Coal ash is sometimes used as an ingredient in concrete blocks (Photo source: Skepticsteve at Wikimedia Commons)
For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:
Transcript
For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:
A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice uses data from the US Environmental Protection Agency – including a study that had been kept quiet since 2002.
Among the findings, people who live near coal ash storage ponds that are unlined, and who get their drinking water from a well, have a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from arsenic contamination.
Lisa Evans is an attorney with Earthjustice.
“It by far presents the largest risk to human health and the environment and there’s no reason to manage the waste in this way.”
The groups are calling for these storage ponds to be phased out and cleaned up in the next 5 years.
The EPA says new regulations are coming soon.
Power companies are willing to stop using storage ponds – but don’t want the coal ash classified as toxic. That would make disposal more expensive.
Several neighbors near Cook County Illinois' Bunker Hill Forest Preserve are concerned about the loss of trees. Bathsheba Burmin is third from the left. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
The Cook County Forest Preserve District has been transforming sections of the Somme Forest Preserve into savanna. This is after a small burn. It once had many more trees in the area. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
When somebody says a natural area, does everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
Transcript
When somebody says a natural area, dose everybody have the same thing in mind? Some might see a park with baseball fields or a golf course as a natural area. But natural area means what it looked like for hundreds or thousands of years before humans started changing the landscape. Sometimes, that natural landscape was changed so long ago, when it’s restored to the way it looked oringally, it’s not very familiar to the people who live there now. Shawn Allee talked with some people who disagree about the idea of restoring natural areas:
If you go to the Bunker Hill Forest Preserve just outside Chicago, you find picnic spaces, bike trails, and woods – acres of woods.
If it’s the wrong day, though, a security guard will turn you back from the woods.
Guard: “Closed off for a while? It’s closed off for a while. They’re doing a controlled burn – they’re burning that field over there.”
Man: “What are you doing exactly? Burning?”
Guard: “Controlled burn.”
Forest preserve workers in sooty, yellow fire suits are burning brush and trees.
They say soil tests show this land was once savanna – a kind of grassland with a few trees mixed in.
They’re trying to restore it to that original landscape.
Volunteers help out with this restoration, but a small number of people want to stop it.
“Everything they burned today is area they’ve cleared over the past two years. We’re opposed to cutting our urban forests.”
Bathsheba Burmin shows me the site – after it’s cooled.
She wants me to see what it takes to turn woods into savanna.
Burmin: “It’s a little muddy, so…”
Allee: “It’s hard not to notice.”
(sounds of walking through mud)
Allee: “This place is being actively transformed.”
Burmin: “Yes.”
Allee: “You can see brush piles moved around, trees have obviously been cut because you can see the stumps, and obviously they burned just today.”
Burmin: “What it does is tell the story of what the restructuring of an ecosystem looks like.”
Burmin and a few of her neighbors have protested the transformation of these woods into savanna.
Some don’t believe this was ever grassy savanna in the first place.
Burmin says, even if it was savanna – it’s not now; it’s woodland – and she regrets losing the trees.
Burmin: “If you’re not familiar with the site and you hear there’s an increase in grassland species you must be doing something wonderful. Nobody talked about what happened to all the woodland species. The reason you have an increase in grassland species, but that’s because you took out all the forest.”
Habitat restoration can be violent.
It can involve poisoning or burning unwanted plants or maybe killing animals like deer that graze on more desirable plants.
Wildlife managers use restoration techniques all the time, but on occasion critics like Burmin ask tough questions about it.
When that happens, people like Stephen Packard rush to its defense.
“Now we’re standing in a place where all the brush was cut last year.”
Packard heads the Chicago chapter of the Audobon Society.
He’s offered to show me some restored savanna, about ten miles north of that Bunker Hill spot.
It looks kinda familiar.
Allee: “There’re stumps and sticks everywhere.”
Packard: “Is this ugly or is it not ugly? Here’s my perspective on it. To me it’s like a bunch of broken eggshells after someone made an omelet. I think this is a beautiful thing to see the first stage of recovery. It is stumps, it is bare ground, but from doing this, I know certain plants will start to come up and keep developing.”
Packard says no one restores savanna because they like chopping trees.
It’s just that some plants need open space and light – like in a savanna. Dense woods create too much shade for them.
He says if we let some natural areas literally run wild, a few aggressive species take over, and the rare ones lose out.
“You lose millions of years of evolution of these thousands of species that may be important to the planet, so why not have some places where we can take care of them?”
Packard says some natural areas are so unhealthy, that for now, we need to protect some parts of nature from others.
And if you don’t buy that – you don’t buy restoration.
In order to qualify an old vehicle must get less than 18 miles per gallon.
(Photo source: IFCAR at Wikimedia Commons)
After a meeting with the White House, Members of Congress appear to be close to a deal
on a so-called “cash for clunkers” program. But Tamara Keith reports critics say the
compromise members have come up with won’t do much for the environment:
Transcript
After a meeting with the White House, Members of Congress appear to be close to a deal
on a so-called “cash for clunkers” program. But Tamara Keith reports critics say the
compromise members have come up with won’t do much for the environment:
The “cash for clunkers” program has wide support as good for the environment; good for
the ailing auto industry.
Car owners would get a voucher towards a new fuel efficient car when they scrap their
old gas guzzler. In order to qualify an old vehicle must get less than 18 miles per gallon.
But a new car that does just 4 miles per gallon better earns a $3,500 reward. A
10 MPG improvement brings $4,500.
Critics say many of the new replacement vehicles would fall well short of the
government’s average fuel economy standards.
Congressman John Dingell from Michigan says the critics are missing the point: the new
cars will be more fuel efficient than the ones that are getting junked.
“What they aught to ask is, ‘what is this going to mean in terms of increased fuel
efficiency and reduced CO2 emissions.’ The result will be substantial.”
Of course the deal isn’t really done until it is approved by Congress. If it passes, the
President is expected to sign it.
One lawyer wants a class action suit against the manufacturer of Atrazine, an herbicide used on crops (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Atrazine is a weed killer. It’s
used by farmers in several crops,
basically because the herbicide is
relatively cheap and effective.
When Atrazine is used in the spring,
it sometimes ends up getting in
water – and in some cases at levels
above the government’s drinking water
standard – the maximum contaminant
level of three parts-per-billion.
Steve Tillery is an attorney in a
lawsuit against the manufacturer of
Atrazine – Syngenta – and Synenta’s
partner, Growmark. Tillery represents
water suppliers and he’s seeking class-
action status to represent all water
suppliers who’ve had to deal with Atrazine
contamination. Lester Graham talked to
him about the lawsuit:
Transcript
Atrazine is a weed killer. It’s
used by farmers in several crops,
basically because the herbicide is
relatively cheap and effective.
When Atrazine is used in the spring,
it sometimes ends up getting in
water – and in some cases at levels
above the government’s drinking water
standard – the maximum contaminant
level of three parts-per-billion.
Steve Tillery is an attorney in a
lawsuit against the manufacturer of
Atrazine – Syngenta – and Synenta’s
partner, Growmark. Tillery represents
water suppliers and he’s seeking class-
action status to represent all water
suppliers who’ve had to deal with Atrazine
contamination. Lester Graham talked to
him about the lawsuit:
Lester Graham: Mr. Tillery, what’s this lawsuit about, if the level is less than the 3-parts-per-billion the government says is safe?
Steve Tillery: Well, actually, at different times of the year, Atrazine does in fact exceed the federal standard. The federal government refers to MCL – maximum contaminant level – and that’s the maximum, they say, a chemical should exist in the water supply to be consumed by people in the community. The maximum contaminant level for Atrazine is 3-parts-per-billion. Many times, throughout the Spring, throughout Illinois and other Mid-Western cities, the levels grossly exceed 3-parts-per-billion. So what happens is that the cities, the water districts, are required to pay large amounts of money to filter the water so it is below that level. In addition, some have gone to the expense of completely cleaning it out of their water supplies. So that it doesn’t exist at all. And they should, in our view, be entitled to reimbursement for the expenses that they have incurred for completely cleaning it out of their water supplies.
Graham: Scientists that worked, then, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association told me that during the application season, during the Spring, that they measured levels of Atrazine exceeding the safe drinking water levels in the rain on the East Coast from all of the application in the Midwest. Rather than just cleaning it up, is this not a problem of too much Atrazine – maybe we limit the amount?
Tillery: Well, the issue is whether or not it should be banned completely. The European Union has done exactly that. For all of the reasons that people look at – scientists look at – this chemical and point to the adverse health affects, changes to the environment, all of those reasons, the Europeans banned it some years ago.
Graham: The defense in most cases like this is: this is a regulated product, the label is the law, if it isn’t applied correctly, it’s the applicator – the farmer’s – fault; and if it is applied according to the label, the government says it’s safe.
Tillery: Yeah, we’re not safe. For two reasons. First of all, it’s not a problem with farmers. Farmers are doing exactly what is on the label. They are applying it precisely the way the manufacturer says it should be applied. So they’re not the issue. The problem is the manufacturer. To the extent that we rely on federal regulators to do the right thing, we are misdirected in this instance. For many years, the relationship between Syngenta – the principle manufacturer of this chemical – and the EPA has been under close scrutiny. And I’m hopeful that it’s reevaluated and examined under this new administration. Big corporations, in this case from Switzerland, who come here and sell this and make enormous profits in this country selling this chemical – 77 million pounds a year, average. When they make that money, and they cause taxpayers to incur $400 million a year in expense throughout the US to clean up their mess, they should be the ones that come back and reimburse them. We aren’t asking for anything else besides that. We are asking for compensation to these cities who’ve incurred this expense. The people who create the mess should pay for its cleanup. People should not be drinking water with Atrazine in it, at any level.
Graham: Steve Tillery is an attorney seeking class-action status trying to make the manufacturers of Atrazine pay to clean up the water their product contaminates. Thanks for your time.
Tillery: Thank you for allowing me to come here and speak.
More bio-fuels, like ethanol from corn, will be blended into petroleum (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)
The Obama administration wants us all to use more bio-fuels in our vehicles. Lester Graham reports on a proposed rule released by the White House:
Transcript
The Obama administration wants us all to use more bio-fuels in our vehicles. Lester Graham reports on a proposed rule released by the White House:
The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, says this will mean blending more bio-fuels into petroleum.
“Under the proposed rule, the total volume of renewable fuel ramps up to a maximum of 36-billion gallons by 2022.”
But, for the first time, renewable fuels also will have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Bob Dinneen heads up the ethanol trade-group, the Renewable Fuels Association.
He says the carbon footprint of ethanol is 61% smaller than petroleum. But the government wants to include indirect effects – such as reduced corn exports leading other countries to slash and burn rain forest to grow corn.
“We believe when that is better understood, ethanol is going to continue to demonstrate significant carbon benefits.”
The government will hear about their concerns and others during a 60-day comment period.
van der Knaap's team tests tomato starts for the SUN gene - the gene they isolated. SUN is responsible for tomato length. (Photo by Julie Grant)
(Photo courtesy of the American Society of Plant Biologists and Esther van der Knaap)
Vegetables can be really odd shapes.
But what if you could alter fruits
and vegetables into just about any
shape you wanted? Some avid gardeners
come up with strange looking hybrids,
but Julie Grant talked with a researcher
who’s taking the shape of produce to
a whole new level:
Transcript
It’s time to start planting your garden this year. But maybe you’re tired of long, thin
carrots, huge watermelons, and round tomatoes. Julie Grant spoke with one researcher
who’s trying to give us some more options in the shape of fruits and veggies:
Ester van der Knaap steps gingerly around the greenhouse.
We’re at the Ohio State Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.
The plants here are as tall as we are.
Van Der Knaap points out short, round tomatoes – and some odd-looking long, thin
ones.
“That’s one gene. One gene can make that difference.”
Van der Knaap’s team discovered that gene and isolated it. They call it the SUN gene.
And they’ve been able to clone it in tomatoes.
“You see this one is pretty round. It does not have the SUN gene. And that first one
makes a very elongated fruit, and it does have the SUN gene.”
Van der Knaap’s research could lead to square-shapes – something she thinks the
tomato industry might like. Square tomatoes fit better into packages. And, overall,
square tomatoes might be easier to work with than the common round tomatoes.
“They are mechanically harvested. So if you have a very round tomato, it would roll off
conveyor belts, it’s not very handy.”
So far money for her research has come from the National Science Foundation – not big
ag.
Van Der Knaap is quick to note – her tomatoes are not genetically modified.
You might remember the Calgene tomato which was made firmer by manipulating the
tomato genes with a gene from chickens. Van der Knapp’s just isolating the genes that affect the
shape of the tomatoes. Turning them on or off alters the shape.
Designer fruit shapes are gaining popularity. Check out any seed catalog, and there’s
a huge variety – some large and segmented, some pear-shaped, some oval, some
resembling chili peppers.
People have been cross-breeding tomatoes to make the shapes they want for a long
time. But this is not the same thing.
“It’s just funny, ‘cause my brother was working with some genetic things with tomatoes in
our attic.”
Dick Alford is a chef and professor of hospitality management at the University of Akron.
The difference between what his brother – and lots of other folks have been doing – and
what van der Knaap is doing is the difference between cross-breeding and locating a
specific gene that affects the shape of tomatoes.
The only other gene like this that’s been found so far was discovered by van der Knaap’s
advisor at Cornell University.
[sound of a kitchen and cutting veggies]
Chef Alford watches students as they cut yellow crookneck squash and carrots.
They’re trying to make uniform, symmetrical shapes out of curvy and pointed vegetables.
There’s a lot of waste. Chef Alford hates to see so much get thrown away. So he’s got
a request of Dr. van der Knaap.
“If we could get square carrots, it would be great. If you could get a nice long, a tomato
as long as a cucumber, where you could get 20 or 30 slices out of it, it would be great.”
In a country that loves hamburgers, Van der Knaap has heard that request before. But
the long, thin tomato hasn’t worked out just yet. She says there’s more genetics to be
studied.
Once we know all the genes responsible for making different shapes in tomatoes, Van
der Knaap says we’ll have a better idea of what controls the shape of other crops, such
peppers, cucumbers, and gourds.
If the global temperature goes past 2 degrees Celsius - the danger point - we might not be able to get the climate back to a more natural state (Photo courtesy of NASA)
Two new studies in the journal Nature are trying to answer: how much is too much when it comes to global warming? Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
Two new studies in the journal Nature are trying to answer: how much is too much when it comes to global warming? Rebecca Williams reports:
These studies look at what we’d have to do to keep global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius.
That’s considered the danger point for climate change.
Past that point we might not be able to get the climate back to a more natural state.
These papers suggest that we’ve got to cut back on burning fossil fuels a lot. They say by 2050, countries like the US need to cut emissions by more than 90% below what they were in 1990.
The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have proposed cutting emissions by less than that – 80%.
The researchers make the point… of all the coal and oil and natural gas in the ground that we know about, we can only burn one fourth of that amount by 2050.
We’re burning it at a much faster rate.
The studies say, at the current rate, we could be past that tipping point in less than 15 years.
Yucca Mountain is the nation's planned repository for spent nuclear fuel (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)
Politically speaking, America’s nuclear waste storage policy is a mess. Hazardous spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be buried under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but after two decades – it’s not finished. Congress pushed the project onto Nevada in the 80s by passing what’s known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.” Shawn Allee met a man who regrets helping put nuclear waste at Nevada’s doorstep:
Transcript
Politically speaking, America’s nuclear waste storage policy is a mess. Hazardous spent nuclear fuel is supposed to be buried under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, but after two decades – it’s not finished. Congress pushed the project onto Nevada in the 80s by passing what’s known as the “Screw Nevada Bill.” Shawn Allee met a man who regrets helping put nuclear waste at Nevada’s doorstep:
For twenty years Nevada’s tried to scuttle Yucca Mountain.
Along the way, it’s hired Robert Halstead to create a plan to soften the blow if it loses. He’s an expert on nuclear waste truck and rail transportation.
“My job would be to craft the safest, or least-bad, transportation system so that if Nevada got stuck with a repository they would at least have some control of the transportation system because the activity that most likely to injures people and the environment is transportation.”
Halstead didn’t start his nuclear career on Nevada’s side, though. Thirty years ago, he worked for Wisconsin. He says the federal government wanted states’ help in storing nuclear waste deep underground.
In 1982 Congress came to consensus about how to test sites. He trusted it – and built political support for it.
“There was a clear statement that safety was not enough and economic efficiency was not enough. You also had to deal with regional equity.”
The gist was that there’d be at least two nuclear waste repositories: one in the West, and one in the East.
“We were pretty optimistic. Unfortunately that all began to fall apart very quickly.”
Congressmen and even the public started getting cold feet about the site selection process.
There were rowdy protests, especially in states that may have had the right geology for a repository. That included Wisconsin.
“If there was an objective approach to picking the sites, we knew that we would be in the first tier of the sites that would be evaluated.”
After a few years, Eastern politicians got frantic.
“They asked for a fix.”
Halstead decided to help with this fix, because he’d lost faith in the system, too. He says he helped cut legislative deals to stop the nuclear waste law he’d supported just a few years earlier.
It worked.
In 1987, Congress ended the government’s search for a nuclear waste repository.
Yucca would be the only candidate.
“This law was written very carefully to ensure that Nevada got screwed. And you know what, it chilled my blood.”
Halstead realized he’d passed a law that broke that early consensus about regional equity.
He was disappointed, and nearly dumped nuclear politics, but then he got a call. It was from a chief nuclear official in Nevada.
“He said aren’t you ashamed of yourself? I would really like you to come out here and help us. And I said to him, ‘I’d just got done getting Wisconsin getting off the hook and if I help you get off the hook, I think it’s likely that they’ll have to come back to Wisconsin.’”
But Halstead took the job.
I’ve asked him why several times. Sometimes he’s said guilt. Sometimes, regret. Sometimes, for a job.
Right now, Congress is considering cutting Yucca Mountain’s budget, and President Obama says he’s against the project.
But the law to make Yucca the only choice is still on the books.
I ask Robert Halstead whether that will change. He’s not sure – it’ll be tough to build a new consensus even close to what he saw thirty years ago.
“If nuclear waste disposal in a repository were safe and profitable, someone would have taken it away from Nevada years ago, so there won’t be an amicable ending to this story.”
State legislatures and Congress could consider new laws to deal with pesticide regulations. That’s after an Oregon pest management company received what some consider to be a slap on the wrist by the Environmental Protection Agency. A bug killer sprayed in a home led to the death of an elderly woman. Angela Kellner reports:
Transcript
State legislatures and Congress could consider new laws to deal with pesticide regulations. That’s after an Oregon pest management company received what some consider to be a slap on the wrist by the Environmental Protection Agency. A bug killer sprayed in a home led to the death of an elderly woman. Angela Kellner reports:
76-year-old Florence Kolbeck died of cardiac arrest a few hours returning home, where Swanson’s pest management had fumigated. Her husband was hospitalized for respiratory distress. Six others who entered the home, including emergency responders, also became ill.
The EPA investigated and fined the company $4,550 for misusing the pesticides.
Chad Schulze with the EPA says that was the maximum fine allowed under the law.
“That does not take into account the seriousness of the results of the violations. It’s just the statutory max.”
The person who applied the pesticides had failed his licensing exam seven times.
The company denies liability and disagrees with the EPA’s decision.
Foraging for fruit from people’s yards is one thing. Foraging for fruit in people’s alleys, another. Woody Sandberg says he avoids foraging in alleys where people conduct business. (Photo by Louise Baker)
The foragers don’t stop with fruit. They forage and dumpster dive and scavenge so habitually that during the short mapping ride they also found (and took) a clipboard, a pair of gloves, and a bread pan laying on the side of the road. (Photo by Louise Baker)
Woody Sandberg stares into a tree with fruit he does not recognize. He sampled the fruit and still wasn’t sure, so he took a picture of the tree, then rode off. (Photo by Louise Baker)
Woody Sandberg squeezes a foraged lemon into his water bottle. (Photo by Louise Baker)
With everybody looking for ways to save money, free food has never looked better. Devin Browne followed around a group of people who forage for fruit in the city. They look for fruit trees on private and public property to see what they can grab:
Transcript
With everybody looking for ways to save money, free food has never looked better. Devin Browne followed around a group of people who forage for fruit in the city. They look for fruit trees on private and public property to see what they can grab:
It’s perfectly legal here in Los Angeles to pick fruit from trees that are planted on private property as long as the fruit drops into a public space — like a sidewalk or an alley.
There are rules, though, to proper, legal urban foraging and the group Fallen Fruit knows them well. Woody Sandberg is with the group.
“You’re not allowed to reach across someone’s fence. You’re not allowed to reach into someone’s yard. You’re not allowed to crawl up people’s fences or lean ladders on their fences.”
Most of the people in Fallen Fruit ride bikes, sometimes mopeds. A lot of them carry fruit pickers on their back like you might carry a bow and arrow. There’s something almost primal in the way they all look together, fanning out into the street like a band of hunter/gatherers in search of fresh food.
(sound of street and birds)
“We’re looking for trees or any thing that produces food that hangs over the fence so we can pick it and eat it.”
Sandberg’s not actually picking fruit today – he’s just finding the best places to forage.
Later, they’ll go on a harvest ride. Then they’ll make jam and juice and beer with the fruit they’ve found. Today, the mission is just to make maps of where the trees are.
“Over here we got nopalitos and a lime and some nasturiums.”
People sitting on their porches seem not to mind at all when the group stops outside their house. No one in Fallen Fruit can remember a time when a fruit tree owner yelled or screamed or tried to kick ‘em off the sidewalk.
(sound of foragers giving directions to each other)
Which none of the foragers seem surprised by. Fallen Fruit is highly convinced of their mission. Part of this sense of legitimacy comes from the fact that the group originally conceived of itself in biblical terms.
The name Fallen Fruit even comes from a verse in Leviticus: “You shall not pick your vineyard bare or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and the stranger.”
The founders also thought that cities should start planting fruit trees in public spaces, instead of thirsty, frivolous plants.
But fruit trees are oddly political. And city officials say there are reasons why they do not and will not plant them in public space.
The first reason LA’s Chief Forrester, George Gonzalez, gave had to do with people tripping and falling on fruit & then suing the city.
“One of the main reasons is a potential liability from fruit—fruit drop.”
He also said that trends in tree-planting have changed and they like to plant hearty , drought-resistant trees now.
“Also, fruit trees require more water.”
And then, there are the rats.
“Rodents love fruit trees… yes.”
Still, the City regularly gives away fruit trees to people who want to plant them in their yards.
It’s part of the mayor’s Million Trees LA pledge. Like Sandberg, Gonzalez sees fruit trees on private space as a way to benefit the public good.
“Cause when they look at a map and see it dotted everywhere with fruit trees hanging over the fence I think its going to blow people’s minds about how much food is out there. Because the current mindset is that food is in the grocery store.”
It’s a mindset not even the most dedicated of fruit foragers can escape.
After the mapping mission, Woody Sandberg left on his bike for the supermarket, because, he says, unfortunately chocolate soymilk doesn’t grow on trees.
Coal ash is sometimes used as an ingredient in concrete blocks (Photo source: Skepticsteve at Wikimedia Commons)
