping containers. One swarm was found inside the engine compartment of a new car.
Now, despite the nick name “killer bee” – experts say, yes they’ll defend their nest with more gusto – but the killer bee name is just hype.
Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman is a bee expert with the USDA. She says it’s likely that the bees will keep spreading – but beekeeping is an important line of defense against Africanized honeybees.
“You know, beekeepers, whether they’re small or large, are really the buffer between African bees and the public, because they keep pure European bees.”
DeGrandi-Hoffman says – Africanized or not – bees are still a critical part of our food system because they pollinate so many of our food crops.
John Howe keeps bees on the roof of his Brooklyn townhouse.
(Photo by Samara Freemark)
Beekeeping is a growing hobby – there
are even a couple of hives on the White
House lawn. And beekeeping is even getting
popular in America’s largest, most urban
city – New York. The only problem is,
beekeeping is actually illegal in New York.
Samara Freemark went to find
out why some New Yorkers are doing it anyway:
Transcript
Beekeeping is a growing hobby – there
are even a couple of hives on the White
House lawn. And beekeeping is even getting
popular in America’s largest, most urban
city – New York. The only problem is,
beekeeping is actually illegal in New York.
Samara Freemark went to find
out why some New Yorkers are doing it anyway:
When I first got in touch with the Gotham City Honey Co-op and told them I wanted to do a story on beekeeping in New York, they were a little nervous about talking with me. They were worried about a New York City health code that makes urban beekeeping illegal. The city’s worried about people getting stung. The Honey Co-op didn’t want to blow anyone’s cover, but eventually they did hook me up with John Howe.
Howe keeps bees on the roof of his Brooklyn townhouse – which means every day – several times a day, actually – he climbs four flights of stairs and one shaky ladder to get up to his hives.
“I gotta go up the ladder. I’m getting tired of it.”
(sound of roof opening)
“Turned out to be a nice day.”
Howe keeps two hives. He says there could be up to 150,000 bees in them.
“You can see them all going in and out. Lot of bees, yeah.”
Honey bees can fly up to three miles from their hives, looking for flowers to pollinate. Howe’s bees probably buzz by thousands of his neighbors every day. I asked him if anyone ever complained about them or called authorities to turn him in for illegal beekeeping. Howe said his neighbors are actually pretty cool with the bees.
“I give them free honey, so that helps. People just raise their eyebrow or shrug and say, ‘that’s neat.’ They call me bee man. I walk down the street, they say, ‘hey bee man, you got any honey?’”
Across town, Roger Repahl raises honeybees in the garden of a church in the South Bronx. He started beekeeping ten years ago, when local gardeners noticed that their vegetables weren’t getting pollinated.
“The community gardeners were complaining that they were getting a lot of flowers but very little fruit. So Greenthumb – that’s the community gardening wing of the parks department – Greenthumb said that’s because you don’t have enough pollinators in the South Bronx.”
So Repahl trucked some hives down from Vermont, and he says the bees pretty much solved the neighborhood’s pollination problem.
Now, this is the kind of story that gets beekeepers like John Howe pretty steamed up about New York’s anti-beekeeping laws. Like a lot of cities, New York is doing just about everything it can to encourage community gardening. But to grow your own food, you need insects to pollinate your plants. John Howe says banning honeybees is like banning local food.
“The best reason for making bees legal is that they pollinate so many plants. The more bees that we can raise and keep, the more chance we have of having food.”
It’s not quite that clear cut. At least, that’s what James Danoff Burg says. He studies insects at Columbia University. He says there are native bugs that do plenty of pollinating. Beetles, for example, and other kinds of bees like honeybees. And those native species are being driven out by honey bees, which are originally from Europe.
“I think it’s a mixed bag. They have benefits to people, for certain. And from a human perspective, if all you’re concerned about is that your plants get pollinated and you can get the fruits that come from that, it’s a pure positive bag. The negative part of that mixed bag comes when you start to think about native biodiversity.”
But Danoff Burg says preserving native biodiversity maybe doesn’t matter so much in a place like New York. The city’s ecosystem has already been changed so much, and there are other, more wild places where native insects can thrive.
So even though NY is America’s biggest city, it might also be the best place in the country to raise bees. As long as you keep them out of sight of the law.
A diagram of a dry storage cask for nuclear waste. (Photo courtesy of the US Energy Information Administration)
