While some flame retardants are now banned, one - Deca - is still commonly used (Photo courtesy of FEMA)
Two forms of a toxic flame retardant
are being phased out by companies or banned
by state laws. But, Lester Graham reports,
a third form is still being used:
Transcript
Two forms of a toxic flame retardant
are being phased out by companies or banned
by state laws. But, Lester Graham reports,
a third form is still being used:
The third flame retardant, called Deca-BDE, is still being used in drapes, carpets,
furniture upholstery and the plastic cases of electronics, like your computer.
PBDE’s are being found in fish and wildlife, and even in mothers’ breast milk.
Studies have found they cause developmental problems and liver cancer in
animals. Environmentalists say just like the other two PBDEs, Deca-BDEs should
be banned.
Mike Shriberg is with the Ecology Center.
“There is no reason to have toxic chemicals like this when we’re fighting fires. The
Fire Chiefs Association, the firefighters, they support banning this chemical because
they know there are safer alternatives that keep us just as safe from fires.”
But unlike the other PBDEs, most states have not passed laws to ban deca-BDEs.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
Adult emerald ash borer (Photo by David Cappaert, Michigan State University, courtesy of the Michigan Department of Agriculture)
The emerald ash borer has eaten through
millions of trees in the US and is spreading
west. Erin Toner has more:
Transcript
The emerald ash borer has eaten through
millions of trees in the US and is spreading
west. Erin Toner has more:
For six long years, the tiny metallic-green emerald ash borer has been a killing machine,
starting with millions of ash trees in Michigan and Canada, and then munching its way
into 10 states.
It was recently discovered in Missouri, and now, it’s in Wisconsin.
The prognosis is not good.
Darrell Zastrow is with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
“Our forests are not typically resilient against non-native species and that is true for
the emerald ash borer. It is generally considered to be a poster child for invasive
species.”
Officials in Wisconsin are doing what everyone else has done – restricting the movement
of firewood and telling people how to protect their trees.
Some promising treatments to fight the emerald ash borer are being tested, but so far,
nothing has worked at keeping the insect from spreading west.
The nest of a Swainsons warbler. (Photo by Judith McMillan)
The 'Nesting' exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (Photo courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History)
The nest of a Vermillion flycatcher. (Photo by Judith McMillan)
Nests in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. (Photo by Gretchen Cuda)
The nest of a Painted bunting. (Photo by Judith McMillan)
A parasite visits - this nest holds the egg of a cowbird. Cowbirds surreptitiously lay eggs in other birds' nests. The birds that made this nest discovered the egg, and mounded the nest around it so it would not be incubated. (Photo by Gretchen Cuda)
Some of the world’s most intricate
architecture is not always constructed by
humans. Sometimes the most skilled architectural
wonders are designed by nature. Gretchen Cuda reports on an exhibit that celebrates
birds’ nests:
Transcript
Some of the world’s most intricate
architecture is not always constructed by
humans. Sometimes the most skilled architectural
wonders are designed by nature. Gretchen Cuda reports on an exhibit that celebrates
birds’ nests:
Judith McMillan didn’t find her inspiration in tree branches. She found it in the
basement of the museum where she works. She was rummaging through drawers
there when she came across a hundred-year-old collection of bird nests.
“This Museum must have 10 cabinets full of bird’s nests.”
She was fascinated and immediately knew she had a new subject for her art.
McMillan is a photographer who has been volunteering at the Cleveland Museum of
Natural history for 20 years. In her latest exhibit, titled “Nesting”, she captures some
of natures most inspiring, and often overlooked architecture – the nests of birds.
(sound of exhibit crowd)
“I was looking for nests that were different from each other so that you could see that
these birds were little architects. And there were so many different kinds of materials
used – and then the eggs could be so different. Some with little tiny speckles, some
with different colors some with little calligraphic streaks around them, so it was that
variety that I wanted to capture.”
All the photographs are in black and white – because she really wanted people to
concentrate on the architecture without being seduced by the color. She’s fascinated
by the way different birds chose very specific materials to work with – everything
from marsh reeds, grape vine, or little knotty twigs – like this one.
“This is a vermillion flycatcher – it’s almost like it’s made of pick up sticks in the way
their pushed together.”
And to emphasize the diversity of structures birds can create she shows me an
Orioles nest that’s five inches deep and formerly hung like a basket from a tree.
“I actually had to shine a flashlight down in it when I was taking the photograph in
order to get the eggs to show up.”
Most of the nests and eggs were collected around the turn of the 20th century by
amateur naturalists who never thought twice about disturbing the natural wildlife.
But the practice eventually fell out of fashion as people became more
environmentally conscious and large nest and egg collections were often turned over
to museums – explains Andy Jones the museum’s ornithologist.
“People whose grandfathers were dealing with eggs as a hobby, well their
grandfathers are passing away and so they contact their local university or natural
history museum, and say, ‘hey do you want these?’”
Those specimens were originally collected just because they were pretty. These
days, they’re still beautiful, but they also serve a scientific purpose. Scientists can
look at things such as the thickness of the shells, or the type and number of birds
found in a specific location and tell a lot about the birds. They can see where birds
used to live and how far their territories reached. They can even tell if a bird that’s
extinct now once lived in an area.
Judith McMillan hopes her photographs will not only show how beautiful the birds’
handiwork was, but will also inspire people to do something about saving the birds
that are still here.
“I didn’t understand until I started using a camera myself how you can isolate
something and make people look at it differently–And I hope through my
photographs I’m getting people to take a fresh look at things. It’s hard to have an
appreciation of nature unless you really look at it and start to really care about it.”
Recent surveys have found that many songbirds are disappearing. If people don’t
start caring, those photographs and drawers full of nests might become the only
reminders of many more species that go extinct.
A Nashville Warbler - one of the birds that Matt Etterson heard during this bird count in Canada (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
The numbers and types of songbirds
are dropping dramatically in many areas of
the country. A lot of people are trying to
get a better count on the number of birds
that are still around. Stephanie Hemphill recently went with researchers
on one of the more ambitious bird count projects:
Transcript
The numbers and types of songbirds
are dropping dramatically in many areas of
the country. A lot of people are trying to
get a better count on the number of birds
that are still around. Stephanie Hemphill recently went with researchers
on one of the more ambitious bird count projects:
The jumping off point for this trip is a tiny airport with a grass runway in
northern Minnesota, about 20 miles from the Canadian border.
We fly for 15 minutes, over trees and swamps as far as the eye can see. Down
below we get a glimpse of a moose. And, later, a pair of rare trumpeter swans
in their nest.
The helicopter sets down in what’s known as a floating bog. Its runners are
sitting in six inches of water.
We jump out in knee-high boots and rain jackets, and douse with DEET to try
to keep the mosquitoes away.
I’m following Heidi Seeland, a graduate student who seems to know her way
around a bog.
We’re in knee-deep water. Then it’s thigh-deep Pretty soon it’s waist-deep. I try
to step on a clump of sphagnum moss. But it sinks. It holds onto my boot, and
I’m sitting in water.
Heidi helps me up, and we catch up with the others.
They fan out on different points of the compass. I follow Matt Etterson. He’s an
ornithologist, a bird expert. We slog through the bog for nearly half an hour.
Etterson is aiming for a piece of higher ground, where the trees are a little
taller, better for nesting.
Suddenly he stops. He’s found the spot he was looking for. He sets his watch
for 10 minutes and pulls out a notebook.
Etterson cocks his head this way and that, jotting the names of the birds he can
hear, and the time he hears them. He doesn’t pay any attention to the mosquito
biting the back of his neck. He just listens and takes notes.
“We had a couple of hermit thrush — that’s the singing to the north of us. A
veery called a couple of times to the west of us. A Nashville warbler, and a
couple of western palm warblers, and that was about it. It was pretty quiet
otherwise,” Etterson said.
We trudge through the muck for another 20 or 30 minutes and he repeats the
process.
It’s two hours later, and the three researchers meet at the helicopter landing spot
and compare notes. They’re excited about Etterson’s veery and Nashville
warbler. The others heard a Connecticut warbler and a Lincoln’s sparrow.
They would have been really happy if they’d heard a golden-winged warbler.
It’s one of the most threatened of bird species. The number of golden-winged
warblers has declined by some 80% during the last 50 years.
Today’s trip is an experiment to see how well it works to count birds in remote
places, using a helicopter.
It’ll take five years to finish the bird count here. Then, in 10 or 20 years, they’ll
do it all over again, to see how the birds are faring.
For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Just how easy is it to hoof it in your 'hood? A Seattle software company
called FrontSeat created WalkScore.Com. The programmeers claim the site indicates whether a
neighborhood offers residents enough amenities to get out of their cars. They hope people will
consider the site's "walkability" scores when choosing a place to live. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Here's a screen capture of results for the heart of Chicago's Logan
Square neighborhood. FrontSeat derives the walkability score from various
data sources, but the biggest factor is what businesses, parks,amenitites are present within
a mile's walking distance from a particular address. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Here's a real-life snapshot of the address rated in the previous
slide. Programmers for the Walk Score Web site say the many businesses huddled together in
this Chicago neighborhood give the area a score just shy of a "walker's paradise." (Photo by Shawn Allee)
A walkability activist in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood says
even a "walkable" neighborhood can have particular patches of street that intimidate
pedestrians. Ben Helphand says walkers who travel past this corner have to compete with
cars that dart in and out of the gas station. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Picking a place to live can be a huge
environmental decision. Some people argue
if you can walk to everything you need, you’ll
stay out of your car, and that will cut air
pollution. But how do you compare how ‘walkable’
one place is to another? Shawn Allee looks at a Web site that aims to make that a breeze:
Transcript
Picking a place to live can be a huge
environmental decision. Some people argue
if you can walk to everything you need, you’ll
stay out of your car, and that will cut air
pollution. But how do you compare how ‘walkable’
one place is to another? Shawn Allee looks at a Web site that aims to make that a breeze:
When urban planners want to know exactly how ‘walkable’ a neighborhood is, they
commission a study, and get results in weeks or months.
One computer programmer says this approach is poky.
“And so we built a piece of software that would let anyone look up to what they
could walk to from their address.”
Matt Lerner helped build a Web site called Walk Score dot com.
You don’t have to be an urban planner to use it.
Anyone can just type in an address, and …
“We tell you all the closest schools, parks, retail stores, so you can see exactly what
that neighborhood looks like.”
Walk Score dot com also spits out a number between zero and a hundred.
If a place scores above ninety, the site calls that a ‘walker’s paradise’.
Lerner says the computer ignores stuff like weather and hills, but there’s a reason behind
that.
“Research on why people walk has shown the number one predictor of whether
people will walk is whether there’s something good to walk to.”
This is all well and good, but does Walk Score dot com work?
I want to test it out – so I ask Lerner to score a Chicago neighborhood close to me.
“If you look at Logan Square, you can see it has a walk score of 86. So if you’re
living near Logan Square, you can get by without driving very often, or even owning
a car perhaps.”
Really?
I head to Logan Square and ask people, does the neighborhood deserve the high score?
Resident: “Yeah, we’ve got a movie theater, a grocery store, restaraunts and bars.”
Resident: “Yes, you can really minimize your use of a car.”
Resident: “Everything’s close – even jewelry stores, furniture stores, grocery stores.
It’s pretty easy to get around walking.”
Most of the people I speak to say the Web site’s pretty much got it right. This is a
very walkable neighborhood. But there’s an activist who works on making the
neighborhood more walkable. He’s not convinced the web site’s got it 100% right.
He says it leaves out some things, for example, this:
(sound of dog barking)
“You’re talking about kids walking to school? That house, that’s a barrier.”
And, Ben Helphand says the Web site doesn’t just miss dogs. It misses other things
that intimidate walkers.
“They should factor in these things that are known to decrease the walkability of the
neighborhood, a big gas station complex, a drive-through bank which is right
behind us.”
Shawn Allee: “Only because they’re hard to walk by, because cars are coming in
and out?”
Ben Helphand: “And because they disincentive people getting out of their cars,
because they’re designed to keep people in their cars.”
The programmers admit the Walk Score site leaves out a lot. Helphand says he’s a
fan of the site, it’s just that it’s tailored to one purpose.
“Their real target audience is people who are moving or relocating and they want
walkability to be a factor in that choice.”
Helphand says the site gives the impression that people interested in walkability have
only one choice to make – where to live.
He wants them to make lots of choices over time.
He wants them to fix bad sidewalks, tame scary dogs, and support zoning laws that favor
walking over driving.
Helphand says if that happens enough, we can make new walkable neighborhoods – not
just rank ones that already exist.
Aimee Hurt, with the group Working
Dogs for Conservation (Photo by Brian Mann)
Wicket, on the trail of some moose pellets (Photo by Brian Mann)
Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:
Transcript
Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:
It’s early, the sun still tangled in the alder trees, when we set off
on foot down a
narrow logging road.
(sound of walking down the road)
Soon, Heidi Kretser with the Wildlife Conservation Society finds the
first evidence that
we’re not alone.
“These are moose tracks.”
New York’s moose population has surged in recent years, to move than
500 animals.
Researchers have been tracking moose using airplanes and radio collars.
But today, were tagging along behind a cheerful black lab mix named
Wicket.
(sound of dog’s collar jingling)
Wicket flashes back and forth across the trail, snuffling eagerly.
She wears a bright
red vest and that tinkling bell is designed to keep her from actually
meeting a moose
head-on.
Her owner and handler, Aimee Hurt, says using dogs to find biological
samples – everything from plants to rare birds – isn’t new.
“I think if you talk to a lot of biologists who’ve been out
in the field for
decades, ‘Oh yeah, my dog figured out that we were looking for —
whatever.’ And they
started honing in on it and helping out. So I really think that dog’s
have been
biologists’ partners for a long time.”
Hurt’s organization – Working Dogs for Conservation, based in Montana
– took the idea
one step further, training dogs in much the same way that police train
K-9 units.
Wicket knows how to find six different kinds of scat, including
mountain lion, grizzly
bear – and now moose
“She is an air-scent dog, which means there’s no tracking
involved — she’s
just sniffing the air for a whiff of scat.”
Heidi Kretser, with the Wildlife Conservation Society, says moose
droppings can tell a
lot about why these Clydesdale-sized animals are returning to New York, what they’re
eating, and how they’ll reshape this forest if their numbers keep
growing.
“By understanding the diet, we’ll get a better sense of what
habitats they
might impact long-term, since they eat 40 pounds of vegetation a day.”
(sound of birds and footsteps)
Wicket leads the team on long ramble through the radiant lime green
forest, and down
across a burbling creek.
(sound of creek)
We see moose sign everywhere – mule-sized tracks, maple trees
stripped of bark. And
then Wicket sniffs out her first pile of droppings.
“Whoopee, good girl. Very nice!”
More poop means better data. So the pellets are trucked away in a
plastic bag for the
trip back to the lab.
For Wicket, the reward is a few minutes of joyous play with a squishy
rubber ball.
(sound of squeezing toy)
“Let’s get to work!” (bell jangling)
Then the team is off again, with Wicket snuffling happily through the
trees. Biologists
hope to use the same method to study other wildlife – from grizzlies
to mountain lions.
Later this year the Environmental Protection Agency is going to set court-ordered
standards for mercury pollution from cement kilns.
(Source: LinguisticDemographer at Wikimedia Commons)
The Environmental Protection
Agency is late in setting standards
for some smokestack emissions. Lester
Graham reports:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection
Agency is late in setting standards
for some smokestack emissions. Lester
Graham reports:
Maybe you’ve never seen a cement kiln. That’s where limestone and other materials
are baked using coal to make cement, used in concrete.
Later this year the Environmental Protection Agency is going to set court-ordered
standards for mercury pollution from cement kilns.
“It’s about time, isn’t it? I mean, the standards were due more than ten years
ago.”
That’s Eric Scheaffer. He’s with the Environmental Integrity Project.
The EPA had relied on self-reported estimates on mercury pollution from the cement
kilns. Turns out, after the EPA actually checked a few of the kilns, a lot of those
mercury pollution estimates were a little low.
“They’re now saying about 23,000 pounds a year. And that’s double the
previous estimates from EPA. So, the numbers are growing.”
Most states have issued advisories about mercury contamination of fish. Mercury
can cause neurological and developmental problems with fetuses and young
children.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the size of the state of Massachusetts (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Environmental groups are
petitioning the government to limit
pollution from farm fields in states
that drain into the Mississippi River
and its tributaries. The pollution
contributes to a so-called ‘Dead Zone’
in the Gulf of Mexico. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Transcript
Environmental groups are
petitioning the government to limit
pollution from farm fields in states
that drain into the Mississippi River
and its tributaries. The pollution
contributes to a so-called ‘Dead Zone’
in the Gulf of Mexico. Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Nine groups from states bordering the Mississippi River are calling for standards
to limit nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. The main source of the chemicals
is runoff from farms.
Attorney Betsy Lawton is with Midwest Environmental Advocates.
She says it’s been ten years since the Environmental Protection Agency said it
would make states in the Mississippi Basin protect and clean up the waters.
“EPA has long held that it would step up and take action when states failed to do.
It has set several deadlines for states to take this type of action and limit this
pollution but has let the states slide from those deadlines.”
The nitrogen and phosphorus flow down the Mississippi into the Gulf Dead Zone
– an oxygen depleted area of about 8,000 square miles – or the size of the state
of Massachusetts.
Children playing on Indiana Dunes Beach
(Photo by Lester Graham)
A mother looking over the risks of swimming in the contaminated water
(Photo by Lester Graham)
The number of days beaches were
closed due to pollution last year was
the second highest on record. Mark Brush
reports, that’s according to a new report
by an environmental group:
Transcript
The number of days beaches were
closed due to pollution last year was
the second highest on record. Mark Brush
reports, that’s according to a new report
by an environmental group:
The National Resources Defense Council says beaches across the country were closed to
swimmers for more than 22,000 days last year.
Sometimes the beaches were closed when sewer plants would overflow.
Nancy Stoner is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
She says most of the time beaches were closed after a big rainstorm
That’s because rain washes pollution into the water.
“I’m more cautious now after swimming after a heavy rainfall. And the other thing about
it is that the ocean beaches in general tend to be cleaner than beaches that are in bays
and sounds and other protected areas, so it makes me want to go to the ocean.”
Ocean waves tend to wash away the pollution a lot faster.
Beach closings along the Great Lakes were twice as high as the national average.
The President already has lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling. He now wants
Congress to lift its ban.
(Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)
President George Bush says Congress
should remove the ban on offshore drilling
because there might be a decade’s worth of
oil off the US coasts. Lester Graham
reports that might be an optimistic estimate:
Transcript
President George Bush says Congress
should remove the ban on offshore drilling
because there might be a decade’s worth of
oil off the US coasts. Lester Graham
reports that might be an optimistic estimate:
The President already has lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling. He now wants
Congress to lift its ban.
At an Ohio factory, President Bush talked about wanting to find more oil in the U.S.
“One place where there is, the experts say is, a bountiful supply of oil, perhaps as much
as 10 years’ worth at current consumption rates, is the Outer Continental Shelf. That
would be offshore America.”
But the President’s numbers don’t add up.
The Energy Information Administration estimates off-shore there’s 18-billion barrels of
crude oil that are currently off-limits. The U.S. consumes more than seven-and-a-half
billion barrels a year. That means 18-billion barrels would only last the U.S. less than
two-and-a-half years – not the ten years the President suggests.
While some flame retardants are now banned, one - Deca - is still commonly used (Photo courtesy of FEMA)
