Tag: europe

Making Power Out of Pollution

  • Ford Motor Company installs a permanent Fumes to Fuel system at Michigan Truck Plant after a successful pilot program at the Ford Rouge Center last year. (Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company)

Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up in smoke. But a promising new technology turns these ordinarily troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this
report:

Transcript

Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up
in smoke, but a promising new technology turns these ordinarily
troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable
these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie
Halpert has this report:


Remember the children’s story, where Rumpelstiltskin was able to take
straw, a cheap, abundant material, and magically transform it into
precious gold? Well, these days, cheap energy is like gold, and one
company has found a way to similarly generate power from pollution.


(Sound of engine running)


To see how it works, I’m standing on a roof sixty-five feet above the
ground. This is where Ford Motor Company maintains its pollution
control equipment. There are rectangular gray metal boxes as tall as I am
all over the roof, so many that we can barely walk between them. Under
the roof, they’re painting trucks. The paint emits vapors that Ford is now
capturing with these big boxes of machinery.


Mark Wherrett is Ford’s principal environmental engineer.


“We’re here at the Ford Motor Company Michigan truck plant, where the
paint solvent is collected from the process and used as a fuel to make
electricity in a Stirling Engine.”


The Stirling Engine is key. Here’s how it works. Ford’s using an engine
developed by STM Power. STM is using an old engine style called a
Stirling Engine that was once used in place of a steam engine. Instead of
using coal or wood to heat up water and make steam, STM burns the
paint fumes to heat up hydrogen and power the engine. The fumes will
generate 55 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to power 11 homes.


There’s not as much pollution emitted at the end, since burning can be
adjusted to temperatures where pollutants are reduced. Wherrett says
that for Ford, the technology simply has no downsides.


“The fumes to fuel process takes the environmental emissions and turns
them on their head, so instead of them being a waste product that we
have to dispose of, we can then turn it into a commodity where we can
then use that to make electricity and use that in our plant systems.”


And that means Ford doesn’t have to purchase as much power from the
grid.


Dorrance Noonan is CEO of STM Power, the company that’s redesigned
the old engine. Noonan says Ford is a perfect candidate for this
technology.


“We’re really excited about the Ford project because it offers a
tremendous opportunity to manufacturing companies and large paint
operations, who have large VOC problems that they have to deal with in
very expensive ways.”


The Ford plant is just the beginning for the company. They also plan to
deliver their portable on-site generators to landfills and wastewater
treatment plants. In that situation, methane gas is used as the fuel to
generate electricity. Noonan says his company has a bright future.


“Well, in the next couple of years, we see strong penetration in our two focus
markets, which are the landfill markets in the U.S. and the wastewater
treatment markets in the United States, and then we see that expansion
going outside of the United States to Europe and eventually to Asia.”


There are some skeptics.


Dan Rassler, with the Electric Power Research Institute, says STM’s
technology does have the potential to create viable new sources of
energy, but more companies need to actually start using it before he can
know for sure, and he says that right now the technology is still too
expensive for many companies.


“We’d like to see the capitol costs of these systems be lower than where
they are today.”


Right now, an STM unit costs $65,000. Rassler would like to see overall
costs cut by 10 to 20 percent. He says costs could decrease as more of
these units come on line.


STM CEO Dorrance Noonan says the costs are comparable to competing
on-site generators, and these expenses will be offset by using the free
fuel used to generate electricity that his engines provide. Noonan says
that continuing high natural gas prices will be his technology’s best
friend, as companies strive for ways to reduce energy costs.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

Related Links

Building an Ark for the World’s Plants

  • Prairie plants are being lost to development.(Courtesy of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)

You’ve heard about the ark Noah built to save the world’s animals. Now comes news of another kind of ark – one designed to help save the world’s plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandy Hausman has that story:

Transcript

You’ve heard about the ark Noah built to save the world’s animals. Now
comes news of another kind of ark – one designed to help save the
world’s plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandy Hausman
has that story:


(Sound of walking through the prairie up then under)


You might say Pati Vitt is looking for the right stock to fill the ark.
She’s dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, her long brown hair in braids, a field
notebook in hand, and a pencil tied to her pants. For nine months of each
year, she wanders along railroad tracks, through old cemeteries and
nature preserves, filling shopping bags with the seeds of prairie plants.


Vitt is a conservation scientist with the Chicago Botanic Garden. She has
studied these plants since she was a child. She knows their Latin names.
She dreams about them at night. She even knows the intimate details of
their reproductive lives:


“One does it having teeny little flowers and taking small little bees, and
another one does it by having huge flowers and lots of nectar and they
have really big bees or maybe a moth that pollinates them.”


And, she says, prairie plants are hearty. Native to the Upper Midwest,
they can handle icy winters and long, hot droughts, but they can’t fight
plows or bulldozers. Farmers and developers have destroyed almost all
the land where prairie plants once grew. Today, one-tenth of one percent
of the original prairie remains.


“That means that what we’re looking at right here is one-tenth of one
percent of the population that this plant once enjoyed. I’m sorry. Even
though there’s a lot in this prairie, this plant should be endangered,
because there are so few acres of its habitat left and everyday we’re
coming and we’re taking more and more of it. The prairie habitat is more
endangered than tropical rainforest.”


That worries Vitt, not only because she thinks the prairie plants are
beautiful, but because they may have value to people. For example, she
says about half of our modern medicines came – originally – from plants
or the fungus found in the soil beneath them.

“If you think about penicillin… penicillin came from mold. We might be
standing on a treasure trove of antibiotics, which we need, but if we let
the plants go, we let the soil fungi go, we let the potential antibiotics go.”


(Sound of seeds dropping into a jar)


So Vitt is collecting prairie seeds from about 1,500 plants and shipping
them to the English countryside.


(Sound of birds)


Just south of London, the British government has built what it hopes will
be the largest seed bank in the world devoted to wild plants. The
building looks like a series of greenhouses made from concrete, stone,
glass and steel. In the basement, fire and bombproof vaults hold billions of
seeds from 24,000 species:


“That’s the exciting bit. We thought big.”


Michael Way is a scientist at the Millennium Seed Bank. He says it’s
needed now because a lot of wild plants are in danger of
disappearing because of global warming and the pace of human
development. Way believes a third of the world’s plant species could be
gone by 2050.


“You hope that the worst is not going to happen. Of course, from time to
time the worst does happen. If a plant population is destroyed, if a
decision is taken to build houses or factories or roads on a particular area
which was home to some quite special plants, seed banking is one tool
you can use to protect that genetic diversity that might be unique to that
site.”


Each day, seeds arrive from Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East
and the Americas. They sit in colorful plastic crates — waiting to be
cleaned, dried and frozen. Way says these seeds could survive for a
century or more.


“Seeds are tough – small but tough, and the whole point of seeds is to be
dormant and allow themselves to be transported around, so unless we do
something really stupid, they will remain viable.”


Back in the U.S., Pati Vitt says seed banks like the one near London
could mean the survival of humanity, since people can’t live without
plants.


“I think fundamentally we all understand that we are a part of nature, but
in our daily lives we get so cut off from it that we forget.”


She sees the Earth as a garden, and she wants people to act like
gardeners. Setting up seed banks is an important first step.


“We will have the tools that we need to bring things back if necessary.”


For the GLRC, I’m Sandy Hausman.

Related Links

Combating Inland Invasives

  • Eurasian Watermilfoil is one of the non-native species that has invaded inland lakes. (Photo courtesy of National Park Service)

Invasive plants, fish and other creatures are threatening many inland lakes. Environmentalists and property owners are trying to stop the spread…before the invaders dramatically alter the smaller bodies of water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann-Elise Henzl reports:

Transcript

Invasive plants, fish and other creatures are threatening many inland
lakes. Evironmentalists and property owners are trying to stop the
spread…before the invaders dramatically alter the smaller bodies of
water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann-Elise Henzl reports:


It’s strange to think that plants and animals from Europe, Asia and Africa
are living in small lakes in the Midwest. Boaters have taken invaders
there…after picking them up in the Great Lakes.


The big lakes are home to more than 160 aquatic invasive species,
including Eurasian Watermilfoil. The stringy plant grows in thick
clusters that get up to 12 feet tall.


“I have seen lakes where if you fell out of the boat in these massive
weeds and you weren’t wearing a life jacket, I don’t care how good a
swimmer you are, you would sink. You can not struggle your way
through these thick entanglements of weeds.”


Ted Ritter leads an effort to reduce aquatic invasive species…in
Wisconsin’s Vilas County.


(Sound of pontoon motor)


On one afternoon he takes his pontoon boat on a lake that had an
infestation of Eurasian Watermilfoil.


“It is a very aggressive plant and it has no natural predators to control its
growth, it grows up to two inches a day.”


When Eurasian Watermilfoil finds conditions it likes, it takes over
quickly. A piece as small as two inches can break off, and float away to
create a new plant.


Eurasian Watermilfoil is widespread in northern Michigan… northern
Wisconsin and other places. It’s one of dozens of aquatic invasive
species on the move in the region.


One of the worst invaders is zebra mussels. They can ravage a lake’s
ecosystem.


(Sound of motor boat)


So far, they’ve made it to just one lake in northern Wisconsin. Mike
Preul with the Lake Superior Chippewa scuba dives there, to count the
mussels. Three years ago, he found 7 adults per square meter. This year,
he counted more than 14-hundred:


“They’re still increasing. What they’ve seen in other systems is that just
like with any other exotic species they’ll come in, the population will
explode, they’ll kind of eat themselves out of house and home, and then
they’ll come down to a level and reach a steady state.”


No method has been discovered to get rid of zebra mussels, but there are
ways to control some invaders.


Herbicides can be used to kill Eurasian Watermilfoil, and some property
owners chip in to buy aquatic insects to kill the plants.


Les Schramm did that on his local lake:


“As the larvae hatches it burrows into the stem of the Eurasian
Watermilfoil and sort of eats out the center vascular part, and it falls over
and dies.”


People fighting aquatic invasive species say it’s like fighting weeds in a
garden — the work never stops and it can be expensive.


Ted Ritter of Vilas County says it costs thousands of dollars to treat a
lake once. So, often people do nothing.


Ritter says that can hurt the environment. He says it can also threaten the
economy, in areas like northern Wisconsin that rely on tourism.


Ritter says the invaders can reduce the appeal of a lake. He mentions a
plant called “curly leaf pondweed.” When it dies in the middle of
summer, it creates algae blooms that look like slimy green pillows:


“When people arrive at resorts and they look out and they see that very
unappealing lake they say ‘I’m not staying here,’ and they go somewhere
else. When realtors bring prospective buyers out to look at a property,
people get out of their car and they go right to the lake and they say ‘oh
my, I’m not even interested in looking at the house. This lake is
horrible.'”


Because it’s so difficult to control invasive species, Ritter and others
fighting the invaders focus on prevention.


Local volunteers and workers from the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources spend hours at boat landings. They urge people to clean their
boats, trailers, and fishing gear thoroughly when going from lake to lake,
that can keep unwanted plants and creatures from traveling along.


For the GLRC, I’m Ann-Elise Henzl.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Predicting New Invaders

  • Some say it's only a matter of time before the Asian Carp enters the Great Lakes. (Photo courtesy of the USFWS)

More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:

Transcript

There are new problems for the Great Lakes on the horizon. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide in a series that explains that new invasive species are one of the Ten
Threats to the Great Lakes:


More than 160 kinds of foreign creatures are in the Great Lakes right now, and every few months, a new one finds its way into the Lakes. Those invasive species are considered the number one problem by the experts we surveyed. The outsiders crowd out native species and disrupt the natural food chain, and it’s likely more will be coming. Zach Peterson reports scientists are putting a lot of time and effort into figuring out which new foreign creatures might next invade the Great Lakes:


(Sound of boat motor)


Jim Barta is a charter boat captain just above Lake Erie on the Detroit River. He says over the last decade, zebra mussels and other foreign species have altered the habitat of the walleye he fishes for.


Water that once had a brownish hue is now clear. That’s because Zebra mussels have eaten the algae and plankton that used to cloud the water, and that means Barta’s boat is no longer invisible to the fish he aims to hook.


“You could catch the fish a little closer to the boat because they weren’t as spooked by the boat. They weren’t as afraid of what was taking place.”


So Barta had to rethink his tactics. He now casts his lines out further, and he’s changed lures to continue catching walleye.


But there are other problems the zebra mussel is causing. Eating all the plankton means it’s stealing food at the bottom of the food chain. And, that affects how many fish survive and how much the surviving fish are able to grow.


Anthony Ricciardi is trying to help Barta, and other people who rely on a stable Great Lakes ecosystem. He’s an “invasion biologist” at McGill University in Montreal.


Ricciardi looks for evidence that can predict the next non-native species that might make it’s way into the Great Lakes. He says species that have spread throughout waterways in Europe and Asia are prime candidates to become Great Lakes invaders.


“If the organism has shown itself to be invasive elsewhere, it has the ability to adapt to new habitats, to rapidly increase in small numbers, to dominate ecosystems, or to change them in certain ways that change the rules of exsistence for everything else, and thus can cause a disruption.”


Ricciardi says most aquatic invasive species are transported to North America in the ballast tanks of ocean freighters. Freighters use ballast water to help balance their loads. Some of the foreign species hitchhike in the ballast water or in the sediment in the bottom of the ballasts.


Ships coming from overseas release those foreign species unintentionally when they pump out ballast water in Great Lakes ports. Ricciardi says one of the potential invaders that might pose the next big threat to the Great Lakes is the “killer shrimp.” Like the Zebra Mussel, it’s a native of the Black Sea.


“And it’s earned the name killer shrimp because it attacks invertebrates, all kinds of invertebrates, including some that are bigger than it is. And it takes bites out of them and kills them, but doesn’t necessarily eat them. So, it’s not immediately satiated. It actually feeds in a buffet style: it’ll sample invertebrates, and so it can leave a lot of carcasses around it.”


Ballasts on cargo ships aren’t the only way foreign species can get into the Lakes. Right now, scientists are watching as a giant Asian Carp makes its way toward Lake Michigan. It’s a voracious eater and it grows to a hundred pounds or more.


This non-native fish was introduced into the Mississippi River, when flooding allowed the carp to escape from fish farms in the South. A manmade canal near Chicago connects the Mississippi River system to the Great Lakes.


If it gets past an electric barrier in the canal, it could invade. Many scientists believe it’s just a matter of time. Another invasive, the sea lamprey, also got into the Great Lakes through a manmade canal.


But, researchers don’t usually know when or where an invader will show up. David Reid is a researcher for the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor. He says they can’t predict the effect an invader will have when it arrives in its new ecosystem.


“That’s the problem. We don’t know when the next zebra mussel’s going to come in. We don’t know when the next sea lamprey type of organism is going to come in. Generally, if you look at the invasion history of the Great Lakes, you’re seeing about one new organism being reported probably about once every eight months.”


Knowing what the next invader might be could help biologists, fisheries experts, and fishermen know what to do to limit its spread. Invasional biologists hope that their work will help develop the most effective measures to limit harm to the Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m Zach Peterson.

Related Links

Lack of Investment in Renewables to Hurt Businesses?

  • Mike LeBeau installs solar and wind energy systems. He has put in more generators this year than in the last 10 years combined, thanks to rebate programs offered by the state and local governments. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in
Argentina to work out the next steps in dealing with climate change.
Seven years ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions
and greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now, a report from the National Environmental Trust says that decision
is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in Argentina to
work out the next steps in dealing with climate change. Seven years
ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions and
greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now a report from the National Environmental Trust says that
decision is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Mike LeBeau installs wind generators and photovoltaic solar
collectors. His business, Conservation Technologies, is in Duluth,
Minnesota. In the U.S., there are not a lot of contractors doing this
kind of work.


“This is a two and a half kilowatt photovoltaic system.”


Two panels about the size of a dining room table stand on the top
floor of a downtown garage. The only other equipment is an inverter
– a metal box the size of a shoebox – that transforms the direct
current from the solar panels to the alternating current we use in our
homes.


“The electricity is produced here by the sun, fed into the wiring in the
building here, and any excess is distributed out onto the utility grid.”


The solar panels were made in Japan. And the inverter is from
Germany.


LeBeau has been installing systems like this for ten years. Demand
was slow until a year ago, when Minnesota started a rebate program.
LeBeau has put in more generators this year than in the last ten
years combined.


With another rebate offered by the local utility, LeBeau says the cost
of installing a typical system can be cut nearly in half.


And he says the increased activity has persuaded some of the
naysayers to help rather than hinder renewable energy projects.


“Now the electrical inspectors don’t have any choice – it’s being
supported by the utilities, and by the state of Minnesota, so it’s really
changed the atmosphere and the climate that we work in.”


But LeBeau says the state rebate program is a drop in the bucket
compared to what’s being done in other countries.


Christopher Reed agrees. He’s an engineer who advises individuals
and businesses on renewable energy projects. He says U.S. policy
has been piecemeal and erratic. For instance, there’s a federal tax
credit for renewable energy production. But it’s only in place for a
year or two at a time.


“When the incentive is out there, everybody ramps up as fast as they
can, and we slam projects in to meet the deadline before the credit
expires, and then everybody sits until the credit gets reintroduced
again. This has happened three times now.”


Reed says that discourages long-term investment.


Reed’s business is one of several American firms studied for the
report from the National Environmental Trust. The report says Japan
and most countries in Europe are providing major and consistent
incentives to encourage production of renewable energy. The report
says this approach is saving money, creating jobs, and putting
businesses in a position to export their new technologies and
expertise.


Reed says he’s frustrated to see European and Japanese companies
thrive, using American inventions such as photovoltaic, or PV,
technology, while American manufacturers fail.


“It’s almost embarrassing. The PV technology, that came out of Bell
Labs in the U.S. We should be the world leaders.”


But some observers say the worry is overblown. Darren McKinney is
a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers. He says
the U.S. has nothing to fear from German or Japanese businesses.
He says fossil fuels are doing a good job of stoking the American
economy.


“The fact of the matter is that wind and solar and biomass and
geothermal simply aren’t ready for prime time. If someone wants to
make an argument ‘well, they could be ready for prime time if they
received x-amount of tax cuts,’ I won’t necessarily argue against that
because I don’t know enough about the technologies. What I do
know is it would be cutting off our nose to spite our energy face if we
turn our backs on fossil fuels.”


Right now, oil and natural gas get the lion’s share of federal subsidies
in the U.S. Subsidies for renewable energy sources are very small in
comparison. As other countries shift to new technologies, American
companies could be left behind.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Romancing the American Chestnut

  • American chestnuts (left) are smaller than Chinese and European chestnuts. The Chinese and European varieties are also resistant to the blight, making the imports more desirable to growers. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one
traditional food has – for the most part – disappeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one traditional food has – for the most part – disapeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Chestnuts roasing on an open fire…”)


That old chestnut of a song romanticizes roasting chestnuts as a part of the holidays. But a lot of us have never even seen chestnuts, let alone roasted them on an open fire. Chestnuts used to be a major part of the Eastern hardwood forest. There were millions of them. In fact, 25 percent of all the mature trees were chestnuts. But a blight, imported with some Chinese chestnut trees, slowly wiped out the American chestnuts. Now, they’re gone.


Well… almost. Much of the root stock is still alive. Sprouts grow until the blight knocks them back again. A blight only hurts the standing tree where it branches out.


And, in a few isolated pockets in the Midwest, the blight hasn’t reached the trees. A few American chestnuts are alive and growing and some of them are free of the blight. At Nash Nursuries in central Michigan, owner Bill Nash is guiding us through a rare sight… a grove of American chestnuts.


“These are 20 years old and as you can see, they’re fairly good sized. The American chestnut is quite a rapid growing tree. It’s well-suited for our climate, so it doesn’t have any of the problems that some of the hybrids do as far as growing and cultural care you have to take care of them. The Americans, you get them started and they’re pretty much on their own.”


In a few places in Michigan and Wisconsin there are small groves of chestnuts. They’re prized trees. They’re great for shade. The hardwood is rot resistant and makes great furniture and fence posts. And the chestnuts are eaten by humans and wildlife alike. Bill Nash says the tree will be popular again if it ever overcomes the blight that’s hit it so hard.


“The American chestnut will make another big comeback in this country as a yard tree, as a timber tree, as a wildlife tree.”


That part about a wildlife tree is more important than just worrying about the squirrels and bunnies. Chestnuts were an important food source for all kinds of animals.


Andrew Jarosz is a plant biologist at Michigan State University. He says the loss of chestnuts has been hard on wildlife populations.


“Chestnuts shed nuts in a more regular pattern than oaks, which will have what are called mast years – where they’ll have major crops, massive crops one year and very small crops in other years – which means it’s either feast or famine if you’re depending on oaks.”


Since the blight first began hitting American chestnuts about a century ago, researchers have been looking into all kinds of ways to stop it. One way is to cross it with the Chinese chestnut which has a couple of genes that resist the blight. But it takes a long time to breed out the Chinese characteristics from the American chestnuts and still keep the resistant genes.


Another approach is genetic manipulation. Genetically modifying the American chestnut tree to make it disease resistant. Again, work is underway, but it takes a long time. And even after success, it’s likely some people won’t like the idea of releasing a genetically modified organism into the wild.


The final approach worked in Europe when the blight hit there. It seems there’s a naturally occuring virus that kills the blight. It spread naturally in Europe. There are a few groves in Michigan that have naturally acquired the virus and it’s working to keep the blight at bay. Andrew Jarosz is working on the research. He says the trick is figuring out how to get the virus to spread to other trees short of manually spreading it on cankers infected by the blight.


“If we’re literally talking about millions of trees across probably, you know, the eastern third of the country, we obviously can’t treat every canker on every tree. And we need to be able to figure out a way to deploy the virus in a way that it can spread.”


Even with all that hopeful research, it’ll be ten years at least before some practical solutions end up in the forests, and Jarosz believes a couple of centuries before the American chestnut holds the place it once did in the forests.


Bill Nash knows it’ll be a while before there are major changes, but he is optimistic about the American chestnut.


“Oh, I would think the tree has a bright future. There’s enough people working on that, enough programs going on now… So, I would suspect that in the not-too-distant future we should have some of this progress made. You know, Robert Frost in his poem predicted the comeback of the American chestnut, that something would arise to offset that blight. And we’re starting to see that.”


Frost put it this way: “Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not, It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.”


Seems Frost was an optimist too.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

State Tests People for Mercury Levels

  • While people are now aware of the health benefits of eating fish rich in omega 3 fatty acids like salmon, a study has shown that the risk of high mercury levels and heart disease might counteract those benefits. (Photo by Bartlomiej Stroinski)

Researchers in one state in the region are trying to
find out how much mercury load their residents are carrying.
So far, 300 samples have been collected for the study. And
the researchers have found that one-quarter of Wisconsin men participating in the study have high levels of mercury. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Researchers in one state in the region are trying to find out how much mercury load
their residents are carrying. So far, 300 samples have been collected for the study.
And the researchers have found that one-quarter of Wisconsin men participating in the
study have high levels of mercury. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


The EPA says the safe level for mercury is one part per million. In the ongoing Wisconsin
study, one in four men and one in eight women have more than that in their bodies. The
study subjects volunteered for the study, so officials say they may not represent the
population overall.


Eating fish contaminated with mercury has long been thought to cause developmental
problems in young children. But now there’s research from Europe showing it can also
contribute to heart disease in adult men.


Lynda Knobeloch is a toxicologist with the Wisconsin Department of Health.


“There have been several studies that show that people who eat fish have less heart
disease because of omega 3 fatty acids, but the European study was able to sort out the
good effects of omega 3s from the bad effects of methyl mercury, and see that the mercury
actually can overwhelm the beneficial effects of omega 3s and actually cause heart disease.”


Wisconsin is requiring its utilities to reduce mercury emissions by 75% over ten years.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

Summer Battle Plans for Aquatic Plant

Now that spring is here, aquatic plants are beginning to flourish. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ashley McGovern has an update on the battle against the Eurasian watermilfoil:

Transcript

Now that spring is here, aquatic plants are beginning to flourish. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ashley McGovern has an update on the battle against the
Eurasian watermilfoil:


The Eurasian watermilfoil originated in Europe and Asia and has been found in the US for more
than 80 years. Watermilfoil can be transferred from lake to lake by boaters. The plant can hinder
recreational activities, like swimming and fishing, and can harm native ecosystems.


Lake associations and ecologists are trying to find ways to stop the spread of this invasive plant.
Bernd Blossey is an ecologist with Cornell University. He says people use different tactics to try to
get rid of watermilfoil.


“Some people promote using aquatic herbicides but that’s never a long-term solution—the plant
simply comes back.”


Another technique used is called biological control. That’s introducing natural enemies, such as
insects, that feed on the plant.


“Biological control doesn’t try to eradicate a plant, it just tries to reduce it’s population level.”


Blossey says it’s important to increase awareness of invasive species like watermilfoil and to keep
in mind that using herbicides is just a temporary solution to a tough problem.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ashley McGovern.

Related Links

Concern Grows Over Flame Retardant Chemicals

A class of potentially toxic chemicals, known as PBDEs, is being found in higher levels in people in North America. The chemicals are used to prevent fires in everything from couch cushions to televisions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

A class of potentially toxic chemicals, known as PBDE’s, is being found in
higher levels in people in North America. The chemicals are used to prevent
fires in everything from couch cushions to televisions. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:


PBDE’s are used extensively throughout North America. In Europe and Asia
the chemicals are hardly used at all for this purpose. To date, four studies have
indicated that North Americans have considerably higher levels of the
chemicals in their bodies, than do Europeans and Asians. The most recent
study tested the breast milk of 47 women in Texas.


Linda Birnbaum co-authored the study published in the journal Environmental Health
Perspectives. She says while these chemicals were created to save lives,
other chemicals should be developed that won’t be absorbed by human tissue:


“Personally I’m concerned about chemicals that persist and bio-accumulate.
They eventually get to a point be that they can be a problem.”


Some animal tests have shown that the chemicals can be toxic. That’s why the
European Union and the state of California enacted a ban on certain types of PBDE’s.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Study Critical of Genetically Modified Crops

A new study claims the U.S. government is losing billions of dollars by allowing farmers to grow genetically modified crops. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

A new study claims the U.S. Government is losing billions of dollars by allowing farmers to grow
genetically-modified crops. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


The study from the British Soil Association reports the U.S. has increased farm subsidies by 12
billion dollars over the past three years to make up for lower exports. Many European countries
will not allow the import of genetically-modified food. They say it hasn’t been proven to be safe
for human consumption. But U.S. farmers refute the report.


Leon Corzine is a Central Illinois corn and soybean farmer. He says a report criticizing the economics of genetically-modified
crops is nothing more than propaganda.


“If bio-tech crops – just like any other item – if it is not economically viable, they don’t last and
we don’t use them. That’s how I operate on my farm.”


Corzine says there are so many variables in the agriculture industry that it’s impossible to blame
one thing for higher subsidies. He also says while some European countries are turning away
U.S. grain, other countries are increasing their import levels.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.