Month: July 2005

Government Releases Plan for Great Lakes Restoration

  • Congressman Rahm Emanuel speaks at the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration meeting. (Photo courtesy of house.gov)

A coalition led by the federal government is proposing a massive restoration effort for the Great Lakes. Environmental groups say they like most of what’s in the plan, but they’re worried the money to carry it out might not be there. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

A coalition led by the federal government is proposing a massive restoration effort for the Great Lakes. Environmental groups say they like most of what’s in the plan, but they’re worried the money to carry it out might not be there. The Great Lake Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more.


The draft plan from the government’s task force makes dozens of recommendations. The recommendations include spending billions to modernize municipal sewer systems near the Lakes to cut down on pollution, new federal laws to fight invasive species, and cleaning up some of the Lakes’ most toxic spots.


Andy Buchsbaum is with the National Wildlife Federation’s Great Lakes office. He says a lot’s been done over the last few decades to clean up the Lakes, but there are signs the Lakes are still sick.


“So what you’re seeing is you are seeing real depression of the yellow perch in Lake Michigan, you’re seeing problems with whitefish – they’re sicker and leaner – and you’re seeing some crazy things happen with walleye. Right now there is a good walleye fishery in places, but they were depressed for awhile, and the fluctuations are getting wilder and wilder.”


President George Bush created the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration last year. The task force includes several federal agencies, along with state, local and tribal officials from the region. It also includes representatives from business and conservation groups.


Its members say the group’s draft proposal represents a great opportunity for governments to work together to coordinate the dozens of programs underway throughout the region to restore the Lakes. It can also help bring new money to carrying out those programs. Scott Hassett heads the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.


“So if there’s a realistic likelihood of getting the kind of resources and money and brining them to bear, these eight states have to come up with a unified plan, it is a very important point in the process.”


It’s still up in the air how much all this will cost. Environmental groups estimate about twenty billion dollars over the next five years, though the EPA says it’s too soon to put a price tag on the proposal.


Tom Kiernan with the National Parks and Conservation Association. He says the plan is a good one that will make a difference, if Washington and the states commit to paying for it.


“But now we must call the question as to whether federal and state governments will fully fund this plan. If they fully fund the plan, the health of the Lakes and our collective quality of life will improve. If they do not, the Great Lakes as we know them and love them will continue to slowly die.”


The task force will collect public comment on the proposal during the next two months. It also plans to hold five public meetings on the plan throughout the Great Lakes region. The final document’s due out in December.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

Related Links

Report Projects Future Water Demands

  • A new report warns of a strain on water resources due to increased usage. (Photo by Annette Gulick)

Water use in six Great Lakes states is likely to go up. That’s according to a new study by researchers at Southern Illinois University. They say, by the year 2025, demand could outstrip supply in some areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:

Transcript

Water use in six Great Lakes states is likely to go up. That’s according to
a news study by researchers at Southern Illinois University. They say, by
the year 2025, demand could outstrip supply in some areas. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has more:


The report predicts that in twenty years, the region will use roughly seven
percent more water than it does today. That’s not enough to endanger the Great Lakes or most groundwater sources, but it is enough to strain water resources in some parts of the region.


Water use will grow fastest in Illinois and Ohio, mostly because they are
likely to see the most economic growth. Researcher Ben Dziegielewski says there’s a connection
between wealth and water.


“People with higher income tend to use more water, because they tend to have
swimming pools, and sprinklers for flower beds, and maybe even green lawns.”


The report predicts that states with slower economic growth, like Indiana
and Michigan, will use less water in the next two decades. Wisconsin and Minnesota are expected to use about the same amount of water.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Billions Needed for Water Infrastructure

  • In order to provide safe drinking water for a community, water pipelines have to be properly maintained. (Photo by Keith Syvinski)

The Environmental Protection Agency says it will cost more than a quarter trillion dollars over the next 20 years to ensure safe drinking water in the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Carmody reports:

Transcript

The EPA says it will cost more than a quarter trillion dollars over the next twenty years to ensure safe drinking water in the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Carmody reports:


Benjamin Grumbles is the assistant EPA administrator for water. He says
the primary obstacle faced by most communities to providing safe drinking
water is the age of the pipes and other infrastructure through which the water
must pass.


Grumbles says replacing transmission lines and distribution pipes accounts
for two-thirds of the 277 billion dollars the EPA estimates will need to be
spent between now and 2025.


“Sometimes the materials will just break down due to age or other stresses.”


The biggest obstacle communities will face is paying for upgrades of their
existing infrastructure.


The federal government only provides a small amount of seed money for
upgrading local water utilities, amounting to only 850 million dollars this
year.


For the GLRC, I’m Steve Carmody.

Related Links

New Coal Fired Power Plant on Lakeshore?

  • A new power plant on Lake Michigan has some environmentalists worried. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin USGS)

Construction is expected to start soon on what could become one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. Some worry that more coal plants are likely to follow. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Construction is expected to start soon on what could become one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. Some worry that more coal plants are likely to follow. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The Wisconsin Supreme Court recently overturned one of the legal challenges to a power plant expansion along Lake Michigan south of Milwaukee. The company WE Energies wants to build two new coal-fired plants producing more than twelve hundred megawatts of electricity.


Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles says many other coal-fired
plants are on the drawing board around the Upper Midwest. He says
regulators can either embrace old and dirty technology or
move toward a more innovative system.


“That we know is available today, whether it’s burning
coal, natural gas, or the opportunity to build new wind farms across
the Upper Midwest, those are the choices we’re facing.”


The owners of the Wisconsin power plant say they will use modern
technology to hold down certain types of air pollution and minimize
the harm to aquatic life in Lake Michigan.


Environmental groups are still challenging some of the plant’s air and water permits.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Second Annex 2001 Draft Released

  • A second draft of an international water agreement deals with the diversion of water from the Great Lakes basin. (Photo courtesy of Indiana DNR)

The second draft of the Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements
has been released. The document will ultimately dictate how water from the Great Lakes will be used. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

The second draft of the annex 2001 implementing agreements has been
released. The document will ultimately dictate how water from the Great
Lakes will be used. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley
reports:


More than ten thousand public comments were received after the first draft
was released, many of them about conservation and diversion of water
outside the Great Lakes basin.


As a result, this version strengthens water conservation measures for new
and existing users. It also bans diversion to communities outside the
basin except in limited circumstances.


Sam Speck is chair of the water management working group. The group in
charge of drafting the Annex. He says the measure is far from complete.


“Really none of the governors or premiers have said, ‘We think this is the perfect
document that we would like to have put before us to sign in its final form
today.’ It’s a work in progress.”


Speck says lots of compromise has had to occur to get this far in the
process. He says the effort is breaking new ground, as nothing like the
Annex 2001 has been written before.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina
Shockley.


HOST TAG: The public can now review this second draft until August 29th. It will
then go back to the Great Lakes governors and Canadian premiers.

Related Links

Capturing Wasted Methane From Landfills

  • A landfill is full of things people don't consider useful anymore. One group begs to differ. (Photo by Roberto Burgos S.)

The landfill is often seen as the end of the line… the burial ground of our trash. But one company says there’s still something to gain from that buried garbage. It’s planning to build a new plant to retrieve one final product from all of our trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kasler has the story:

Transcript

The landfill is often seen as the end of the line… the burial ground of our
trash. But one company says there’s still something to gain from that buried
garbage. It’s planning to build a new plant to retrieve one final product from
all of our trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kasler has the
story:


You probably don’t think of landfills as “green.” But Steve Wilburn does.
Wilburn is the president of FirmGreen. He says he knows different ways to
turn byproducts of landfills into useful energy.


First, capture the methane that’s produced when all that garbage stews
underground. Second, use it as fuel to generate electricity. Third, turn it into compressed gas for trucks. And finally, mix
it with soybean oil to make soy diesel.


Steve Wilburn says it’s an ambitious project.


“This is the first of its kind in the world. The Green Energy Center concept is
something I came up with about four years ago, and as we explored for ways to
implement it, we needed a centerpiece, a technology that was missing, and that
was to clean up the landfill gas in a very cost-effective way.”


FirmGreen is building what it calls its Green Energy Center right next to the
landfill in Columbus, Ohio. Mike Long is with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio – SWACO for short. Long says right
now, there’s no practical use for the methane and carbon dioxide produced by the rotting garbage in the landfill.


“Currently, SWACO’s control technology is to have a flare where we burn off the
gases to keep it from getting up into the atmosphere. But the new technology,
we will take that gas and make it into energy and consumer products rather than
just simply burning it and exhausting it.”


Instead of burning those landfill gases, they’ll be redirected a small
electric generator operated by FirmGreen. The electricity will be sold back to
SWACO to power its main office and its fleet garage. That’ll start in just a
few months.


Later, FirmGreen will convert methane into compressed natural gas. That will
be used to fuel SWACO’s vehicles, which could save the waste authority an
estimated 100 thousand dollars a year.


FirmGreen’s President, Steve Wilburn says the final part of the project is the
real profit maker for his company: turning methanol into biodiesel.


“When we create
methanol, we then have the bridge to the hydrogen economy because ethanol is an
excellent hydrogen carrier. It’s also used in the manufacture and production of
biodiesel. Ohio is a large soybean producing state. So we’ll take our green
methanol and we’ll blend that with the soy oil and we’re going to create
biodiesel.”


When the FirmGreen biodiesel processing facility is up and running, it will
need 69 thousand acres of soybeans to produce 10 million gallons of biodiesel
annually. FirmGreen already has a contract with Mitsubishi Gas Chemical
Company to provide 6 million gallons of biodiesel a year. FirmGreen also hopes
to interest the growing hydrogen fuel cell industry.


“Biofuels” have their critics, who are concerned that it takes as much energy
or more energy to create biofuels than they produce. Mike Long at SWACO says
he’s heard that before, but it doesn’t apply to this project.


“The
energy is already here, and is being flared off right now at our landfill. There’s no recovery of the energy, no beneficial
use. So for those who argue that this process would be a consumer of energy, it’s not a net consumer, and right now, we’re wasting energy.”


Long and Wilburn point to statistics from the U.S. EPA. They says the data show
the Green Energy Center will have the same effect as reducing oil consumption by
more than twenty thousand barrels a year. They say that’s like taking 2,000 cars off the road.


Sam Spofforth is with the Central Ohio Clean Fuels Coalition. He says even
when factoring in the fuel used by trucks transporting the methanol to the
remote biodiesel processing facilities, the project still looks green to him.


“In terms of biodiesel, it’s about three point two energy units out for every one energy
unit in. What is even more exciting about this project – methane
gas is about twenty times as potent as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. So the
fact that they’re using methane that would otherwise be vented into the air
makes the net emissions of those greenhouse gas even more positive.”


The Green Energy Center in Ohio is the first in the nation, but a second one
is planned to be built near Saint Louis, Missouri. With giant landfills venting
off methane in places around the country, if these two make money, it’s a
pretty sure bet others will be built in the near future.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kasler.

Related Links

Obsessing Over Vegetable Gardens

  • Many gardeners feel that there's nothing as satisfying as growing and eating your own vegetables. (Photo by Daniel Wildman)

Not as many people are planting vegetable gardens these days… but the few who do are really passionate about it. And it’s not just because they swear their own vegetables taste better than anything you can get at a store. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explores the obsessions of vegetable gardeners:

Transcript

Not as many people are planting vegetable gardens these days… but the few who do
are really passionate about it, and it’s not just because they swear their own
vegetables taste better than anything you can get at a store. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explores the obsessions of vegetable
gardeners:


In Connie Bank’s former life, she recruited attorneys and engineers. She’d be
on the phone until ten every night. She’d spend entire weekends with clients.
She calls herself a true Type A – working at full speed, making a lot of money,
until she just had enough of it all.


Now vegetable gardening is her whole life.


“You’re controlling a tiny little nourishing world of your own, where the rest
of our world is sort of crazy, politics are crazy, the world is going nuts… it’s
America, it’s fast fast fast fast fast. This vegetable gardening thing is a way to take a
deep breath, slow yourself down, and just watch the garden grow.”


But Bank admits she’s still intense. She throws herself into gardening. She
says if the little plastic labels say to plant things twelve inches apart, she gets
impatient and packs them in six inches apart.


People like Connie Bank are sort of rare. A survey by the National Gardening
Association found that not a lot of people are into vegetable gardening these
days. Compared to five years ago, seven million fewer households are growing
vegetables. You have to weed and water every day and fend off the squirrels.
Most Americans would rather plant flowers or just not bother with any of it.


So these days, instead of recruiting professionals, Connie Bank’s trying to
recruit as many new gardeners as she can. She teaches classes to people on
their lunch breaks. Today, she’s going after daycare kids.


(Sound of watering)


BANK: “Who here likes vegetables? What kind do you like?”


KIDS: “Watermelon! Oranges! Strawberries!”


BANK: “Okay, that’s good you guys, except those are fruits.”


KIDS: “Corn on the cob is good!”


A lot of serious vegetable gardeners got their first taste of it as kids.


(Sound of trowel digging)


Earl Shaffer farmed as a kid in Indiana, and when he left at 17 he swore he’d
never grow anything again. But Earl says twenty years later, his wife Marie
tempted him back into the garden. Today, they’re tending to their lettuce,
tomatoes and zucchini. He says their house is too big for just the two of them
now, but he can’t move and leave his garden behind.


“As you get older, I think some of the things that were a part of your youth
kind of return in importance in some way. I was very fond of my grandparents,
especially my grandmother, and gardening was part of her life, I think that also made it
important to me to return to it.”


Shaffer says farming did give him a feel for growing things, but like everyone
else, he still has to read the plant labels. He says we’re losing the
knowledge of how to live off the land.


For gardeners, growing even just a couple tomato plants can feel like
reconnecting to our farming roots. Ashley Miller curated an exhibit on
vegetable garden history at Cornell University. She says the motives for these
gardens have changed a lot over the last three centuries. Sometimes people have
gardened to make money, sometimes they’ve grown food to support a war effort,
and sometimes people have just done it as a challenging hobby, but there’s one
major thread.


“Growing vegetables is as close as we can get to a seasonal ritual.
There is something primal about putting a seed in the soil and tending it, and
harvesting it and eating it.”


A lot of gardeners agree that growing vegetables is a sensual experience. They
talk about the way the scent of tomato plants fills the whole yard, or the
blue-green color of baby broccoli. Gardener Lee Criss says she can’t wait to
get into her yard in the spring and get her bare hands in the dirt.


“I don’t garden with gloves because I need to feel what the soil feels like, the
texture. You use senses in gardening that you don’t in most everything else
that you do. You feel things, you smell. It’s a different way of sensing the
world around you, I think.”


It’s hard to walk away from these people’s backyards and shake off their
enthusiasm. Every single gardener I talked to told me to call them when I
started my own garden. And if they think you’re considering gardening at all,
watch out: they’ll fill your head with visions of their juiciest cherry
tomatoes, they’ll try to fill your car with seedlings, anything to get you
hooked.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Turning Brownfields Into Greenfields

  • A former industrial site is being redeveloped with parks, wetlands and homes. Residents have high hopes the new development will boost the local economy. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

As the American economy shifts away from heavy industry, each closed factory risks becoming a brownfield. That’s a site that contains potentially hazardous materials. For the past decade, the federal government has provided help in assessing and cleaning these properties. It has proved to be one of the most popular environmental programs. It’s giving hope to small towns that need help in remaking their landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:

Transcript

As the American economy shifts away from heavy industry, each closed factory
risks becoming a brownfield. That’s a site that contains potentially
hazardous materials. For the past decade, the federal government has provided help in assessing and
cleaning these properties. It has proved to be one of the most popular environmental programs. It’s
giving hope to small towns that need help in remaking their landscapes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:


When a Rust Belt city loses another factory, the townspeople don’t suffer
just from the loss of jobs. They’re often stuck with crumbling buildings or even polluted land. Not to mention, the local economy isn’t strong enough to fix them up.


It’s a dilemma familiar to East Moline, a small Illinois town that sits
along the banks of the Mississippi River. Since the early 80s, the town’s lost thousands of jobs in the farm machinery
industry. Rich Keehner is the City of East Moline’s assistant administrator. He says
there is a plan for the industrial riverfront.


“Right now there’s a movement to relocate or pull industrial uses from the
river. And then of course turn that riverfront property into bike paths or some
recreational activities to improve our quality of life. And that’s exactly
what we’re doing here.”


It’s a simple idea: move industry away from the river and work with
developers to make it an attractive place to play or even live. But it’s just not that easy. Keehner says developers won’t build on these sites until it’s clear what kind
of pollution, if any, might be there.


Testing the area’s soil and water can get expensive, so sites can remain
empty for years. Meanwhile, developers look for greener pastures. Really, they can just build on farmland instead.


During the past decade, the U.S. EPA’s paid for pollution testing at hundreds
of sites. The agency also funds some cleanup and other costs. East Moline’s used several grants to develop eighty acres of riverfront donated
by the John Deere Company.


With the Mississippi riverbank at his back, Keehner points out some new
houses developed on the site.


“It’s got some great amenitities, located next to the bike path. You
can just wake up any time night or day and look out at the river. And your
neighbors are very limited; it’s very peaceful.”


The district also boasts a small light house, a lot of park space, and some
wetlands areas. Keehner says brownfields grants funded about six percent of the project’s
total cost. That doesn’t sound like much, but the money’s played a key role. He says private money couldn’t be secured until there was progress on the
environmental front.


A lot of environmentalists and civic groups applaud the program even though
a lot of credit goes to someone they often criticize. Namely, President
George Bush. His critics admit the brownfields program is one of the brighter spots of
his environmental policy.


In 2002, President Bush signed legislation that expanded the program’s
funding and breadth. Alan Front is the vice president of the Trust for Public Land, a
conservation group.


“The administration, ever since signing that bill, has budgeted about 200
million dollars a year to make this program really vibrant and so not only
have they created the wallet, but they’ve filled it in a way that really
benefits communities around the country.”


Front says the expansion’s brought a tighter focus on the environmental
needs of smaller towns. Apart from the grants, there’s another reason for the program’s popularity. The EPA trains city administrators to use federal brownfield money to
leverage private dollars.


Charles Bartsch has been teaching such courses for ten years.
He says, to compete with larger cities, smaller towns need to show they
understand their local economies.


“I suggest to towns what they should do first of all is to decide what their
competitive economic niche is.”


That means, developing around a community asset, like East Moline’s tried
with its attractive riverfront. Bartsch says, for all the progress small town administrators have made, they’re still pretty isolated. He says they need to cast a wide social net, so
they can find the best advice.


“The key thing is less knowing how to do it yourself, but more knowing who to
reliably call to walk through ideas and walk through options.”


The brownfields program does have its critics. They say it’s tilted in favor
of land development over open space and they worry about how much oversight
there is of environmental testing.


Back at the East Moline site, it’s easy to see why small towns are
participating. Residents there now have more access to the river, bike paths, parks, and,
for some people, new homes. East Moline, and a lot of other small towns like it, are seeking even more brownfields money.


They’ve got a lot of other sites that want a chance at a new life.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links