Two-thirds of California’s rain and snow falls in the north, but two-thirds of its population lives in the south.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
One of the most drought-ridden
states says it’s finally found
a solution to its water problems.
Amy Standen reports:
Transcript
One of the most drought-ridden
states says it’s finally found
a solution to its water problems.
Amy Standen reports:
Two thirds of California’s rain and snow falls in the north. Two thirds of its population lives in the south. So who should get the water?
It took weeks of intense deal making and years of debate in the state capitol to find an answer. But the new law is not without its critics.
Peter Gleick is a water expert at the Pacific Institute. He says the measure fails to force users – especially farmers– to account for what they use.
” We will never ultimately, sustainably manage our water resources if we don’t know who is using how much water to do what. And we don’t, with any degree of accuracy. And that’s still not addressed in this bill.”
The deal calls for greater efficiency, especially in cities.
But nothing happens until voters agree to chip in for the plan, with an 11 billion dollar bond measure to pay for a new distribution system.
A Dow Chemical sign on the Tittabawassee River stating 'Enter At Your Own Risk' (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
A sign on the Tittabawassee River, downriver from Dow Chemical Plant, stating to avoid contact with the soil and not eat the fish due to dioxin contamination (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
If you learned your town was polluted
with toxic waste, you’d just want to
get it cleaned up. That’s not how things
have worked out with dioxin contamination
in central Michigan. Dioxin’s been a problem
for at least 30 years, but the Dow Chemical
Company, the federal government, and
the state of Michigan are just now hashing
out final cleanup plans. We had Shawn
Allee tour the area to see the
extent of the problem and what’s at stake
for the rest of us:
Transcript
If you learned your town was polluted
with toxic waste, you’d just want to
get it cleaned up. That’s not how things
have worked out with dioxin contamination
in central Michigan. Dioxin’s been a problem
for at least 30 years, but the Dow Chemical
Company, the federal government, and
the state of Michigan are just now hashing
out final cleanup plans. We had Shawn
Allee tour the area to see the
extent of the problem and what’s at stake
for the rest of us:
I wanted to begin my tour with interviews at Dow’s chemical plant in Midland. That’s where dioxin and related compounds were created: the dioxins were by-products of chemical manufacturing.
After a month of calls and emails to Dow, a spokeswoman said the company was interested in talking about the future – not the past. But the past is the reason there’s a problem now.
So, I start my tour a bit downstream.
Michelle Hurd Riddick picks me up near the plant. She’s with The Lone Tree Council, a Michigan environmental group. We follow the Tittabawassee River and the path dioxins took over time.
“This is Freeland Festival Park. Freeland is kind of like a bedroom community of Midland.“
Hurd Riddick says fishing is a huge past time in Michigan – but dioxin’s made it complicated.
Allee: “There’s a fish-advisory sign right there.“
Riddick: “Right. So, they’re telling you to not eat the fish.“
Actually, the signs tell you which fish to avoid, and how much to eat, or not. The US Environmental Protection agency worries dioxin causes cancer and diseases that affect immune, reproductive, and developmental systems.
“Pregnant women shouldn’t eat any, children under a certain age should only eat it once a month.“
Fish advisories cropped up in 1978. That’s after Dow warned Michigan and the federal government about dioxin in the Tittabawassee River. While the plant’s dioxin pollution is well below federal limits, the old dioxins are still around, and they’re not just in the river.
Allee: “Where we coming up here?“
Riddick: “This is Imerman Park, it’s on the Tittabawassee, too, and it’s very frequently flooded.“
Flood waters leave behind contaminated silt. Dioxin’s been found in the soil of yards and in parks like this. One worry is that kids would get exposed by getting dirt in their mouths.
Riddick: “Those are the hand washing sinks. They put the sinks there to use the hand-washing sink to wash their hands as a way to mitigate their exposure.“
Allee: “There’s the sign – contamination advisory: avoid contact with soil and river sediment. Please use soap and water to wash off soil and sediment.“
Other parks and some yards had soil scraped and removed. Dow cleaned up several dioxin hot-spots in recent years. Michigan and the US EPA want more of a top-to-bottom effort. That might include a sweep of fifty miles of river and part of the Great Lakes.
Riddick: “This is the Saginaw Bay of Lake Huron. As a child, I came up here a lot. I’m sure someplace I have a picture of me near these trees.“
Riddick’s middle-aged now. The dioxin was in rivers and Lake Huron before she was born. No one knew that far back. But residents did learn about the problem thirty years ago. Today Dow, the US EPA and Michigan are still debating a final solution.
“We’ve had many, many starts. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say this is how we’re going to achieve this cleanup, I’d be a wealthy woman.“
Hurd Riddick says the whole country should care about how this plays out.
Riddick: “People need to care about how this process because could play out in your community.“
Allee: “Maybe not dioxin but something else?“
Riddick: “You want to know that that the people your tax dollars are paying to protect you are the ones calling the shots.“
A final dioxin-clean up could take more than ten years. Michelle Hurd Riddick says she can wait that long – if it’s done right.
But she says it wouldn’t hurt if the clean-up got started now.
We use about 410-billion gallons of water a day in the U.S.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
Even as the population grows, the
US is using less water. Lester
Graham has the numbers from a new
report on water use from the US
Geological Survey:
Transcript
Even as the population grows, the
US is using less water. Lester
Graham has the numbers from a new
report on water use from the US
Geological Survey:
We use about 410-billion gallons of water a day in the U.S. But, water use per person is down. And, total water use for the nation is down about 5% from 1980 to 2005, the latest year covered by the report.
Susan Hutson is one of the authors of the Geological Survey report. She says there are a lot of factors affecting water use.
“Water conservation education, a public policy that supports that water conservation, and inovative technology, primarily in irrigation and the generation of thermo-electric power, the use of water for the cooling.”
There are still some problems. Some agricultural areas are using water faster than aquifers can be replenished. And, as we build more power plants -the biggest users of water – it will mean more demand in the future.
A federal judge ruled that if Florida, Georgia and Alabama don’t come to a water agreement by 2012, Atlanta has to stop taking drinking water from Lake Lanier.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
It’s called “the economic engine of
the South.” Atlanta, Georgia’s population
has exploded in the last two decades.
But with that growth has come environmental
problems, like where to get enough drinking
water. Georgia, Florida, and Alabama
have been fighting over who gets how
much water from rivers that flow through
the states. And, as Tanya Ott reports, a
decision in the federal lawsuit could effect
communities across the country:
Transcript
It’s called “the economic engine of
the South.” Atlanta, Georgia’s population
has exploded in the last two decades.
But with that growth has come environmental
problems, like where to get enough drinking
water. Georgia, Florida, and Alabama
have been fighting over who gets how
much water from rivers that flow through
the states. And, as Tanya Ott reports, a
decision in the federal lawsuit could effect
communities across the country:
Atlanta draws millions of gallons of drinking water each day from nearby Lake Lanier. But Alabama and Florida say it’s such a water hog, there might not be enough water sent on downstream to cool power plants or protect the seafood industry.
“I had no idea! (laughs) I didn’t really realize there was a problem.”
Atlanta-area resident Connie Brand says she knew the state was in a drought last year. She knew she was supposed to conserve water, and she did.
“Not taking such a long shower; not doing small loads of laundry.”
But only recently did she realize how big a problem this could be.
In July, federal Judge Paul Magnuson ruled that under the law Lake Lanier was intended only for things like navigation and flood control – not drinking water. He said if Florida, Georgia and Alabama don’t come to a water agreement by 2012, Atlanta has to stop taking drinking water from Lake Lanier.
“The action of a court could create a public health emergency that would probably rival the effects of Katrina.”
That’s Charles Krautler. He’s director of the Atlanta Regional Commission. He says in the past 25 years Atlanta’s population has more than doubled to 4 million residents and there’s no way to get water to people without Lake Lanier.
“How do you decide who doesn’t have water and who does? Our chairman likes to say, ‘FEMA doesn’t have enough trucks to bring in enough bottled water to deal with the shortfall that would exist.’”
It’s not just an issue for Atlanta. There are more than two dozen similar reservoirs around the country. They were built for navigation, flood control or hydropower. But communities are using them for drinking water. Congress might have to step in to basically retro-actively approve the drinking water use. Cindy Lowery is executive director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance.
“If it goes to Congress, which the court case says that it might have to, it could get even more political and more chaotic really.”
Several members of Congress have said they won’t act until Florida, Georgia and Alabama come to a deal. But Lowery says, so far, the negotiations have been dominated by government agencies and special interests like power companies. She wants a panel of neutral advisors and scientists to study the issue.
In the meantime, Atlanta residents like Connie Brand are left wondering what will happen.
“I’m from a family when they grew up they relied on cistern water, and when it rained you had water, and when it didn’t rain, you didn’t have water. So I’m familiar with having to ration and be careful about those kinds of things. But I don’t think my child or people of my generation, their children, have any concept of conservation of water or anything like that.”
Brand says she just might have to step up her own conservation efforts.
“What was it we had in college? If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down? (laughs) that’ll be our new motto! (laughs)”
In the fall of 2007, the state of Kansas made
the unprecedented decision to deny a power company permits
for a coal plant because of greenhouse
gas emissions.
(Photo courtesy of the Energy Information Administration)
Reducing the greenhouse gases that
cause global warming will mean less
reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal.
Almost two years ago, Kansas became
the first state ever to deny permits
for a coal plant because of greenhouse
gas emissions. Since then, there have
been lawsuits on all sides. Even the
compromise the Governor in Kansas reached
with the coal company in May is now
stalled. Devin Browne reports that
coal just will not go quietly:
Transcript
Reducing the greenhouse gases that
cause global warming will mean less
reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal.
Almost two years ago, Kansas became
the first state ever to deny permits
for a coal plant because of greenhouse
gas emissions. Since then, there have
been lawsuits on all sides. Even the
compromise the Governor in Kansas reached
with the coal company in May is now
stalled. Devin Browne reports that
coal just will not go quietly:
The Sunflower Electric Power Corporation had actually applied and been
approved for a permit to build a new coal plant in 2002. But, for whatever
reason, they let the permit expire. Seemed like no big deal at the time
– they figured they’d get another one whenever they turned in another
application.
Except that they didn’t. In the fall of 2007, the state of Kansas made
the unprecedented decision to deny the power company. Cindy Hertel is with
Sunflower.
“It would be like going for your drivers license, taking the drivers
test, passing it, then being denied your drivers license because you
don’t drive a Prius. Can’t change the rules in the middle of the game.
And that’s what happened.”
Rod Bremby is the Secretary of Health and Environment in Kansas. He says
the state didn’t really change the rules on regulating CO2 because there
aren’t any rules on CO2. And since there’s no federal regulations,
Secretary Bremby instituted a state regulation. He said it would be
irresponsible not to regulate the gases causing climate change.
Stephanie Cole with the Sierra Club called it a watershed moment.
“We were excited, we were stunned – however, it wasn’t long after
that, legislators from Western Kansas started making comments that they
disapproved of Secretary Bremby’s decision and that they were going to
make legislative attempts to overturn the permit denial. So victory was
short-lived.”
Since then, the power company, Sunflower, has hired lobbyists. They’ve
helped legislators draft new bills to allow the coal-burning power plant.
The power company sued both the previous and current governor for civil
rights violations. For two years – nothing.
Then Kansas got a new governor – Mark Parkinson. Almost immediately
after he became governor last May, he cut a deal with Sunflower. Stop the
lawsuits. Build only one unit, not two or three. And, most importantly to
the Governor’s agenda, put in transmission lines to Colorado so that
Kansas can start exporting wind energy out of state.
Kansas is the third windiest state in the country. But it needs
infrastructure to get that wind-power to other states. And, in the
governor’s deal, power companies like Sunflower help build that
infrastructure.
Cole, with the Sierra Club, said the deal was very much a let-down.
“Because it is very troubling to many of us who have been involved in
this so long. It is such a disappointment.”
For a moment the battle seemed to be over. But, it wasn’t.
In July, Sunflower received a letter from the EPA asking them to submit a
new application for a permit. John Knodel is an environmental engineer
with the EPA.
“It’s not appropriate, in our mind, that they take an application that
was for three 700 MW units and simply say, ‘that was bigger, this project
is smaller.’ We say, ‘you have to go through a process and make it
very clear what this new project is all about.’”
Now that the EPA is stepping in, Sunflower & the Sierra Club are back to
square one.
The power company is expected to turn in its new application this fall.
The Sierra Club is expected to fight it. And Sunflower is expected to
fight back.
Cindy Hertel with Sunflower says the power company is just trying to keep
electricity bills low.
Hertel: “This is still in the best interest of our members.”
Browne: “This still makes sense economically?”
Hertel: “It still makes sense. What people need to know is that we are
cost biased, not fuel biased.”
Browne: “And, right now, for Sunflower, that means coal.”
But it might not be coal for very long.
The U.S. House passed a bill last winter that includes a hefty carbon tax
and incentives for renewable energy. A similar bill was recently
introduced in the Senate.
If it passes, Kansas might find its wind energy not only beats coal in
price, but wind-power could become the next big export for the state.
For simple weatherizing -
insulation, weather stripping, windows - the tax credits apply to 30% of
the cost of materials, not the labor.
(Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
Tax credits for making your home
more energy efficient got a lot
of early buzz. The promise of up
to 1500-dollars back for insulation
and windows or efficient furnaces
led to a flurry of advertising.
Tamara Keith looks
into what might be stopping people
from taking advantage of the tax
credits:
Transcript
Tax credits for making your home
more energy efficient got a lot
of early buzz. The promise of up
to 1500-dollars back for insulation
and windows or efficient furnaces
led to a flurry of advertising.
Tamara Keith looks
into what might be stopping people
from taking advantage of the tax
credits:
My husband and I recently bought an older house that could no doubt use
some weatherizing. So, I called up Reuven Walder at EcoBeco.
(sound of door opening, people saying hello)
He’s a home energy auditor. He identifies ways to make a home more
efficient.
“I joke around, I consider myself an energy efficiency social worker.”
And he’s been getting a lot of calls lately from people like me – looking
to take advantage of the tax credits.
“Let’s look around the house and you can point out some things that are
of concern to you.”
Walder has all these cool tools, like an infrared camera that can see where
the insulation isn’t doing its job. He finds plenty of trouble spots,
including one in the attic.
“And if you put your hand in this little pocket here you can feel nice
cool air.”
That’s not supposed to happen.
“I’ll be honest with you. When I find these kinds of things, it makes my
day, because we get to fix them.”
Well, not all the time. Walder says only about a third of the homeowners he
works with actually follow through on his recommendations.
“I have talked to numerous homeowners and their primary reason for not
doing it is money.”
He says the tax credits are a great shot in the arm, but, for many people,
it’s just not enough. Part of the problem is, for simple weatherizing –
insulation, weather stripping, windows – the tax credits apply to 30% of
the cost of materials, not the labor. And labor is actually the most
expensive part.
“Our economy is just so slow right now that people are just hesitant to
spend any amount of money because, regardless of the incentive, they’re
still going to have to spend a lot of money to make the improvement. It’s
not going to cover a significant portion of the cost.”
At this point, federal officials don’t know how many people have been
inspired by the stimulus package to do work on their homes. They won’t know
until everyone files their taxes in April.
“It’s definitely driving additional business.”
Matt Golden is president of Efficiency First – the national association for
the home performance retrofitting industry. But he isn’t totally sold on
the way the stimulus package is distributing the tax credits.
“The biggest incentives are for the most expensive fanciest equipment and
as you move towards the most cost effective stuff, you get much smaller,
incremental incentives.”
So, there’s big money for solar panels and geothermal heating systems. And
if you want to put in a tank-less hot water heater or a super efficient
furnace, here labor costs can be counted towards tax credits. Golden says
the smallest credits go to insulation and other simple steps.
“It’s actually kind of an impediment to the type of retrofitting projects
that have the biggest return on investment, bang for the buck and create
the most jobs.”
In my house, Walder estimates we need almost $6,000 worth of work. But,
because not all of it qualifies, I’ll only get $600 of it back from the
government – but we won’t see the money until tax season.
I’ll admit – it’s a lot more money with a lot less of a tax benefit than I
was expecting, and that’s probably what’s giving some homeowners pause.
The Group of 20 Summit is being held in Pittsburgh starting on September 24th (Photo source: HoboJones at Wikimedia Commons)
Leaders of the world’s richest
countries are in Pittsburgh for
the G-20 Summit. Thousands of
environmental and economic protesters
are there, too, and the dissenters
aren’t happy with how police are
treating them. Jennifer Szweda Jordan reports:
Transcript
Leaders of the world’s richest
countries are in Pittsburgh for
the G-20 Summit. Thousands of
environmental and economic protesters
are there, too, and the dissenters
aren’t happy with how police are
treating them. Jennifer Szweda Jordan reports:
Protesters claim Pittsburgh police are cracking down on them before the international economic gathering begins.
The 3 Rivers Climate Convergence says the police have illegally search and impounded a bus supplying food for protesters.
Lisa Stolarski of 3 Rivers Climate Convergence, says officers have sought out environmental groups to hassle.
“I feel like the police are cracking down on green voices. I feel that we are being especially mistreated in Pittsburgh.”
While police crackdowns are typical around international summits, protesters say they had hoped that the city’s signage stating “Pittsburgh Welcomes the World,” also applied to them.
For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Szweda Jordan.
Citizen scientist divers brave the chilly waters of Washington State to count the marine life below.
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
The REEF survey is clipped to volunteer diver Pete Naylor's gear as he waits to dive in to the Hood Canal in Washington State.
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Citizen scientists count dozens of invertebrate and fish species - such as this cabezon - to help professional scientists monitor marine populations. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
As governments tighten their belts,
it’s getting harder for them to pay
scientists to monitor the health of
the nation’s ecosystems. So increasingly,
they’re turning to citizens who do
that kind of work for free. Ann Dornfeld
reports on the growing influence of these
“citizen scientists”:
Transcript
As governments tighten their belts,
it’s getting harder for them to pay
scientists to monitor the health of
the nation’s ecosystems. So increasingly,
they’re turning to citizens who do
that kind of work for free. Ann Dornfeld
reports on the growing influence of these
“citizen scientists”:
It’s the kind of cloudy, wet day that most people spend indoors. But the cold and wet doesn’t matter as much when you’re planning to spend your day at the bottom of a Puget Sound fjord.
(sound of divers splashing into water)
About 75 miles from Seattle, these scuba divers are conducting volunteer surveys for REEF, an organization that monitors fish populations around the world. The data help researchers understand where fish live, and in what kind of numbers. It’s the kind of information governments need to understand how fishing and pollution are affecting waterways.
Back on the boat, surveyor Janna Nichols has just emerged from the 48-degree water. She pulls out her survey and goes down the list marking off what she’s just seen.
“Sunflower stars, definitely, many of those – saw a lot of those around. No sand dollars, no sea urchins. Ah! Ooh! Ah! Here’s an exciting one! I saw a giant nudibranch! A very small giant nudibranch. But those are very cool to see – a treat!”
Identifying fish can be tricky, because the same species can have different coloration depending on its age, gender, or even time of the year.
“Black-eyed gobies were everywhere. I would say under a hundred of them. And – they were mating! Because I don’t know if you noticed, they had black pelvic fins. And they kind of hover around and say “Hey, baby baby, look at me!”
As much fun as these “citizen scientists” have, professional scientists take the data these divers collect seriously. Last summer volunteer surveyor David Jennings went diving in Washington’s Olympic National Park Marine Sanctuary. He was excited to see the colorful tiger and china rockfish he’d heard were abundant at the park. But when he got there, he only saw a couple. So he looked at the past six years of REEF survey data to see how the rockfish populations had changed.
“One of the best sources was someone that wrote up a diving experience he had in 2002 where he saw dozens of tigers and many chinas. Whereas I in a week of diving saw two tigers and just three chinas. so it was a very big contrast to what people saw in the past.”
Jennings took the data to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. That’s the agency that decides fishing limits. Greg Bargmann is a department fisheries biologist who’s working on next year’s catch limits for rockfish. He says even though the REEF divers aren’t as highly-trained as the state biologists, the data they collect are more current and cover a wider area.
“The REEF survey shows a very dramatic decrease in abundance over the last five years. Our state surveys don’t show that, but we have a lot of imprecision in our surveys so we’re relying on the REEF surveys to look for changes in population.”
That’s because the state can’t afford to send its biologists out as often or to as many sites as the volunteers dive.
“We really appreciate the interest of our citizens to spend time going out there and using their own transportation costs and their own equipment to go out and collect data, and to listen to us and collect things that are not easy to do sometimes.”
You don’t have to dive to be a citizen scientist. In Ohio, citizens track everything from salamanders to spiders. In California, tighter budgets mean more poaching – and not enough game wardens. So states are training volunteers to do more work. And across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency relies on citizens to monitor water quality in lakes and streams.
Bargmann says while governments rely on citizen scientists more during budget crunches, he sees programs like these becoming increasingly important for keeping track of the health of the environment.
The famous photo of the Cuyahoga River fire that appeared in Time Magazine. The photo is not of the 1969 blaze, but rather of another fire on the river in 1952. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
Federal and state governments have cut
back on monitoring some big sources of
pollution, and small sources are rarely
monitored. Lester Graham reports it’s a
problem that’s even tougher when state
budgets are cut:
Transcript
Federal and state governments have cut
back on monitoring some big sources of
pollution, and small sources are rarely
monitored. Lester Graham reports it’s a
problem that’s even tougher when state
budgets are cut:
Industry does not pollute like it did in the 1960s or 70s. Today, regulators monitor most of those big factories.
Tom Lyon is the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.
“Big smokestack industries we have a fairly good eye on, but there are a lot of areas that we still don’t have a good handle on.”
Like small businesses which collectively can release a lot of toxins, and farms that use pesticides and fertilizers on millions acres.
Jennifer Sass is a Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says, under the Bush Administration, pollution monitoring of big industry was cut back. Sass says that monitoring needs to be restored and expanded to smaller sources.
“If we quit our monitoring programs, then we don’t really know. It’s a lot like putting our head in the sand.”
But many state agencies say they don’t have the resources to keep track of all those sources of pollution.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)
California is putting together
a huge green jobs training program.
Lester Graham reports it will mean
thousands of workers trained for a
growing part of the economy:
Transcript
California is putting together
a huge green jobs training program.
Lester Graham reports it will mean
thousands of workers trained for a
growing part of the economy:
Last week, lost in the news of wildfires and state budget problems, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced the biggest state-funded green jobs training program in the nation. California is leveraging federal stimulus dollars with state money and public-private partnership matching funds.
“This $75-million program will train more than 20,000 workers for clean and green jobs in the future.”
Green jobs – such as repairing hybrid and electric cars, installing solar panels and building wind turbines.
Governor Schwarzenegger says this Clean Energy Workforce Training Program is where economic growth starts.
“There are still people out there who think that protecting the environment will slow the economy down, but it’s quite the opposite here in California and all over the United States.”
Some business leaders say the green sector likely will be the only growth sector in this economy for a while.
Two-thirds of California’s rain and snow falls in the north, but two-thirds of its population lives in the south. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
