Marketing “Character Wood”

In an effort that could be replicated across the region, one county in Minnesota is trying to encourage growth of hardwood forests. They think sawmills and related enterprises that use hardwoods will create good long-term jobs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill has more:

Transcript

In an effort that could be replicated across the region, one county in Minnesota is trying to encourage growth of hardwood forests. They think sawmills and related enterprises that use hardwoods will create good long-term jobs. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Forests throughout the Great Lakes are economic powerhouses. In Minnesota alone, the timber industry contributes nearly 8 billion dollars to the economy. Pulp and paper mills dominate the industry in Minnesota. They cut a lot of aspen to produce paper and chipboard. Three fourths of the wood cut in the state goes to these mills. Most of them are owned by big, multi-national companies. Sawmills are much smaller, and they’re usually locally owned. They use a variety of wood, including pine and spruce, maple and oak, to produce paneling, flooring, and trim.

(Car doors slam)

Aitkin County foresters are visiting a logging
site about 50 miles west of Duluth. Most of these trees are about 80 years
old. There’s sugar maple, basswood, and red oak. Such forests provide
prime habitat for a broad range of species. Forester Mark Jacobs says it’s
time to cut some of the trees down, to give others a chance to grow
faster. He wants to do it as much like nature as possible.

“The type of disturbance that would happen in here, since it’s kind of protected from fire, would be individual trees falling. Through mortality or if a windstorm would go through, a small group of trees may fall down in the natural cycle.”

Foresters imitate nature by choosing mainly smaller, diseased or mis-shapen trees to be cut. Joe Jewett has the logging contract to thin the woods. He examines each log to figure out how it can best be marketed.

“The higher grade lumber is around the outside of the log and then here this is the heart, this is the sapwood, and the higher grade is out here.”

The small trees have lots of branches, so the wood will have a lot of knots. So it’s hard to sell, because most people want clear-grained wood.

“Howdy, how’s it going?”

Dan Haugen is visiting Jewett to see if he can help sell the wood Jewett has cut. Haugen is a middleman. He buys wood from loggers and sells it to lumber yards. He’s trying to create a demand for wood with knots and color variations. Haugen calls it “character wood.”

“If you go into most homes, the millwork, the cabinets and the flooring, most of it’s clear. And you can look around in the forest and see all these limbs, and that’s just not how God makes these trees. And so we really need to find some markets for character grades of forest products.”

(Saw, sfx from processor)

Aitkin Hardwoods buys some of Haugen’s wood. The small factory is filled with the smell of freshly cut boards. Stacks of lumber reach to the ceiling. The oak, maple, ash, and aspen boards will become paneling, flooring, and trim. Manager Rich Peterson says he’s found a market for character grade lumber. He says people building lake cabins in the area want informal-looking wood to build their casual second homes. They find clear wood too boring.

“They haven’t seen any mineral streak, there are
no knots, and all of those things today are considered beautiful.”

Peterson employs four workers and sells about 40 semi-loads of lumber each year. He’s expecting his business to grow. He says Aitkin County’s long-term approach to forest management will eventually produce more, and better quality lumber. Some day, he hopes furniture could be produced here. That would bring more jobs, and better profits than paneling and flooring.

Hardwood manufacturing in Aitkin County is growing slowly. The raw materials are growing slowly in the woods, and entrepreneurs like Rich Peterson are slowly building markets. It’s a different scale from the pulp mills that employ hundreds of people and cut down thousands of acres of trees every year. And that’s fine with Aitkin County’s land department. Forester Mark Jacobs says the local economy will still benefit from a growing hardwood industry –slowly but surely.

“Some smaller sawmills expanding, maybe a kiln-drying facility, maybe some secondary manufacturing, and in total it could be several hundred employees.”

And Jacobs says in the meantime, people who live in the county, and people who have cabins here, enjoy the hardwood forests.

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

Northern Neighbor Curbs Pesticide Use

While the U.S. continues to struggle over the use of pesticides, its neighbor to the north has recently taken some major steps toward restricting its use. Earlier this year Canada’s largest grocery chain announced that its 440 garden centers would be pesticide-free by 2003. In the wake of this announcement the Canadian government introduced amendments to its 33 year-old pesticide control act. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that while this is welcome news… “what took so long?”:

Transcript

While the U.S. continues to struggle over the use of pesticides, its neighbor to the north has recently taken some major steps toward restricting its use. Earlier this year, Canada’s largest grocery chain announced that its 440 garden centers would be pesticide-free by 2003. In the wake of this announcement, the Canadian government introduced amendments to its 33 year-old pesticide control act. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that while this is welcome news, “What took so long?”

Contrary to popular belief, there are at least three things that you can’t avoid – death, taxes and pesticides. Pesticides are everywhere – in our food, in our water and in the air that we breathe.

Ever since the publication of Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, 40 years ago, many environmentalists have expressed their concern that anything that can kill other living organisms must also have an effect on human health. They have patiently gathered evidence while encouraging the scientific community to do the same. But despite our growing awareness of the dangers of pesticides, progress toward restricting their use has been painstakingly slow.

And then came Hudson. A decade ago this small Quebec town passed a local by-law to restrict the cosmetic use of pesticides. Cosmetic use generally means using them to improve the appearance of lawns and gardens. Two lawn care companies immediately took the town to court. The ensuing legal battle dragged on for ten years. But the town’s remarkable tenacity paid off. Last year the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously upheld Hudson’s right to legislate the use of pesticides and encouraged other municipalities to do the same.

The Supreme Court decision literally opened a floodgate of activity. Hundreds of municipalities that had been waiting for the Hudson ruling are now proceeding with their own pesticide legislation.

Even the traditionally conservative Canadian Cancer Society – known for its “cancer can be beaten” philosophy is calling for a ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides known to cause cancer. Apparently, cancer not only can be beaten – it can be prevented.

Then in March a modern day corporate miracle happened. The Loblaw’s grocery chain announced that it would be pesticide free in all of its 440 garden centers by next year. What was so amazing about the giant retailer’s announcement is that a cancer victim inspired it. After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, a young Canadian doctor went on a one-woman campaign to ban pesticide use. Dr. Bruinsma’s story caught the attention of a Loblaw’s company official and the rest is corporate history.

It was only after all of this, that the Canadian government finally introduced a long promised update of its 33 year-old pesticide act. While the bill isn’t perfect, it is a step in the right direction – the direction that environmentalists have been pointing to for decades.

The Canadian Cancer Society, Loblaws, even the Canadian government are making some dramatic shifts in direction thanks to the extraordinary efforts of ordinary citizens – many of them cancer patients, like Dr. Bruinsma. While struggling with their own disease they have gathered evidence about the harmful effects of pesticides in the hopes of preventing others from suffering the same fate.

Sadly, Dr. Bruinsma didn’t live to see the change in Loblaw’s corporate policy. She died of breast cancer just a few short weeks before the announcement was made. Ironically, Rachel Carson, the great-grandmother of the anti-pesticide movement also lost her life to breast cancer a few years after Silent Spring was published in 1962. What we can learn from their deaths – and their remarkable lives – is that change, as always, starts with the power of one.

Super Unpatriotic Vehicles

Recent reports that sales of SUVs, mini-vans, and light trucks have outstripped car sales has Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Don Ogden wondering if SUV is short for Super Unpatriotic Vehicle:

Forest Service Sued Over Aspen Logging

The Sierra Club is suing the U.S. Forest Service to block logging of aspen in national forests in three Great Lakes states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

The Sierra Club is suing the U.S. Forest Service to block logging of aspen on national forests in three Great Lakes states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports.


The lawsuit asks a federal court to force the Forest Service to stop cutting aspen on its land in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The Sierra Club’s Anne Woiwode says the Forest Service favors aspen production at the expense of a healthy forest, and a healthy economy.


“When they choose to keep aspen at very high levels, they choose not to bring back forests that may be of greater economic value, may actually produce many more jobs than aspen does for the amount of wood produced.”


Woiwode says clear cutting aspen prevents white pine and hardwood forests from growing back.


The Forest Service says it manages forests for a variety of types and ages of trees, and doesn’t try to encourage aspen where it would not grow naturally.


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

Meatpacker Pays for Pollution

The largest meatpacker in the world has agreed to pay millions of dollars in penalties because of pollution at its plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The largest meatpacker in the world has agreed to pay millions of dollars in penalties because of pollution at its plants. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


Iowa Beef Packers, known as IBP Incorporated, has agreed to pay more than four million dollars in penalties and make ten million dollars in pollution prevention improvements at several of its plants. That agreement settles a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Among a number of violations at several plants, the EPA had charged that IBP was releasing large quantities of ammonia into the Missouri River and one of its plants emitted 19 times the maximum amount of the pollutant, hydrogen sulfide, from its smokestacks. Besides paying the penalties, IBP will upgrade its wastewater treatment facilities and install required air pollution control equipment. In a release, IBP states that it doesn’t “agree with the nature and extend to the claims made in the federal government’s lawsuit.” but it’s glad to put the matter behind it. IBP was recently acquired by Tyson Foods. Government officials say with the settlement, they hope IBP will now be a better neighbor. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Community Wins Suit Against Egg Farm

An Ohio jury has awarded neighbors of a large factory farm $19.7 million in damages. People living near Buckeye Egg Farm in central Ohio have complained for years of fly infestations and odors. The outcome is seen as a victory by those living next to large-scale farm operations throughout the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has the story:

Transcript

An Ohio jury has awarded neighbors of a large factory farm 19.7 million dollars in damages. People living near Buckeye Egg Farm in Central Ohio have complained for years of fly infestations and odors. The outcome of the lawsuit may or may not affect similar cases in other states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports.


(Natural sound of locusts, wind, dog barking in the distance)

Freda Douthitt’s house sits at the end of a gravel lane. The driveway is surrounded by trees and wild flowers. She’s always liked it here because it’s secluded … she’s a couple miles from a rural road. She likes to sit on the multi-tiered back patio that overlooks a small pond. That’s where she grades composition papers from her Freshman English class at Ohio University.

(sound of flies)


But she has also had to swat at flies for the past ten years. Douthitt collects flies in a container that is nearly the size of a gallon milk jug. She estimates this one has about 2-3 inches worth of decomposing flies and maggots collected since August 22.


“It smells out here. That’s the flytrap. That keeps some of them from getting in the house. Today there’s a few flies out here. There are days when that wall would be just polka dotted with them.


Douthitt has frozen the containers of flies and collected them over the years. She took them to court with her to prove the problems she deals with living near a factory farm.
That’s what helped her win a 1.2 million dollar share of a settlement with Buckeye Egg Farm. It’s one of the world’s largest egg-laying producers. Douthitt’s house is three-quarters of a mile from one of the company’s egg-laying plants. The flies come from the vast amounts of manure produced by millions of chickens housed at the company’s barns. The manure gets spread on farm fields that surround Douthitt’s house after harvest season in the fall. Since then … she has watched as run-off from Buckeye Egg properties killed tens-of-thousands of fish in a nearby creek. She has even seen the creek water turn purple.


She says she never expected to win in court against the company when she began the legal battle 9 years ago.


“I never thought about suing. Until one of the neighbors I’d been working hard with trying to get the EPA to do something … trying to get the county health department interested … um, we were both frustrated at that point. She called up one evening and said we’re ready to call a lawyer, are you? And I said, yeah, I’ll meet with you.
As the years went by I became pretty frustrated, and wondered what would make a difference.”


Douthitt and 20 of her neighbors won a 19.7 million dollar lawsuit against Buckeye Egg.
This win has other people in Great Lakes states hopeful they too can win in court against large factory farms.


Julie Janson of Olivia, Minnesota knows Douthitt’s story all too well. Janson has been fighting hog factory farm owner Valadco for 6 years. Her house sits sandwiched between two of the company’s hog barns. Janson and her husband filed a lawsuit this spring against the company. They are asking for close to 200-thousand dollars because Janson says her family of eight gets sick from manure odors.


Janson says she took her 11-year-old daughter to a specialist in California to prove she has brain damage from smelling hydrogen sulfide.


Decomposing manure creates hydrogen sulfide gas and ammonia that smells like rotten eggs.


“Sometimes it’s enough to gag a maggot. The stink is putrid. And, it penetrates through your house, through the windows and doors. Every little crack in your home.”


Janson says her family has spent one hundred thousand dollars to fight Valadco.
She had to close her daycare center, which she ran from her home, partly because of the stench. Her husband is supporting the family with his truck-driving job that brings in nearly 38-thousand dollars a year.


She says a win over Buckeye Egg farm in Ohio is a victory that can help her cause.


“There’s finally been some justice served. Some of these people have been fighting for over ten years. And … to me … it just says no matter how long and painful it is, you need to fight for justice because if us citizens don’t fight it’s never gonna happen.”


Both Janson and Douthitt say it’s not the money that will make them happy.
Douthitt says she will probably never see the money that she is owed.
But … she says the county judge may force the company to clean up its farms and the surrounding communities.


“How can they have that many animals and that much manure and let it just pour out and not treat it? They let it just pour out onto the land.”


Buckeye egg farm officials have said they may appeal the verdict. The company says it has already spent millions of dollars to try and clean up its facilities. Earlier this year, Buckeye Egg settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit with Ohio’s attorney general’s office. The state sued the company for dumping dead chickens in a field and polluting creeks by spilling contaminated water. The state has since filed seven sets of contempt charges against Buckeye Egg for not correcting the problems. It’s still undecided whether Buckeye Egg will file for bankruptcy following the verdict.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Top Enforcement Position on Hold

The nomination of former Ohio Environmental Protection Agency director Donald Schregardus to be the assistant U.S. EPA Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance is being challenged in the Senate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports:

Transcript

The nomination of former Ohio Environmental Protection Agency director, Donald Schregardus to be the assistant U.S. EPA administrator for enforcement and compliance is being challenged in the senate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports.


Schregardus was nominated by President Bush to fill the vacant position. But U.S. senators Charles Schumer of New York and Barbara Boxer have placed a hold on Schregardus’s nomination. Schumer says he fears the administration won’t pursue lawsuits against polluting utility companies in the Midwest. New Jersey senators Robert Toricelli and John Corzine have written a letter to Bush criticizing Schregardus’s record on air pollution issues. Schregardus was director of the Ohio EPA for eight years. He left the agency with a backlog of citizen complaints. Schregardus won’t speak with the media until after the confirmation hearings. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Long Road to River Recovery

  • Aerial view of industry along the Fox River. Photo by Great Lakes United.

One of the rivers that flows into Lake Michigan is polluted so badly that it’s being treated much like a Super Fund site…an environmental disaster. It’ll be decades before it’s cleaned up, and some environmentalists think it might never be cleaned up properly. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

One of the rivers that flows into the Great Lakes (Lake Michigan) is
polluted so badly that it’s being treated much like a Super Fund site –an
environmental disaster. It’ll be decades before it’s cleaned up. And some
environmentalists think it might never be cleaned up properly. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


(Sound of fish splash)


It’s late at night. The moon’s out. And the fish are flopping on the Fox
River. In downtown Green Bay, Wisconsin, Robert Hageman and a few of his
friends have been fishing. A couple of the guys are bragging about the big
fish they caught. But they’re not taking any home with them tonight.


LG: “Had any luck?” RH: “Yeah, I caught 23 fish.”
LG: “And wwhat did you do with them? RH: “Let ’em right back.” LG: “why?” RH: “Because it’s dirty. Fox River’s dirty.”
LG: “What have you heard about the Fox River?” RH: “The fish ain’t good for you. They can’t hurt you, but they ain’t good for you.
(friends in background say “PCBs, man.”) “yeah.”
LG: “What do you know about PCBs?
RH: “I don’t know nothing about it. That’s why I ain’t eatin’ them.” (all laugh)


Hageman and his friends are right when they say there are PCBs in the Fox
River. But apparently they haven’t heard that eating fish from the river
probably can hurt you in the long run. There are 60-thousand pounds of
PCBs, or poly chlorinated byphenyls, in the 39 mile run of the Fox
River. Of that, 50-thousand pounds – that’s 25 tons – is in the sediment of
the last seven mile stretch just before the river flows into Green Bay and
on into the rest of Lake Michigan. It’s that final stretch where Hageman
and his friends have been fishing.


The Environmental Protection Agency says seven paper mills along the Fox
River are the likely polluters. The EPA says PCBs were produced as a
by-product of the paper manufacturing process, and from the 1950s to the 1970s
they were dumped into the river. Now, the agency intends to make those
mills pay for cleaning up the contaminants.


Dennis Hultgren works for Appleton Papers, and is a spokesperson for a group
that represents the seven companies. Hultgren says the paper mills want to
clean up the pollution. But they don’t want to pay more than they have to.


“What we want to do is make sure that the money that we do spend
is spent wisely and it does the most environmental good for the region. And
so, we have one chance to do it right and we want to do it right the first
time.”


The paper mills have been working closely with government agencies to try to
determine where the PCBs are concentrated and how best to clean up the
pollution. Some of the companies have spent millions of dollars on tests in
the river. Just recently, Hultgren’s firm offered 40-million dollars… ten-million dollars a year for four years… for data collection and preliminary clean-up tests. The government agencies praised the decision and some environmental groups voiced their approval. But a local grassroots group, the Clean Water Action Council of Northeast Wisconsin, does not approve. Rebecca Katers is with the council and says it’s a delay tactic by the paper mill companies.


“It makes the company look generous. But, in fact, they should be doing this anyway. They should have done this ten years ago.”


Giving the money now, Katers says, only manages to delay legal action
against the company for four more years. Besides, she says, while
40-million dollars might seem like a lot of money, the estimated clean-up
could cost as much as 30 times that amount.


The Clean Water Action Council says this money and the government’s
willingness to accept it are representative of the cozy relationship the
companies seem to have with regulators. But Katers says the state and
federal agencies are forgetting about the people who live here. She
bristles when she hears the government agencies talk about how close they
are to the paper mills.


“They talked at the announcement about ongoing discussions they
have on a daily basis with the paper industries on this issue. But, they
haven’t met once face-to-face with the public. They haven’t held a public
discussion or debate on this issue.”


And it appears there won’t be many opportunities in the future. Although
the Fox River is not a Superfund site, the EPA is generally following the
process used for Superfund sites. The EPA says that means the public can
submit comments in writing. But there won’t be a lot of public discussion
until the EPA actually has a proposed plan. Katers thinks the people
should have a voice a lot earlier in the process.


But, the paper mills’ representative, Dennis Hultgren says it’s better to
let the experts work first.


“It’s complicated. For the normal citizen, it’s going to be very difficult to comment on it because they’re going to be looking at the technical merits
of their comments. And a general citizen, not having been involved, it’s going to be very difficult to have germane comments.”


The companies say they’ve been studying and testing and they’ve found
disturbing the sediment by trying to remove it proves that the PCBs should
be left in the sediment, allowed to slowly break down… a process called
natural recovery. And where there’s risk that sediment laden PCBs might
be disturbed by the river’s currents, engineered caps could be put in place.


The Clean Water Action Council says the paper mills tests were designed to
end up with that conclusion because that would be the cheaper way to deal
with the PCBs. The council wants the PCBs removed from the river and
disposed of safely… a much more expensive job.


The acting regional administrator for the USEPA, David Ullrich, says
there’ll likely be some combination of natural recovery, capping, and
removal. But, Ullrich says none of that will happen anytime soon. It’s a
big job, and it looks as though it will take up to ten years to deal with
the PCBs. And Ullrich says that’s just the beginning.


“The actual recovery of the resource, getting fish contaminant
levels down to acceptable levels and getting the PCB loadings to Green Bay
and out to Lake Michigan down, could take a longer period of time than that,
perhaps up to twenty years.”


And over that 20 year period, experts say that contamination will
naturally spread farther and farther into Green Bay and Lake Michigan.


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

LONG ROAD TO RIVER RECOVERY (Short Version)

The Environmental Protection Agency says it could be a decade before a river that feeds Green Bay and Lake Michigan will have tons of PCBs cleaned up. And a lot longer before the river recovers from the effects of the pollution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

COMPANY DROPS ‘SLAP-SUIT’ AGAINST ENVIROS

In recent years, environmentalists and consumer advocates have
been the target of what they’ve termed "slap suits." When the
activists
have blasted companies for alleged pollution or consumer rip-offs, the
companies have returned fire, by filing counter suits. In Ohio,
there’s
a
new development in one of the nation’s longest running environmental
battles — the owner of a hazardous waste incinerator has just
suspended a
so-called slap suit. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen has
more: