Large Burmese pythons are now regularly encountered along trails and visitor areas in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
The Burmese Python is showing up in Everglades National Park in Florida.
That’s because people who no longer want their pet pythons are releasing them there.
Now these babies are big — usually they between 6 to 12 feet long. And there could be as many as 150,000 pythons in the Everglades.
The snakes are not so much a threat to humans. But they are a threat to animals – especially to endangered ones.
Scott Hardin is an exotic species coordinator. He’s with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“You just got a great big snake, nothing like it, nothing analogous in the native snake fauna in Florida. So it opens up a whole new range of prey that was not susceptible before.”
He says officials are brainstorming ways to deal with the problem.
They’re trying to rig up some really big traps. And they’ve also thrown out the idea of a bounty — basically a cash reward for catching the snakes.
BPA doesn't line just baby products - it is in many canned foods and drinks (Source: Tomomarusan at Wikimedia Commons)
Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:
Transcript
Food-packaging executives and
lobbyists for the makers of the
chemical bisphenol-A, often
called BPA, met in Washington
DC last week to come up with PR
strategies. Their message is:
BPA is safe. Lester Graham reports
someone took notes at that meeting
and then leaked them to reporters:
Lyndsey Layton got ahold of those notes. She reports for the Washington Post.
“According to these notes, they called it the ‘holy grail’ spokesperson would be a pregnant, young mother who would be willing to speak around the country about the benefits of BPA.”
Ironic in that many studies associate BPA with birth defects.
John Rost is the Chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance.
He says the reporters got bad notes. He says it only came up because environmental activists used pregnant women to testify against BPA.
“We discussed that as an option and dismissed it and actually find it a little ironic that we are being criticized.”
Some retailers have taken toys and baby bottles made with BPA off the shelf in response to a consumer backlash.
It’s likely most consumers don’t yet realize the chemical also lines beverage and food cans.
Only two Right Whales have been spotted in
the last 50 years off the southern tip of Greenland (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
Scientist think they’ve found
a rare whale in a place where
they thought they were wiped
out. Sadie Babits reports,
they haven’t seen the whale
but they’ve heard it:
Transcript
Scientist think they’ve found
a rare whale in a place where
they thought they were wiped
out. Sadie Babits reports,
they haven’t seen the whale
but they’ve heard it:
Scientists thought the North Atlantic Right Whale
was gone. Only two of them have been spotted in
the last 50 years off the southern tip of Greenland.
But some underwater microphones picked up right
whale calls.
“They sound like mmmmmmick… kind of like that.”
That’s David Mellinger. He teaches at Oregon State
University.
He says they recorded more than two
thousand right whale calls in a year. That doesn’t
mean there are a lot of the whales, but Mellinger
says hearing any in the North Atlantic is significant.
“Because the population is so endangered. There
are only 300-350 maybe right whales in the world.
So finding any new whales is important.”
But there is a concern. As the Arctic Ice Cap
melts because of global warming, more ships are
expected to pass through the area. That could
mean ships could strike and kill the few right
whales that are left.
Another scare came a few years ago, when spinach was found to be tainted with E. Coli (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
In the wake of this year’s tainted peanut butter scare, Congress is getting ready to approve changes to the Food and Drug Administration. Lawmakers want to give the American public more confidence in the safety of the food supply system. But some people doubt they will be able to
make real change. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
In the wake of this year’s tainted peanut butter scare,
Congress is getting ready to approve changes to the Food
and Drug Administration. Lawmakers want to give the
American public more confidence in the safety of the food
supply system. But some people doubt they will be able to
make real change. Julie Grant reports:
Gwen Rosenberg is a mom. She has four boys to feed. So
she’d like to be able to trust that the food supply is safe.
But when Rosenberg heard that 8 people died after eating
peanut products earlier this year, and hundreds more got
sick, it confirmed her beliefs: that the Food and Drug
Administration isn’t making sure food is safe.
“There shouldn’t be stories that come out that reveal that the
peanut plant hasn’t been inspected for years. Or when it
was inspected, there was rat feces. They’re not doing their
job.”
Rosenberg wants the FDA to crack down on food
manufacturers. She says they need inspect more – and shut
down facilities when they find dangerous conditions. She
was appalled when she realized the FDA has no authority to
recall tainted foods.
“The fact that they don’t have recall authority essentially
neuters the FDA. I mean, how are we supposed to take
anything they say or do seriously if they end result is, ‘well,
we can’t force you to do this?’ Well, thanks for the
community service message not to eat the tainted peanut
butter, but you’re not actually making me any safer.”
In the case of the Peanut Corporation of America, a test
found salmonella in its products. It retested. When the test
came out negative, it went ahead and shipped out the
products.
And the FDA had no recall authority. Congressman Bart
Stupak says that’s just wrong. He’s co-sponsoring a food
safety bill that would give the FDA some authority in cases
like this.
“What the FDA can do, shut ‘er down. Prove to me that you
cleaned it up. Prove to me, where did you destroy this
product. Give me the facts. They can’t give you the facts,
shut ‘er down right now. Let’s not wait ten days.”
But leaders in the FDA don’t think recall authority would
have made much difference in the tainted peanut product
case.
David Acheson is Associate Commissioner for foods at the
FDA. Once people started getting sick, he says most
companies using the Peanut Corporation of America’s
products voluntarily recalled their cookies and crackers.
“There’s no suggestion that having mandatory recall is a
panacea to solving food safety problems. It’s one more tool
that would be used from time to time when the situation
warrants it, but it’s not the answer to modernizing food
safety.”
Acheson says the real problem is that the FDA is so busy
reacting to public health threats – to putting out fires – that it
can’t get ahead of the problems and fix the food safety
system.
He says the food system needs preventive controls.
There are a lot of points in the food supply chain where
hazards can creep in: when the food is being grown,
processed, distributed, or sold in a store. Acheson says the
food industry needs to identify control points for each food –
where they are most at risk at becoming unsafe.
“Is it a wild animal in a field, is it the water supply for the
spinach, is it the temperature in my freezer in a retail store.
And all these things in between where things can go wrong
and food can either become contaminated or if there is a low
level of contamination then bacteria can grow.”
Once those control points are identified, Acheson says the
FDA needs to do more inspections – to make sure food is
being handlled safely from farms fields to grocery stores.
But that’s going to cost money.
So Congress is considering charging companies fees to pay
for those inspections.
Food manufacturers don’t like that idea. We contacted
several companies, but none of them, not even the Grocery
Manufacturers Association, would comment for this story.
One crop that Carbofuran was used on is potatoes (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)
The Environmental Protection Agency says no amount of the pesticide carbofuran is safe on food. Mark Brush has more on the new EPA rule:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says no amount of the pesticide carbofuran is safe on food. Mark Brush has more on the new EPA rule:
The EPA has been phasing out this insecticide, but it’s still used on some crops like rice, corn, and potatoes.
When people are exposed to carbofuran, it can cause damage to the nervous system. And the EPA is particularly worried about kids exposure when eating food or when drinking water near treated farm fields.
Potato farmers say they use carbofuran to kill bugs that resist other pesticides.
John Keeling is the CEO of the National Potato Council. He says they were hoping the EPA would let them keep using it.
“We had tried to work with the agency to modify use patterns, or limit the use to particular areas, so that we could continue to use the product – but they obviously didn’t continue in that direction.”
FMC Corporation makes the chemical. Officials there issued a statement saying they’ll fight the EPA’s new rule.
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.
The Hawaii Superferry service has been suspended until an environmental impact study can be completed. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
It’s been rough sailing for a Superferry that transports passengers and vehicles around the Hawaiian Islands. A lot of people who live in Hawaii, as well as businesses and tourists, depend on the Superferry. But there’s been a lot of concern about the ferry’s impact on the environment. Heidi Chang reports the Superferry is now suspending its service. The last voyage will take place today:
Transcript
It’s been rough sailing for a Superferry that transports passengers and vehicles around the Hawaiian Islands. A lot of people who live in Hawaii, as well as businesses and tourists, depend on the Superferry. But there’s been a lot of concern about the ferry’s impact on the environment. Heidi Chang reports the Superferry is now suspending its service. The last voyage will take place today:
Back in 2007, Hawaii legislators passed a special law that allowed the Superferry to sail between Oahu and Maui, before an environmental study was completed. The Hawaii Supreme Court has ruled that’s against the law.
Robert Harris is the director of the Sierra Club. It’s one of the groups that challenged the Superferry and the state in court. He’s worried about the impact it might have on traffic and that natural resources could be taken without better oversight.
“One of the first days of operation, some people on Oahu drove a truck over to Maui and loaded up on a bunch of river rocks, and were transporting it back to Oahu, and they were fined, I think significantly for that.”
Harris says the environmental review will also look at whether the ferry might be disturbing whales or transporting invasive species that could endanger native plants and animals.
Tomatoes are posing a problem for a BPA-free lining - they are so acidic they can eat through it (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)
More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:
Transcript
More than a hundred studies have linked a chemical in plastic to health problems. Things like breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, and early puberty. This chemical, bisphenol-A or BPA, is used to coat the inside of baby formula cans and almost all food and soda cans. Rebecca Williams visits one company that’s found a safer can:
(sound of forklift backing up, pumpkin seeds pouring out of roaster)
It’s pumpkin seed roasting day at Eden Foods. It’s a natural foods company based in Michigan. It sells things like rice, canned beans, and all kinds of packaged fruits and sauces.
Michael Potter is the company’s president. More than a decade ago, he came across some news reports out of Europe.
“And I learned all the can linings in the USA were lined with this lining that leaches BPA into foods from the can.”
That got him thinking, and researching. Then he started badgering his can manufacturers.
“We virtually begged them to provide us an alternative. We persisted in hounding them and eventually the Ball Corporation said they’d make a can with an old lining they used to make.”
The lining’s made from a plant resin instead of the epoxy resin with BPA. The thing was, it would cost Eden Foods 14 percent more – that’s about 2 cents a can.
But Michael Potter says he had to make the switch.
“We’re selling this not only to people that we don’t know, in the market, we’re feeding it to our children, our grandchildren and ourselves – we didn’t want to eat bisphenol A.”
But there was one problem. He couldn’t make the switch for canned tomatoes.
Tomatoes are acidic, and they can eat through the plant resin can lining. That could lead to bacteria or rust getting into the food.
“There is no alternative for high acid foods other than bisphenol-A lining at this point. We are urging, nudging, demanding a bisphenol-A free alternative. And we’re optimistic we’ll end up with one.”
But the metal can industry says those alternatives just don’t exist right now.
John Rost is with the North American Metal Packaging Alliance. He says the industry is trying to find new materials. But he says shoppers shouldn’t worry about eating canned food.
“The levels of BPA that are coming from epoxy can linings are exceedingly low. We’re talking low parts per billion. That level has been deemed safe by the European Food Safety Authority, Health Canada and the US FDA.”
That’s true, but Health Canada has declared BPA toxic. It’s making moves to limit its use.
A number of independent scientists debate that there’s any safe level of BPA.
Maricel Maffini studies BPA at Tufts University School of Medicine. She says they’ve seen harmful effects on lab animals at the same very low levels of BPA that are leaching into our food from cans.
She says that’s because BPA acts like the hormone estrogen.
“You just need a tiny little signal to trigger an effect. So I think it’s unfair to say there is a safe dose because as scientists we cannot say that yet. We have not found a dose that is low enough where we don’t see effects.”
She says babies and kids are the most at risk. She says BPA has caused lasting damage in lab animals when the animals were exposed to the chemical both before and after birth.
“I think we should be concerned, I think we should limit our consumption of canned foods especially if you are pregnant or if you have babies.”
It’s possible that US can makers will be forced to stop using BPA. Leaders in Congress have introduced bills that could soon ban BPA in all food and beverage containers.
This train in Graniteville, South Carolina, crashed while carrying chemicals called "toxic inhalation hazards." Transporting these chemicals is extremely dangerous, and rail companies think chemical companies should share some of the insurance burden. (Photo courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency)
Workers in Hazmat suits at the site of the Graniteville crash, which killed nine people. (Photo courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency)
Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful: Take chlorine. It purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them, even though insurance is expensive.
Shawn Allee says rail lines now want the chemical industry to chip in:
Transcript
Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful. Take chlorine: it purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them, even though insurance is expensive.
Shawn Allee says rail lines now want the chemical industry to chip in:
To understand why the railroad industry wants help with insurance, you should know what happened in Graniteville, South Carolina.
Phil Napier is Graniteville’s fire chief. Napier tells me, one night in January 2005, he got paged about a train wreck.
He hopped in his truck and before long, he found the train engineer.
“I stopped to roll the window down and this gentleman told me they had a chemical leak and he couldn’t breathe and he fell to the ground. And immediately, it hit me. It basically took my breath and all I remember is taking a U-turn heading north but I ended up south. There’s a time-zone in there that I have no memory.”
When Napier came to, he got word from his radio: the train carried chlorine and a toxic cloud was spreading.
Napier evacuated Graniteville. Later, he got a look by helicopter.
“We did a flyover. I mean, it was like a Twilight Zone – you could see cars all up and down the highways, with the doors open.”
Nine people died in the Graniteville derailment and chlorine spill. Since then, the railroad industry worried an accident like this could ruin them.
“The lesson we drew from that was, if there is a major catastrophe by the railroad carrying this material, could be forced into bankruptcy and be forced out of operation.”
That’s Ed Hamberger, the head of the Association of American Railroads.
Hamberger calls the Graniteville accident a tragedy for the town and a financial mess for the railroad responsible – Norfolk Southern.
“The accident in Graniteville resulted in damages of 400 to 500 million dollars.”
Norfolk Southern won’t confirm the figures, but consider this: it’s still in court over an incident involving nine deaths.
Experts say if a similar derailment happened in the middle of a big city like Chicago, it could kill at least 10,000 people.
Hamberger says railroads can’t insure against that.
You might think they would refuse to carry toxic inhalant hazards, but the government says they have to – because rail has the best safety record.
“The freight railroad industry has what is known as a common carrier obligation to carry these toxic by inhalation materials. Several of our members have said if they were not forced to, they would not carry it because of that liability threat.”
Hamberger says if the government won’t lift the obligation, it’s fair to require chemical companies to pay some insurance.
And, he says, it would make the public safer.
The argument goes, if chemical companies paid more to insure against transportation accidents, they’d create safer chemicals.
“With regard to the argument the chemical industry needs an incentive to make safer products, frankly, we have all the incentive in the world.”
Marty Durbin is with the American Chemistry Council.
He says chemical companies already pay insurance against accidents in their factories.
And they are looking for alternatives to chlorine and other toxic inhalant hazards.
Durbin says, besides, when trains leave their factories financial risk should be out of their hands.
“You have to have liability throughout the chain that helps motivate safety improvement.”
The chemical and railroad companies will battle this out in front of government agencies for a while.
In the meantime, each year, trains will make 100,000 shipments of toxic inhalation hazards along the nation’s railroads, even if some freight rail companies don’t want to.
A sign on the Tittabawassee River, downriver from Dow Chemical Plant, stating to avoid contact with the soil and not eat the fish due to dioxin contamination (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
A group of one-hundred organizations is calling on the government to
release a twenty-year-old report on a toxic group of chemicals called
dioxins. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A group of one-hundred organizations is calling on the government to
release a twenty-year-old report on a toxic group of chemicals called
dioxins. Kyle Norris reports:
Dioxins are everywhere – they’re created through manufacturing, burning
garbage, even burning gasoline.
The US Environmental Protection Agency did this big assessment of
dioxins, 20 years ago. But the report’s release has been stalled all that time
by industry lobbyists.
Michael Schade is with the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice. He
says not releasing this report is a health-risk to all of us.
“Every time you go to the grocery store and you buy milk or cheese or you eat beef or
pork or fish, you’re being exposed to this chemical in the food that you eat. And until the
EPA releases this report we’ll continue to be exposed to potentially dangerous levels of
this chemical which has been linked to cancer and endometriosis and other serious health
problems.”
The one-hundred groups have sent a letter to President Obama saying the
government has a responsibility to tell us exactly how dangerous dioxins are.
Large Burmese pythons are now regularly encountered along trails and visitor areas in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
