Researchers are putting together an online service
that will help determine nature’s contributions to the economy.
The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports the economic benefits
of the natural system aren’t always considered when developers
start building:
Transcript
Researchers are putting together an online service that will help determine nature’s contributions to the economy. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports the economic benefits of the natural system aren’t always considered when developers start building:
We don’t get a bill from wetlands for purifying our water, but scientists say we might pay
more in our utility bills if wetlands weren’t there to clean up the water.
Bob Costanza directs the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics. He and his colleagues are
building computer models that will be turned into an interactive website. He says the website
will put a price on the services things such as wetlands and forests provide:
“If you are gonna, you know, put a new housing development or shopping center, what are
you losing in terms of ecosystem services and where could you put those things that would
lose as little as possible?”
Kostanza says the website will be live in about a year and a half. It will be open
to the public so you’ll be able to get a better sense of what your local pond and forest
are doing for you.
A newly dug drainage tile. These underground pipes keep the fields dry, but they're also a pathway for nitrogen fertilizers. (photo by Mark Brush)
Today, we begin a week-long series on pollution in the heartland.
Storm water runoff from farm fields contaminates the lakes that many cities use for drinking water. But rather than making farmers reduce the pollution, the government requires water utilities to clean it up and pass the cost on to their customers. In the first part of our series, the GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on efforts some communities have made to stop the pollution at the source:
Transcript
Today, we begin a week-long series on pollution in the heartland. Storm water runoff from farm
fields contaminates the lakes that many cities use for drinking water. But rather than making
farmers reduce the pollution, the government requires water utilities to clean it up and pass the
cost on to their customers. In the first part of our series, the GLRC’s Lester Graham reports on
efforts some communities have made to stop the pollution at the source:
To a great extent, nitrogen fertilizer determines how big a corn crop will be. But often, farmers
use more nitrogen than they really need. It’s a bit of a wager. If conditions are just right, that
extra nitrogen can sometimes pay off in more bushels of corn. But just as often the extra nitrogen
ends up being washed away by rain.
That nitrogen can get into lakes that are used for public drinking supplies. If nitrate levels get too
high the nitrogen can displace oxygen in the blood of children under six months old. It’s called
‘blue baby syndrome.’ In extreme cases it can cause death.
Keith Alexander is the Director of Water Management for the city of Decatur, Illinois. He recalls
that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency required his city to give families with babies
bottled water because nitrogen levels exceeded the federal limits.
“For approximately six years, while we went through the motions of determining what was best
for our community, we did issue bottled water on an infrequent basis when the nitrate levels did
indeed elevate.”
The City of Decatur had to get nitrate levels down. So, they piggy-backed on federal and state
incentives offered to farmers to use better management practices. The city gave farmers money
to build terraces to reduce soil erosion. It gave money on top of federal and state tax dollars to
farmers to put in grass waterways to slow water rushing off the fields. The city gave farmers
money on top of federal and state incentives to use conservation tillage methods. They offered to
pay to install artificial wetlands so plants would take up the nitrogen before it got into the public
water supplies. It gave farmers money to use a chemical that help stabilize nitrogen in the soil.
With all that city and state and federal money offered to farmers, was it enough to reduce nitrogen
to safe levels?
“Unfortunately, no.”
Keith Alexander says some farmers did take advantage of the incentives. But not enough of
them.
“We’ve done quite a bit on a voluntary basis with a lot of great cooperation from the agricultural
community, but in spite of all that, we would still at times have elevated nitrate levels in Lake
Decatur.”
The city had to build the largest nitrate reduction facility in North America, at a cost of 7.5 million dollars to ensure its drinking water did not exceed the federal standards for
nitrates.
The people who tried to persuade farmers to sign up for the nitrogen reduction programs say
many of the farmers were skeptical that they were the cause of the problem. Some didn’t care.
And some were just skeptical of government programs and the red tape involved.
Steven John is the Executive Director of the Agricultural Watershed Institute. He’s still working
with farmers to reduce nitrogen runoff in the region. Today, the reason is not Decatur’s lake but a problem farther downstream.
“To a fairly large extent, the driver for addressing nitrogen issues now is loading to the Gulf of
Mexico. And, in one sense, because we’ve been at this for some time here and developed a little
bit of a history of city-farm cooperation– also developed good monitoring data, you know, to be
able to look at trends over time– we’re in good position to use our watershed as something of a
laboratory to test ideas that might be applied elsewhere in the corn belt.”
Nitrogen from the Decatur lake watershed eventually flows into the Mississippi River. Illinois,
just like all or parts of 37 other states drain into the Mississippi and finally to the Gulf of Mexico.
There researchers believe the nitrogen fertilizes algae growth, so much so that when the algae
dies and sinks to the bottom of the gulf, the decomposing vegetation robs the water of oxygen
and causes a dead zone that can be as large as the state of New Jersey some years.
But getting farmers to change their farming practices when it was causing problems for the city
next to them was difficult. Getting them to change for a problem hundreds of miles away is even
tougher.
Ted Shambaugh is a farmer who has changed. He says the reasons farmers don’t take the
nitrogen problem more seriously is complicated, but as far as he’s concerned, it’s part of how
farming has changed in the last few decades:
“This is going to fly against a lot of common thought, I suppose, about the farmer, and it does get
me in trouble sometimes, but the farmer has become inherently lazy in his management
techniques. They’ve even gone to the fact that even though they’ve got a 150,000 or 200,000
dollar tractor sitting there, they hire their nitrogen put on. Why do they do that? Well, a lot of it
is because they then have somebody to blame. That, if it didn’t go on right, ‘Well, I didn’t do
that.’ Well, we kind of think that’s what we get paid for, is management.”
Most people in cities like Decatur won’t say things like that about the farmers in the countryside
about them. The economic well-being of many of the cities in the corn belt are highly dependent
on agriculture. Criticizing farmers is just not done, even when many of those farmers won’t lift
a finger to clean up the water that their city neighbors have to drink.
Farmers are using fewer pesticides these days. (photo by Don Breneman)
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland. Farm pollution is one of the biggest contamination problems in the country. But unlike other industries, there are very few pollution restrictions on agriculture. In the second story of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Lester Graham reports when cities clean up pollution from pesticides, the cost ends up on their citizens’ water bills:
Transcript
Today, we continue our series on pollution in the heartland. Farm pollution is one of the biggest
contamination problems in the country. But unlike other industries, there are very few pollution
restrictions on agriculture. In the second story of our week-long series, the GLRC’s Lester
Graham reports when cities clean up pollution from pesticides the cost ends up on their citizens’
water bills:
Every city in the Corn Belt that gets its water from surface supplies such as lakes and rivers has to
deal with pesticide contamination. For the most part, the pesticide levels are below federal
standards for safe drinking water. But water treatment plants have to test for the chemicals and
other pollutants that wash in from farm fields.
Some cities have had to build artificial wetlands or take other more expensive measures to help
reduce pollution such as nitrogen, phosphorous and pesticides.
Craig Cummings is the Water Director for the City of Bloomington, Illinois.
“Well, you know, it is an expense that, you know, we would rather not bear, obviously. We
don’t, you know, particularly like to pass that on to our customers. But, again, it’s understood
that we’re not going to have crystal clear, pristine waters here in the Midwest. But, that’s not to
say that we should stick our head in the sand and not work with the producers. At least here in
our little neck of the woods we think we have a great working relationship with the producers.”
Part of that working relationship is a liaison with the farmers.
Jim Rutheford has worked with farmers in the area on soil conservation issues for decades. He’s
showing me the artificial wetlands that the City of Bloomington is monitoring to see if it can help
reduce some of the contaminants that end up in the city’s water supply. The wetlands reduce
nitrogen runoff and filter out some of the pesticides such as atrazine that otherwise would end up
in Bloomington’s lake.
“The atrazine was used back several years ago in high concentrated amounts. Its effects were if
you get a flush of rain after your atrazine is put on, it comes into the lake.”
Rutherford says for a very long time atrazine has been popular with corn farmers.
“It’s the cheapest, but it’s also gives more problems as far as water quality is concerned.”
Because atrazine has been so popular, a lot of farmers use it and it’s polluted some lakes to the
point they exceeded safe drinking water standards.
In one test during spring applications of atrazine, National Oceanic and Atmospherica
Administration scientists found so much of the chemical had evaporated from Midwest farm
fields that rain in some parts of the East Coast had atrazine levels that exceeded safe drinking
water levels.
But atrazine levels have been going down. It’s not so much because of artificial wetlands or
because farmers are concerned about pesticide pollution, although some of them have expressed
concern. Atrazine has not been as much of a problem because more and more farmers are
switching to genetically modified crops such as Round-Up Ready soybeans and more recently
Round-Up Ready corn. The Monsanto seed is genetically altered so that the Monsanto pesticide,
Round-Up, can be applied to the fields and not hurt the crops. And Round-Up doesn’t cause the
kind of water pollution that atrazine does.
Mike Kelly is a farmer who’s concerned about reducing storm water runoff from farm fields.
“A lot of the herbicides that we’re using attack the plant, not the soil. For example, Round-Up
does not hang around in the soil. Now, I do still use atrazine. It does attach to soil particles. But
there’s where the advantage of no-till–the soil staying put in the field–as you said, we’re not
getting as much erosion, so it stays put and breaks down the way it’s supposed to.”
Kelly use a conservation tillage method that doesn’t plow up the soil the way traditional methods
do. That means less soil erosion so pesticides aren’t as likely to end up in waterways. And Kelly says low-till and no-till methods are beginning to get a hand from nature:
“Definitely conservation tillage and no-till is going to help keep herbicides in the field. Again, he
do see increased infiltration through better soil structure and also through earthworms coming
back, creating holes about the size of a pencil three to four feet deep in our soils. That is a nice
avenue for water to infiltrate rather than run off.”
And if more of the water percolates down into the soil, less of it is going to end up polluting
water supplies such as the City of Bloomington’s lake.
Water Director Craig Cummings says they city encourages voluntary efforts like Mike Kelly’s.
Cummings says the city depends on the farming community too much to point a finger, accusing
farmers of pollution.
“We recognize that we’re in the breadbasket of the world here. And we’re going to see with the
kind of agricultural practices that we have here in the Midwest or United States, we’re going to
see some of these contaminants.”
Cummings says it’s not a matter of eliminating pesticide contamination at the source, but
rather a matter of the city keeping levels low enough that the water is safe to drink.
A mosquito taking a blood meal. Only a tiny fraction carry West Nile virus, but health officials say it's best to avoid being bitten. (Photo by Lester Graham)
At the Binder Park Zoo in Battle Creek, Michigan, Jenny Barnett says they protect their birds and horses with a vaccine for West Nile virus. So far there is no vaccine for humans. (Photo by Lester Graham)
With above normal rain in much of the country this spring… mosquitoes have been heavier in many areas. The quick warm up after a cool spring has also helped hatch out a lot of the pests. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports you only have to step out your door to see the result:
Transcript
With above normal rain in much of the country this spring mosquitoes have been heavier in many
areas. The quick warm up after a cool spring has also helped hatch out a lot of the pests. The
GLRC’s Lester Graham reports you only have to step out your door to see the result:
It’s not so much hot days, but the fact that the nights are warmer that’s helping the skeeter broods
hatch out in hordes. I’ve been painfully aware of the mosquitoes this year because I live right next
to a river in a year where there’s been plenty of rain to make little pools of stagnant water
everywhere. It’s a real nuisance.
(sound of mosquitoes)
“I’m in a very hot car and a lot of mosquitoes are trapped in here with me.
(pause) All these mosquitoes got here, just because I opened my hatchback and took
some groceries out, and they just swarmed in.”
(sound continues… smack!)
I don’t like ‘em much. Most people don’t have a very high tolerance for mosquitoes. They’ve
actually studied that. John Witter is a biologist with the University of Michigan who spends a lot of
time in the woods, studying bugs. He says there was a Michigan State University study that tracked
interaction of people and mosquitoes while camping.
“If you have more than about four mosquitoes landing on your body per minute, the people leave
the hiking trail. They go back to their campers because they just cannot handle that annoyance.
So, higher population numbers of mosquitoes, more bites, more annoyance.”
But not everyone, or everything, can get away from the pests. Jenny Barnett works at the Binder
Park Zoo in Battle Creek, Michigan. The zoo is in the middle of a forest. The mosquitoes love it
there.
(sound of birds)
The zoo’s tried to use different kinds of fumigation in past years, but with sensitive animals and birds
like the ones we’re watching there was a lot of concern; and really it just didn’t work.
“With 430 acres and a lot of it being wetland, we didn’t even make a dent on it. So, after a couple
of years, we stopped doing anything.”
The mosquitoes weren’t always that bad, and guests at the zoo didn’t seem to mind that much. A
little mosquito repellant and everyone was good to go.
Then along came West Nile virus. Like a lot of zoos, Binder Park put its birds inside – not good for
the birds – not good for the people who wanted to see the birds. A couple of years after West Nile
was detected, a vaccine that was developed for horses and it was used on birds, too. Jenny Barnett says it
seems to work.
“So far we’ve had success with it and we are continuing to do testing on their blood to check for
West Nile virus and we’ve been successful so far, but we will continue to vaccinate. We’ll
vaccinate our horses, and we’ll always worry about it, but a lot of the birds do have immunities right
now.”
And it’s assumed a lot of people also have immunity to the West Nile virus. They probably have been
infected and didn’t even know it. People with immune deficiencies are at much greater risk, but
many healthy adults can contract it and dismiss it as a summer cold or bad allergies, but health
officials say do what you can to avoid being bitten. Now, they’re not saying that you shouldn’t go
outside. They’re just saying if you do go outside, you should use a mosquito repellant with DEET.
Natasha Davidson is with the Health Department in Ingham County Michigan. She says don’t
douse yourself in repellant. A light spray will do.
“And if you’re applying it to your face, you should really put it on your hands first and then apply it.
And even applying it to children, it’s better an adult put on their hands first and then apply it to a
child.”
Davidson says don’t use DEET on children six months of age and younger, and don’t put it on
toddler’s hands because they’ll just put them in their mouths. Ugh… not good to ingest DEET.
Some advise using a cream based repellant because it doesn’t go into the skin as easily, and stays
on the surface where it can do some good. It’s also a good idea to wear loose fitting clothes with
long sleeves and long pants. I know it’s hot, but it beats scratching mosquito bites for days on end.
Natasha Davidson says even on heavy mosquito years like this one you can help reduce your
exposure to the pest.
“Other things that people can do is to make sure they have no standing water in their yard,
whether it’s at home or at a vacation property. Empty your gutters. Make sure that they’re clean
so that the water flows through. Make sure that you don’t have flower pots that have standing
water in it, old tires, different things like that. If you have a bird bath, change the water in the bird
bath once a week.”
Beyond that there’s not much you can do. Mosquitoes aren’t going away and with a little
preparation…
You might be seeing more mosquitoes this year. Conditions are right in many areas to see a bigger than normal crop of mosquitoes. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
You might be seeing more mosquitoes this year. Conditions are right in many areas to see a
bigger than normal crop of mosquitoes. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
The mosquito populations in a lot of places are high this year because of above normal rainfall.
Although you don’t hear as much about West Nile virus these days, it’s still a threat, especially
to those with compromised immune systems, particularly older people. Natasha Davidson is with
the Health Department in Ingham County, Michigan where there’s been a bumper crop of
mosquitoes lately. She says the best prevention is avoid getting bitten:
“Well, you want to make sure you’re wearing an insect repellant. And also when you’re outdoors
when mosquitoes are active been dusk and dawn, wear long sleeves; wear long pants; wear
socks. And apply the insect repellant to your clothing.”
So far there’s no West Nile vaccine for people. Researchers are working to come up with one.
They believe healthy people who’ve already contracted the virus and built up antibodies might be a
source for a successful vaccine in a couple of years or so.
Construction along the shorelines can put a strain on natural systems. (Photo by Carole Swinehart/Michigan Sea Grant Extension)
One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:
Transcript
We’re continuing our look at ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’
Lester Graham is our guide through the series. He says the
experts who were surveyed to determine the threats say rapid
development is among the problems affecting the lakes:
One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:
Greg Reisig is standing at the edge of a 20-acre construction site
just down the street from the shore Lake Michigan.
Below him is a man-made pond a few hundred feet long. It was a
dry summer around here, but the pond is full.
In fact, Reisig says the water level is always the same.
“And that indicates there’s a lot of ground water flowing
here…there’s a lot of water in this pond and you can see what
was a whole big wetland complex…there’s a lot of cedar and red
osier dogwood…all the wetland plants.”
There are no wetlands here now.
The site in northern Michigan was excavated for homes a few
years ago.
But now the Army Corps of Engineers says the wetlands that
were here need to be restored. A few acres likely will be
restored. But Reisig says almost the whole site was wetlands
once. He expects it will soon be a subdivision with not much
more than a drainage ditch connecting it to Lake Michigan.
“What will that do to the amount of flow of water going into the
bay? Because of hard road surfaces, hard driveways, roofs,
buildings and supposedly fertilized lawns. What will happen to
the water and how will that increase the flow to the bay?”
The developer’s attorney says this is nonsense. Matt Vermetten
says this land was heavily farmed and mined for clay.
“There are pockets of quote unquote wetland and those are there
because of excavation for clay. So is this a wetland complex of
the nature we speak of when we typically speak of such a thing? I
think not.”
Disputes like this are becoming more common around the Great
Lakes. John Nelson is the baykeeper with the Grand Traverse
Bay Watershed Center. The bay off Lake Michigan and attracts a
lot of people. But Nelson says development doesn’t have to be a
problem.
He says the problem is people don’t think about the ecology of
the lakes. For example, east of Traverse City, Michigan, resorts
dominate the coastline. Along the beach, thick stands of sedges
and rushes extend out a few hundred feet. But the sections of
dark green marsh alternate with stretches of clean sand and white
lawn chairs.
(birds calling on beach)
Nelson grew up here and says this part of the lake was never a
sugar sand beach.
“They’ve located in a coastal marsh. Instead of celebrating and
dealing with that they’ve chosen to see it as they would like to
have it and then change it.”
The impacts of the changes are cumulative. Fish and wildlife
habitat is fragmented. The natural filtering properties of the
wetlands are gone.
So every time the city gets a rain shower all the dust and grime
and pollution are washed right into the lake.
Census data show people are leaving many of the Great Lakes
coastal cities and spreading out along the coastline. But it’s not
clear how local governments should plan for the growth.
Mike Klepinger studies land use planning for the Michigan Sea
Grant program. He says it’s hard to make direct connections
between a healthy lake and particular land uses.
“We are getting more planning along the shoreline than we had
thirty years ago in the state. The number of counties and number
of townships that have a plan has gone up, for example. But we
don’t know whether those plans are really doing any good.”
And it’s hard to implement good planning on a broad basis. In
any area, dozens of different local governments might have
independent control over development.
Multiply that by the number cities, townships and counties along
the coasts of the Great Lakes… and it’s hard to see how it all can
be managed so that enough coastline habitat is preserved.
Great Lakes coastal wetlands filter water, give lots of wildlife a place to live and help prevent erosion. These wetlands are also greatly responsible for feeding the fish of the Great Lakes. (Photo by Lester Graham)
The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes were identified for us by experts from all over the region.
Again and again they stressed that the shores and wetlands along the lakes were critical to the
well-being of the lakes and the life in them. Great Lakes coastal wetlands filter water, give lots of
wildlife a place to live and help prevent erosion. But the coastal wetlands are also greatly
responsible for feeding the fish of the Great Lakes. Biologists are finding that when people try to
get rid of the wetlands between them and their view of the lake, it hurts the fish populations.
Reporter Chris McCarus takes us to where life begins in the lakes:
Transcript
We’ve been bringing you the series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. One of the
keys to the health of the lakes is the connection between the lakes and the land.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through the series:
The Ten Threats to the Great Lakes were identified for us by experts from all over the region.
Again and again they stressed that the shores and wetlands along the lakes were critical to the
well-being of the lakes and the life in them. Great Lakes coastal wetlands filter water, give lots of
wildlife a place to live and help prevent erosion. But the coastal wetlands are also greatly
responsible for feeding the fish of the Great Lakes. Biologists are finding that when people try to
get rid of the wetlands between them and their view of the lake, it hurts the fish populations.
Reporter Chris McCarus takes us to where life begins in the lakes:
(sound of walking in water)
About a dozen researchers have come to Saginaw Bay off of Lake Huron. They walk from the
front yard of a cottage into some tall grass and black mud out back. The coastal wetland is wide
here.
Don Uzarski is a professor from Grand Valley State University. He wants to see just how many
different kinds of microorganisms live in this wetland. He asks a colleague to dip a fine mesh net
into the muck.
“Why don’t you give us your best scoop there…”
The net’s contents are poured into a tray. The water and muck is pushed aside and tiny animals
are revealed. None of them is any bigger than an inch.
“There are a lot organisms right there. That’s a lot of fish food. Lot of water boatmen. We have
scuds swimming through here. We have snails. Probably a bloodworm. I don’t see it. But the
red thing.”
Uzarski says this is a healthy patch of wetland. It’s where Great Lakes life begins.
“The whole community starts here. And we’re talking about everything from the birds and fish
and all the things that people tend to care about more. But without this stuff we don’t have
anything.”
These microorganisms are at the bottom of the food chain. Lake trout, walleye and salmon are at
the top. But this natural order has been disturbed by humans. Only parts of the wetland are able
to work as nature intended. The bugs, snails and worms are supposed to be everywhere here. But
Uzarski says they’re not.
“Look at if we take 20 steps over there we’re not going to find the same thing. It’s gonna be
gone. And where’s that coming from? It’s coming from these disturbed edges. Which were
disturbed by? It was the spoils from dredging out that ditch right there.”
The dredging material is piled along the edge… a bit like a dike. Uzarski says that’s one of the
three main threats to coastal wetlands.
The dikes stop the natural flow of water. Farm and lawn fertilizers, sediment and chemical
pollution are not filtered out when they run off the land. Dikes also stop the water from carrying
food for fish out into the lake… and in the other direction, water can’t bring oxygen from the lake
into the wetlands. They’re at risk of becoming stagnant pools.
A second threat to the wetlands is alien invasive plants. Ornamental plants intended for gardens
have escaped. Phragmites, purple loosestrife, and European water milfoil among others all choke
out the native plants that help make the wetland systems work.
But… the greatest threat to the coastal wetlands is construction. We’ve been building homes,
buildings and parking lots right over the top of some of the Great Lakes’ most critical wetlands.
Sam Washington is Executive Director of the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the state’s
largest hunting and fishing advocacy group. He says we need healthy wetlands if we want to
keep fishing the Great Lakes.
“If we didn’t have wetlands, if we didn’t have the ability to regenerate the bottom foods in the
food cycle of these animals, we wouldn’t have the big fish that people go out in the Great Lakes
to catch everyday. They just wouldn’t be there.”
Washington says the way to fix the problem is easy… but it will require us to do something that
comes really hard…
“The best thing human beings can do for wetlands, even though we really believe we know how
to fix everything, is just to leave ’em alone.”
Sam Washington gets support from the biologists who tromp out into the wetlands. They say
we’ve got to protect the whole food chain… so we should leave wetlands alone and just let nature
do its job.
A blue-green algae bloom. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The experts who identified the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes for us
say nonpoint source pollution is one of the worst threats. That’s
pollution that doesn’t come out of a pipe but instead is washed from
streets and farm fields… and lawns. Americans use at least three million of tons
of fertilizer on their lawns every year. But the same compounds that make for a lush,
green lawn can make a stinky, slimy mess when they get washed into lakes and rivers.
Sarah Hulett looks at efforts to limit the amount of lawn chemicals that make their way
into the waterways:
Transcript
In our series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes, we’ve been looking
at environmental problems affecting the health of the lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is guiding us through the
issues one-by-one:
The experts who identified the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes for us
say nonpoint source pollution is one of the worst threats. That’s
pollution that doesn’t come out of a pipe but instead is washed from
streets and farm fields… and lawns. Americans use at least three million of tons
of fertilizer on their lawns every year. But the same compounds that make for a lush,
green lawn can make a stinky, slimy mess when they get washed into lakes and rivers.
Sarah Hulett looks at efforts to limit the amount of lawn chemicals that make their way
into the waterways:
When newspaper headlines decried the death of Lake Erie in the 1970’s, Americans got
familiar with a new enemy of the environment. Scientists named phosphorus the major
culprit in the lake’s decline. And the reaction went a long way toward cleaning up the
lake: billions of dollars went into upgrades for wastewater treatment plants to reduce
phosphorus from sewage. And phosphate detergents have been mostly phased out of use.
But now that regulators have gotten a handle on the phosphorus coming from the most
obvious sources, they’re left with a much more difficult task: reducing phosphorus from
countless smaller sources that together add up to a lot of pollution.
One of those sources is lawn fertilizer. And Glenn Short says it’s easy to see what
happens when that fertilizer gets washed into the lake where he lives.
(sound of ducks quacking and waves)
“You have this, like, green slime floating all over the top of the lake water. Just pops up
everywhere and it can fill the entire lake surface – especially in the calmer bays. It can be
just miserable for swimming and things like that.”
Short sits on the board of the Lake Sherwood Association, in southeast Michigan. His
neighbors asked him to lobby the township to pass a ban on phosphorus fertilizer to
reduce the algae that takes over the lake in the summers. But he says at first, he was
reluctant to do it.
“I’m like any other homeowner. I don’t want government telling me what to do with my
own property. If I want a really nice lawn, I felt that I should be able to have one.”
But he started doing some research. And he found that enough phosphorus will
eventually kill a lake.
“Over a period of time, you get more and more organic material growing, you kill it off,
you just start filling up your lake. And eventually you have no lake anymore. You just
have a wetland. Well, I like my lake. I mean, I live on a lake. I like to use my lake.”
So Short drafted an ordinance to ban fertilizers containing phosphorus, and his township
board passed it. Several other local governments in the region have also enacted limits or
outright bans. And the state of Minnesota has statewide limits on phosphorus fertilizers.
It’s an approach the landscape industry calls unnecessary.
Gary Eichen is with Mike’s Tree Surgeons in southeast Michigan. It’s a company that’s
signed onto an initiative aimed at environmentally responsible lawn care.
(sound of spreader)
The company uses zero-phosphorus fertilizer on almost all the lawns it treats. Back at the
office, Eichen says the problem isn’t the chemicals – it’s that most homeowners don’t
know how to use them.
“They purchase from a source that is not educated in what the products are. He goes
home and starts going through this giant label on the back, and most of it might as well
be Egyptian hieroglyphics. He has no idea. So he ends up over-applying or incorrectly
applying.”
Eichen says there would be far fewer problems with runoff if homeowners left fertilizing
to the professionals. And he says it’s tough for the experts to stay in business when
there’s a patchwork of local ordinances to regulate chemicals like phosphorus.
But that’s exactly what the Environmental Protection Agency is asking communities to
do. Brad Garmon of the Michigan Environmental Council says that kind of bottom-up
regulation presents some challenges.
“It’s very difficult to see what’s working and what’s not, and to chart success. And I
know that a lot of the state programs are re-evaluating right now to see if the approach
they’ve been using over the last five or ten years has been working.”
It’ll take at least another five to ten years for Glenn Short to see the results of his
community’s phosphorus ban. The lake he lives on is part of a river system that
eventually dumps into Lake Erie. But he says just like that Great Lake, it’ll be worth the
wait and the effort to see his small lake bounce back to health.
Spotted salamanders - adult and baby. Volunteers collected 14 species of reptiles and amphibians from a half-acre wetland in Ann Arbor, MI. (Photo by David Mifsud)
Baby frogs poised to leap from a volunteer's bucket at the new man-made wetland. (Photo by Rachel Osborn)
One of several rare hybrid salamanders found at the original wetland site by herpetologist Dave Mifsud. The salamander was first thought to be the state endangered small-mouthed salamander. Genetic testing found the salamander was a hybrid of the Jefferson salamander and blue-spotted salamander. (Photo by David Mifsud)
A lot of new shopping centers and subdivisions have wetlands
at their edges. Sometimes those wetlands are as new as the buildings next to them. Developers often build new ponds when they drain and fill existing wetlands. But experts point out that many man-made wetlands can’t match up to the ecosystems that evolved over hundreds or thousands of years. One group of people is trying something it hopes will be more successful: they’re moving a wetland, piece by little tiny piece. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has the story:
Transcript
A lot of new shopping centers and subdivisions have wetlands at their edges.
Sometimes those wetlands are as new as the buildings next to them.
Developers often build new ponds when they drain and fill existing wetlands.
But experts point out that many man-made wetlands can’t match up to the
ecosystems that evolved over hundreds or thousands of years. One group of
people is trying something it hopes will be more successful: they’re moving
a wetland, piece by little tiny piece. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams has the story:
Making a new wetland might not seem that hard. You need certain things – a
big hole in the ground, water, plants, some frogs, some snakes. But wetland
ecologists will tell you that it’s hard to get a man-made wetland to be a
replica of a natural one.
But this group of people is giving it a try. Volunteers are leaping after
baby frogs and snakes at the edge of a wetland in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“He’s fast, look at him go!”
They’re scooping the animals up and putting them in buckets to move them to
a new manmade wetland. The original wetland is small – just half an acre –
but it’s teeming with life. It’s also sitting right where a new high
school is going to be built.
Saving the frogs and snakes and newts is turning out to be a lot of work.
The group’s caught about five thousand adults and babies in all during the last five
months.
Dave Mifsud is a herpetologist; he studies amphibians and reptiles. He’s
in charge of the rescue. Mifsud surveyed the site last year and was
impressed that such a small wetland could hold so many species. He asked
the school district to let him lead a rescue.
“When I first proposed the idea, I was hesitant because whenever I’ve
suggested it in the past, it’s been received with laughs or a blatant no.”
Mifsud says in most construction projects, time means money. He says it’s
hard to get anyone to agree to wait while animals are moved. So, he was
surprised when school officials agreed to the rescue. Mifsud says the
school’s also trying to make the new wetland as much like the original as
possible. They’re moving water, soil, and plants from the old wetland to the
new one.
Randy Trent directs the school district’s environmental services. He says
instead of seeing Mifsud’s proposal as a headache, the school thinks of it
as a way to balance development and conservation.
“It gives us an opportunity to let our students have the history that’s
going on at this site as something to learn from.”
But critics are asking just what the school district is teaching by building
over an irreplaceable site. Ann Arbor resident Alan Pagliere is a vocal
critic of the district.
“There’s going to be a legacy left, there’s going to be a lesson taught, and what are those? You
certainly can’t teach a lesson about the environment by destroying wetlands, but clear-cutting landmark trees. These are decisions that are going to be with us for decades and the people
who are making the decisions will be gone when their terms are over.”
Pagliere says the school should preserve the existing wetland as a living
classroom instead of spending taxpayer money to destroy it and build a new
one.
The animal rescue has its skeptics too. Jim Harding is a wildlife biologist
with Michigan State University. He says moving amphibians and reptiles is
risky.
“An adult frog or adult salamander already has its idea of where home ought
to be; we have anecdotal reports of building new ponds for salamanders
and having them return in the spring to the old site which is now a parking
lot.”
(sound in, back with frogcatchers)
“Oh, I think that was mud.”
“It’s mud, it’s okay… if you’ve got the tadpoles, you can actually just dump them right on the edge.”
But herpetologist Dave Mifsud says he’s giving the frogs and toads a
fighting chance. He says the tadpoles he’s released will think of the new
pond as home. He’s also put up fences around the woods near the new pond. He
hopes they’ll direct the adults back to the new pond in the spring.
“Let’s start releasing the frogs along the edges…”
The frog-catchers’ buckets are loaded with baby frogs. Dave Mifsud’s taking
the cover off his bucket and coaxing frogs out into their new environment.
(Sound of tapping on bucket)
“Come on guys. You’ve been trying to get out of the bucket this whole time. Ah, this is the best part for me! Come on! You’re lucky if…in all my years I’ve seen maybe a handful of spring peeper babies. The fact that we were able to save these guys is incredible.”
Mifsud says it’ll be an uphill fight to make large-scale amphibian rescues
more common, but he says he isn’t known for keeping his mouth shut when it
comes to watching out for anything that leaps or slithers.
The Blanding's turtle is protected by federal law. It's illegal to buy or sell them. (Photo courtesy of Michigan DNR)
The federal government and several states in the region have used undercover agents and other tactics to crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
Transcript
The federal government and several states in the region
have used undercover agents and other tactics to
crack down on people who violate wildlife protection laws. An Ohio
man is the latest person to be caught and convicted by the operation.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has more:
A Columbus man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for illegally buying and selling fifty-three Blandings turtles, protected by federal law. Over the past three years, fifty-seven other dealers in the region have been convicted for illegal trading in turtles, snakes, and lizards.
Jim McCormack of the Ohio Natural Resources Department says Ohio’s population of Blandings turtles has been decimated by wetlands destruction along Lake Erie. He says the thousand or so that survive must be protected so they don’t go extinct and prompt a domino effect on other animals and plants.
“We don’t want to see anything, whether it’s as obscure as some rare lichen or moss to something as showy and obvious and noteworthy as that turtle, to disappear.”
Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois classify the Blandings turtle as “threatened,” and Indiana classifies it as “endangered.”
