New research has dispelled some myths about African Americans and their concern for environmental issues. The study shows that African Americans are just as concerned about the environment as White Americans, if not more. The Great Lakes’ Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
New research has dispelled some myths about African Americans and
their concern for environmental issues. The study shows that African
Americans are just as concerned about the environment as White
Americans,
if not more. The Great Lakes’ Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports.
University of Michigan researcher Paul Mohai says many people assume
African Americans are less concerned than White Americans about the
environment. That’s because many African Americans have to deal with
urban issues. Issues like crime, poverty, jobs and education. But
Mohai’s study finds that African Americans care more about neighborhood
environmental issues like pollution than White Americans – and just as
much about global issues like endangered species and global warming. He
says the biggest surprise is, it’s not a recent development.
“It’s not that African Americans caught up, they’ve been
concerned about the environment for a long time, we just haven’t looked
at
the data!”
Mohai also finds that African Americans in Congress have better
environmental voting records than their white counterparts. He says the
study shows that African Americans make natural allies for environmental
groups and for voters who want an environmental advocate to represent
them
in Congress. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
Some Midwest states are highlighted in a new report that looks at what states are doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
Some Midwest states are highlighted in a new report
that looks at what states are doing to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:
The federal government wants no part of international
treaties aimed at reducing pollution linked to global
warming. But a report by the Pew Center On Global Climate
Change says about one-third of the states have taken significant
steps on their own. The study mentions Minnesota’s effort to
plant trees that may help reduce energy consumption and absorb
carbon. Wisconsin is praised for requiring large polluters to
report their carbon dioxide emissions.
University of Michigan professor Barry Rabe offered the study. He
says the budget deficits faced by many states may stifle additional work.
“And there may be an unfortunate irony here that at the
moment when political interest in doing something to
reduce greenhouse gases is greatest, the fiscal capacity to
fund some of these programs and implement them may be at a very,
very low point.”
The Pew Center says the state efforts are no substitute for a
comprehensive national plan. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium,
this is Chuck Quirmbach reporting.
New research is showing that a foreign fish might be aiding the transfer of toxic substances into sportfish populations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
New research is showing that a foreign fish might be aiding the transfer
of toxic substances into sportfish populations. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Fish such as bass, trout, and walleye normally eat small native fish.
Now, these large sportfish have learned how to eat a new foreign fish – round
gobies. The gobies can contain toxic pollutants because they feed on
zebra mussels. And because of the way zebra mussels feed they can take up
a lot of pollutants like PCBs.
David Jude is a research scientist at the University of Michigan. He’s
been studying fish living near polluted areas.
“Yes, a lot of sportfish are eating round gobies, we found them in a lot of
predators we looked at in the St. Clair River – perch, brown trout,
walleyes – so the possibility of transferring PCBs into a
lot of the sportfish that people catch is certainly real.”
Jude says he hopes his research will determine ways to control goby
populations where they’ve become a problem.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
If you’re shopping for a new home in the country – chances are you’ve run across a typical housing development that many environmentalists say epitomize the problems of urban sprawl. But a recent study says we may be overlooking some unique ways of keeping these developments from threatening the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
If your shopping for a new home in the country – chances are you’ve run across a typical housing development that many environmentalists say epitomize the problems of urban sprawl. But a recent study says we may be overlooking some unique ways of keeping these developments from threatening the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Joan Nassauer is a landscape ecologist at the University of Michigan. She wanted to see how potential homeowners would react to modified housing developments. Her designs used special methods to keep rainwater from flooding nearby rivers and streams. The flooding can cause erosion, sediment pollution, and loss of habitat. Nassauer created computer models of housing developments that had special systems to catch stormwater and release it slowly into the ground. Her model included existing or re-created wetlands, and the lots were planted with native plants instead of today’s traditional green lawns.
“What we’re ultimately trying to do is mimic the movement of rain water into surface and ground water systems the way it would have been in indigenous ecosystems.”
Nassauer says most people in her study found this kind of development more attractive than traditional lots. She says local officials could pass laws to require developers to use these techniques.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
African American members of Congress tend to vote more favorably on environmental issues than other congressional groups. That finding comes from a new study that looks at how black Americans think about environmental issues. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:
Transcript
African American members of Congress tend to vote more favorably on environmental issues than other congressional groups. That finding comes from a new study that looks at how black Americans think about environmental issues. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The study’s researchers say they wanted to find out whether the old conventional wisdom that African-American are not as concerned about the environment as white Americans held up under scrutiny. Past studies have shown that’s not true for the general population. Paul Mohai is a researcher at the University of Michigan. He says the next step was to find whether that held true in policy-making decisions. So the researchers looked at the votes of the Congressional Black Caucus.
“And we found over a two decade period that their pro-environmental record tended to be better than other groups in Congress.”
More pro-environment than either white Democrats or Republicans. Mohai says with the number of African-Americans in Congress doubling since the early 1980s, the environmental movement might find it has strong allies in the black members of Congress.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Matt Linke, the creator of "Women in Astronomy: A History" in the University of Michigan's Exhibit Museum planetarium.
Astronomy historically has been dominated by men, but women have left their mark over the years. A new planetarium show is trying to shine a little light on advances in astronomy that were made by women. And it could be coming soon to a planetarium near you. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:
"Revisioning the Great Lakes" is an exhibit of student art created through field research at the University of Michigan. Photo by Tamar Charney.
People who study the natural world often do field research. They go to learn about plants, animals, and the ecosystems we live in. But scientists aren’t the only ones who can make use of time spent studying the outdoors. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:
Transcript
People who study the natural world often do field research. They go to learn about plants, animals, and the ecosystems we live in. But scientists aren’t the only ones who can make use of time spent studying the outdoors. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports.
A group of students from the University of Michigan have stopped spreading sand on the floor and hanging sticks from a gallery ceiling to watch a video….
(video sound of slosh slosh on the trawl line a bass)
The tape is of a trip they took…to sail, to camp, to hike, to learn about the aquatic life in the great lakes….
(video sound of phylo arthro arthrabida crustratia (fade under))
…And to do some field research. But these students aren’t scientists…. they’re artists. And they are in the process of putting together an art exhibit.
“This exhibit is based on a semesters worth of investigation that art class has been pursuing.”
Joe Trumpey is a professor of art at the University of Michigan. He also teaches scientific illustration. And for years he’s been taking those students to the dessert, and even the jungle, to learn in the real world — instead of the classroom — about flora and fauna and the cells and structures they draw. Now he’s bringing this same method to a studio art class – to encourage these students to develop a relationship with the ecosystems of the Great Lakes region.
“Like any interpersonal relationship, a friendship, a marriage, anything you need to spend time and communicate with each other and to sit in a studio and think well I can make this all up in my head and its all fine. I’ve seen it in books. I’ve seen the pictures, but it isn’t the same as being out there and feeling the wind and the smell and the elements and everything else that’s associated with a particular environment.”
But they did more than just experience the land. Gerry Mull is a graduate student in Fine Arts and a member of the class.
“We explored a lot of environmental issues around the Great Lakes, talked to sea grant people and people doing different kinds of about ecological problems with the Great Lakes.
It was only after learning about fisheries, the food chain, the history of the Lake Michigan sand dunes, the economic impact of Great Lakes shipping, and the plants and animals here that the students got down to the business of creating art out of what they learned.
Gerry Moll has hung long pieces of what looks like brown grass from the ceiling. 24 big primitive forms that resemble sturgeon hover over sand he’s spread out on the floor. He says he hopes his piece creates a longing in the people that see it for the huge number of these fish that used to swim in this region.
“A kind of longing, a dream, a vision of something better, of more sturgeon in the Great Lakes, of what its like and how important it is to have these other beings in our lives. And a lot of fields do that but I think art does it in a special way.”
What these students are doing falls loosely under the category of ecological art — there’s a number of branches of this field – There are artists who actually restore the environment – creating fish habitats or cleaning up a Brownfield as their art. Then there are artists like Gerry Mull who are trying to rekindle our concern for nature. The University of Michigan is in the process of developing an art curriculum that focuses on the environment. And the University of Michigan isn’t alone. Environmental issues are popping up in arts schools and art classes of all levels. Don Krug is a professor of art education at Ohio State University.
“I think it is being taught more and more in higher education and I think it finds its way into art education in public schools in terms of units of study but there is a growing interest and I think if you look at universities throughout the United States there are more and more programs addressing these issues.”
Krug along with the Getty Museum has even developed on-line curriculum materials to help teachers get their students involved in creating art that draws on environmental and ecological issues. University of Michigan Art Professor Joe Trumpey says it only makes sense that art would be addressing something as fundamental as the health of our planet.
“The environment is something that all of humankind shares. Contemporary North American Society has moved away from family farms and is spending time outdoors. Long term relationships outdoors mean a weekend here and a weekend there I don’t think is the same sort of relationship as we had 100 years ago. So, for me, to build work that highlights that, and maybe make it become more into the central focus of peoples lives and understanding about where their food comes from and the relationship between them, and the animals, the plants, the land and the air becomes very important.”
And for artists to create meaningful art about the natural world, Joe Trumpey says they are going to have to immerse themselves like a scientist in the field. Studying the ecosystems around us through paint, clay, charcoal, and the other tools of the artist. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.
Great Lakes residents use more than two million tires a year, and many of them end up in a landfill. But one Illinois school has found an unusual way to use some of those tires. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman has more:
Transcript
Great Lakes residents use more than two million tires a year, and many of them end up in a landfill. But one Illinois school has found an unusual way to use some of those tires. And they’re saving on hospital costs as well. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chris Lehman has more.
(natural sound football practice, fade under quickly)
From beer cans to soda bottles, there are plenty of items that can be recycled at a typical football game. But at the 31-thousand seat Huskie Stadium at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, what is perhaps the largest recycling effort is in the field itself. More than 18-thousand ground-up tires are underneath the new surface of the playing field . . .mixed with sand; they provide a soft but durable base for all types of athletic events. The fake grass on top is similar to Astroturf, but project manager Norm Jenkins says this surface is better. He says the most important advantage is safety.
“It’s well documented over the last few years since these fields have been installed that the injury frequency goes way down in terms of ankle and knee injuries on this surface as opposed to the old Astroturf carpet. So it really simulates grass in that way. The other big advantage to this in our judgment is the appearance. Because really, as you sit in the stands at a Huskie football game–and even from the sidelines when you stand on that stuff–you’re convinced that the surface is grass. It looks, it appears just like a pristine grass playing surface”
The artificial turf at NIU is a brand called Field Turf. Jim Petrucelli is Vice-President of Turf USA, a Pittsburgh-based distributor of Field Turf. He says the scrap tires for the product are first washed with a high-pressure cleaning system similar to a car wash. But the tires aren’t run through grinder blades. That process is called ambient grinding because it takes place at room temperature. It tends to produce longer, rougher particles.
Instead, Petrucelli says the company cryogenically freezes the tires to temperatures below negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
“And then they drop them onto a hammer-mill. And the hammer-mill shatters them into pieces. And those pieces tend to have much flatter sides on them . . . that works much better in our system to prevent the rubber from migrating through the sand that it’s mixed with.”
Field Turf is used at several universities in the Great Lakes region, including the University of Cincinnati, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, and at a University of Michigan field house. It’s also in use at dozens of high schools and public recreation facilities across the region, and has been installed in places as far away as Botswana and New Zealand.
Petrucelli says that at more than eight dollars a square foot, Field Turf is the Cadillac of artificial turf products. At Northern Illinois University, nearly one-third of the cost of installing the Field Turf was recovered through a variety of money-saving measures. The largest of these was a 200-thousand dollar grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs. The money was awarded to the school for its use of the tires, which came from a salvage yard near Chicago. Robert Albanese is NIU’s Associate Vice President of Finance and Facilities.
“Every time you purchase a new tire there’s a fee that goes along with it. It goes to this fund for recycling the tires. And this process will only work, is if we use those recycled materials on the other end. And this is probably one of the bigger uses for recycled rubber that we’ve seen in the state of Illinois.”
NIU Director of Recycling Mary Crocker says the use of old tires in the Field Turf project wasn’t just about saving money.
“We’re interested in keeping the tires out the landfills. So this is probably the most comprehensive recycling program that you can find, where virtually everything has to do with recycling.”
(More football sound under)
The old Astroturf, which was removed to make way for the Field Turf, was also recycled. The university sold it for use as a soccer field overseas, earning an additional 29 thousand dollars for the school. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chris Lehman.
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans are getting mixed signals from officials about just how safe their drinking water is. The federal government is trying to calm fears that terrorists might poison public water supplies. But at the same time the government and water utilities are asking the public to help keep an eye on reservoirs and storage tanks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Americans are getting mixed signals from officials about just how safe their drinking water is. The federal government is trying to calm fears that terrorists might poison public water supplies. But, at the same time the government and water utilities are asking the public to help keep an eye on reservoirs and storage tanks. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.
Since the attacks, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christie Whitman, has been traveling the country, assuring groups that water supplies are safe from terrorism. Speaking recently to a group of journalists, Whitman explained that security at water utilities has been increased and that water is now tested more frequently. And she said that given the size of most reservoirs, it would take a very large amount of any chemical or biological contaminant before any such attack would have an effect.
“It would be extremely difficult for someone to perform this kind of act, taking a truckload –and that’s what it would be, a tanker truckload– up to a reservoir and dumping it in, given the heightened security we have today. And that’s a security that’s not just being provided by the water companies, which it is, but it’s also citizen heightened security, believe me. People are calling in all the time when they see things that they think they shouldn’t be seeing near water supply systems.”
But, Whitman’s view is not shared by a number of experts in the field of terrorism prevention. Jim Snyder is a professor at the University of Michigan. He was a member of a team of experts that worked with the Defense Department to determine possible threats against public water supplies.
“There are a number of contaminants, several bio-toxins and a large number of chemicals that are more or less readily available that could be put into, let’s say, a ten-million gallon reservoir which could in amounts something between a backpack and a pickup truck could achieve a lethal dose of 50-percent. That is, 50-percent of the people who drank one cup would die.”
And Snyder adds, water contamination wouldn’t have to be lethal, just contaminated enough that it caused panic and made the water unusable. Snyder also points out that the tests that production chemists run on water would not detect the kind of contaminants terrorists would use. The first clue something was wrong would be sick or dead people.
EPA Administrator Whitman concedes that there are some contaminants that would not be filtered out or killed by disinfectants used in water treatment. but she says water systems across the U-S are prepared for most kinds of attacks.
“The vast majority of contaminants about which we’re worried, we know how to treat. We know what steps to take. And those where we’re not sure of what we need to do, we’re working with the CDC to develop a protocol to respond. And we’re sharing that information as we get it with the water companies to make sure even those small ones know what to look for and how to treat it if they find it.”
Besides the Center for Disease Control, the EPA is working with the FBI and the water utilities to prepare for the worst, while telling the public that there’s little to worry about. The EPA could have helped those water systems prepare earlier. The terrorism prevention team Jim Snyder sat on drafted a manual for water system operators, outlining security measures that could be taken. The EPA buried that manual in part because the agency didn’t want to unnecessarily alarm the public.
The water utility industry is working with the EPA to try to calm any fears the consumers might have. The American Water Works Association has held joint news conferences with Administrator Whitman, echoing the statement that poisons would be diluted or that it would take a tanker of contaminants to cause a problem. Pam Krider is a spokesperson for the American Water Works Association.
“When you get into a specific discussion about types of chemicals or quantities of chemicals, whether it’s a backpack or whether it’s a tanker, I mean, those are not as useful as discussing what are the processes that a utility has in place for monitoring what is and is not in its water, ensuring that they can provide safe, clean drinking water to the consumers within their city.”
So, the American Water Works Association is encouraging water utilities to step up testing water and quietly meet with emergency planners to prepare for the worst..
“What we have been discussing is the need for every utility to work very closely with local officials, to have a crisis preparedness and response plan in place, to have back-up systems in place, and most important, to engage their local community in keeping an eye out on the different reservoirs, storage tanks and treatment facilities and reporting any kind of suspicious activity that they might see both to the utility as well as to the police department.”
Water terrorism prevention expert Jim Snyder says simple things such as locking gates and posting security guards go a long way to discourage would-be terrorists from attacking a water treatment plant, storage tanks, wells or a reservoir. However, he notes. there’s little that can be done to stop a determined terrorist from contaminating a public water supply. And it seems that’s a message the EPA and the water utilities don’t want to talk about because it might worry the public.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Automotive analysts say a new arrangement between Ford and the EPA may signal a significant change in the car company’s relationship with the government. Ford and the EPA are teaming up to create a new hybrid engine that is expected to be more efficient than current hybrids. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:
Transcript
Automotive analysts say a new arrangement between Ford and the EPA may signal a significant change in the car companies’ relationship with the government. Ford and the EPA are teaming up to create a new hybrid engine that is expected to be more efficient than current hybrids. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell reports.
One of the drawbacks to current hybrid vehicles is the electric batteries—they’re heavy and they’re expensive. But Ford and the EPA are working on a new model that uses pressurized liquid to store energy instead of batteries. Michael Flynn of the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute says this arrangement shows a departure from the contentious relationship the government and car companies have had in the past.
“There are problems and rather than hollering at each other, pointing fingers, trying to figure out who’s to blame and therefore, who gets hung out to dry, it makes much more sense to try to jointly resolve the problems.”
The EPA actually holds the patent for the pressurized liquid technology. Both Ford and the EPA say it should be available to the public in about ten years—possibly in an SUV. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.
