A new report warns growing more corn for ethanol production carries some risks
for clean water. Chuck Quirmbach has details:
Transcript
A new report warns growing more corn for ethanol production carries some risks
for clean water. Chuck Quirmbach has details:
A lot more corn is going toward making ethanol, but a study by the National Research
Council says in areas with limited water supplies, adding acres of corn, or
launching water-using ethanol production plants is a major concern. The report also says increased use of fertilizers and pesticides on corn fields
could trigger more water pollution.
Study committee chairman Jerald Schnoor urges more research to help
extract energy from lower-impact perennial crops such as grasses:
“There needs to be a technology breakthrough so that enzymes and organisms
can break down the cellulose, the hemi-cellulose and lignin from plants like
switchgrass, woody biomass plants like poplar and willow.”
Schnoor says more research dollars could come from reducing federal subsidies
for corn-based ethanol.
Some Christian sermons have been getting greener and greener lately.
It’s a part of a concerted effort to get church-goers on board with environmental volunteerism and
advocacy. American Muslims have been taking a hard look at the environment, too. Some
Islamic leaders hope Muslims will get fired up to fight global warming, deforestation, and other
environmental problems. Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
Some Christian sermons have been getting greener and greener lately.
It’s a part of a concerted effort to get church-goers on board with environmental volunteerism and
advocacy. American Muslims have been taking a hard look at the environment, too. Some
Islamic leaders hope Muslims will get fired up to fight global warming, deforestation, and other
environmental problems. Shawn Allee reports:
A few boys have some books sprawled on the floor of a book store. They’re practically devouring
some illustrated stories:
(Azam:) “All these three are my boys.”
(Allee:) “Looks like they’re pretty busy with their own books here.”
(Azam:) “Yeah, they like reading, I’m proud of them.”
Ali Azam says his boys aren’t the only ones reading up on Islam – it’s a family affair.
(Allee:) “Let’s see what books you have here.”
(Azam:) “To Be a European Muslim.”
Azam says, To Be a European Muslim reads like a manual for everyday life:
“You can be a good Muslim, and you can be a good citizen of the Western world.”
The IQRA Muslim book store in Chicago is owned by Abidullah Ghazi. Ghazi says Islam deals
with a person’s whole life. He says the holiest book, the Koran, has something to say on
marriage, science, and the environment:
“There’s very clear guidelines in the tradition of the prophet. When you plant a tree, and animals
and insects eat from it, for each eating, you get a reward.”
But Muslims I spoke with say the environment is not a hot topic in American mosques. And even
in this Muslim book store, it gets little explicit attention:
“Because, as I say, in traditional society itself, that’s not a major issue.”
Ghazi says when Muslims arrived a few decades ago, the environment was not on their minds.
Their children needed guidance on fundamentals, like how to pray. But today, Muslims face new
moral challenges, including the environment:
“So, the time’s ripe to discuss this issue.”
Ingrid Mattson is President of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA. ISNA is one of the nation’s
largest Muslim umbrella groups:
“What I would like to see is that we’re able to develop more guidelines with participation of the
community that would help them move forward to make them more environmentally friendly.”
Mattson wants American Muslims to fight global warming. She says it should be easy to motivate
them. After all, many have family abroad who face environmental problems:
“Most of us have at least visited Middle Eastern countries or African countries and we’ve seen for
ourselves the impact of global warming. We know, for example, that the situation in Darfur really
was started because of the drying up watering holes of nomads.”
The U.N. agrees water is at least one cause behind the conflict in Sudan. It could take time for
big-picture principles to move from Mattson’s group into American mosques. But some Muslim
environmental activists are on the move now.
Zainab Khan works with a Chicago inter-faith group called Faith in Place. She’s looking at things
Muslims can do in their day-to-day lives. One of Khan’s goals is to have mosques cut back the
environmental impact of Islamic rituals:
“We pray five times a day. Most people need to wash up before they pray, and usually they’ll be using
warm water for that.”
And heating water takes power. So, Khan is trying to get a local mosque to install solar water
heaters. She also wants Muslims to buy food from local farmers. She says getting organic food
isn’t enough. It can be imported from places like Peru:
“So, for example, if you’re getting organic all the way from Peru, it’s harder to monitor whether pesticides aren’t
being used, plus on top of that, you’re burning a lot of fossil fuels to get that organic food to you.”
Khan says buying local helps ensure workers and animals are treated well – both Islamic
principles. Khan says sometimes it’s hard to speak about Islam without getting hung up on
current discussions on gender and terrorism, but she tries anyway:
“God will send forth upon communities blessings upon blessings. It’s this positive outlook that if you make a
concerted effort and then God will take care of you and take care of the Earth.”
Increasingly, Islam is making America its home. Khan and other Muslims believe they can
contribute to making that home’s environment better through faith.
There’s a new generation of washing machines that use charged particles
of silver to kill bacteria. Rebecca Williams reports the Environmental
Protection Agency says it’s going to regulate the machines as
pesticides:
Transcript
There’s a new generation of washing machines that use charged particles
of silver to kill bacteria. Rebecca Williams reports the Environmental
Protection Agency says it’s going to regulate the machines as
pesticides:
The Samsung Silver Ion machine generates tiny charged particles of
silver that kill bacteria on contact.
The EPA has decided any kind of machine that generates ions to kill
pests has to be regulated as a pesticide.
Andrew Maynard is a scientist with the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars. He says there are worries that these kinds of
machines could kill helpful bacteria:
“What’s causing concern is the release of these charged silver atoms
into the environment which can kill bacteria but also might end up
killing bacteria we don’t want them to.”
Maynard says there are about 130 products on the market now that use
tiny silver particles to kill bacteria. They’re in everything from kitchen
countertops to food containers.
But he says EPA hasn’t decided whether to regulate those products as
pesticides.
Land along transmission corridors, like this one, are heavily managed by power companies. (Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
A new report says power, water, and sewage utilities can play a significant role in
restoring wildlife habitat. That’s because they own or control thousands of acres of land
across the country. Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
A new report says power, water, and sewage utilities can play a significant role in
restoring wildlife habitat. That’s because they own or control thousands of acres of land
across the country. Mark Brush has more:
A new report from the Environmental Law Institute says utilities can improve habitat in
many ways – including how they maintain ‘rights of way’: places where power, sewer and
water lines cut through forests and grasslands. Often companies will mow wide swaths
or use pesticides to control plants in those areas.
Jim McElfish is with the Environmental Law Institute. He says every state has a
voluntary wildlife conservation plan, and utilities can use these plans when making lots
of decisions:
“Imagine if you’re looking to do a siting of a new generating plant. Suddenly you have, in
every state and territory, a resource that tell you where the opportunities are for resource
conservation and where you’re likely to run into problems.”
McElfish says because of the vast amounts of land utilities control, it’s important for
them to take an active role in protecting wildlife.
Jenny Chang at a farmers' market with her produce. (Photo by Joel Grostephan)
Demand for corn-based ethanol is growing and that’s made farmland more valuable. This
year, American farmers planted 14 million acres more corn than they did last year. Some
small immigrant farmers believe that’s why they’re having a hard time finding land to rent
to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. Joel Grostephan reports:
Transcript
Demand for corn-based ethanol is growing and that’s made farmland more valuable. This
year, American farmers planted 14 million acres more corn than they did last year. Some
small immigrant farmers believe that’s why they’re having a hard time finding land to rent
to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. Joel Grostephan reports:
Jenny Chang doesn’t want to change the government’s policy on ethanol subsidies. She
just wants some good land to raise her vegetables that she sells at the farmer’s market.
When planting time came around this year, she was still looking for a plot to rent. Chang is
Hmong and she came from Laos more than 20 years ago with few job skills. For
the last 7 years, she’s made part of her income from farming on land she rents. In the
past, finding land to rent wasn’t that hard. But, Chang says through her daughter who
interprets for her, this year was different:
“She said that this year, we couldn’t find land, that’s why we got stuck with this bad area.
She’s really sad.”
With corn selling for double what it did last year, land values are going up. That means
rent is going up. And the 300 Hmong farmers in this area are having a hard time finding
land they can afford.
Kent Olson is an economics professor at the University of Minnesota. He says he thinks
land scarcity is due to higher demand for ethanol:
“Your ethanol may have started the ball rolling, and created higher prices for corn, which
pushed corn onto other land from other crops but that’s pushed soybean prices up. So we
are seeing higher rent from a couple different directions.”
In theory, ethanol from corn is supposed to be good for the environment. It burns cleaner
and means less reliance on foreign oil.
But… conventional corn farmers rely on fossil fuel-based fertilizers and chemical
pesticides. By the time their diesel-powered tractors plant the corn, combines harvest it,
trucks transport it and ethanol distillery plants cook it, the energy gain from corn ethanol
is marginal.
The Hmong farm differently. Most don’t use fossil fuel-based fertilizers or pesticides.
Instead, they do a lot of hand weeding, and put in long days. Jenny Chang fertilizes her
tomatoes with chicken manure. Chang’s daughter, who is also named Jenny Chang, says
many older Hmong farmers are suspicious of chemicals:
“They like gardening the way they used to back in old Laos. They don’t really know what
insecticides and pesticides are, or how to use it so that’s why they just don’t use it. And a lot of
people are afraid of cancer, so they just like to grow things organically because they eat it
themselves.”
And researchers say growing food this way seems more environmentally friendly than
growing corn for ethanol.
Bill Moseley is a professor at Macalester College in St. Paul. He studies the
environmental effects of agriculture:
“Conventional corn production is displacing, in this particular case, a form of
agriculture that is more environmentally sound in terms of it’s using fewer fossil
fuel imports, and it’s producing crops for the local market, it’s particularly ironic in
this instance.”
Government officials don’t think increased corn production for ethanol is the problem.
Perry Aasness works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency. When he learned the Hmong farmers were having a hard time finding land to rent, his
agency helped them. But Aasness believes corn production for ethanol is NOT the cause
of the land shortage:
“Well, at least in Minnesota I think it’s very, very minimal. I think the real issue that I
have seen in Minnesota is that the Hmong farmers, the Hmong community is primarily
based in the Twin Cities metro area. They have to go further out to get land — a lot
of it I think is just due to urban sprawl.”
For many people in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, the Hmong are the face of agriculture
at farmers markets. But since no government agency keeps track of their numbers, it’s
hard to know if their tradition of raising crops on small plots of rented land is going well,
or if ethanol and high corn prices are actually putting their small businesses in danger of.
The cost of oil is topping out near 70 dollars a barrel and the nation is sending billions of dollars to unstable foreign countries to get it.
With that
in mind, many Americans have begun to think about biofuels from domestic crops. Biofuels such as corn ethanol and soy diesel are the most popular right now. But researchers are looking into plants that don’t require the fertilizers and pesticides those crops need. The GLRC’s Richard Annal reports on one crop that could make ethanol much more efficiently:
Transcript
The cost of oil is topping out near $70 a barrel and the nation is sending billions of dollars to unstable foreign countries to get it. With that in mind many Americans have begun to think about biofuels from domestic crops. Biofuels such as corn ethanol and soy diesel are the most popular right now, but researchers are looking into plants that don’t require the fertilizers and pesticides those crops need. The GLRC’s Richard Annal reports on one crop that could make ethanol much more efficiently:
(sound of pouring liquid)
Researcher Timothy Volk is showing me some liquid that is on its way to becoming biofuel.
“So what comes out of this is a brown liquid.”
This murky brownish substance contains sugars that have been extracted from wood chips. Separating sugars from organic materials is an essential part in the production of the biofuel ethanol, and a new method being developed at the School might revolutionize that process. This lab is at the School of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, part of the State University of New York system. Everybody just calls the school ESF. What makes the process at ESF different is the use of water instead of harsh chemicals as a means of extracting sugar and the use of wood from a type of willow as stock material.
The extracted sugars are then fermented and used to produce ethanol. Mix 85 percent ethanol with 15 percent gasoline and you’ve got E-85. Several models of cars can burn E-85. It burns cleaner than petroleum based products, and reduces the dependence on foreign oils.
ESF’s Timothy Volk says this method differs from others being used, creates several by- products, and leaves very little waste material.
“What’s left over still looks like a wood chip. That could go to the paper industry, and you could still make paper out of it, or you could use that wood chip to produce renewable heat and power. One of the beauties of this is that from a ton of hard wood chips from the forest or willow or where ever it comes from you’re making multiple products and there’s not a lot left.”
For stock material ESF researchers are experimenting with the use of the willow shrub tree. This plant is native and grows to over ten feet tall. The researchers say willow beats corn hands down. You have to burn fuel to plant corn every year. Corn requires fossil fuel-based fertilizers, and you only use the corn kernels rather than the whole plant to produce ethanol.
Jim Nokas is one of the lead researchers on the project. He sees the willow shrub as much more commercially viable than corn-based production.
“The best calculations we have for every unit of energy put into this process you get anywhere from 11 to 15 units of energy out. Compared to the best data available for corn, for every unit of energy put in, one would obtain 1.67 units of energy out.”
In other words, producing ethanol from willow is about ten times more efficient than using corn.
Tom Linberg is a commissioner with the New York State Department of Agriculture. Linberg says he’s excited by the prospect of wood-based ethanol production, and sees growing a low maintenance crop like willow as a way for farmers to earn extra cash.
“I think it’s something that could provide an option for a lot of farmers or land owners to use vacant land. Try and get some income off of it whereas they might otherwise not be getting income off the land. It’s a fairly low impact crop. You know, you plant it once and you don’t really need to do anything else with it, and this is something they could have on the side. Brings in some extra income and, again, helps keep that land productive.”
Willow can be harvested 6 to 7 times before replanting is necessary. It has a year long growing and harvesting season, and provides high yields. With about 2 million acres of dormant farmland in New York alone that could be dedicated to willow production, Volk believes growing willow for ethanol would have a positive effect on the local economy that buying foreign oil cannot offer.
“The real benefit here then is we build them here and it’s locally produced material, so you buy it from the land owners, or the farmers that are producing willow, the people that own wood lots. You buy all that material locally from the local community. You produce the ethanol and hopefully then we are using it locally in the community, and instead of sending energy dollars out of the state we cycle them around the local community and get lots of benefits associated with them.”
The researchers say the willow-to-ethanol process will be ready for commercial application within two years, and if it proves commercially viable the timing couldn’t be better. With ethanol plants being built across the nation, the wood method could become an efficient alternative to corn-based production in many states.
Two gourmet chefs managing the kitchen at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth are adding organic vegetables to the menu. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Sharon McKeever takes a pot of soup off the stove in the kitchen at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth. Food managers are adding hormone-free milk and organic fruits and vegetables to the menu. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
St. Luke's Hospital recycles food service items like large cans and jars. The kitchen also saves unused meals for the local food bank, and sends food waste to the compost pile. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Some hospitals are trying to heal the food that they serve. The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill takes us to one hospital that’s making efforts to spice up their menu:
Transcript
Some hospitals are trying to heal the food that they serve. The GLRC’s
Stephanie Hemphill takes us to one hospital that making efforts to spice
up their menu:
(Sound of elevator)
St. Luke’s is the smaller of Duluth’s two hospitals. Their motto could be
“we try harder.” Several years ago, the hospital put two chefs in charge
of the housekeeping, laundry, and food.
In the kitchen, there’s the usual industrial stoves and dishwashers, and a
long assembly line where workers fill the trays for patients, based on
what they’ve ordered.
“The patient fills out the menu, I’ll have this entrée and that salad and this
beverage; then as the tray moves down the conveyor belt, they look at the
menu and put on the appropriate products.”
Mark Branovan was a gourmet chef at restaurants in California’s wine
country. In that part of the world, they take their fresh fruits and
vegetables very seriously.
“We did very little of our produce buying from the big distributors; we
had local guys that would grow lettuce for us, and herbs for us, and tomatoes…
anything we wanted. So that just kind of rolled over for us into, if
we can do it for a restaurant, why can’t we do it for a hospital?”
It’s harder to do in this part of the country, where you can grow lettuce
for about half the year and you’re lucky to get a tomato at all. But
Branovan and his colleague, LeeAnn Tomczyk, decided not to let that
stop them.
Tomczyk was a chef in a trendy restaurant in Wisconsin before she took
the job at the hospital. She says when she first came here, she was
appalled at some of the things on the menu.
“YOu know the patient was able to pick a jell-o salad and a piece of cake.
Well, to me jell-o is a dessert but to them it was their salad and that
was their vegetable, and that wasn’t right.”
Tomczyk and Branovan started to add more fruits and vegetables,
including organic items, to the menu, but they learned to pick their
battles.
“When I tried to change some of the casserole dishes, and some of the
traditional northern Minnesota fare, I was met with some serious
resistance from our customers and our patients who said, ‘Yeah, we have
tater tot hot dish on our menu because we like it.'”
One of the first items to change was the milk. Now the hospital serves
hormone-free milk to patients in the rooms and workers in the cafeteria.
Tomczyk says she’s convinced hormone-free milk and organic food are
healthier. She says an organization devoted to helping people heal, like a
hospital, needs to think about healing in broad terms, even globally. She
says buying local food avoids long-distance transportation, with its heavy
reliance on polluting fossil fuels.
“And the introduction of pesticides and herbicides, and that getting into
our water systems, it’s that whole cycle, and we’re using more and more
these days, and I think it’s just got out of hand.”
The hospital is also committed to reducing waste. It freezes unused
portions and gives them to soup kitchens and homeless shelters. It sends
its food waste to the city compost pile.
St. Luke’s is a member of a hospital buying group that negotiates prices
with big producers like Pillsbury. Each hospital is supposed to buy a
certain percentage of its food through the buying group. When Branovan
and Tomczyk asked the distributor for hormone-free milk, the distributor
didn’t carry it.
“We had to actually get a waiver that says they will allow us to buy off-
contract.”
Branovan got a similar waiver to buy organic fresh fruit, and greens for
the cafeteria salad bar. He hopes to add more organic and locally-grown
foods.
Branovan says St. Luke’s is the first hospital in the region to ask the
buying group to supply hormone-free milk and organic vegetables, but
hospitals and schools on the west coast and east coast are doing it on a larger
scale.
James Pond is editor of Food Service Director, a trade magazine.
He says the movement will grow.
“The pricing advantages will in some ways level out, where if it becomes
important enough to the clientele, the food service operators will respond
by providing products in this manner.”
Some hospitals organize a farmer’s market to serve their workers, as a
way to introduce them to organic and local foods. Then they add those
foods to the cafeteria and patient meals. At St. Luke’s, they feature
organic food at company parties.
Health officials across the country say some nasty night critters are making a comeback. Bed bug cases are up. And in 2005, they were reported in 43 states. The GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports:
Transcript
Health officials across the country say some nasty night critters are
making a comeback. Bed bug cases are up, and in 2005, they were reported
in 43 states. The GLRC’s Tana Weingartner reports:
It turns out your mother knew what she talking about, when she
reminded you to “sleep tight” and “don’t let the bed bugs bite.” The
blood-sucking insects are popping up in hotels and homes around the
country.
Steve Chordas is a public health entomologist with the Ohio Department
of Health. He blames increases in travel and the banning of some
pesticides for the bed bug resurgence, but, he says, the bugs are more of
a nuisance than a public health threat.
“There’ve been some diseases that have been isolated from the bed bugs,
but it’s not been shown, scientifically at least, that these are able to be
vectored by the bed bugs or transmitted from the bed bugs to a new
victim.”
Bed bugs are like tiny hitchhikers that can hide in your luggage and
clothing if you stay in an infested hotel room. Extensive cleaning and
insecticides are usually needed to get rid of a bed bug infestation.
Everybody's got a gutter... and they're part of the urban runoff problem. Rain picks up dirty soot and other chemicals from roofs and heads into the gutter. During storms, the dirty water rushes down the gutters and down streets into storm drains... and can pollute beaches, drinking water and wildlife habitat. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The pervious pavement at the Chicago Center for Green Technology lets water seep into the ground instead of heading into the sewer drain. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The rain swale near the parking lot at the Chicago Center for Green Technology is full of native plants that absorb water that would otherwise head into the storm water system. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
One of the ten threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is nonpoint
source runoff. It’s a catchall category for pollution that’s not being spewed from one identifiable
source. The federal government’s finding that rain washing off concrete and asphalt in cities and
suburbs poses as big a threat to the Great Lakes as waste coming out of a factory pipe. Shawn
Allee has a look at the government’s effort to cut water pollution by remaking the urban
landscape:
Transcript
We’re continuing our series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through the series. Today a look at a broad problem
with no simple solution:
One of the ten threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is nonpoint
source runoff. It’s a catchall category for pollution that’s not being spewed from one identifiable
source. The federal government’s finding that rain washing off concrete and asphalt in cities and
suburbs poses as big a threat to the Great Lakes as waste coming out of a factory pipe. Shawn
Allee has a look at the government’s effort to cut water pollution by remaking the urban
landscape:
(rain running into a sewer)
Water from a rain gutter is pouring into a nearby storm sewer drain. That protects property from
water damage and flooding. But at the same time, they pose an environmental problem for the
Great Lakes.
Roofs, streets and parking lots are made of hard materials like concrete or asphalt. During
storms, rain rushes off these surfaces into storm drains.
The problem is this: the runoff isn’t pure.
Brian Bell’s a storm water expert with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says rain picks
up pollutants on all those roofs and streets, things such as:
“Antifreeze from cars, motor oil, brake fluid, copper from the brake pads, cigarette butts from
trash, household hazardous waste, pesticides that may be overapplied.”
And for most sewer systems, that’s not the worst of it.
“The problem with storm water is, once its mobilized and goes into a storm sewer system, that
system does not treat the waste, so all of those things go to the local waterway untreated.”
In this region, runoff flows into the Great Lakes, where it pollutes beaches, drinking water, and
wildlife habitat.
To fight this, the EPA’s trying something new. It wants to make hard, urban landscapes softer.
The idea’s to replace concrete and asphalt with more soil and plants. That way, water can sink
into the ground and stay out of storm drains.
But how do you do that?
Well, the EPA’s working with places like the Chicago Center for Green Technology to show people
how. The city hopes residents and developers will use what they see here in their own projects.
(city sounds in)
Grace Troccolo’s guiding a tour of the facility.
First stop?
“Our parking lot is slightly pitched, so all of our rainwater flows off into these vegetated bioswales,
which when I’m not with people in the business, I call ‘ditch with plants.'”
The plants aren’t typical bushes or flowers. They’re mostly tall, prairie grasses native to the
Midwest. Their roots help water seep deep into the ground. The Center has several bio-swales,
and they all keep runoff on site and in the ground.
Another stop on the tour is a 40-foot section of the building’s roof. It’s covered with a matt of
short, tangled creeping plants. Grace explains why they’re here.
“So here we are at our green roof. Again, getting back to our issue of storm water management,
the city would like to see more vegetated surfaces and of course, in the city like Chicago there are
a lot of roof surfaces and so this section of the roof is designed to hold all of the rainwater that
falls on it during a one-inch storm.”
Again, the roof’s vegetation retains water and keeps it out of storm drains. Because of these
technologies, the building is an urban runoff success story.
All told, the Center releases less than half as much water to storm drains as similar buildings do.
The EPA wants the average home or business owner to follow suit, but price might keep that from
happening. Green roofs, for example, are more expensive than conventional ones.
But some observers say the biggest obstacles in fighting urban runoff are political. Stephen
Bocking teaches environmental policy at Trent University. He says the public’s used to pointing
fingers at a handful of big, industrial polluters.
People just aren’t used to seeing every house and business as a source of pollution.
“It’s much more difficult to deal with the problem when you’re talking about millions of separate
sources. People can’t just say well, it’s the job of industry or the job of the government to deal with
it. It’s the job of everyone to deal with it in some way.”
In other words, we’re all to blame.
Every new building in a city, or home in a subdivision, creates more hard surfaces, such as new
driveways, new parking lots and new roofs.
“It’s pretty hard to deal with a form of development which is intrinsic to our way of life. It involves
thinking about how we live our lives and how design and build our cities.”
Bocking says the EPA’s plan might not be enough to make up for all the roads and other hard
surfaces we’re building. He says, to succeed, we’ll need to change how we develop land.
There’s not much political support to stop that kind of development right now, so for the time
being, hard surfaces will continue to win out.
These fishermen at Port Clinton, Ohio, are a few miles away from the dead zone that develops in Lake Erie every summer... so far, most fish can swim away from the dead zone. But the dead zone is affecting the things that live at the bottom of the lake. (Photo by Lester Graham)
One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is nonpoint source pollution. That’s pollution that
doesn’t come from the end of a pipe. It’s oil washed off parking lots by storms, or pesticides and
fertilizers washed from farm fields. Nonpoint source pollution might be part of the reason why
some shallow areas in the Great Lakes are afflicted by so-called dead zones every summer.
Transcript
In another report on the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes series, reporter Lester Graham looks at a
growing problem that has scientists baffled:
One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is nonpoint source pollution. That’s pollution that
doesn’t come from the end of a pipe. It’s oil washed off parking lots by storms, or pesticides and
fertilizers washed from farm fields. Nonpoint source pollution might be part of the reason why
some shallow areas in the Great Lakes are afflicted by so-called dead zones every summer.
Dead zones are places where there’s little or no oxygen. A dead zone develops in Lake Erie
almost every summer. It was once thought that the problem was mostly solved. But, it’s become
worse in recent years.
(sound of moorings creaking)
The Environmental Protection Agency’s research ship, the Lake Guardian, is tied up at a dock at
the Port of Cleveland. Nathan Hawley and his crew are loading gear, getting ready for a five day
cruise to check some equipment that measures a dead zone along the central basin of Lake Erie.
“What I have out here is a series of bottom-resting moorings that are collecting time series data of
currents and water temperature and periodically we have to come out here and clean them off and
we take that opportunity to dump the data as well.”
Hawley is gathering the data for scientists at several universities and the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. The information helps
them measure the behavior of the dead zone that occurs nearly every year in Lake Erie…
“What we’re trying to do this year is get a more comprehensive picture of how big this low-oxygen zone is and how it changes with time over the year.”
One of the scientists who’ll be pouring over the data is Brian Eadie. He’s a senior scientist with
NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab. He says Lake Erie’s dead zone is a place
where most life can’t survive…
“We’re talking about near the bottom where all or most of the oxygen has been consumed so
there’s nothing for animals to breathe down there, fish or smaller animals.”
Lester Graham: “So, those things that can swim out of the way, do and those that can’t…”
Brian Eadie: “Die.”
The dead zone has been around since at least the 1930’s. It got really bad when there was a huge
increase in the amount of nutrients entering the lake. Some of the nutrients came from sewage,
some from farm fertilizers and some from detergents. The nutrients, chiefly phosphorous, fed an
explosion in algae growth. The algae died, dropped to the bottom of the lake and rotted. That
process robbed the bottom of oxygen. Meanwhile, as spring and summer warmed the surface of
Lake Erie, a thermal barrier was created that trapped the oxygen-depleted water on the bottom.
After clean water laws were passed, sewage treatment plants were built, phosphorous was banned
from most detergents, and better methods to remove phosphorous from industrial applications
were put in place.
Phosphorous was reduced to a third of what it had been. But Brian Eadie says since then
something has changed.
“The concentration of nutrients in the central basin the last few years has actually been going up.
We don’t understand why that’s happening.”
Eadie says there are some theories. Wastewater from sewage plants might be meeting pollution
restrictions, but as cities and suburbs grow, there’s just a lot more of it getting discharged. More
volume means more phosphorous.
It could be that tributaries that are watersheds for farmland are seeing increased phosphorous. Or
it could be that the invasive species, zebra mussel, has dramatically altered the ecology of the
lakes. More nutrients might be getting trapped at the bottom, feeding bacteria that use up oxygen
instead of the nutrients getting taken up into the food chain.
Whatever is happening, environmentalists are hopeful that the scientists figure it out soon.
Andy Buchsbaum heads up the Great Lakes office of the National Wildlife Federation. He says
the dead zone in the bottom of the lake affects the entire lake’s productivity.
“If you’re removing the oxygen there, for whatever reason, for any period of time, you’ve
completely thrown that whole system out of balance. It’s all out of whack. It could mean
irreversible and devastating change to the entire ecosystem.”
And Buchsbaum says the central basin of Lake Erie is not the only place where we’re seeing this
low-oxygen problem…
“What makes the dead zone in Lake Erie even more alarming is that we’re seeing similar dead
zones appearing in Saginaw Bay which is on Lake Huron and Green Bay in Lake Michigan.
There, too, scientists don’t know what’s causing the problem. But, they’re already seeing
potentially catastrophic effects on aquatic life there.”
State and federal agencies and several universities are looking at the Lake Erie dead zone to try to
figure out what’s going on there. Once they do… then the battle likely will be getting
government to do what’s necessary to fix the problem.
