Everybody has basic needs: food, water, and shelter. A study says that these needs are rapidly changing the earth we live on. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Some scientists contend that land use by humans has become a top threat to the planet’s ecosystems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Some scientists contend that land use by humans has become a top threat to the planet’s ecosystem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports.
People in cities and towns often spend hours debating local land use issues, but a group of scientists says there should also be a focus on the larger topic of widespread conversion of natural landscapes to uses like urban development and agriculture.
Jonathan Foley is a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and lead author of a new study published in the journal Science. He says the Midwest sees its share of large land use changes.
“We grow a lot of corn and soybeans and other crops. But we do so, unfortunately, with quite a bit of damage to some of our environment: water quality, leaching of nitrogen and phosphorus into our lakes and groundwater and streams.”
Foley says the Midwest could look at changing farm subsidy programs to help farmers use better environmental practices. Globally, he says six billion people are competing for food, water, and shelter, and their land use decisions are transforming the planet.
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.
Rainwater that falls on paved areas is diverted into drains and gutters. If the rainfall is heavy enough, the diverted water can cause flash flooding in nearby rivers and streams. (Photo by Michele L.)
Some planning experts are worried that the rapid development in cities and suburbs is paving over too much land and keeping water from replenishing aquifers below ground. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
Some planning experts are worried that the rapid development in cities and suburbs is
paving over too much land and keeping water from replenishing aquifers below ground.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
In nature… when it rains… the water slowly soaks into the ground and makes its way
through the soil and rock to eventually be stored as groundwater. Some of it makes its
way underground to be stored in aquifers. And some of it slowly seeps through the rock
for a while and then resurfaces as springs to feed streams during times when there’s not a
lot of rain. It’s a natural storage system and a lot of cities rely on that water.
But when we build buildings and houses and parking lots and roads, a lot of the land
where the rain used to soak into the ground is covered up. Instead the rainwater runs off
the hard surfaces and rushes to stormwater gutters and ditches and then overloads creeks
and rivers. Even where there are big expansive lawns in the suburbs… the rain doesn’t
penetrate the ground in the same way it does in the wild. The grass on lawns has shallow
roots and the surface below is compact… where naturally-occurring plants have deep
roots that help the water on its way into the earth.
Don Chen is the Executive Director of the organization Smart Growth America. His
group tries to persuade communities to avoid urban sprawl by building clustering houses
and business districts closer together and leave more natural open space.
“With denser development you have a much lower impact per household in terms of
polluted runoff.”
Chen says the rain washes across driveways and parking lots, washing engine oil, and
exhaust pollutants straight into streams and rivers instead of letting the water filter across
green space.
Besides washing pollutants into the lakes and streams… the sheer volume of water that
can’t soak into the ground and instead streams across concrete and asphalt and through
pipes can cause creeks to rise and rise quickly.
Andi Cooper is with Conservation Design Forum in Chicago. Her firm designs
landscapes to better handle water…
“Flooding is a big deal. It’s costly. That’s where we start talking about economics. We
spend billions and billions of dollars each year in flood damage control.”
Design firms such as Cooper’s are trying to get developers and city planners to think
about all that water that used to soak into the ground, filtering and being cleaned up a bit
by the natural processes.
Smart Growth America’s Don Chen says those natural processes are called infiltration….
and Smart Growth helps infiltration…
“And the primary way in which it does is to preserve open space to allow for natural
infiltration of water into the land so that there’s not as much pavement and hard surfaces
for water to bounce off of and then create polluted runoff.”
People such as Chen and Cooper are bumping up against a couple of centuries or more of
engineering tradition. Engineers and architects have almost always tried to get water
away from their creations as fast and as far as possible. Trying to slow down the water…
and giving it room to soak into the ground is a relatively new concept.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is trying to get communities to give the idea
some consideration. Geoff Anderson is the Acting Chief of Staff for the EPA’s Office of
Policy, Economics and Innovation.
“Anything you can do to keep that water on site and have it act more like it does in its
natural setting, anything you can do to sort of keep that recharge mechanism working,
that’s helpful.”
The EPA does not require that kind of design. It leaves that to local governments and the
private sector. The Conservation Design Forum’s Andi Cooper says sometimes getting
companies to think about treating water as a resource instead of a nuisance is a hard
sell…
“You know, this is risky. People tell us this is risky. ‘I don’t want to do this; it’s not the
norm.’ It’s becoming less risky over time because there are more and more
demonstrations to point to and say ‘Look, this is great. It’s working.’ ”
But… corporate officials are hesitant. Why take a chance on something new? They fear
if something goes wrong the boss will be ticked off every time there’s a heavy rain.
Cooper says, though, it works… and… reminds them that investors like companies that
are not just economically savvy… but also have an environmental conscience.
“A lot of companies are game. They’re open. If we can present our case that yes, it
works; no, it’s not risky; it is the ethical thing to do; it is aesthetically pleasing; there are
studies out there that show you can retain your employees, you can increase their
productivity if you give them open spaces to walk with paths and make it an enjoyable
place to come to work everyday.”
So… doing the right thing for the environment… employees… and making investors
happy… make Wall Street risk takers willing to risk new engineering to help nature
handle some of the rain and get it back into the aquifers and springs that we all value.
Rainwater that falls on paved areas is diverted into drains and gutters. If the rainfall is heavy enough, the diverted water can cause flash flooding in nearby rivers and streams. (Photo by Michele L.)
An Environmental Protection Agency official wants local governments to take a broader view when making land use plans for their communities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
An Environmental Protection Agency official wants local governments to take a broader view
when making land use plans for their communities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:
Often planners don’t look past their own city borders when making decisions. Geoff Anderson
wants that to change. He’s the Acting Chief of Staff for the EPA’s Office of Policy, Economics
and Innovation. Anderson says city officials often look at land use planning one site at a time
instead of looking at how their decisions will affect the entire area…
“The two scales are very important and I think in many cases too much is paid to the site level
and not enough is given to the sort of broader regional or community context.”
Anderson says that’s especially important when planning for stormwater drainage. He says too
many communities think about getting the water to the nearest stream quickly without thinking
about how that rushing water might affect flooding downstream.
Researcher Dr. Kerry Kirwan is experimenting with a cell phone case that will biodegrade. The case contains a flower seed. As the material breaks down, the seed is allowed to germinate and become a flower. (Photo courtesy of The University of Warwick)
Researchers in England have an idea for your old mobile
phones – bury them and grow a flower. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner explains:
Transcript
Researchers in England have an idea for your old mobile phones – bury them and grow a
flower. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner explains:
Most people have one – if not several – cell phones they’ve outgrown. Some keep them
around for no good reason, some just throw them away, and some people actually recycle
them.
Kerry Kirwan at the University of Warwick in England wants to take that idea further.
He’s developing a biodegradable cell phone case that could be buried and would grow
into a flower when you’re ready to upgrade your phone.
“We thought it’d be a rather unique way of getting people to take responsibility of the
disposal of their mobile phones, but also, a way for moving a lot of plastic waste from the
waste stream so it didn’t have to be dealt with.”
Kirwan says he’d like to have the product on the market in a few years. He says the
phone cases would contain a wide range of flower seeds, based on what would grow best
in your climate.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
Magazine publishers and other companies are thinking ahead and getting their paper from forests that have been certified. But what does this really mean? (Photo by Stanley Elliott)
Officials in the Midwest want to prove they’re not damaging their state forests. States that sell timber to paper companies are spending thousands of dollars to earn a certificate that says they’re managing the forests in a sustainable way. Paper producers are demanding that state foresters earn certification because officials want to stave off protests from consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
Transcript
Officials in the Midwest want to prove they’re not damaging their state forests. States that sell timber to paper companies are spending thousand of dollars to earn a certificate that says they’re managing the forests in a sustainable way. Paper producers are demanding that state foresters earn certification because officials want to stave off protests from consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
It’s lunchtime and employees on break from Compuware in downtown Detroit are browisng through the magazine racks at Borders. Melody Kranz says she reads three different magazines every month. She says she is an avid recycler and an impassioned environmentalist, but never considered what kind of paper was going into her magazines.
“I don’t know why I haven’t thought about it, I just haven’t. I will now. Because I’m a gardening nut, I love to garden. So yeah, I just never really thought about it.”
But executive David Refkin is betting that Franz and others like her would think twice before picking up Time Magazine if they thought a forest was demolished to make the paper. Refkin is the Director of Sustainable Development for Time Incorporated. He says he’s noticed a strong surge in environmental awareness over the past two or three years.
“We don’t want people looking at a magazine and feeling guilty that a stream has been damaged and the fish are dying in there, or that habitats aren’t being protected because people are practicing bad forestry practices.”
Refkin says his company wants to take action now, before consumer groups decide to boycott its magazines over ecological issues. Time uses more coated paper for its publications than any other company in the U.S. The company is asking that 80 percent of all paper products Time buys be certified by 2006.
To the average consumer, that may not seem like big news. But for paper producers and foresters, it’s earth shattering. Larry Pedersen is with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Pedersen says getting certified means years of work for state employees. The government has to prove to investigators that its management standards take into account issues such as biodiversity, water quality, soil erosion and wildlife habitat. Pedersen says the state is also required to provide records for each tree from the moments it’s planted or inventoried to the time it’s cut down and then made into planks or paper. But he says it’s worth the effort.
“A number of wood and paper-using companies brought it to our attention that they needed to have certified products because their consumers were demanding those. And with us having four-million acres of state forestlands, we saw the writing on the wall that we needed to jump on this.”
State forests in the region generate a lot of revenue. Wisconsin’s forests earn two and a half million dollars from timber sales and Ohio pulls in almost three million. Michigan’s forests bring in 30 million dollars annually. Earlier this year, Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm announced that all state forests will be certified by January 1st of 2006. And the Great Lakes State is not alone… New York, Wisconsin, and Maine are also pursuing certification and Ohio and other states are considering it.
Andrew Shalit, with the environmental activist group Ecopledge, says he’s glad Time Warner is encouraging paper companies and state governments to get certified. But he says that doesn’t necessarily mean the paper is produced in an environmentally friendly way.
“It’s great to say that they’re going to get all of their paper from certified forests. The question is, who is certifying? And in the case of Time Warner, a lot of the forests are certified by a group called SFI, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and their standards are so weak as to be almost meaningless.”
There’s a heated debate over just what certification means. There are currently two groups that certify forests in the U.S. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or SFI, was originally founded by the timber industry but is now an independent body. The Forest Stewardship council, or FSC, came out of the environmental movement… or more specifically, out of the effort to protect South American rainforests. Shalit says he doesn’t think SFI certification is as rigorous or as comprehensive as FSC.
“It really is a problem for the consumer because you see something in the store and it has a little green label on it with a picture of a tree and it says sustainably certified, and you think you’re buying something good. It’s hard for the individual consumer to keep up with that.”
Shalit says several states, like Michigan, have solved the dilemma of rival certification programs by getting dual certification. he says although the system has flaws, it will improve if consumers demand more stringent forestry regulations.
Executives at Time Warner hope they can avoid boycotts and pickets by taking action preemptively. The company is leading the push for forest certification in the U.S., and environmentalists say the federal government may have to bow to pressure eventually and get the national forests certified as well.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.
Small shrimp fishers are concerned about the Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' because shrimp can't survive in the oxygen depleted water. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some Midwest farmers leave no grass buffer between their fields and nearby streams, allowing excess nitrogen to easily enter the waterways. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some farm fields drain stormwater from treated farm fields directly into nearby creeks that are tributaries of the Mississippi River. Scientists believe the fertilizer pollution contributes to the Gulf 'dead zone.' (Photo by Lester Graham)
The government has been working with agriculture, environmentalists and scientists to come up with a way to reduce the size of a ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico. The dead zone causes problems for the fisheries in the Gulf. It’s believed the dead zone is caused by excess nitrogen on farm fields in the Midwest that’s washed to the Mississippi River and then to the Gulf. A government task force has determined that if the flow of nitrogen into the Gulf can be cut by 30 percent, the size of the dead zone can be reduced. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… a new study predicts a 30 percent reduction won’t be enough to make a difference:
Transcript
The government has been working with agriculture, environmentalists and scientists to
come up with a way to reduce the size of a ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico. The dead
zone causes problems for the fisheries in the Gulf. It’s believed the dead zone is caused
by excess nitrogen on farm fields in the Midwest that’s washed to the Mississippi River
and then to the Gulf. A government task force has determined that if the flow of nitrogen
into the Gulf can be cut by 30 percent, the size of the dead zone can be reduced. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… a new study predicts a 30
percent reduction won’t be enough to make a difference:
The idea that fertilizer used on a corn field in the Midwest can cause a ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico
is hard to fathom. But when you realize that all or parts of 31 farm states drain into the
Mississippi basin, it becomes a little easier to understand. Excess nitrogen causes a huge algae
bloom in the Gulf. When the vegetation dies, it decays on the bottom and bacteria feed
on it. The huge expanse of bacteria depletes the oxygen.
Nancy Rabalais is a professor with the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. She
says most life under the water needs that oxygen to survive.
“The oxygen is depleted in the water column so that the fish and shrimp, anything that
can swim, leaves the area. All the indicators show that it’s gotten much worse since the
1950’s to present, and that’s consistent with the increase in nitrogen in the Mississippi
River.”
Since 1985, Rabalais has been measuring the size of the dead zone every year. The zone
ranges in size from about 2,000 square miles to about 10,000 square miles.
That’s about the size of Lake Erie.
Jerald Horst is a biologist with the Louisiana Sea Grant. He says it’s hard to know the
exact impact on life under the sea…
“Very difficult to say ‘Gee, this year the shrimp
production is down somewhat because of hypoxia,’ or whether the shrimp production is
down somewhat because of a host of other environmental factors.”
But the fear is the hypoxic zone could stop being a dead zone that shrinks and grows
– and one year disappeared altogether… and instead become a permanent dead zone where nothing would ever live. That’s happened in a few other places on the globe such
as the Black Sea. It’s not clear that the same kind of thing can happen in the Gulf, but
signs are ominous. Horst says upwellings of oxygen-starved water near the shore after a
storm used to be very, very rare. Lately, they’ve become more and more frequent. He
says it means the problem is getting worse.
There’s still a lot of debate about whether the dead zone in the Gulf is a serious problem.
But, at this point, most agricultural agencies and farm groups have stopped disputing the
science and whether their nitrogen is causing the problem. Now they’re trying to figure
out the best and cheapest way to deal with it.
The government task force that’s working on the problem has arrived at an Action Plan;
the task force has determined the amount of nitrogen getting into the Mississippi River
needs to be cut by 30 percent to reduce the Gulf zone by half in ten years.
Donald Scavia has been working on the problem. He was involved in the debate when he
was a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He’s
retired from NOAA and now directs the Michigan Sea Grant. From his office at the
University of Michigan, Scavia explained how the task force arrived at the figure.
“We agreed to a 30 percent reduction because it was similar to what was done in other
places, probably acceptable to the community and will head us in the right direction.”
After arriving in Michigan, Scavia started research to determine if a 30 percent reduction
would do the job. Using three very different computer models, Scavia and his team
learned that they could actually predict the size of the dead zone from year to year…
“From that analysis, that not only looked at the size of the zone, but actually looked at
potential inter-annual variability caused by changes in climate, changes in weather say
that probably 35 to 45 percent nitrogen load reduction’s going to be needed to get to that
goal in most years.”
Scavia’s study was published in the journal Estuaries.
A 35 to 45 percent reduction is a much tougher goal than the 30 percent the task force is
recommending. As it is, states were planning massive artificial wetlands and extensive
drainage programs to soak up excess nitrogen before it got to the tributaries that fed the
Mississippi River. They also planned to get farmers to reduce the amount of nitrogen
they’re using. That’s a tough sell for a couple of reasons. First of all, it would have to be
voluntary because nitrogen use is nearly completely unregulated. Second, farmers
often use what they call an insurance application of nitrogen… they use a little more than
is actually needed to get a good crop, because nitrogen is relatively cheap. The excess
often ends up washed into ditches and streams and creeks and rivers… and finally to the
Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone. So… cutting nitrogen flow into the
Mississippi by 30 percent was a huge task. Cutting nitrogen by as much as 45 percent… well… you can imagine…
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Small shrimp fishers are concerned about the Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' because shrimp can't survive in the oxygen depleted water. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some Midwest farmers leave no grass buffer between their fields and nearby streams, allowing excess nitrogen to easily enter the waterways. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Some farm fields drain stormwater from treated farm fields directly into nearby creeks that are tributaries of the Mississippi River. Scientists believe the fertilizer pollution contributes to the Gulf 'dead zone.' (Photo by Lester Graham)
A new study predicts the government’s plan to reduce the size of the ‘Dead Zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico won’t be strong enough to make a difference. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A new study predicts the government’s plan to reduce the size of the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of
Mexico won’t be strong enough to make a difference. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Lester Graham reports:
The Dead Zone in the Gulf is believed to be caused by excess nitrogen used by farmers in the 31
states that drain into the Mississippi and ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico. The Dead Zone
causes problems for the fisheries in the Gulf. A study published in the scientific journal, Estuaries, predicts that an Action Plan put together by a government task force might not
go far enough. Michigan SeaGrant director Donald Scavia used computer modeling in the
study…
“What we tried to do here is take three different, very different models and ask the same question
of those models to try to get an answer.”
The answer was the same… the government task force plan to reduce the amount of nitrogen
reaching the Mississippi River by 30 percent is not enough. The models indicated a 35 to 45
percent reduction is needed to shrink the Dead Zone by half in the next ten years.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s trying to get states around the Great Lakes to use uniform standards to monitor water quality. But the EPA says the fact that different states use different methods doesn’t put anyone at risk. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s trying to get states around the Great Lakes to use
uniform standards to monitor water quality. But the EPA says the fact that different states use
different methods doesn’t put anyone at risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:
The agency is responding to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project. That group says
different states have different standards, and that means no one has a clear idea of how clean – or
dirty – our rivers and lakes really are.
Thomas Skinner is administrator of EPA’s Region Five. He says the Clean Water Act allows
each state to design its own program.
“It may be that some states are being overly protective or over protective of their citizens, and
that’s their right to do it. But if that’s the case, then that could explain some of the
inconsistencies. It doesn’t mean the states that have a different set of fish advisories are not
protecting their citizens; they’ve just chosen to go about it in a slightly different way.”
Skinner says the EPA asked the states seven years ago to use the same standards. He says the
states are gradually moving toward that goal.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Soon, every Great Lakes state could have a water protection law on its books. Only one state still hasn’t passed such a law in order to comply with a 1985 regional agreement. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
Soon, every Great Lakes state could have a water protection law on its books. Only one state still
hasn’t passed such a law in order to comply with a 1985 regional agreement. We have more from
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has called on the State Legislature to pass a water
protection law. She says the state is almost 20 years late in coming up with regulations on large
extractions of water from lakes, streams and underground wells.
“In fact, it’s an embarrassment for this state that we have not adopted a water protection statute.
We are the only state in the Great Lakes that has not adopted a system for regulating our greatest
natural resource.”
Her action was spurred by a controversial new spring water bottling plant that pumps about 200
gallons a minute.
She says it’s also standing in the way of negotiating regional standards for water protection –
standards that could also be used to protect the Great Lakes basin from efforts to treat its water as
a commodity available for export outside the region.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Everybody has basic needs: food, water, and shelter. A study says that these needs are rapidly changing the earth we live on. (Photo courtesy of NASA)
