RACE’S ROLE IN URBAN SPRAWL (Part I)

  • Urban sprawl sometimes conjures up images of subdivisions sprouting up in cornfields. But land use experts say the term should also include a focus on the central cities that are left behind. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Experts seldom talk about one of the driving forces behind urban sprawl. White flight began the exodus of whites from city centers, and racial segregation is still a factor in perpetuating sprawl. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the issue that’s often overlooked:

Transcript

Experts seldom talk about one of the driving forces behind urban sprawl. White
flight began the
exodus of whites from city centers, and racial segregation is still a factor in
perpetuating sprawl.
In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports on the issue that’s often
overlooked:


Land use advocates argue that urban sprawl and deteriorating inner cities are two
sides of the
same coin. The tax money that pays for new roads and sewer systems for sprawl and the
investments that pay for new strip malls is money that’s spent at the expense of
city centers
because it’s not invested there.


For the most part, all of that investment is made in communities that are
overwhelmingly white.
Those left behind in the cities are often people of color who are struggling with
high taxes to pay
for the deteriorating infrastructure and government services designed for
populations much larger
than are left today.


White flight was aided by government and business institutions. Government home
loans for
veterans of World War II that made those nice subdivisions possible didn’t seem to
make it into
the hands of black veterans. Banks often followed a practice of redlining. And
real estate
brokers also worked to make sure the races remained segregated.


Reynolds Farley is a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Population
Studies
Center. Farley says today, when planners and government officials talk about white
flight and
segregation, they talk in the past tense. They don’t like to acknowledge that
racism like that
still exists…


“Well, I think there is a lot of effort to underestimate the continued importance of
racial
discrimination and the importance of race in choosing a place to live. There’s been
a modest
decrease in segregation in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, it would be a serious
mistake to
overlook the importance of race in the future of the older cities of the Northeast
and Midwest.”


Farley says as recently as two years ago a federal government study looked at real
estate
marketing practices and found there were still “code phrases” that indicated whether
neighborhoods were white or black.


“Subtle words would clearly convey to white customers the possibility that there are
blacks
living there, the schools aren’t in good quality. And the subtle words could convey
to blacks
that they wouldn’t be welcomed in living in a white neighborhood.”


In the North… racism has evolved from overt to covert. It’s a wariness between
the races not talked about in polite society. It becomes more evident as solidly
middle-class blacks begin to move into older suburbs and whites flee once again to
newer
subdivisions even farther from the city core.


Land Use and ‘Smart Growth’ advocates say it’s time to face up to the continuing
practice of
segregation. Charlene Crowell is with the Michigan Land Use Institute. She says it
starts by
talking about the fears between white people and black people.


“By not addressing those fears, the isolation and the separation has grown. So,
until we are able
to talk and communicate candidly, then we’ll continue to have our problems.”


But it’s uncomfortable for most people to talk about race with people of another
race. Often we
don’t talk frankly. Crowell says we’ll be forced to deal with our feelings about
race sooner or
later. That’s because as more African-Americans join the middle-class, the suburbs
are no longer
exclusively white…


“My hope is that those who feel comfortable in moving further and further away from
the urban
core will come to understand that they cannot run, that there are in fact black
homeowners who
are in the suburbs and moving into the McMansions just as many whites are. And we
all have to
look at each other. And we all have to understand that this is one country and we
are one
people.”


In cities such as Detroit, white flight led to rampant urban sprawl in the
surrounding areas
and left huge pockets of poverty and streets of abandoned houses in the inner city.
Heaster
Wheeler is the Executive Director of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP. He says
while his
constituents often worry about more pressing urban issues, he knows that it’s
important that
African-Americans living in the city recognize farmland preservation and urban
revitalization
are connected. The investment that paves over a corn field is investment that’s not
going to
rebuild the city. But… black politicians largely have not been
involved in land use issues and usually they’re not asked to get involved…


“There is a racial divide on this particular issue. Often times African-Americans,
people of color and folk who live in the urban centers are not present at the
discussions about
Smart Growth.”


Wheeler says policymakers on both sides of the racial divide need to recognize that
land use
issues are as much about abandoned city centers as they are about disappearing
farmland…
which could put urban legislators and rural legislators on the same team. That’s a
coalition
that could carry a lot of sway in many states.


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

Related Links

IS IT SPRAWL? OR URBAN ABANDONMENT? (Part II)

  • Urban sprawl doesn't just alter the land in the suburbs. Central cities are affected by the loss of investment when people leave the cities and tax dollars are instead invested in building roads and sewers in the surrounding areas. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Concern about urban sprawl is often limited to the loss of farmland, traffic congestion, and unattractive development. But urban sprawl has other impacts. Building the roads and sewers to serve new subdivisions uses state and federal tax money, often at the expense of the large cities that are losing population to the suburbs. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham looks at the divide between city and suburb:

Transcript

Concern about urban sprawl is often limited to the loss of farmland, traffic
congestion, and unattractive development. But urban sprawl has other impacts.
Building the roads and sewers to serve new subdivisions uses state and federal tax
money, often at the expense of the large cities that are losing population to the
suburbs. In the second of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
looks at the divide between city and suburb:


What some people call urban sprawl got started as the federal government’s answer to
a severe housing shortage. There wasn’t a lot of building going
on during the Great Depression. At the end of World War II, returning GIs needed
houses.


Reynolds Farley is a research professor at the University of Michigan’s Population
Studies Center. Farley says the federal government offered veterans low-interest
loans and developers started building modest homes on green lawns on the edge of
cities. But because of discrimination, the loans didn’t as often make it into the
hands of African-American veterans. Instead of segregated neighborhoods in the
city, segregation lines were newly drawn between city and
suburb.


“Very low-cost mortgages accelerated the movement of whites from the central city
out to the suburbs… built upon the long racial animosity that characterized cities
beginning at the time of the first World War and continuing, perhaps up to the
present.”


With segregation, there was a shift of wealth. Farley says jobs and purchasing
power were exported to the suburbs with the help of the interstate highway system.
And big new shopping centers displaced retail in downtowns.


People with low-incomes, often people of color, were left behind in cities of
abandoned houses and vacant storefronts that often didn’t have enough tax base to
maintain roads and services.


John Powell is a professor at Ohio State University. He’s written extensively on
urban sprawl and its effects on urban centers.


“So, we move jobs away, we move tax base away, we move good schools away and then
the city becomes really desperate and they’re trying to fix the problems, but all
the resources have been moved away.”


With no way found to fix the cities, whites have been moving out of cities to the
suburbs for decades. And now, middle-class blacks are moving out too. For some
metropolitan areas, leaving the city has become a
matter of income… although Powell says even then African-Americans have a more
difficult time finding a way out.


“Race never drops out of the equation. In reality, even middle-class blacks don’t
have the same mobility to move to opportunity that even working-class whites do
because of the way race works in our society.”


So, segregation continues. But now the line is drawn between middle-class blacks in
the older, inner-ring suburbs, whites in the outer-ring suburbs… and for the most
part in cities such as Detroit, poorer blacks left behind in the central city.


Smarth Growth advocates say part of the answer to urban sprawl is finding a way to
get more money back into the central-cities to make them more attractive to
everyone. That’s worked in cities such as Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis-St.
Paul. But those cities and their suburbs are predominantly white. For Northern
cities with greater racial divides, cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St.
Louis and Detroit it’s different. A lot of white suburbanites don’t want tax
dollars going to blacks in the city. And African-Americans in the city don’t see
urban sprawl as their issue, so ideas such as tax revenue sharing for a metropolitan
region are not a priority. The issue of regional tax equity that
works in predominantly white regions… becomes muddied by racial animosity in
segregated regions.


“Buzz’ Thomas is state senator in Michigan who has taken on the issue of urban
sprawl and its counterpart, the deterioration of city centers. Senator Thomas says
if state legislatures can’t find an answer to help cities, sprawl in the suburbs
will continue, paving over green space and farmland.


“You know, poverty and jobs and access to health care and access to quality
education are very realistic issues for cities like Detroit. But, a reality is they
go hand-in-hand with sprawl. As your black middle-class moves out of the inner city
because they’re not satisfied with those resolution to those issues. You know, it
links sprawl.”


Senator Thomas says legislators from rural areas and from urban areas are beginning
to realize they have a common issue. But before they can get to discussions of
regional tax equity, they first have to talk about the more difficult issue of
race…


“And have a discussion that might make me uncomfortable, that might make those
that I discuss it with uncomfortable. Only then, I think, can we really adequately
figure out how long it’s going to take us to resolve that issue.”


In the meantime, many cities are still losing population and revenue. Suburbs
continue to sprawl. And farms are becoming subdivisions, retail strip malls and
fast food restaurants.


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

Related Links

Putting the Brakes on Lead Wheel Weights

  • When tires are balanced, lead weights are usually attached to the wheel rim. The weights make sure the tires wear evenly, and ensure a smooth ride. But the Ecology Center says the weights fall off, and the lead degrades easily, posing a risk to human health. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Lead is toxic to children. Even small amounts of exposure can cause developmental problems. Lead-based house paint is banned in the U.S. Now, an environmental group is calling for a phase-out of a car part that contains lead. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Lead is toxic to children. Even small amounts of exposure can cause developmental problems.
Lead-based house paint is banned in the U.S. Now, an environmental group is calling for a
phase-out of a car part that contains lead. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca
Williams has more:


(tire balancing sound)


When you go to get new tires, or to have them rebalanced, the mechanic often
attaches lead weights to the wheel rims. The weights help ensure a smooth
ride and make sure tires wear evenly.


But two recent studies found some of these wheel weights fall off. The
researchers say that adds up to 275 tons of lead dropped onto roads in the
region every year. One of the studies found the soft metal gets ground up
and deposited near curbs.


Jeff Gearhart is with the Ecology Center. His group is concerned the lead
dust could be tracked into homes and washed into water supplies. So the
group is working with tire retailers to switch to non-lead wheel weights.


“Lead, in commerce, being used in a way where there’s exposure, is something
we should move away from. The European Union has banned the use of these
weights and we think that that is going to be needed in the U.S. as well.


Gearhart says the Ecology Center will help retailers cover the cost of
switching to non-lead weights.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Transportation or Trees? A Highway Runs Through It

If you compare a ten-year-old map of any urban city in North America with a recent one, you’ll notice that almost all of our major cities are getting bigger. That means more suburbs, more cars, and according to traditional ways of thinking, the need for more roads. But is road building the solution? Or is it part of the problem? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner takes us to a place where the debate has been going on for half a century. As she reports, not everybody agrees that the debate is settled:

Transcript

If you compare a ten year old map of any urban city in North America with a recent one,
you’ll notice that almost all of our major cities are getting bigger. That means more
suburbs, more cars, and according to traditional ways of thinking, the need for more roads.
But is road building the solution? Or is it part of the problem? Victoria Fenner takes us to
a place where the debate has been going on for half a century. As she reports, not everybody
agrees that the debate is settled:


On this sunny morning, a hawk sits in watch high atop a power line in the Red Hill Valley in
Hamilton. It gazes down over the valley – 1600 acres in the middle of this gritty industrial
steel town on the western tip of Lake Ontario. And soon, if the current city council has its
way, the hawk will be looking down on an expressway.


This is a story that happens over and over again in communities throughout North America.
This expressway plan in Hamilton has been on and off again for fifty years. It has polarized
the community, and with a municipal election happening soon, decision day for the valley is
looming. If a pro-expressway council is elected, it will go ahead.


Don McLean is with the Friends of Red Hill Valley, an organization that has been mobilizing
opposition to the freeway plan since 1991. He explains why he doesn’t want the expressway.


“The Red Hill Valley is potentially the largest urban park in Canada, and the expressway proposal
comes right down the middle of it, takes down twenty five percent of its forest and so on. There is
a large creek running through it that drains half the urban area of Hamilton. It has twenty four
species of fish that have been recorded since 1995. It’s quite an interesting place because it’s
completely surrounded, really, by urban area.”


But other people say there are also good arguments why the freeway should be built. Larry
Dianni is running for mayor and is building his whole campaign around this single issue. He
says he sees no other options, especially since parts of the freeway have already been built.


“This has been a project that has been fifty plus years in the making, and of course people have
now turned it around to say this is a fifty year old solution to current problems. Wrong. This is an
overdue solution to problems that manifested themselves fifty-four years ago, and by virtue of
ignoring them, the problems have gotten worse.”


The problems Larry Dianni is referring to are all about economic growth. His arguments for
the expressway are not a lot different from other cities across North America. He says as
more people and businesses move into the area, the road is necessary to accommodate
increasing traffic.


But Don McLean says this is outmoded thinking.


“There are good studies now in the U.S., and this has been understood in Europe for a long time,
that building more roads mainly results in generating more traffic. It does not address congestion
issues, it actually increases them because it encourages more driving and it encourages people to
move further and further away from their destinations.”


Don McLean’s position is one shared by the Sierra Club of Canada. The Sierra Club
recently published a major report called “Sprawl Hurts Us All.” Janet Pelley, the report’s
author, has heard the full range of the debate on both sides of the border. She is an
environmental journalist who recently moved to Canada from the U.S.


“The fact that you see on both sides of the border that there are these battles over freeways that
have been going on for fifty years just shows it’s an outmoded way of thinking, that the
government hasn’t caught up with the new smart growth initiatives and the new ways people are
looking at cities.”


The bottom line, Janet Pelley says, is we’re too dependent on motorized traffic. She says we
have to find ways of reducing our dependency on our cars.


“If you’re assuming people have to have cars, then you’re going to be sucked into that whole “car
junkie” habit of “we have to have more freeways to get people to move around. It’s really key
how you build your city. If you build your city for pedestrians and for public transit then you don’t
have to worry about the car traffic.”


It’s a story that is repeated over and over again as communities such as Hamilton try to
balance economic growth with environmental responsibility. In Hamilton, it’s still not a
foregone conclusion whether or not the freeway will proceed. November’s municipal
election is shaping up to be a single issue campaign, with pro-expressway and anti-
expressway candidates staking their political future on the issue. Whether or not this will
settle the matter is another question. With many sides to this story, this is an issue that
many communities will be wrestling with for a long time to come.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

Related Links

Driving Blamed for Increase in Ozone Action Days

In the last ten years, some cities in the region have seen an increase in the number of days on which the air was considered unhealthy. And according to a recent report, much of the blame should be placed on air pollution from cars and trucks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

In the last ten years, some cities in the region have seen an increase in the number of days on
which the air was considered unhealthy. And according to a recent report, much of the blame
should be placed on air pollution from cars and trucks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Mark Brush has more:


In its report, the Surface Transportation Policy Project highlighted research showing links
between transportation-related air pollution and increased asthma rates, and increased cancer risk.


Jim Corliss is one of the report’s co-author’s. He says progress has been made in cleaning up the
nation’s air, but that there’s still more to be done about pollution from vehicles.


“The increase in driving, the explosion in the number of miles people drive every day and every
year has really undermined a lot of the progress that we’ve made in cleaner engines.”


Corliss says that the increase in the number of miles driven is largely due to the way communities
are designed. He says urban sprawl has led to large increases in the number of miles driven for
everyday errands.


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

Related Links

Sprawling Cities, Sprawling Waistlines

  • Many sidewalks end abruptly and go nowhere. Health experts are saying sprawling urban areas need to be designed so that sidewalks and bike paths are connected to community destinations. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Public health officials are calling for changes in how we design communities. They say poorly designed development contributes to higher obesity rates, the early onset of diabetes, and other health problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Public health officials are calling for changes in how we design communities. They
say poorly
designed development contributes to higher obesity rates, the early onset of
diabetes, and other
health problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


For the past few decades most suburban developments have been about convenience.
Shopping
should be just a short drive away…. parks, just a short drive away… school just a
short drive
away. Four-lane highways have replaced two lane streets to relieve congestion. If
you’re in a
car, other than dealing with the headaches of traffic, getting places isn’t that bad.


But… if you’re on a bike… or walking… crossing those multi-lane roads at busy
intersections is
daunting for adults… let alone children. And often, sidewalks are built, but
sometimes they just
end. A lot of times, sidewalks in a sprawling area never really go anywhere. So,
people don’t
ride their bicycles or walk to destinations. It’s just not convenient… and
sometimes it’s
downright hazardous.


Ellen Bassett is with the Urban and Regional Planning Program at Michigan State
University.


“Because we’re building things further and further apart without connectivity that
doesn’t avail
people to walk or to use their bicycles; they have to drive everywhere. We’re
creating
environments where people exercise less, are less and less active.”


And the result has contributed to a decline in the overall fitness of Americans.
That’s most
evident in children. Kids today are fatter. The rate of obesity is up. Early onset
of diabetes is up.
Part of that is due to kids watching too much television… sitting around playing
computer
games… and so on. But… not being able to ride a bike to school… or being able to
walk to the
park to play soccer… contributes to health problems because kids don’t get enough
exercise in
their daily routines.


Richard Killingsworth is the director of Active Living by Design. The program works
to
incorporate physical activity into everyday lives through the way we design
communities.
Killingsworth says somewhere along the line we came to accept that it made sense to
stop
walking places and instead drive to the health club.


“Now we’ve embraced the notion that we drive to destinations to do physical activity
as opposed
to having it as a part of our everyday lifestyle. So, we’ve essentially built an
environment that
accommodates something that is not physically active and accommodates one mode of
transportation, that’s the automobile.”


Killingsworth consults with urban designers, encouraging them to think about more
than whether
it’s a convenient drive… but to think about whether a neighborhood is designed to
make it a
convenient walk to school… or the park.


“We’ve built upon the notion that the car is king and it should be the only way and
unfortunately
we cannot sustain that for much longer. We need to look at other viable modes and as
we build, if
we build more compactly, a viable mode and a more efficient mode clearly would be
walking or
bicycling.”


And, increasingly, urban planners are being urged by physical fitness experts to
think about
public health. They say making sure there’s a network of sidewalks and bike paths
that actually
connect the community’s destinations is worth the cost.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She’s taken an active interest in land use planning. She says it’s cheaper to design
communities
that encourage physical activity than it is for society to pay the health care costs
caused by too
little exercise. She argues she’s not asking for that much.


“That children have sidewalks that are buffered between the road with a row of trees
and grass,
that the parks are connected to the schools and to homes and that people could walk
to get a
gallon of milk if they chose to or to go down and visit their neighbor at the local
coffee shop and
they wouldn’t have to get into their automobile for a quarter-of-a-mile trip.”


Wilkerson says health care costs are skyrocketing. Designing communities that
encourage
walking or bicycling are investments in prevention of the health problems caused by
too little
exercise. She adds the health care costs of poorly designed areas is just the
beginning.


“And then you’ve got pollution costs from automobile emission. It goes on and on in
terms of,
you know, the savings if we get people out walking or biking — cleaner air. If you
put all of those
together, I mean there’s just — it’s a phenomenal case to make.”


Advocates of incorporating more sidewalks, bike paths, and safer intersections into
new
developments says local governments should also look at existing suburbs too… to see
if those
neighborhoods can’t be retro-fitted to include a few sidewalks and safe crossings
that can connect
shopping, schools, and parks to homes. That way the walk of the day can be a little
farther than
just from the front door to the car in the driveway.


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

SPRAWLING CITIES, SPRAWLING WAISTLINES (Short Version)

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise such as biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Urban planners and fitness experts are beginning to compare notes about how suburban
development affects health. They’re finding that urban sprawl discourages exercise
such as
biking and walking. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Not nearly as many kids ride their bikes to school today as kids did a generation
ago. That’s
because sprawling areas – complete with four lane roads – are designed for cars. not
for bikes.


Risa Wilkerson is with the Michigan Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Health
and Sports.
She says fitness experts say there are advantages to building neighborhoods more
friendly to
bicyclists and pedestrians.


“Carpooling your child everywhere you go is a hard life to have if your child could
walk to their
soccer game while the other child walks to piano practice and you stay home and
start to cook a
healthy dinner or you have a chance to go ride your bike.”


The experts say the way neighborhoods are designed now could be contributing to health
problems in kids such as obesity, the early onset of diabetes, and asthma that might
be aggravated
by auto emissions.


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

Forests for Lumber or Wildlife?

  • Loggers and environmentalists fight continually over the use of national forests. Managers at many national forests around the country are developing new long-range plans. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Loggers and environmentalists are in a continual fight over the use of national forests. One of their battlegrounds is the long-range planning process. Every ten to fifteen years, the U.S. Forest Service designs a new plan for each national forest. Right now, several forests in the Northwoods are getting new plans. The Forest Service says it’s paying more attention to biodiversity, and wants to encourage more old growth forests. Critics on the environmental side say the new plans are just business as usual. Loggers say they still can’t cut enough trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Loggers and environmentalists are in a continual fight over the use of
national forests. One of their battlegrounds is the long-range
planning process. Every ten to fifteen years, the U.S. Forest Service
designs a new plan for each national forest. Right now, several
forests in the Northwoods are getting new plans. The Forest Service
says it’s paying more attention to biodiversity, and wants to encourage
more old growth forests. Critics on the environmental side say the
new plans are just business as usual. Loggers say they still
can’t cut enough trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:


(sound of car door closing, footsteps in woods)


Jerry Birchem is a logger. He’s visiting one of his harvest sites on
land owned by St. Louis County, in northeastern Minnesota. The highest
quality wood will be turned into wooden dowels… other logs will go to a
lumber mill… the poorest quality will be turned into paper.


Birchem tries to get the highest possible value from each tree. He says in the last ten
years, the price of trees has tripled.


“We have to pay more for timber and the mills want to pay less, and we’re caught in the
middle of trying to survive in this business climate.”


Birchem likes buying timber from the county, like at this logging site. He hardly ever
cuts trees from the national forest anymore. He’d like to, but the Forest Service doesn’t
make much of its land available for logging. The agency says it doesn’t have enough staff
to do the environmental studies required before trees can be cut on federal land.


Jerry Birchem says loggers need the Forest Service to change that.


“You know there needs to be processes set in place so you know, it doesn’t take
so long to set up these timber sales. I mean, they’ve got to go through so
many analyses and so many appeals processes.”


Birchem says it should be harder for environmental groups to get in the way of timber
sales. But not everybody agrees with Birchem.


Clyde Hanson lives in Grand Marais, on the edge of Lake Superior. He’s an active
member of the Sierra Club.


He says it’s true loggers are taking less timber off federal lands in recent
years. But he says the Forest Service still isn’t protecting the truly special
places that deserve to be saved.


He says a place like Hog Creek should be designated a wilderness area, where no trees
can be cut.


(sound of creek, birds)


“Very unique mixture, we must be right at the transition between two types of forest.”


Red pine thrive here, along with jackpine and tamarack. It’s rough and swampy country,
far from roads. So far, loggers have left these trees alone.


But with the value of trees skyrocketing, Hanson says the place will be logged eventually.


Forest Service planners made note of the fact that the Hog Creek area is relatively
untouched by humans. They could have protected it, but they decided not to.


“And we think that’s a mistake, because this is our last chance to protect wilderness and
provide more wilderness for future generations. If we don’t do it now, eventually there’ll
be enough roads or enough logging going on in these places that by the next forest plan
it’ll be too late.”


But the Forest Service says it is moving to create more diversity in the
woods. It wants a forest more like what nature would produce if left
to her own devices.


The agency says it will reduce the amount of aspen in the forest. Aspen has been
encouraged, because it grows fast. When it’s cut, it grows back quickly, so loggers and
paper companies can make more money.


The trouble is, an aspen forest only offers habitat for some kinds of animals,
such as deer and grouse. Other animals, especially songbirds, need older trees to
live in.


So the Forest Service wants to create more variety in the woods, with more old trees than
there are now. But how to get the forest from here to there, is the problem.
Duane Lula is one of the Forest Service planners. He says fires and windstorms are nature’s way of producing
diverse forests. They sweep the woods periodically, killing big stands of older trees, and
preparing the soil for pines and other conifers. Jackpines, for instance, used to be more
common in the northwoods. Lula says the only practical way for man to mimic nature is
by cutting trees down.


“We can’t have those fires anymore just because people live here, there are private
homes here. There’s no way that we could replicate those fires. Timber management is one way of regenerating those jackpine stands in
lieu of having major fires.”


But Lula says the main purpose of timber cutting in the new plan is to move the forest
toward the diversity the agency wants, not to produce wood. And he says that shows the
Forest Service is looking at the woods in a new way.


“The previous plan tended to be very focused on how many acres you were going to
clearcut, how much timber you were going to produce, how much wildlife habitat you
were going to produce, and this one is trying to say, if we have this kind of desired
condition on the ground that we’re shooting for, then these other things will come from
that.”


As it does in the planning process in other national forests around the Great Lakes, the
Forest Service will adjust the plan after hearing from the public. Loggers,
environmentalists, and everyone else will have a chance to have their say. A final version
will be submitted to the Regional Forester in Milwaukee early next year. It could then
face a challenge in court.


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

Related Links

Voluntary Toll Lanes to Help Traffic Flow?

Transportation experts say new toll lanes are needed to relieve traffic congestion around major cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Transportation experts say new toll lanes are needed to relieve traffic congestion around
major cities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham:


The experts say it would be a market-based solution. If you want to avoid heavy traffic,
you can pull your car into a voluntary toll lane and pay for the privilege of going faster.
Rob Atkinson is with Progressive Policy Institute, and is one of the experts who testified
before a congressional committee about the idea.


“You would expand those highways and add a couple lanes in each direction, but those
lanes would be tolled. So if you don’t want to pay the toll, you can just stay in the regular
lanes and actually you’d be a lot better off because there’d be people who would move from
those lanes – the free lanes – over to the tolled lanes. So it’s sort of one of those win-win
situations.”


Atkinson says gasoline taxes and other fees don’t pay the full cost of roads, so an alternative
such as voluntary toll lanes would help get closer to paying the actual cost of commuting.


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

A Road Salt Substitute?

  • Road salt spread on the streets of Ann Arbor, MI has a corrosive effect on this sewer grate. Many cities and states are looking for a less damaging, and more environmentally sensitive alternative to road salt.

With winter officially arriving, many towns and cities in the Midwest are preparing to fight the snow and ice that can make roads slippery and dangerous. That traditionally means spreading salt, but salt is damaging to the environment, so there is a growing movement toward using less corrosive and polluting means to make streets safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:

Transcript

With winter officially arriving, many towns and cities in the Great Lakes Region are preparing to fight the snow and ice that can make roads slippery and dangerous. That traditionally means spreading salt. But salt is damaging to the environment. So there is a growing movement toward using less corrosive and polluting means to make streets safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:


Rock salt and calcium chloride have been the workhorses of snow removal for many years. Together, they help lower the freezing temperature of snow and slush, making it easier for the snow to be plowed away or worn down by cars before it turns into ice. But along with the good has come a great deal of bad. Besides keeping our streets clear, both chemicals can also pollute nearby waterways. They release chlorides and heavy metals into the environment and their corrosiveness can damage roadways, causing cracking and even potholes. So governments have been trying to find alternatives that can help remove the snow, and do less damage. Among those alternatives are snow and ice melters made of corn by-products. Ari Adler is a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Transportation. He says the department is in the second year of testing those alternatives:


“In Michigan, what we’re doing is we’re actually applying this material by itself, preferably before a snowstorm hits. So it sort of puts like a Teflon coating on and what it does is not allow the snow and ice to bond with the pavement. So its certainly easier to clear away just from people driving over it or if we send a plow, it’s going to clear up quicker than if we had to send a team of plows out after we get snow pack out there.”


Adler says the tests so far have been very encouraging, and his agency plans to increase the use of such products in the future. Manufacturers of corn and soybean based de-icers say there is a growing trend to look to these more natural products. Craig Phelps is with Natural Solutions, a company that makes a product called Ice Ban. It’s made from parts of a cornstalk that are not used for food. The result is a liquid that melts ice and snow even at very low temperatures. Phelps says the product can be used alone, or in combination with salt. He says when used in combination, the product reduces the amount of salt required to keep roads clear:


“The way to decrease the effective use of chlorides is to somehow increase their performance or increase their range of activity. Using a liquid in combination with a granular, dry salt can help. Most highway departments have found they use less salt, so that does decrease the amount of accumulated chlorides in the environment.”


Phelps says the biggest obstacle in getting cities and states to use corn based de icers is the added cost. But he says in addition to the environmental benefits, corn based de-icers will reduce wear and tear on streets, bridges, and cars because it does not have the corrosive effect of salt. Phelps says if those costs are taken into consideration, the corn based products are actually cheaper than salt. But not everyone believes that is true. Dave McKinney is the Operations Director for the City of Peoria, Illinois’ Public Works Department. He says using salt is not a major cause for street repairs in midwestern cities:


“The problem we are having with streets isn’t so much the salt as it is the wear and tear of the freeze-thaw. So yes, there are these benefits, but I don’t think it can offset the cost. Certainly not in my budget.”


McKinney says he has tested the corn-based products, and is satisfied that they work well. But he says Peoria will only use them if the price comes down. And there may be evidence that will happen. The market for corn and soybean based de-icing products has increased by a thousand percent over the past seven years, largely because producers are finding cheaper ways to make the products. And as demand continues to increase, manufacturers say the price will keep dropping. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.