North America's largest solar plant, covering 140 acres, is located near Las Vegas (Photo courtesy of the Nellis Air Force Base)
Environmental groups have pushed for decades to get the federal government solidly behind solar energy. Shawn Allee reports some of them don’t like the government’s most recent effort to promote it:
Transcript
Environmental groups have pushed for decades to get the federal government solidly behind solar energy. Shawn Allee reports some of them don’t like the government’s most recent effort to promote it:
The Federal Bureau of Land Management developed 24 “solar energy study areas” in Western states.
The idea is to identify federal land that might be be good for solar power plants.
Some environmentalists scoured maps of these solar study areas and got concerned.
Jeffrey Morgan is with Tahquitz Sierra Club in California.
Morgan says a solar plant can take up hundreds of acres, and construction could disturb desert tortoise and cactus habitat.
“They have no concept the desert is a vital, living place with a vast diversity of species, unspoiled landscapes and many, many other things. They they just see it as a waste-land. That’s just not true – it’s not a waste-land.”
The Bureau of Land Management says the “solar energy study areas” are just that – they’re for study – and the government would not let solar energy developers disturb critical wildlife habitat.
One graveyard in Chicago is comprised of over 2.2
million dead at 43 cemeteries - that's a lot of land to maintain (Photo by Todd Melby)
During the past couple of centuries,
the typical graveyard hasn’t changed
much. Its central features still include
tombstones, winding paths, trees and
grass. Some critics want cemeteries to
ban tombstones, stop fertilizing, and
institute other green practices. Todd
Melby reports that traditional burial
practices die hard:
Todd Melby and Diane Richard produced a documentary on green burial called “Death’s Footprint.” You can listen to it here .
Transcript
During the past couple of centuries,
the typical graveyard hasn’t changed
much. Its central features still include
tombstones, winding paths, trees and
grass. Some critics want cemeteries to
ban tombstones, stop fertilizing, and
institute other green practices. Todd
Melby reports that traditional burial
practices die hard:
I’m in a mausoleum with Roman Szabelski. He’s the head of Catholic Cemeteries for the
Archdiocese of Chicago. He’s punching information into a computer.
Catholic grave locator: “Spell out the last name of the deceased that you are trying to
locate using the touch-screen keyboard …”
“So I’ve just keyed in my family name and I’m pushing search. Florence Szabelski is my
mother so I’m asking it to show that record to me.”
Szabelski started mowing grass at the cemeteries in 1979. Today, he presides over 2.2
million dead at 43 cemeteries. That makes Catholic Cemeteries one of the nation’s largest
graveyards.
Other than the high-tech grave locator, Szabelski says his customers prefer things the old
fashioned way.
“We come from a very conservative tradition where people want their 3 by 8, their grave,
to look like their backyard, which is perfectly manicured.”
Some people would like to change that. Advocates of something called green burial say
the perfectly manicured grass, the granite tombstones, the concrete burial vaults, the big
wooden or metal coffins, all of it, is wasteful.
Instead, they’d like to see graveyards filled with native grasses and flowers, rocks used as
grave markers, biodegradable coffins or no coffins at all.
So far, there’s not much demand for green burial.
Most people here are like Charlene and Margaret Villarreal, who are sitting near their
mother’s grave at Queen of Heaven Cemetery. Until her mother’s recent death, Margaret
Villareal had no reason to visit a cemetery.
“I’m 45 years old and nothing has brought me to the cemetery. Nothing, until she passed
away.”
The Villareals have decorated their mother’s grave with red roses, a crucifix festooned
with purple ribbons and a Chicago Cubs pennant.
On this day, they’ve come to honor their mother’s birthday.
Charlene Villarreal: “I’ve planned it since the day she died. I knew I would be here.”
(long pause)
Margaret Villarreal: “Oh get a grip. If she were here …”
Charlene Villarreal: “Sorry, Ma. It’s not as bad as it was on Mother’s Day. (Pause)
(Sniffles) I’m OK.”
They chose a traditional funeral for their mother. Her body was embalmed, which
allowed for an open casket. That casket was placed inside a concrete vault and buried. A
grave marker notes that she was a “loving wife and mother” who will always be in the
hearts of her family.
Margaret Villareal fears a green burial would have robbed her mother of the respect she
deserved.
“Here we are. We’re in the United States. That’s traditionally not how it’s done. You
might do that with animals. But as humans go there is more of a process of dignity
involved. You know, it sounds like that’s something you would do in a mass burial with
some kind of a tragedy like the Chicago fire but not something you’d do to remember
your loved one.”
Environmentalists dispute that. They say most people simply don’t know enough about
green burial to make an informed decision.
Whether that’s true or not, Roman Szabelski of Catholic Cemeteries is plowing ahead
with his plans. He’s got plenty of land on hand for tomorrow’s dead.
“We’re sitting in Queen of Heaven Cemetery right now, which is roughly about a 300-
acre site. About 100 of those acres are leased to the golf course next door. As we need the
property, the golf course will go from 18 to 9 to zero and a driving range and that
property will be used.”
When Szabelski adds up all the land Catholic Cemeteries owns, he figures it can keep
doing business as usual for the next 100 to 200 years.
University of Florida biologist Ted Schuur does field work in the Alaska tundra every summer (Photo courtesy of Ted Schuur)
To protect the tundra, scientists at Eight Mile Lake put down boardwalks in the places they most frequently walk (Photo by Amy Mayer)
Graduate student Hanna Lee balances on the boardwalk as she moves equipment at the research site (Photo by Amy Mayer)
A report in this week’s journal Nature looks at how thawing ground up North might
impact global warming. Amy Mayer spent some time in Interior Alaska with
scientists at Eight Mile Lake:
Transcript
A report in this week’s journal Nature looks at how thawing ground up North might
impact global warming. Amy Mayer spent some time in Interior Alaska with
scientists at Eight Mile Lake:
Permafrost is ground that’s supposed to be frozen all the time. But for decades it’s been
thawing in places.
When that happens, carbon gets released—potentially contributing to the greenhouse
effect.
Ted Schuur’s a biologist at the University of Florida but he spends his summers doing
experiments near Healy, Alaska.
I tagged along during some field visits.
I met Schuur when we were both living in Fairbanks. He lives far away now, but loves
Alaska. You only work here year after year if you do. Summer field work is brutal – tons
of mosquitoes and you work all the time because the sun doesn’t set.
Pretty soon, we’re there.
“This has to be one of my more photogenic field sites that I ever worked at.”
Tundra surrounds us. We’re just north of the Alaska Range. I can see the snow-capped
peaks. We change into rubber boots, pick up our packs, and, after a few steps, we’re on
the tussocks.
Alaskans often say walking on tussocks is like balancing on basketballs. It’s not easy. If
your feet slip off, they get wet. Schuur’s tall and used to this, so he goes faster than me,
and with less bumbling.
Soon, we’re balancing on lumber instead. Schuur and his group try to protect the areas
where they work with narrow boardwalks.
“When we first came out here, we put these boardwalks that we’re walking on now, big
10 feet pieces of lumber – they’re like 2x6s or 2x8s. But we don’t really want to walk on
the tundra because we come here a lot and you’d end up with a trail in no time and
destroy vegetation.”
Schuur knows trudging across the tundra damages it and he tries to minimize that harm.
But in order to answer his questions about the potential greenhouse effect from thawing
permafrost, he has to dig in.
Schuur saws into the tundra with a bread knife.
“It’s very satisfying. It’s like cutting a big cake – though this is a cake with lots of roots in it.”
He cuts up the plants and packs the roots and the tops into jars.
“We’re going to measure respiration of plants.”
Schuur uses a machine to scrub out the carbon from the air that’s in the jars. The plant
tops and roots will continue to respire carbon dioxide until they die. Later, he’ll use fancy
equipment to “date” the carbon that’s left.
He needs the age of the carbon because when he finds older carbon he knows it’s only
recently escaped the frozen ground. That makes it extra in the system.
At first, Schuur learned, new carbon coincides with more plant growth that uses up the
addition. That means no greenhouse effect.
But, later, the permafrost keeps thawing, more old carbon becomes available, and plant
growth just can’t keep up. That means, carbon dioxide ends up in the atmosphere from
the thawing permafrost – just like it does from burning coal or gasoline.
The thawing may ultimately be a bad thing, but to understand and explain it further,
Schuur wants to document it – or even cause some. Next, he says…
“As strange as it seems, I would love to thaw permafrost on a large scale,
experimentally.”
The dilemma, of course, is that causing a thaw means contributing to – in a small way –
a process that might damage or destroy the ecosystem. But we all emit carbon dioxide,
just by driving.
“Even as I do that and I do an experiment where I melt out a little bit of the permafrost, I
think we’re generating this information that’s helping society answer these huge
questions.”
Schuur says the amount of tundra he’d sacrifice is tiny relative to the whole circumpolar
region, where tons of carbon waits in ground that is frozen now but could eventually
thaw.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (Photo by Andy Pernick, courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation)
The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:
Transcript
The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:
Lester Graham: Interior is a huge department, with many services and bureaus. Some of those departments deal with oil and gas exploration on public lands and places such as Alaska, Utah, and offshore. During the Bush Administration, the Department of the Interior was criticized for being too cozy with the oil and gas industry. And it culminated with a scandal involving oil company execs, government workers, and wild parties – complete with cocaine and sex. Secretary Salazar stressed to me, those days of partying and sweetheart deals with oil and gas companies are over.
Ken Salazar: It is unfortunate that the department was blemished in the Bush era because of the transgressions which occurred here and the paradigm which unfolded – which we are seeing the results of today – is that there was a bending of the rules and a flaunting of the law. There is a lot of cleaning up that has to be done.
Graham: Recently you came to a memorandum, I’m understanding, with FERC about offshore wind turbines. How soon might we see wind turbines off the coasts of the US?
Salazar: I expect that it will happen during the first term of the Obama Administration. I think that there is a huge potential for wind energy, especially off the shores of the Atlantic, because of the shallowness of those waters.
Graham: Will we ever see a point where we have windmills near coast, and drilling rigs out farther, along the Atlantic Coast?
Salazar: I do believe that we will see the wind potential develop. I think it will be similar to what we already see in the United Kingdom and Denmark and Norway. In respect to oil and gas off the Atlantic, I think that is still a question that needs to be looked at. And it’s part of what we’re doing in looking at a new 5-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf. And we are not making a decision at this point, or pre-judging where we will end up after we complete the comment process which ends in September.
Graham: Secretary Salazar says domestic oil and gas will play a role in American energy. He talked about the Department of Interior’s role in the nation’s energy independence, and noted the departments 15,000 scientists will be helping deal with the big issues such as global warming and climate change. Ken Salazar says that since the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other nature-related agencies make up Interior, one of its top priorities is a program called ‘Treasured Landscapes.’
Salazar: I am hopeful that we will be able to, in this Administration, create the kind of legacy that was created by Teddy Roosevelt. President Obama has a vision for the landscapes of America, which is one that I believe we can deliver on. Restoration of major landscapes, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes and the Everglades and so many others, will be a part of that agenda.
Graham: Secretary Salazar, thank you so much for your time.
Salazar: Thank you very much, Lester.
Graham: Ken Salazar, President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.
Senator Robert F. Bennett blocked the nomination of David Hayes as the Deputy Interior Secretary (Photo courtesy of the US Senate)
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Transcript
This week the Senate is expected to take up President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of Interior. Lester Graham reports the nomination was blocked last week because of a dispute over oil and gas leases:
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar says he knows his old Senate colleague Bob Bennett of Utah very well, and he understands the politics behind blocking the nomination of Salazar’s deputy.
Senator Bennett and his fellow Republicans blocked the nomination of David Hayes after Secretary Salazar canceled leases for oil and gas drilling near National Parks in Utah.
Salazar says the leases were rushed through late in the Bush administration without proper environmental review.
Senate Democrats say the Hayes nomination will be brought up again. Secretary Salazar says he hopes so.
“I sure hope that it happens. You know I think Senator Durbin and others, Senator Reid, indicated they think that it can happen this week. I hope that it does.”
The Democrats will need the votes of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd. Both men have been absent from the Senate because of health problems.
Amy Weik has a will drawn up that specifies a green burial (Photo by Todd Melby)
Memorial Day is coming up. Many people still visit the graves of family and friends, maybe bring flowers. When a loved one dies, grieving prevents most of us from thinking about the environmental consequences of conventional funerals and burial. But some people are beginning to weigh the environmental costs of caskets, burial vaults and grave markers. Todd Melby reports on the green death movement:
Todd Melby and Diane Richard produced a documentary on green burial called “Death’s Footprint.” You can listen to it here .
Transcript
Memorial Day is coming up. Many people still visit the graves of family and friends,
maybe bring flowers. When a loved one dies, grieving prevents most of us from
thinking about the environmental consequences of conventional funerals and burial.
But some people are beginning to weigh the environmental costs of caskets, burial
vaults and grave markers. Todd Melby reports on the green death movement:
Amy Weik works at a bank in downtown Chicago. She’s also a big-time
environmentalist. She bikes to work, doesn’t eat meat, recycles and she composts.
“This is my worm bin. It’s a rectangular cube, which I keep my worms in that eat
my scrap vegetables. Mmm, look at that. Yum. Scrap paper, food that went bad.”
The environment is such a big part of Weik’s life, she’s not only interested in
living green.
She wants to die green.
“We’re Americans. We are wasteful and we consume. We think that we are
entitled to everything. So I’m entitled to using up this massive plot of land for the
rest of eternity. That’s ridiculous thinking. You know what I mean?”
So 11 years ago — when she was only 23 — Weik wrote her own will and shared it
with her mother.
Weik: “I can read part of it.”
Melby: “Sure, what does it say?”
Weik: “Zero products or services from funeral homes are to be utilized.”
Instead, Weik prefers her body to be chemically cremated. But that new, high-
tech process isn’t widely available yet. Her second choice is to be composted with
worms.
“If all efforts have been exhausted, but these two options are not available, please
bury me in a green burial ground, location unimportant.”
That second option leaves Weik’s mother — Linda Williams — confused.
“The second was composed with worms? When I read it today, my first reaction
was, oh my Gosh, she composts with worms in her kitchen. I hope she doesn’t
expect me to put her in the box!” (Laughs)
Weik sees lots of unnecessary waste in conventional burial practices. Caskets
constructed from wood or metal are used for a short time and then go right into
the ground. Most graveyards require the casket be placed inside a concrete burial
vault to prevent leaking, but most eventually leak anyway. Grave markers are
often made of granite. And cemeteries are usually manicured to perfection using
fertilizer and riding lawn mowers.
Green burial advocates prefer biodegradable caskets — or just a shroud — no
burial vault, no grave markers and no landscaping. They prefer natural
surroundings.
Weik is hoping to live long enough to see a cemetery in her town go green.
So far, that’s not happened.
But one organization is working on it.
“I don’t think many people really want many aspects of conventional death care. I
think they think it’s legally required.”
That’s Joe Sehee. He’s head of the Green Burial Council.
“Most Americans do not know that you can have a funeral with a viewing without
embalming. Most don’t know that you can transport a body across state lines
without having to embalm it. Most don’t know that burial vaults can be avoided,
for example, or that you can go into the grave with a shroud or nothing at all.”
The council has been busy certifying all kinds of earth-friendly death products,
but has been slow to find graveyards willing to ban concrete burial vaults and
minimize traditional landscaping.
That leaves Amy Weik wondering if she’s going to have rely on the worms in her
compost bin to dispose of her body.
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.
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.
Brook Wilke and his son, Charlie, visit a test
farm at The Kellogg Biological Research Station. Wilke
and other researchers are testing how well perennial
versions of popular grain crops, such as wheat, will
grow in Michigan. The test farm isn't too far from Battle
Creek, the home of the commercial breakfast cereal industry. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
John Edgerton is a part-time farmer who's growing
test plots of perennial wheat on his Michigan farm. He's
interested in whether the plants might allow sheep to graze
a field after harvest, but still produce for years afterward. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
If you had a bowl of cereal or maybe a muffin this morning, you ate flour from an annual crop. They grow one season, they die, then get re-planted again the next year. Sounds as natural as could be, but repetitive planting can wear out farmland. It can cause soil erosion and cause more water pollution. Now, some scientists are trying to coax grain crops into growing for years at a time. Shawn Allee visited researchers who are testing perennial wheat in the heart of cereal country:
Transcript
If you had a bowl of cereal or maybe a muffin this morning, you ate flour from an annual crop. They grow one season, they die, then get re-planted again the next year. Sounds as natural as could be, but repetitive planting can wear out farmland. It can cause soil erosion and cause more water pollution. Now, some scientists are trying to coax grain crops into growing for years at a time. Shawn Allee visited researchers who are testing perennial wheat in the heart of cereal country:
I’ve headed to a test farm run by Michigan State University. It’s not that
far from Battle Creek,
Michigan where cereal companies like Kelloggs got started.
Dr. Sieg Snapp shows me grain that might make into our cereal bowls
someday.
Allee: “What are we looking at on this side?”
Snapp: “We have 6 varieties of perennial wheat.”
Right now, they kinda look like spindly blades of grass. But in some ways,
this is miraculous; regular
wheat dies after harvest. These have been harvested, and now they’re
popping back up.
“We’ll harvest these this summer, and then in the fall, they’ll re-grow.
They build a deep root
system, and they’re able to come back. So, at first, they start off very
similar, but they keep
growing longer, and they re-grow after harvest. That’s the real
difference.”
Actually, that’s just the start of the difference between annual grains
like wheat and perennial
varieties.
Dr. Snapp says when farmers plant most annual grain crops, soil gets torn
up again and again from
planting and replanting. Rain can wash away exposed top-soil.
Perennial crops get planted once every few years, so they might hold soil
and they might need less
fertilizer that runs off into streams and rivers.
Snapp: “So, the roots of traditional crops including annual wheat are
usually 1-2 feet. These
root systems might be down 6 feet. They can use fertilizers more
efficiently, so they can pick
it up from deep and then move it up where we want it, into the grain.”
Allee: “And if the roots are deep enough, you might need less herbicide
to kill weeds, right?
If that perennial wheat comes up strong enough, it’s already out-competing
the weeds that
are next to it?”
Snapp: “Right, and each year it should do it better for a couple years at
least, we don’t know
how long.”
Dr. Snapp and her colleagues use the word “maybe” a lot when they talk
about perennial grains. It’s
mostly because testing these crops is slow work. That’s one reason they’re
letting some farmers run
their own small tests.
She introduces me to one farmer.
“Hi John! Come on over!”
Part-time farmer and teacher John Edgerton says he checked his test batches
recently.
“I didn’t know what to expect and I went out there and low and behold,
it’s greening up
beautifully. In fact, now, it may be a little too thick. We’ll see.”
Edgerton wants to know whether sheep can get cheap feed from leftover wheat
grass, or whether
farmers could save on tractor fuel.
“One farmer said to me, you know, if I could get three or four years of a
decent crop of
perennial wheat without having to plow, there’d be enormous savings.”
Pretty soon, another perennial wheat researcher joins us in the test field.
He’s Brook Wilke.
He tells me, all this work on perennial wheat and other grains will work
best if the final product, the
grain, tastes like what we’re used to.
Allee: “I hear you baked some chocolate chip cookies with perennial
wheat.”
Wilke: “Yeah. A big component of this work is, “’will people eat the
perennial wheat?’”
Dr. Snapp tasted Wilke’s cookies. She says the wheat tasted kinda nutty,
but good.
Dr. Snapp says maybe one day, she and other researchers will prove
perennial grain plants can thrive.
After that, maybe bread or cereal companies, like Kellogs, will run
taste-tests of their own.
Wilson City Farm is part of Chicago's Resource Center, and Tim Wilson is the garden manager. The 1.25 acre plot produces eighty varieties of eleven crops. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
City Farm occupies a vacant lot owned by the City of Chicago. It lies at the heart of a fast-changing neighborhood. There are new condo buildings and non-profit housing centers cropping up alongside the Cabrini Green Housing Project. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
City Farm's greenhouse uses light-weight replaceable materials because the managers plan on moving every few years. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Urban farming is supposed to be a solution to getting fresh, locally-produced food to city folk.
The movement’s taking off because a lot of cities have empty, vacant lots to plant on, but there’s a problem: city governments or developers won’t let growers stay on those lots forever.
Shawn Allee met one urban farmer who’s not worried about losing the farm:
Transcript
Urban farming is supposed to be a solution to getting fresh, locally-produced food to city folk.
The movement’s taking off because a lot of cities have empty, vacant lots to plant on, but there’s a problem: city governments or developers won’t let growers stay on those lots forever.
Shawn Allee met one urban farmer who’s not worried about losing the farm:
Ken Dunn’s City Farm looks less like a traditional farm than a construction site.
There’s fence around an acre or so of soil. There are two small sheds.
And there’s a greenhouse – but it’s not glass or anything – its plastic strung over a bunch of metal tubes.
These are available commercially for about 1,500 dollars and will last for many years. This is the third year this one’s been up.
Dunn makes no apology for the make-shift feel.
“This is a mobile farmstead. Our fence that surrounds this property has been in three locations in the past twenty years as have the tool shed, and office trailer. So, everything here can be picked up and moved within a week or, if necessary, within a couple days.”
In fact, Dunn’s planning on it. He’s on land owned by the City of Chicago, and he has to move next year.
“Our deal with them is that we are occupying it until they sell the property. I think it will be having luxury condominiums. I think they have a price tag of 6 million dollars on this acre. As tax payers we have to take the six million.”
But Dunn’s not worried – he’s lined up another lot to plant on.
Dunn thinks more urban farmers should be just as mobile as he is by keeping their equipment light and scouting for the next available growing space.
Here’s his argument: City governments or developers might let you squat on vacant land for a while, but you can’t count on them selling it to you at an affordable price – or just giving it you.
Seems reasonable enough, but I thought I’d ask urban farming groups how they take this mobile farm idea.
“In my opinion, it should be permanent.”
This is Erika Allen.
She heads the Chicago branch of a group called Growing Power.
“It shouldn’t be something that you have access to some land for a few years and then have to move. In my mind, that’s not agriculture.”
Allen says across the country, urban farms have provided fresh food and even jobs.
She says mobile farming kind of let’s city governments off easy; if urban farms are so useful, cities should help them own farmland.
“I think once we were able to prove you can grow food in the city and it can be productive and beautiful, then it’s an issue of policy. What’s the priority? Why aren’t we relegating some of this space just for urban agriculture?”
Ken Dunn says he’s heard this criticism before. He calls his mobile farming approach a little more realistic.
Dunn says rural farmers can’t grow everything they want, however they want; they have to adjust to the landscape, soil conditions, and weather.
He says he’s just adjusting to an urban reality: real-estate markets value commercial and residential property more than farmland.
“We have to operate this sustainably. That is, working within the forces that are operating instead of hoping to always get 15 years in some hidden corner or somewhere and it might turn into less because someone comes in overnight and bulldozes your project. So, sustainability means keeping operative from year to year with no setbacks. A planned move is no set-back at all.”
With that, Dunn has to leave.
It’s planting season and he and his staff have a lot of work. They want this crop to be special, since it could be their last growing season on this vacant lot.
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