A new study states that it may take longer than previously thought for a lake to recover from phosphorus buildup. (Photo by Jere Kibler)
A new study suggests the build-up of phosphorus in lakes may cause problems for hundreds of years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Transcript
A new study suggests the build-up of phosphorus in lakes may cause problems
for hundreds of years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
Many farmers and other landowners use phosphorus-rich fertilizers on their property, but when the chemical runs off into lakes and streams, it can lead to algae blooms, depletion of oxygen, and fish
kills.
New research says it can take decades or hundreds of years for phosphorus to cycle out of a watershed. University of Wisconsin – Madison Professor Stephen Carpenter did the study. He says the effects won’t be as long-lasting if more phosphorus controls are put in place.
“For example we could develop more buffer strips, restore more wetlands, move point sources away from streams and lakes and maybe even innovate new technologies for keeping phosphorus on the
land.”
Farm groups say many of their members are trying to reduce soil erosion and chemical runoff. Carpenter says that’s true, but he says in some watersheds, much stronger action is needed.
Oil drilling rigs similar to this one are popping up all over northeastern Ohio, and many residents and local governments are
opposed to the drilling. (Photo by Tammy Sharp)
In some states, local governments have been able to stop developments they thought might be bad for the area or damaging to the environment. But across the nation, state governments have been taking some of those decision-making powers away from local governments. The latest battle is over drilling for oil and natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
In some states, local governments have been able to stop developments they thought might be bad for the area or damaging to the environment. But, across the nation state governments have been taking some of those decision-making powers away from local governments. The latest battle is over drilling for oil and natural gas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:
A year ago Joel Rudicil, owner of Bass Energy Company, couldn’t drill an oil and gas well in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. He had a property owner with more than twenty acres who was willing to deal. But city officials would not permit it.
“I had met with city council here on many occasions dating back to 1998 and they simply did not want well-drilling to occur in their community. So we were really at a point of just walking away from this opportunity, or litigation.”
Instead, he joined the oil and gas industry to lobby for a bill that would take authority to regulate drilling away from local communities.
(Sound of pounding)
Today, his workers are placing piping down well number three on the Knollwood Cemetery property in Mayfield Heights. Once the oil and gas bill became law last fall, all local laws pertaining to oil and gas drilling were scrapped and the state took sole authority.
“In our case, we’ve drilled 28 wells since the bill was signed into law.”
Eight of the communities where Bass Energy dug those wells had had regulations or outright bans on oil and gas drilling.
“Of those 28 wells that I just mentioned, we would not have been able to drill 20 of those wells.”
Mayfield Heights has become the poster child for Ohio’s battle for control of oil and gas drilling. Margaret Egensperger is the city’s mayor.
“Our area’s all built up here. Anywhere you’re going to build a well, you’re going to hurt our residential areas.”
Northeast Ohio is the most densely populated part of the state, but also has much of the oil and gas companies want to extract. Mayor Egensperger says one of the wells Bass Energy dug at Knollwood Cemetery was next to townhouses, condominiums, and the street.
Egensperger: “And they are right up by the condos and the noise was absolutely awful. I believe they drilled for 5 or 7 days there. We have a noise ordinance. The city was told that if, once they start to drill, if we stop them, that we’d have to pay 5-thousand dollars a day. So, of course we didn’t enforce the noise ordinance. That’s a lot of money.”
Niehaus: “It is what’s called state pre-emption…”
Republican state senator Tom Niehaus sponsored the bill that gives the authority to the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources.
Niehaus: “The state has exercised its right to say that this is an important state resource. I personally feel, and my fellow legislators felt, that the state division was in the better position to evaluate whether or not drilling should be permitted in certain areas.”
Grant: “What to do you say when they say ‘we know our issues, we know our citizens, we know the land here and our planning better then the state could ever know it’?”
Niehaus: “I probably would agree that they know their local community better, but I would argue that they do not know the best way to tap the natural resources that exist underneath the land.”
Many local governments are like Mayfield Heights; they want to fight the state law in court, but worry it would cost too much money.
Some homeowners are also concerned that oil and gas wells will reduce their property values. But the oil and gas industry feels there are bigger issues at stake. Tom Stewart, Director of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, says the nation needs energy.
“And you see how emotionalism is stifling what we need to do in this country to find the energy sources we need. And obviously we’re not doing the job, because you’re paying $2.30 for a gallon of gas. Right? We’re not doing the job. And we’re fighting wars. Meanwhile, we have this wonderful resource base in the United States, and every hole is a fight.”
It’s arguable whether the relatively small amount of natural gas or oil reserves left in the continental United States will make any real difference in the price of gasoline at the pump. Many city officials believe the trend tonward bigger government control will have much larger costs.
Life in the suburbs is idyllic to some people... (Photo by Bon Searle)
...and many rats, now that the sewers have been flooded. (Photo by Tamara Bauer)
Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame
for rats pouring out of the sewers in droves all over the country, and the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most pristine
neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce
Kryszak explains what caused the rat invasion and
what’s being done to evict them:
Transcript
Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame for rats pouring out of the sewers
in droves all over the country. And the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most
pristine neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak explains what
caused the rat invasion and what’s being done to evict them:
Piercing blue autumn skies and billowing white clouds drift across the chimneys of this modest,
but perfectly manicured suburb. There aren’t even many leaves crunching under foot. Town workers
have already come and vacuumed them all away. But there’s a nasty little secret scurrying under
the porches and behind the garden sheds in this Western New York town. County Sanitation Chief
Peter Tripi takes us for a peek.
“Can you see the teeth marks here? That’s actually rat gnaw marks. And there’s the garbage bag.
And that’s what we found when we went to this property.”
Now, you might be thinking that we trudged through derelict grass and scattered debris to find
these rat clues. Nope. This is a gorgeous, manicured yard – with not a blade of grass out of
place. But Tripi says rats aren’t choosy.
“You would never think by looking side to side that there would be a rat problem in this yard.
Doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in, or how much money you’ve got. There’s no difference.
They just like your food.”
And you’d be surprised where rats can find food. A garbage can left even briefly uncovered, a
neglected bird feeder, uhhh… dog feces… and even a compost pile.
“Absolutely. This is a rat condo. It’s a grass-clipping compost pile that basically housed rats
to go a hundred yard radius all the way around to the different houses.”
Tripi says rats had to get creative with their housing. A summer of extremely heavy rains drove
the out of the sewers and into some previously rat-free neighborhoods. And with the West Nile
virus killing off millions of birds, the rats have less competition for the food they’re finding
above ground. The consequence is a virtual rat infestation all the way from New York and Illinois
to Virginia, Michigan and L.A. In Kenmore, there have been four thousand rat complaints – nearly
double last year.
(Sound of garbage truck)
Of course, none of this is news to the garbage collectors. They see the problem up close and
personal. Twenty-year veteran Louie Tadaro says this past summer is the worst he’s ever seen.
“Across the street there’s an alleyway and there had to be like ten of them in there, And we
started chasing them with garbage cans trying to kill them, but we couldn’t. By the time we
got there they just split.”
The problem is, they don’t split for long. Vector Control Chief Tripi says now that the rats
have relocated from the sewers to upscale accommodations, they kind of like it.
“And what that means is that they want to live with us. They want to be near our garbage and
our bird feeders. The problem with that is that rats carry diseases.”
We all know about stuff like typhus and the bubonic plague. But there are emerging diseases,
such as a pet-killer called Leptospiroris. It’s killing dogs all across the country. Tripi
says they need to get rid of the rats before the disease starts spreading to humans. So, his
team is taking the rats on, one yard at a time.
Tripi and his Vector control team set rat traps, they fill bait boxes with poison, and – when
they have to – they issue citations to residents who don’t heed the town’s new “rat control rules.” Covered garbage cans only. Clear away all brush. Clean up scattered bird seed and dog feces. Slowly, the rules seem to be working.
(sound of Tripi looking into rat trap)
Still Tripi says it’s mostly educational warfare. And he says now – heading into winter – is the
best time to nip the problem. If the rats get cozy, not only will they stay, they will multiply.
Fully nourished, one adult rat can breed up to sixty baby rats a year.
“The adult rat can live on a little bit of food, but he can’t procreate unless he has a lot of
food source. And they can’t live through the winter unless they’re warm and fattened up.”
So now is the time to – quite literally – put a lid on it. Keep those garbage cans covered, unless
you want some uninvited furry guests this winter, and many, many more come spring.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
Farm museums like this one are sometimes the only remnant of the agricultural life that has been overrun by development. However, some communities are buying farmers' development rights in an effort to save the rural landscape. (Photo by Lester Graham)
One way to keep farms from becoming subdivisions is to pay the farmers to never build on their land. This has been happening on the east and west coasts for decades. But it’s just now beginning to catch on in the Great Lakes region. In the second of a two part series on farmers and the decisions they make about their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette takes us to a place where local government is paying to keep land in agriculture:
Transcript
One way to keep farms from becoming subdivisions is to pay the farmers to never
build on their land. This has been happening on the east and west coasts for
decades. But it’s just now beginning to catch on in the Great Lakes region. In
the second of a two part series on farmers and the decisions they make about
their land, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette takes us to a place
where local government is paying to keep land in agriculture:
Whitney Lyon’s farm has been in his family for more than a century. He has 100
acres of cherry and apple trees. The orchards are on a peninsula that stretches
fourteen miles across a bay in Northern Lake Michigan. His farm is about a half
mile from the clear blue water that attracts thousands of tourists here every
year.
Lyon says real estate agents love his property.
“We run clean back to the bay on the north side… that’s view property. It’s
worth 30, 40,000 bucks an acre.”
But it’s not worth that much anymore. The rights to build houses on the Lyon farm have
been sold. The way this works is this: the Lyon’s keep the land, but they get paid
for the real estate value they give up to keep the land as a farm instead of house
sites.
(sound of apple picking)
There’s a thick fog across the peninsula today. Whitney Lyon is picking apples. His
wife Mary is inside watching kids. Mary says the day they sold the development
rights was the best day in their thirty years of farm life. She says she knew they’d
be able to stay on the land. And because of the money they made, she downsized her
daycare business.
“The big change, especially the last two or three years, I no longer just buy stuff
from just garage sales. I have actually been spending money on purchasing things for
the house. Which previously, everything came from garage sales.”
Many of the Lyon’s neighbors have sold their development rights as well. For ten
years, the township government has raised money to buy those rights with an additional
property tax. Almost no other community in the Midwest has a program like this. But,
if approved by voters, five more townships in this area might also start programs after
the November elections. Each township is separately asking voters to approve a property tax.
The American Farmland Trust has helped the townships design the program. The group is
excited because this would provide an example of local governments joining together to
protect farmland. Farmland Trust’s President Ralph Grossie flew in for a campaign event.
In a speech, Grossie told a crowd of about 100 people there’s a disconnect between farmers
and their communities. He says the community benefits from the farms while the farmers
struggle to make ends meet.
“We believe there is a middle ground here, there is a way to strike a deal between those
who manage our landscape – private farmers and ranchers, landowners – and those who
appreciate and benefit from that well-managed landscape. If you think about it, that’s
the heart of the property rights debate. Almost all those conflicts over property rights
are really about who pays for achieving a public goal on private land.”
Grossie says paying farmers with public money is the best option if a community wants to
keep farms. Otherwise, he says government forces farmers to pay when they give up profitable
uses of their land because of zoning laws. But a few in this crowd weren’t buying.
Some are opposed to more taxes on their homes or businesses so the township government can
write big checks to farmers. Others question if younger generations even want to farm.
(sound of noise from crowd)
And some are just plain suspicious of government. Roger Booth is talking to another
opponent of the propposal after the speech. Booth is explaining that when the right
to develop a piece of land is purchased, it’s gone forever. But he points out there
is one exception.
“Eminent domain. And who’s going to decide eminent domain has the right to take it? The
people in power of government at the time. Not today. Thirty years from now.”
Government also has an image problem because prominent local farmers often sit on the
town boards. It’s hard not to notice they could be the ones cashing in on the public treasury.
Critics also point out these programs tax farms to save farmland. And they say buying the
deveolopment rights does nothing to improve the business of farming. Supporters admit this
doesn’t guarantee future success for farms. But they say at least it gives the farmers a
chance to keep farming instead of selling to developers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Peter Payette.
Once hunted nearly to extinction, the gray wolf has recently rebounded under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to take the wolf off of the Endangered Species List and hand wolf management back to the states. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
A captive wolf at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
Peggy Callahan, Executive Director of
the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. Callahan works to minimize conflicts between wolves and people. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:
Transcript
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population
of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management
to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:
(sound of wolves howling)
The image of the wolf has always had a powerful effect on people. Wolves seem dangerous,
mysterious, romantic. They are a symbol of the untamed wilderness. Before Europeans came
to America, wolves roamed freely on every part of the continent. In 1630, the colony of
Massachussetts Bay started paying bounties to settlers for killing wolves. Over the next
300 years, wolf killing spread across the country, until all that was left was a few small
pockets of surviving wolf packs.
When the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, the only wolves left to protect in the
Midwest were in Northern Minnesota. By some estimates, there were as few as 350 of them.
Today, Minnesota has a healthy wolf population of around 2400 animals, and smaller populations
are growing in Wisconsin and Michigan. Becaue of this success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
has proposed removing the animals from the Endangered Species List. This would mean wolves would
no longer be federally protected – it would be up to the states.
(sound of gate opening)
Peggy Callagan works with captive wolves at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. She’s the
Center’s co-founder and executive director. She and her staff research ways to minimize
conflicts between wolves and people. Callahan is looking forward to seeing the wolf taken off
the Endangered Species List.
“It’s a good thing for the Endangered Species Act, to take a wolf off or an eagle off or a
peregrine off when it has recovered. The act was not established to provide a permanent
hiding place. It was established to protect a species until such time that they could be
managed in a different way.”
Wisconsin and Michigan have wolves because young born in Minnesota have migrated east to start
their own packs. Callahan says how Minnesota manages its wolves will affect wolf numbers in the
Midwest. And she isn’t crazy about Minnesota’s current wolf management plan, which has different
rules for different parts of the state.
“Now, there’s a boundary; there’s a boundary called a wolf zone, and there’s a boundary that’s
called the ag zone. And nobody likes it. We went backward.”
In Northeastern Minnesota, where the majority of wolves are, landowners can only kill wolves
if they can demonstrate an immediate threat to pets or livestock. In the rest of the state, where
there is more agriculture and more people, the rules are more lenient. On their own property,
landowners can kill any wolf they feel is a danger, without having to prove anything to the state.
The Sierra Club is opposed to taking the wolf off the Endangered Species list, largely because
of Minnesota’s management plan. Ginny Yinling is the chair of the Wolf Task Force of the Sierra
Club in Minnesota.
“They’ve pretty much given carte blanche to landowners, or their agents, to kill wolves
pretty much at any time in the southern and western two thirds of the state; they don’t even
have to have an excuse, if a wolf’s on their property they can kill it. Instead of this being
what should have been a victory in terms of wolf recovery and the success of the Endangered
Species Act, instead we’re afraid it’s going to turn into something of a disaster.”
Yinling is also concerned with the protection of wolf habitat, such as den sites, rendezvous
sites, and migration corridors.
“The current management plan protects none of those areas; it leaves it entirely up to the
discretion of the land managers.”
But wildlife managers say these are not critical for a large wolf population
like Minnesota’s. Mike DonCarlos is the wildlife program manager for the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources.
“As you look at the range of species that are threatened by habitat change, ironically the wolf
in Minnesota is not one of them. As long as there’s a prey base that continues, wolves should
do just fine. The key is mortality rates and availability of food.”
In Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are fewer wolves, state laws will continue to protect
wolf habitat. Peggy Callahan says she has faith that the wolves will be fine, even if the
Minnesota state plan is not perfect. But at the Sierra Club, Ginny Yinling says they have
plans to challenge wolf delisting in court.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.
Turbines like these not only could help produce energy from a renewable and seemingly infinite resource, but could also create thousands of new jobs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
A new report says a national renewable energy policy could create thousands of new jobs in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
A new report says a national renewable energy policy could create thousands of new
jobs in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists urges Congress to adopt a policy
requiring 20 percent of the nation’s energy to be produced using renewable sources
by the year 2020. Those sources could be wind, solar, or geothermal energy. The report
says such a policy could create thousands of new jobs in manufacturing, construction and
maintenance.
Jeff Deyette is an energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says
rural communities – especially farmers – could be the biggest winners under the proposal.
“Farmers that were chosen to have wind power facilities sited on their land could get up
to as much as $4,000 per turbine to lease on their property.”
Deyette says a national renewable energy standard could save consumers nearly 50 billion
dollars by 2020. He says that’s because increased competition from renewables would help
lower the demand and the price of natural gas.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
Lilies like these reside in the Reinstein Nature Preserve. Environmentalists worry about natural life in the preserve as the state of New York considers opening it up without restrictions.
Imagine a suburban, backyard wilderness where 200 year-old trees still stand. That’s exactly what you’ll find at the 300 acre Reinstein Nature Preserve. It meanders right through the heart of a bustling suburb. The preserve has been limited to small groups led by a nature guide. But there’s a new plan to give unrestricted access. Some environmentalists worry that would ruin the preserve. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak takes us to the woods – and to the debate:
Transcript
Imagine a suburban, backyard wilderness where 200 year-old trees still stand.
That’s exactly what you’ll find at the 300 acre Reinstein Nature preserve.
It meanders right through the heart of a bustling suburb. The preserve has been limited
to small groups led by a nature guide. But there’s a new plan to give unrestricted access.
Some environmentalists worry that would ruin the preserve. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Joyce Kryszak takes us to the woods – and to the debate:
A Great Blue Heron perches lazily in the distance above an expanse of pink water lilies.
At first Bob Reinstein doesn’t see the bird.
“I should’ve brought my field glasses.”
But then its giant wings spread wide, laboring to clear the water in this serene Monet-like setting.
“The lilies were a gift from two different environmental organizations…”
The man and the majestic heron both seem oblivious to the rush of cars and people just
beyond the edge of the woods. This is the Reinstein Nature Preserve. It’s framed on all sides
by a sprawling suburb of houses and shopping plazas in Western New York. Like his parents before
him, Bob Reinstein says he’s risked his life for nearly sixty years defending this scene; he guards it against trespassers – and sometimes trespassers with guns.
“Their lives were threatened several times, in fact, mine was also. I was unarmed at the time,
but he had pointed his shotgun at me and threatened to shoot. Realizing it was pointing at my face,
I stopped following him.”
But Reinstein never stopped trying to protect the nature preserve his father created half a century ago.
By the time he died in 1984, the elder Reinstein had dug nine ponds, planted thousands of trees,
rare ferns and flowers to compliment the ancient scene. The younger Reinstein says it’s like a
living museum.
“Where else can schoolchildren walk back through history a hundred and fifty years and see
samples of what existed then, that are still here today?”
Reinstein says his father bequeathed the preserve to the state to keep it from being trampled.
He stipulated that it must stay forever wild. People could visit, but only for educational
purposes. And only with a trained nature guide. That could all be changing. A proposal by the
State Department of Environmental Conservation would give the public unrestricted access.
Jane Wiercioch lives in the nearby suburb and loves visiting her backyard wilderness. But today
Weirchioch is handing out petitions here. She hopes to stop the DEC from opening the preserve. She
says it would leave the woods vulnerable.
“I know I came in here the other day for a walk around that lily loop with my great granddaughters
and, of course, they were chasing frogs. So, I’m with them, I’m yelling at them, ‘don’t do anything.’ But can you imagine having people just coming in here and doing what they want?”
State conservation officials say bringing in more people is the whole point. Meaghan Boice-Green
is a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. She says all
other department-run properties are open to the public. Boice-Green says unrestricted access would be good for both the public and for the agency.
“We’re not talking about property that hasn’t touched by the hand of man, and in order for us
to obtain the funding to do the habitat maintenance that’s going to be necessary to maintain
this manmade habitat, we have to provide some public access. We’re not going to be able to
access funds to support a property that the public isn’t allowed to access.”
But the state has never had any trouble finding money to maintain the preserve before.
And Boice-Green couldn’t offer specifics about any extra funding.
Terry Boyle has volunteered as a guide at the preserve for eight years. But he agrees the
preserve should be unrestricted. Boyle says visitors can’t have a truly natural experience
if someone’s watching their every move.
“A lot of those people who do want to come in, they want to take photographs, they want to sit
down and reflect for a little bit about what they’re looking at, and that kind of stuff. So,
they can’t go at their own leisurely pace with tour guides, because we have to push them through a little bit
faster.”
But the head of a local environmental group sees it differently. Larry Watson says if the
preserve is opened, there won’t be anything left to look at anyway. He believes the state is
just tired of policing the woods. But Watson says it was Dr. Reinstein’s wish that the
preserve be kept wild. And he should know. As a young boy sixty years ago, Watson spent many
long hours in the woods, helping Reinstein plant the saplings that now tower overhead.
“If they turn this into what they want to, it will be nothing more than a state park.
And we’d rather see it kept as an individual showpiece and a place New York state can be quite
proud of and show the rest of the country what can be done in the way of environmental
conservation.”
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation says it hasn’t made a final
decision. It will consider the wishes of those who want access to the preserve to remain
restricted. But many people are also demanding it be opened. Ultimately, the state says
it will likely let people come to the preserve whenever they want – and trust them
to be good caretakers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
Heavy cleanup crews from the Genesee County Land Bank use chain saws, wood chippers, tractors and brute force to move piles of debris on the lot of an abandoned house on the north side of Flint, Michigan. (Photo by Chris McCarus)
Up until three years ago, rundown homes and abandoned lots were multiplying in the city. With the creation of the Land Bank, some people believe the city's image is beginning to turn around for the better. (Photo by Chris McCarus)
A next door neighbor to the abandoned house visits the cleanup crew. She has had to bear the eyesore and health risk next door for several years. The Land Bank currently has custody of about 2,800 properties like this in and around Flint. (Photo by Chris McCarus)
One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes. Those problems have led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:
Transcript
One community is fighting its problems of abandoned lands and unpaid property taxes.
They’ve led to a decaying inner city and increased suburban sprawl. The new tool the
community is using is called a “land bank.” It uses a unique approach to try to fix up
properties that otherwise often would be left to deteriorate. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Chris McCarus reports:
(sound of work crews operating wood chipper)
Cleanup crews are sending downed branches through a wood chipper on a vacant lot.
They’re also removing tires, used diapers, car seats, sinks, old clothes and dead animal carcasses.
The workers are from the Genesee County Land Bank in Flint, Michigan. They’re trying to
make abandoned property useful again. Dan Kildee is the Genesee County Treasurer and the brains
behind the land bank. He thinks this new approach can recover unpaid property tax money and help
improve the Flint Metro area.
“The community gets to make a judgment on what we think we should do with this land. We get
to take a deep breath.”
Empty lots and rundown homes have been multiplying for a generation. That’s left the city of
Flint in a terrible economic state. But the land bank is beginning to change things.
Until just three years ago, Michigan was like most other states. No one had come up with
a solution. The state would auction off a city’s tax liens. Then conflict between the tax
lien buyer and the property owner could go on for up to seven years. In the meantime,
properties were left to neglect and often vandalized.
Under this new program, the treasurer’s office forecloses on a property and hands it over
to the land bank, which acts as the property manager. The land bank might then demolish
a house; it might throw out the owner and let a tenant buy it; or it might auction it off
to the highest bidder. A private investor can’t just buy a tax lien. He has to buy the
property along with it and take care of it.
The land bank is financed in two main ways: through fees on back taxes and through sales
of the few nicer homes or buildings the land bank acquires that bring in relatively big
profits. Treasurer Dan Kildee says it makes sense to take that revenue to fix up old
properties and sell them to people who deserve them.
“There is no system in the United States that pulls together these tools. Both the
ability to quickly assemble property into single ownership of the county, the tools
to manage it and the financing tools to develop that property.”
The land bank program hopes to change the perception of Flint. As thousands of abandoned
homes, stores and vacant lots become eyesores, people and their money go other places,
usually to build more sprawling suburbs. The perception that people are abandoning the
inner city then speeds up that abandonment. Many people who can afford to leave the city do.
And those who can’t afford to move are left behind.
According to data gathered by the research group Public Sector Consultants, Flint has the
state’s highest unemployment and crime rates and the lowest student test scores.
Art Potter is the land bank’s director. He thinks the downward spiral can be stopped.
When it is, those folks in the central city won’t have to suffer for still living there.
“Even though the City of Flint has lost 70,000 people in the last 30 years, the people who
are still here deserve to have a nice environment to live in. So our immediate goal is to
get control and to clean these properties now.”
Urban planning experts are watching the land bank approach. Michigan State
University’s Rex LaMore says Flint is typical of Midwestern cities whose manufacturing
base has shrunk. Private owners large and small have left unproductive property behind.
As the land bank steps in, LaMore says it’s likely to succeed and become an example that
other municipalities can follow.
“They can begin to maybe envision a city of the 21st century that will be different than
the cities of the 20th century or the 19th century that we see around the United States.
A city that reflects a more livable environment. So its an exciting opportunity. I think
we have the vision; the challenge is can we generate the resources? And the land bank model
does provide some opportunity to do that.”
But the land bank is meeting obstacles. For example, the new mayor of Flint who took over
in July canceled the city’s existing contracts. A conservative businessman, the mayor is
suspicious of the city’s past deals. They included one with the land bank to demolish 57
homes. This has slowed the land bank’s progress. Its officials are disappointed but they’re
still working with the mayor to get the money released.
(sound of kids chatting, then lawn mower starts up)
The weeds grow rampant in a neighborhood with broken up pavement and sometimes
no houses on an entire block. It’s open and in an odd way, peaceful. Like a
century-old farm. It’s as if the land has expelled the people who invaded with their bricks,
steel and concrete.
In the middle of all the vacant lots, Katherine Alymo sees possibilities.
“I’ve bought a number of properties in the auctions from the land bank and also got a side
lot acquisition from them for my house. My driveway wasn’t attached to my house when I
bought it. And it was this huge long process to try to get it from them. But they sold it
to me for a dollar. Finally.”
And since then, she’s hired people to fix the floors, paint walls and mow the lawns.
She’s also finding buyers for her properties who want to invest in the city as she has.
Together, they say they needed some help and the land bank is making that possible.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris McCarus.
It’s the time of year when many gardens reach their peak – and even grow a little bit wild. That has made one essayist’s loss all the more painful. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly remembers a special garden:
Transcript
It’s the time of year when many gardens reach their peak –
and even grow a little bit wild. That has made one essayist’s loss all the more painful.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly remembers a special garden:
It looked like a crime scene.
Everything in the garden was gone.
The morning glories no longer crowded the sidewalk. Sunflowers were cut down in their
prime. There was a hole instead of the lilac. And one stubby trunk – where someone had
hacked off the sand cherry tree.
We started the garden just over a year ago. I found out I was pregnant and next thing I
know, my husband is incubating black-eyed susans on top of the refrigerator.
He seemed to have that nesting instinct. Suddenly, he was spending every weekend at
the nursery. He came home with tools and soil and plants and even trees.
The scraggly yard in front of our apartment building was being transformed.
For me, it was just what I needed – a patch of nature in the middle of the city.
This summer, the flowers came back. And we shared the garden with our 6 month old.
We were pointing out the buds on the trees, and the bees buzzing around.
We didn’t tend it much as we got ready to move. And it grew pretty wild.
There were flowers, but also grass and weeds.
Two weeks after we moved, all that life was torn up. Eleven different kinds of plants – all
carefully chosen and tended. We visited them every time we walked in or out of the
building.
I can’t imagine the person who could just rip flowers out of the ground. It was a tiny,
imperfect oasis. Now, it’s just dirt.
Ironically, the only thing that survived was a plum tree we planted on the city property –
between the sidewalk and the road. We thought city workers might pull it up – since it
wasn’t official. Instead, they plunked an iron gate around it and now, every week, a city
truck comes to water it.
We always laugh about how it survived its brush with the city officials.
Now, that tree has proved it really is a survivor – but all that perennial color that was
once a backdrop to it is gone. It was not just a bit of our past, but an investment in the
future as well.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
A large wetland restoration project in the Midwest is expected to bring back a variety of native plants and animals. But in addition to the environmental benefits, the project is helping out an unexpected group – archeologists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
A large wetland restoration project in the Midwest is expected to bring back a variety of native
plants and animals. But in addition to the environmental benefits, the project is helping out an
unexpected group – archeologists. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Alan Harn is standing on the top of a ridge overlooking a seven thousand-acre farm in Central
Illinois. Harn is the assistant curator of Archeology at the Dickson Mounds Museum in nearby
Lewistown. While he has surveyed just about all of the land in the region for archeological sites
over his forty-year career, he only recently was able to get into these bottomlands next to the
Illinois River:
“Even though I’ve walked over that land for most of my lifetime I was never forced to know it.
But we found 55 new archeological sites. And these sites have been found in areas that, had I not
been forced to look at them, I would have overlooked them.”
Harn says during his short window of opportunity to search the land, he found temporary
campsites of the Mississippian and Oneota Indians from about 900 to 1200 A-D. The discoveries
are part of a unique partnership between environmentalists and archeologists. The Nature
Conservancy purchased this land to convert it to a wetland. But before they bring back native
plants and animals to the region, they are letting archeologists survey the property. Larry Conrad
is director emeritus of the Western Illinois University Archeological Research Lab. He says
farming has done significant damage to many Native American sites in the Midwest:
“They were plowing a lot of the sites, particularly those in the bottoms, and this gradually
deteriorated the sites. And there was collecting by at least workmen. They used to bring axes
and spearheads off those sites without any documentation.”
Conrad says environmentalists may be the best hope archeologists have to protect important
pieces of land that have not yet been surveyed. He says conservation groups are one of the few
private property owners that do not abuse the land they own:
“Unfortunately, a lot of people view it as the property belongs to them and they can do whatever
they want, and if there are archeological resources, some people are irresponsible or destructive
toward the resources. We look forward to the Nature Conservancy as being an excellent steward
and they own a very large tract of land there now. So it’s a tract of land we don’t have to worry
about.”
Conrad says even after the survey of the land is over, any sites not found will be underneath water
and vegetation –not at risk of being plowed and damaged. The Nature Conservancy is happy
another group of people is benefiting from their plans to restore this piece of land. Doug Blodgett
is with the Nature Conservancy and is heading up the restoration effort. He says in this project,
the archeological element is a natural fit:
“The archeology is such an important issue here. It’s important to us because it fits right in with
our mission. It’s almost a part of our mission. It helps better explain and justify our mission.
The reason native Americans were here for twelve thousand years is because of the abundant
natural resources that were there in the flood plain. So it just enhances our story.”
But Blodgett says the Nature Conservancy’s mission is to create bio-diversity, and not protect
archeological sites. He says if digging for artifacts ever gets in the way of protecting plants and
animals, they will not hesitate to call off the archeologists. Alan Harn realizes that could be a
possibility. He says that’s why they will continue to survey this land while they have the chance
before the restoration begins:
“We have no idea what lies out there. I think that’s the fun thing about archeology is that every
time you answer a set of questions, it opens a door, and in that door is a room full of new
questions that you didn’t even know existed. We will be continuing the search for the record.”
Harn still has some time to continue his search. The Nature Conservancy is planning to begin its
restoration plan in earnest at the end of next year.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
A new study states that it may take longer than previously thought for a lake to recover from phosphorus buildup. (Photo by Jere Kibler)
