The results of a survey released this week by the Joyce Foundation show people in the Great Lakes region have strong feelings about the importance of the lakes and the need to protect them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Millich has more:
Transcript
The results of a survey released this week by the Joyce Foundation show people in the Great
Lakes region have strong feelings about the importance of the lakes and the need to protect them.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Millich has more:
In it’s opinion polls over the past year, the Joyce Foundation found people have deep concerns
about the Great Lakes, including lower water levels and talk of exporting water to other regions.
Most people who were polled assumed the lakes were polluted, but were unsure of the causes of
that pollution. Spokesperson Mary O’Connell says the foundation will give out 16-million
dollars over the next three years to groups working to protect the lakes. She says the money will
also be used to improve policies on land use, agriculture and transportation, all of which affect
water quality.
“There is very strong popular support for preserving the lakes and we would hope that through
our funding we could translate some of that support to our public policies that will protect the
lakes for future generations.”
The Joyce Foundation, which also contributes funding to the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, is
based in Chicago and has financed many efforts to clean up the lakes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Gretchen Millich.
This bread was dumped at a park along a Great Lakes beach for the gulls, geese, and squirrels that live there. Beach visitors often assume high bacteria levels that close beaches to swimmers are solely due to sewer overflows, but animals that defecate in the area also contribute to the problem.
This past summer beaches around the Great Lakes were closed in record numbers because of high bacteria counts. One government study indicates part of the problem might be animal feces, but the public does not seem to be aware that of the connection. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
This past summer beaches around the Great Lakes were closed in record numbers
because of high bacteria counts. One government study indicates part of the problem
might be animal feces, but the public does not seem to be aware that of the connection.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
High levels of bacteria in the water can make swimmers sick. Cameron Davis is with the
watchdog group, the Lake Michigan Federation. He says more can be done to stop the
contamination if sewer plants are improved and if beach visitors were more aware that
leaving food waste and feeding gulls and geese adds to the problem. That’s because the
birds defecate more, causing higher levels of bacteria along the shore.
“So, we’ve got the sewage treatment agencies saying ‘Oh, no. It’s the geese and the
gulls,’ and we’ve got the people feeding the birds saying ‘Oh, no. It’s sewage treatment
plants.’ So, you can see, it’s a combination of sources and there are things — I don’t care
what anybody says — there are things we can do to help solve the problem with all those
different sources.”
Davis says local governments need to start identifying and eliminating those sources of
beach contamination, starting with improving sewer plants and getting people to clean up
after their visits and to stop feeding wildlife at the beaches.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
An environmental group is taking issue with a Bush Administration proposal to change the Clean Water Act. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
An environmental group is taking issue with a Bush Administration proposal to change
the Clean Water Act. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
The Bush Administration is considering removing non-navigable rivers,
adjacent wetlands, and headwaters from the protections of the Clean Water Act. Ed
Hopkins is a senior lobbyist for the Sierra Club. He says that change would create major
problems for the waters still covered by the act:
“If you allow the headwaters rivers to be polluted or to be filled in for development of
one kind or another it is certainly going to have an effect on the downstream areas.
Those downstream rivers are going
to get dirtier.”
Hopkins says the Clean Water Act will become nearly useless if this change goes though.
The Bush Administration has announced its intent to seek the change, but has not
formalized the proposal or started the process to change the Clean Water Act.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
The Inspector General of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the EPA didn’t fund clean up for seven toxic waste sites this fiscal year. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie Macdowell reports, two of the seven sites are here in the Midwest:
Transcript
The Inspector General of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the EPA didn’t fund clean-up for seven toxic waste sites this fiscal year. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports, two of the seven sites are here in the Midwest:
A tax on chemical and oil companies expired in 1995.
The tax was used to fund clean ups at some of the country’s most polluted sites.
Now most of the funding comes from tax payers.
Clean-up on two Midwest sites was pushed back – the Jennison Wright Corporation in Illinois and Continental Steel in Indiana.
Hazardous chemicals are seeping into the ground water at these two sites.
Bill Muno, the Regional Superfund Director at the EPA, says to clean up more sites each year, Congress would have to increase Superfund appropriations.
“There isn’t enough money in that annual appropriation to cover all the work that needs to be done each year.”
Muno says the EPA Inspector General’s report shows there were more sites in line for funding that were delayed under the Bush Administration.
But he adds that tests show the sites are not an immediate threat to public health.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.
Trichloroethaneor TCA, is a solvent that contaminates groundwater and erodes the ozone layer. It is present at many polluted sites across the country. TCA comes from many common products such as glue, paint and industrial degreasers. Now scientists say they’ve found a microbe that can help clean it up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports:
Transcript
Trichloroethane or TCA is a solvent that contaminates groundwater
and erodes the ozone layer. It is present at many polluted sites across
the country. TCA comes from many common products such as glue,
industrial
degreasers, and aerosol sprays. Now scientists say they’ve found a
microbe
that can help clean it up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar
Charney reports:
One way polluted water can be cleaned is to add bacteria that breaks
down the harmful substances. It is a process called bioremediation. In a
recent issue of “Science,” researchers at Michigan State University say
they’ve identified a microbe that could do this with TCA. Benjamin
Griffin is a doctoral student who worked on the project. He says they
found the bacteria in sediment in the Hudson River.
“They actually breathe TCA, so they respire it. They’re using this
chlorinated compound in the same way we use oxygen.”
The bacteria breaks down the TCA into other compounds. Those chemical
compounds can then be further broken down by other pollution-eating or
breathing bacteria. Up until now, scientists though there might not be
a
way to biodegrade TCA. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar
Charney.
Beaches along Lake Michigan were closed more often this year as a result of high bacteria levels, according to a new report. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:
Transcript
Beaches along Lake Michigan were closed more often this year as a result of high
bacteria levels, according to a new report. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah
Hulett reports:
The report from the Chicago-based Lake Michigan Federation says beach closings and
advisories were at an all-time high in 2002 – at nearly 900 in Wisconsin, Illinois,
Michigan, and Indiana.
Part of the spike can be attributed to more frequent testing in coastal counties. But
Federation director Cameron Davis says an uptick in sewage spills and wastewater
overflows are also to blame. Davis says tracking and cleaning up pollution sources should
be the next step for communities along the Lake Michigan coast.
“That is absolutely key, because right now, so much of the debate has been on monitoring
technology and whether counties are even testing in the first place. We need to start to
move beyond that to identify sources and eliminate them once and for all.”
Davis says Indiana lawmakers recently passed legislation aimed at reducing sewer
overflows. And voters in Michigan are considering whether to approve a billion dollar
bond proposal to repair aging sewers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.
Lorraine Kellerman operates the mercury separator in one dental office. Kellerman says it's easy and satisfying to recycle the mercury.
Tim Tuominen has been working with Duluth area dentists to reduce the mercury going into the city's wastewater.
Health officials warn pregnant women and children to avoid eating certain kinds of fish. Mercury built up in the fish can damage the nervous system and impair children’s mental development. The National Academy of Sciences says at least 60,000 American children are born at risk for impaired development every year because their mothers were exposed to mercury. Mercury has been eliminated from paint, batteries, and other products. Now, some dentists are doing their part to reduce the mercury going into the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Health officials warn pregnant women and children to avoid eating certain kinds of fish.
Mercury built up in the fish can damage the nervous system and impair children’s mental
development. The National Academy of Sciences says at least 60,000 American children
are born at risk for impaired development every year because their mothers were exposed
to mercury. Mercury has been eliminated from paint, batteries, and other products. Now,
some dentists are doing their part to reduce the mercury going into the environment. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Mercury is an essential part of dental amalgam, the silver stuff used to fill cavities. The
mercury keeps the amalgam soft until it’s pressed into the cavity, then it bonds to form a
very stable, durable filling. The problem is the small bits of amalgam that are left over
after the cavity is filled. The suction hose that cleans them out of your mouth generally
dumps them down the drain. So they can easily end up in a lake or river, where they can
be eaten by fish.
The average dental office creates about a half pound of waste mercury every year. Just a
tiny portion of that would be enough to warrant fish advisories.
“The amount that’s sewered from dental offices is probably the largest input to the sewer
system.”
Tim Tuominen is a pollution prevention specialist with the Western Lake Superior
Sanitary District in Duluth. He’s been working with dentists in the city for nearly ten
years to reduce the mercury they wash down the drain.
He started with the vacuum systems nearly all dentists already have. When the suction
hose whisks amalgam out of your mouth, the pieces are held in a container to keep them
from damaging the vacuum pump. Tuominen showed the dentists how to empty the
container and bring the contents to the district’s recycling program.
In the first two years, the amount of mercury coming into Duluth’s wastewater treatment
plant was cut in half, and it’s been reduced even further since then.
To cut down on mercury even more, Tuominen got a grant to buy more expensive
equipment that captures up to 99% of the amalgam. He offered the equipment free to any
dentist who would agree to use it.
“I’ll go in and install them, train the assistants and the dentists how they operate, that only
takes about half an hour, then after six months I show them how to manage the solids
particles that collect in them over that time period. So it’s really pretty simple.”
Most of the dental offices in Duluth have installed the systems, and Tuominen expects the
rest to follow suit.
Lorraine Kellerman operates the system in one dental office. Once a week she empties
the chair-side traps and puts the chunks of amalgam into a container for recycling. Then
she goes down to the basement where a tank, like an aquarium, collects the finer particles.
The heavy amalgam settles to the bottom of the tank.
“We just put the hose in the drain, turn the lever, and you just wait ’til the fluid runs out
and then you can come back down, it doesn’t take long, it only takes a few minutes
basically.”
Once a year the amalgam that collects at the bottom is cleaned out and recycled.
Kellerman’s boss is dentist Jim Westman.
“The beauty of this technology is in its simplicity. Gravity works, it’s simple, it’s very
inexpensive.”
Westman says the dentists in Duluth are happy to use the equipment. It costs about
$500, and the recycling charge is about $50 a year.
Westman is chair of the Minnesota Dental Association’s environmental committee. It’s
been working on a plan to help dentists around the state of Minnesota reduce their output
of mercury. Westman says they want to make it easy for dentists.
“No matter where someone has question in regards to what’s going to work in my
equipment, there’s so many variations from one office to the next, who are my resources
to call or handling, transport, process materials, it’s that who you going to call side of the
question that’s going to make a difference as we build a bigger program. ”
If the voluntary program catches on in Minnesota, it could spread to other states. Michael
Bender is director of the Mercury Policy Project, a national organization working to
reduce mercury in the environment. He says dentists around the country are beginning to
feel they should do their part.
“It’s part of the cost of doing business. It’s not going to break any dentist’s back
financially to cover the cost of doing whatever it takes to be a good business, responsible
to the community, responsible to the environment.”
In December, the Environmental Protection Agency is convening a meeting on dental
mercury. The agency will publish information on ways state and local governments can
keep dental mercury out of the environment.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
In the wake of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, there’s been a lot of talk about how to balance human needs with the health of the planet. Ecologists have been trying to measure the impact of humans on the environment for a number of years, with some sobering results. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Daniel Grossman went to the New York Botanical Garden recently to gauge mankind’s ecological footprint:
Transcript
In the wake of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South
Africa, there’s been a lot of talk about how to balance human needs with the health of the
planet. Ecologists have been trying to measure the impact of humans on the environment
for a number of years, with some sobering results. The Great Lake Radio Consortium’s Daniel Grossman went to the New
York Botanical Garden recently to gauge mankind’s ecological footprint.
[Rain forest sounds, misters, tinkling of water, rain falling on leaves]
To get a good sense of the impact humans are having on earth, you could travel for weeks
on intercontinental plane flights, river boats and desert jeeps. Or, as Columbia University
biologist, Stuart Pimm suggested, visit a botanical garden. There, under the glass and
ironwork of a conservatory, Pimm says you can see a resource that humans are
over-using – Earth’s most important resource, its plant-life.
“We’re sitting in the rain forest here at the New York Botanical Society. And it’s a riot of
green.”
Professor Pimm says here beneath the misters in the Tropical Rain Forest Gallery is a
good place to start a whirlwind tour of Earth’s greenery. The air is heavy with moisture
and sweet-smelling.
“Rain forests are some of the most productive parts of the planet. They grow extremely
quickly and they are therefore generating a lot of biological production.”
What Pimm calls biological production most of us know as plant growth. Biologists say
all this green growth in tropical forests and elsewhere on Earth is the foundation upon
which all life rests.
“Everything in our lives is dependent upon biological productivity – everything that we
eat, everything that our domestic animals eat.”
And everything that every other animal eats as well. In a recent book, Pimm painstakingly
tallies up how much biological productivity we use. He starts with the rain forest. In the
last 50 years, loggers and settlers have cut down 3 million square miles of lush tropical
forests. Much was cut down for subsistence agriculture, a purpose Pimm says it serves
poorly.
“Although the tropical forest looks rich and productive, it is a very special place. And
when you chop that forest down the areas that replace it often become very, very much
less productive.”
[Sound of walking around conservatory]
Pimm speaks of the toll on greenery of cities and roads and of land converted to farming
in temperate regions such as the U.S. Midwest. Then, trekking along the botanical
garden’s gravel paths, he leaves behind the tropical mists and steps into the dry heat of a
Southwestern desert. Deserts and other dry lands are not very productive, but they
account for a substantial fraction of Earth’s land surface. Most of it is grazed by flocks of
sheep, goats, camels and cattle, often causing severe damage to vegetation. When these
uses are added to the other impacts of humanity on earth’s bounty, the results are
surprisingly large.
“What silence has shown is that we are taking 2/5ths of the biological production on land,
a third from the oceans. And that of the world’s fresh water supply, we’re taking half.”
[Fade out sound of conservatory. Fade up sound of Texas frogs.]
[Sound of plane engines]
Frogs and toads croak out a spring mating ritual in a concrete drainage ditch. Nearby, a
pilot practices maneuvers in a small plane occasionally drowning out the amphibian
serenade. Living in culverts, sharing the night with droning engines, these wild animals
are never completely free of human influences. From his Stanford University office,
Professor Peter Vitousek says wherever you look, the din of human activities is
interrupting and crowding out other species. Vitousek made one of the first attempts to
tally the impact of people on plant productivity in 1985.
[Frogs fade out in time for Vitousek’s act]
“The message to me was that we are already having a huge impact on all the other species
because of our use of the production of Earth and the land surface of Earth. That’s not
something that our models predict for some time in the future or something that we’re
guessing at on the basis of fairly weak information. It’s something that we’re clearly
doing now. That’s already happening.”
Many ecologists say this conclusion is beyond doubt. What they can’t say is whether
human domination of so much of nature’s output is good or bad. University of Minnesota
Professor David Tilman says as a member of the human race himself, he appreciates the
comforts in clothing, shelter and food our lifestyles buy us. And he acknowledges that the
survival of our own species is probably not imperiled – at least for the moment – by the
destruction of others. Still, he wonders if someday we’ll regret today’s resource intensive
practices.
“I think the more relevant question to me is, ‘Are we doing this wisely?’ ‘Are we wisely
appropriating the resources of the world?’ So, my concern is that we live in a balanced
way – a way that is sustainable through generations – that we leave our children and
grandchildren the same kind of world that we have.”
An expert on the impacts of agriculture, Tilman says we’re using up more resources than
can be replaced. He says if we don’t grapple with these important issues now, by the time
the human population reaches eight to ten billion or so people later this century, it might
be too difficult for us to do enough to save the planet’s life as we know it today.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Daniel Grossman.
October 18th marks the thirty-year anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the kick-off to what’s being called the “Year of Clean Water.” Conservation groups throughout the country will also use the date to establish the first National Water Monitoring Day. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:
Transcript
October 18th marks the thirty-year anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the kick-off to what’s
being called the “Year of Clean Water.” Conservation groups throughout the country will also
use the date to establish the first National Water Monitoring Day. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell has more:
Water quality experts have a lot of anecdotal evidence that lakes, streams, and rivers in the U.S.
aren’t as polluted as they were in 1972, when Congress passed the Clean Water Act. Robbi
Savage is President of America’s Clean Water Foundation.
“People are swimming where, thirty years ago, they never would have considered putting a toe
into the water. People are catching bass and other fish in areas where they never thought that that
fish would ever comeback to the waterways.”
Savage says the problem is that nobody really has definitive proof. That’s because a baseline of
national data wasn’t established thirty years ago. So the Clean Water Foundation and other
groups are using the October 18th date to ask citizens to test their local water and then submit the
results to a national database.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.
Across the country, forests, streams and coastlines are getting extra doses of nutrients containing the element nitrogen. Researchers say the long-term impact of these unwanted compounds on the environment could be serious. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Daniel Grossman reports on some efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution:
Transcript
Across the country, forests, streams and coastlines are getting extra doses of nutrients
containing the element nitrogen. Researchers say the long-term impact of these unwanted compounds on the environment could be serious. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Daniel Grossman reports on some efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution:
A thunderstorm soaks the land and lights the sky. The electric jolts of the lightning change nitrogen in the air into compounds needed for plants to grow. Lightning, as well as microbes in the soil, converts annually nearly 100 million tons of atmospheric nitrogen into plant nutrients. Humans make the same compounds in factories and call them fertilizer, a mainstay of agriculture. Between these synthetic chemicals and a smaller quantity of related compounds produced when fossil fuels are burned, humans produce more nitrogen-rich nutrients than nature makes on the seven continents. University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman says such extra nutrients are a concern.
“Right now half or more of the nitrogen we put on a farm field just washes through the soil and down into the groundwater into lakes, rivers, streams and into the ocean.”
This wasted nitrogen often travels great distances causing widespread damage. Tilman says on land, the nutrients cause exotic weeds to outgrow native plants. In the ocean, the nutrients cripple critical habitats. The ecologist says nitrogen pollution must be cut. One place to start is on the farm.
“We have to find some way to grow crops where the crops take up much more of the nutrients that we apply.”
(Sound of walking through grass. Quiet bird calls in background.)
Near Chesapeake Bay, farmer and agricultural scientist Russ Brinsfield walks across a patch of tall dry grass.
We’re on the edge of a field, about a sixty-acre field of corn, on the beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland.
This field is a research plot at the Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology. Here Brinsfield is studying agriculture’s environmental impact. Chesapeake Bay’s waters have high concentrations of farmer’s nutrients, causing blooms of the toxic algae Pfiesteria. The pollution has also caused declines in sea grass beds. Brinsfield says solutions to the problem fall into two categories.
“The first series of practices are those practices that we’ve been able to demonstrate that by a farmer implementing them he can reduce his inputs without affecting his outputs… that at the end of the year have added profit to his bottom line.”
For instance, testing the soil’s nitrogen level before fertilizing. And splitting fertilizer applications into two doses rather than one so that nutrients are added only when plants need them. Such simple measures are good for environment and the bottom line. Brinsfield says in the last 10 years most farmers on the Eastern Shore of Maryland have cut fertilizer use this way. Then there’s the other category of improvements.
“We’re going to have to do some things-ask some farmers to do some things-that may cost them more to do than what they are going to get in return from that investment.”
For example, in the winter, many fields here are fallow and bare. That means top soil erodes when it rains, taking with it residual fertilizer. It wasn’t always this way.
“I can remember my dad saying to me, ‘every field has to be green going into the winter, Son.’ So all of our fields were planted with rye or wheat or barley. It served two purposes. First, the animals grazed it. And second, it held the soil intact.”
And intact soil retains its fertilizer. Such winter cover crops also prevent fertilizer loss by storing nutrients in plant leaves and stalks. This used to be dairy country and cover crops grazed by cows made economic sense. Now farmers mostly grow grains. Planting a cover crop could cut nitrogen flow from farms by 40 percent but it costs farmers about $20/acre and provides no economic benefit to them. Brinsfield says farmers need an incentive.
“For the most part, farmers are willing to participate and to do those things that need to be done, as long as they can still squeak out a living.”
To help them squeak out a living, the state pays some farmers to sow cover crops. The state also pays them to plant buffers of grass and trees that suck up nutrients before they leave the farm. Today farms in six states that are part of the Chesapeake’s huge watershed contribute about 54 million pounds of nitrogen to the bay. The goal is to cut this figure approximately in half by two thousand and ten. Robert Howarth, a marine biologist and expert on nitrogen pollution at Cornell University, says though ambitious, this target can be achieved.
“I think most of the problems from nitrogen pollution have relatively straightforward technical fixes. So the real trick is to get the political will to institute these.”
Howarth says much of the nitrogen problem could be eliminated with a blend of government subsidies and regulations. But more will be needed as well… solutions of a more personal nature.
(sound of Redbones Barbeque)
There’s a pungent, smoky aroma in the air at Redbones Barbeque in Somerville, Massachusetts. The crowded bistro serves up a variety of ribs, chicken, sausage and other meats, dripping with savory sauces. University of Minnesota ecologist David Tilman says when someone eats a meal they are responsible for the little share of fertilizer a farmer somewhere had to apply to grow a crop. If the meal is from farm-raised animals, like the heaping plates of meat served here, the amount of fertilizer is much greater than if it’s from plants.
“It takes from three to ten kilograms of grain to produce a single kilogram of meat.”
Tilman says if Americans ate less meat, they could dramatically reduce fertilizer usage. However, per capita consumption is rising. Meat consumption is on the rise globally as well. David Tilman would like that to change. He says if current trends continue, human production of nitrogen nutrients will grow to triple or quadruple what nature makes on all Earth’s lands. Professor Tilman says that in many places the impact on the environment would be catastrophic.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Daniel Grossman.
