Due to many different catalysts, including climate and habitat change, amphibians are said to be rapidly disappearing. (Photo by Linda Lundberg)
The most comprehensive study of amphibians ever done
shows nearly a third of species are threatened with extinction. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
The most comprehensive study of amphibians ever done shows nearly a third of species
are theatened with extinction. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:
More than five hundred scientists from more than sixty nations were involved in the
recent Global Amphibian Assessment. The three-year study looked at the status of more
than 5700 known species of frogs, toads, caecilians, and salamaders. It found out that
more than thirty percent of them are near extinction. In the Americas and Australia,
outbreaks of a highly infectious fungal disease have hurt amphibian populations.
But worldwide, the report says the biggest factors for the decline are habitat destruction
and pollution. It also says since amphibians depend on freshwater to survive, the loss
of species shows the Earth’s freshwater supply is in danger. But scientists say the
negative trend could reverse with a swift commitment of resources, such as creating new
protective areas and captive breeding grounds, and better protection of fresh water.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
American chestnuts (left) are smaller than Chinese and European chestnuts. The Chinese and European varieties are also resistant to the blight, making the imports more desirable to growers. (Photo by Lester Graham)
American chestnuts were an important food source for wildlife because there was a more consistent crop each year than acorns. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Bill Nash of Nash Nurseries holds the spiny husks that hold the chestnuts. The American chestnut grove behind him is 20 years old and has not yet been hit by blight. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one
traditional food has – for the most part – disappeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Food is always a big part of the holidays. But one traditional food has – for the most part – disapeared from American tables. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
(Sound of Nat King Cole singing, “Chestnuts roasing on an open fire…”)
That old chestnut of a song romanticizes roasting chestnuts as a part of the holidays. But a lot of us have never even seen chestnuts, let alone roasted them on an open fire. Chestnuts used to be a major part of the Eastern hardwood forest. There were millions of them. In fact, 25 percent of all the mature trees were chestnuts. But a blight, imported with some Chinese chestnut trees, slowly wiped out the American chestnuts. Now, they’re gone.
Well… almost. Much of the root stock is still alive. Sprouts grow until the blight knocks them back again. A blight only hurts the standing tree where it branches out.
And, in a few isolated pockets in the Midwest, the blight hasn’t reached the trees. A few American chestnuts are alive and growing and some of them are free of the blight. At Nash Nursuries in central Michigan, owner Bill Nash is guiding us through a rare sight… a grove of American chestnuts.
“These are 20 years old and as you can see, they’re fairly good sized. The American chestnut is quite a rapid growing tree. It’s well-suited for our climate, so it doesn’t have any of the problems that some of the hybrids do as far as growing and cultural care you have to take care of them. The Americans, you get them started and they’re pretty much on their own.”
In a few places in Michigan and Wisconsin there are small groves of chestnuts. They’re prized trees. They’re great for shade. The hardwood is rot resistant and makes great furniture and fence posts. And the chestnuts are eaten by humans and wildlife alike. Bill Nash says the tree will be popular again if it ever overcomes the blight that’s hit it so hard.
“The American chestnut will make another big comeback in this country as a yard tree, as a timber tree, as a wildlife tree.”
That part about a wildlife tree is more important than just worrying about the squirrels and bunnies. Chestnuts were an important food source for all kinds of animals.
Andrew Jarosz is a plant biologist at Michigan State University. He says the loss of chestnuts has been hard on wildlife populations.
“Chestnuts shed nuts in a more regular pattern than oaks, which will have what are called mast years – where they’ll have major crops, massive crops one year and very small crops in other years – which means it’s either feast or famine if you’re depending on oaks.”
Since the blight first began hitting American chestnuts about a century ago, researchers have been looking into all kinds of ways to stop it. One way is to cross it with the Chinese chestnut which has a couple of genes that resist the blight. But it takes a long time to breed out the Chinese characteristics from the American chestnuts and still keep the resistant genes.
Another approach is genetic manipulation. Genetically modifying the American chestnut tree to make it disease resistant. Again, work is underway, but it takes a long time. And even after success, it’s likely some people won’t like the idea of releasing a genetically modified organism into the wild.
The final approach worked in Europe when the blight hit there. It seems there’s a naturally occuring virus that kills the blight. It spread naturally in Europe. There are a few groves in Michigan that have naturally acquired the virus and it’s working to keep the blight at bay. Andrew Jarosz is working on the research. He says the trick is figuring out how to get the virus to spread to other trees short of manually spreading it on cankers infected by the blight.
“If we’re literally talking about millions of trees across probably, you know, the eastern third of the country, we obviously can’t treat every canker on every tree. And we need to be able to figure out a way to deploy the virus in a way that it can spread.”
Even with all that hopeful research, it’ll be ten years at least before some practical solutions end up in the forests, and Jarosz believes a couple of centuries before the American chestnut holds the place it once did in the forests.
Bill Nash knows it’ll be a while before there are major changes, but he is optimistic about the American chestnut.
“Oh, I would think the tree has a bright future. There’s enough people working on that, enough programs going on now… So, I would suspect that in the not-too-distant future we should have some of this progress made. You know, Robert Frost in his poem predicted the comeback of the American chestnut, that something would arise to offset that blight. And we’re starting to see that.”
Frost put it this way: “Will the blight end the chestnut? The farmers rather guess not, It keeps smoldering at the roots And sending up new shoots Till another parasite Shall come to end the blight.”
Seems Frost was an optimist too.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
According to the Audubon Society report, the population of the Bobolink, which nests in hayfields and other U.S. grasslands, has fallen to about 11 million birds — half its earlier recorded numbers. (Photo by S. Maslowski, USFWS)
Road-to-road agricultural fields like this one decrease the amount of natural grasslands. This may be one of the reasons why bird populations are declining. (photo by Brad Mering)
A new report warns that nearly a third of North America’s bird species are in trouble. And it says habitat loss is to blame. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
A new report warns that nearly a third of North America’s bird species are
in trouble. And it says habitat loss is to blame. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:
National Audubon Society researchers analyzed data on more than 650 bird
species. They found that since 1966, certain bird populations have been
declining in all habitats.
Birds that thrive in grasslands are especially at risk. The study found 70
percent of grassland bird species are declining significantly.
Greg Butcher is the study’s lead author. He says today’s farming practices
have reduced available bird habitat.
“In the 50’s, field sizes were small, there was a lot of variety of crops
being planted, there were a lot of hedgerows and field edges that were good
for bird populations. Most farming is done road to road now. And so, in the
1950’s, agricultural landscapes were very favorable for bird populations,
and today, they’re just not.”
Butcher says creating grass buffers around farm fields can help some
grassland species. But he says other species need larger areas of land to
succeed.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.
The Bush Administration has decided to make some changes on the National Forest Management Act, and many environmental groups are not pleased about it. (photo by Stefan Nicolae)
Environmentalists are suing the Bush administration for repealing rules that protect wildlife in national forests. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Environmentalists are suing the Bush administration
for repealing rules that protect wildlife in national
forests. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:
During the Reagan administration, regulations were
put in place that required the Forest Service to
ensure non-timber resources such as water, wildlife
and recreation were given due consideration and that
the wildlife be managed to maintain viable populations.
Tim Preso is a staff attorney for Earthjustice, one of
the groups that filed the lawsuit in federal court.
“Now, through a quiet rule-making, the Bush
administration is proposing to strip that protection
away and make it legal to drive wildlife toward
extinction in the national forests. We don’t think
that’s right and we don’t think that’s what the
majority of Americans support and we’re going to
seek to overturn it in the federal courts.”
Without public notice or public comment, the Bush
administration set aside the rule in favor of a less
restrictive guideline that relies on what’s called
“best available science.” One Forest Service official
says it doesn’t change things that much.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester
Graham.
Wolf populations are on the rise. Conservation officials say that’s a victory for wildlife. But more wolves mean more encounters with farms and livestock. Now, a group of researchers has developed maps to predict where wolves might attack. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan has more:
Transcript
Wolf populations are on the rise. Conservation officials say that’s a victory for wildlife. But more
wolves means more encounters with farms and livestock. Now, a group of researchers has developed
maps to predict where wolves might attack. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan has
more:
In a study published in the journal Conservation
Biology, the researchers mapped wolf attacks on
livestock in Wisconsin and Minnesota. They compared
the areas with the most attacks to those with the least.
The maps show that farms with the largest pastures and
the largest herds are at high risk for wolf attacks.
Nearby deer populations also put farms at higher risk.
Adrian Treves helped develop the maps. He says they
can help farmers and state officials focus their efforts to
prevent wolf attacks.
“Instead of diverting time and staff and resources across
the entire range of the wolves, they can choose to invest
their efforts in areas that are moderate to high risk.”
Treves says farmers can choose to use guard animals or
improved fencing to ward off wolf attacks. He says loud
recorded sounds, such as helicopters and gunfire, also
deter wolves.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.
Researcher Rolf Peterson has spent more than 30 years studying moose and wolves on a remote wilderness island in Lake Superior. Peterson says moose on Isle Royale are suffering from warmer-than-usual weather in recent years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:
Transcript
Researcher Rolf Peterson has spent more than 30 years studying moose and wolves on a remote
wilderness island in Lake Superior. Peterson says moose on Isle Royale are suffering from
warmer-than-usual weather in recent years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:
There are 750 moose on Isle Royale. That’s down from 900 last year.
Isle Royale has had hot summers and warm, snowless winters most years since the 1998 El Nino.
Peterson says when summers are hot, the moose don’t eat enough. And they have to fight off
more ticks.
They spend a lot of time grooming when they should be feeding, and they lose a lot of blood,
potentially. It could be in the winter when they’re not in very good condition, they have to
replace their entire blood supply over a period of a few short weeks.
Meanwhile, wolves on the island are taking advantage of the weakness of the moose. Last year
there were 19 wolves; this year, 29. But Peterson says the wolf population will eventually
decline, as there are fewer moose to eat.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
Scientists are starting to use satellite transmitters to learn more about the winter migration patterns of loons. (photo courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
A new program is using satellite transmitters to learn more about the migration patterns of loons. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Transcript
A new program is using satellite transmitters to learn more about the migration patterns of loons.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:
Loons are well-known for returning to the same lakes each summer – year after year. But until
recently, scientists didn’t know much about the bird’s winter migration. That’s changing, as loons
from New York state make their way south, carrying satellite transmitters.
Nina Schoch is Coordinator of the Adirondack Cooperative Loon Program. It’s a joint venture
between private groups and government agencies. She says the information gathered will help
researchers understand and protect loon habitat across the country.
“In the winter, it’s unknown if they’re using the same spot each year or if they move around. So
we want to identify those locations, and once we know that, we’ll have a much better
understanding of things that impact loon populations on their wintering areas.”
Things such as acid rain, oil spills or a recent botulism outbreak in the Great Lakes.
Schock says once they know how these birds spend the winter, they’ll be able to develop plans
that help the loon population survive.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.
Sturgeon like this adult used to be common in the Great Lakes. Today biologists are trying to restore populations of the ancient fish. (Photo courtesy of the USFWS)
Biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey are trying to bring Lake Sturgeon back to the Detroit River. The giant fish once spawned in the riverbed every spring before moving on to Lake Erie… now, the sturgeon are rapidly disappearing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
Transcript
Biologists with the U.S. Geological Survey are trying to bring Lake Sturgeon
back to the Detroit River. The giant fish once spawned in the riverbed every spring before
moving on to Lake Erie. Now, the sturgeon are rapidly disappearing. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:
Sturgeon are the largest fish in the Great Lakes. The grayish brown creatures can grow up to
seven feet long, and weigh more than 200 pounds. Sturgeon have been on Earth for 100 million
years – 40 million years before the dinosaurs – and they have remained essentially
unchanged in all that time. Instead of scales, the fish have an almost leathery skin and five rows
of bony plates running along their torpedo-shaped bodies.
Fish biologist Bruce Manny says sturgeon were once abundant in the Great Lakes. Back in 1880,
in one month’s time, fishermen pulled four thousand of them from the Detroit River.
“They tore holes in their nets when they were fishing for other fish that they cared about. So
when they found a sturgeon in their nets, they would kill them, bring them to the shore, pile them
up on shore, dry them out and use them for fuel in the steamships. Burn them up.”
People didn’t eat a lot of sturgeon, but the creatures were caught and killed while fisherman
angled for more valuable fish. Scientists estimate that over-fishing has caused sturgeon
populations in all of the Great Lakes to dwindle to less than one percent of their
former number. The state of Michigan closed the Detroit River to all sturgeon fishing years ago.
Bruce Manny says he decided to check on the sturgeon and see if the fish population had started
to recover.
Manny assembled a team of biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey. They started trapping
and then tracking sturgeon with electronic transmitters. Manny says he was surprised when his
team caught only 86 fish over course of four years. Manny says he realized the sturgeon
were in serious trouble and he obtained grants to investigate further. USGS scientists followed
the tagged fish for two years, and their patience was eventually rewarded. Manny found the first
known spawning site ever documented in Detroit River in modern times.
“We were excited all right. Eureka moment. I mean, this is like a very, very great coincidence
that we were able to find these spawning ready males, and they were able to find a female. When
there are only 86 fish caught in four years out here, there aren’t that many around. So to find
somebody to spawn with, so to speak, is a real challenge, I would say.”
The area where the sturgeon mated lies close to a sewer discharge pipe. There are limp, brown
grasses bordering grey, mucky water. Manny sent divers down and discovered the fish had
actually produced fertilized eggs. Manny says this was a major step forward for his project.
Sturgeon are pretty picky about their nesting sites. They need a fast moving current and several
layers of rock where the eggs rest safely. The problem is a lot of the gravel has been mined out of
the Detroit River for use in construction.
Another problem is the sturgeons’ longevity. Fish biologist Ron Bruch is in Wisconsin. He
oversees sturgeon populations in Wisconsin’s Winnebago River system. He says female
sturgeons live more than 100 years and they don’t spawn until they are at least 20 years old.
“Their life history works well for a long-lived species, but it doesn’t work well for a species that’s
exploited heavily. So, sturgeon can only tolerate very low exploitation rates, and when the
exploitation is high the populations collapse.”
Wisconsin was the first state in the U.S. to create a sturgeon management program, more than
100 years ago, and the fish are abundant there.
Bruch says that’s why many other states have come to him for advice on how to strengthen their
sturgeon populations. He helped build the first man-made Lake Sturgeon spawning site and he
thinks a program started in Michigan has a good chance to succeed.
Bruce Manny plans to build three sites, using limestone, coal cinders and gravel. He’ll monitor
them closely to determine which kind of rock the fish prefer. Manny says he doesn’t mind
spending so much time with sturgeon. He says he admires the fish, and imagines that
each of them has a distinct personality.
“I wish they could talk to me and they do in some ways, because some of them have scars and
evidence of propeller hits which show that they’ve managed to take that sort of punishment and
survive it spite of it all. You know, they’re long-lived, they’re survivors, they’re
tough, and they’re successful.”
Ron Bruch it’ll be 100 years before fisherman will reel in these huge fish. He says many
generations of biologists will have come and gone before the sturgeon population is firmly
reestablished in the Great Lakes. And biologists, he says, will have to create a lot more
spawning sites like the ones in the Detroit River.
“In and of itself, it’s not going to restore all of Lake Erie or all the Great Lakes, but it’s a shining
example of what can be done in many areas around the Great Lakes to help produce Lake
Sturgeon spawning habitat and rehabilitate the Lake Sturgeon population.”
It’ll cost about half a million dollars to build the three fish nesting sites. Officials say they’ll be
ready in time for the sturgeon’s spawning season next May. If the project is successful in the
Detroit River, biologists hope to expand the program into other areas of the Great Lakes where
sturgeon were once abundant.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.
Many Midwestern cities are struggling with urban decay
and unplanned outward growth. One city, Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been able to turn things around by thinking regionally. Image courtesy of West Michigan Strategic Alliance
Many large and midsize cities in the Great Lakes region are fighting an uphill battle when it comes to revitalizing the city center and preventing unfettered development in the surrounding suburbs. There is one place, however, where a progressive mayor has turned a once deserted downtown into a lively place, full of urban amenities and street life. At the same time, he’s teamed up with nearby villages and townships to slow down the widening circle of unplanned development around the city. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gretchen Millich reports:
Transcript
Many large and midsize cities in the Great Lakes region
are fighting an uphill battle when to comes to revitalizing the city
center and preventing unfettered development in the surrounding
suburbs. There is one place, however, where a progressive
mayor has turned a once deserted downtown into a lively place, full of urban amenities and street
life. At the same time, he’s teamed up with nearby villages and townships to slow down the
widening circle of unplanned development around the city. Gretchen Millich of the Great Lakes
Radio Consortium reports:
On the list of the most sprawling cities in the United
States, Grand Rapids, Michigan is right in the middle. Over the
last 10 years, the metropolitan area has seen a huge increase in
roads, subdivisions, shopping malls and industrial parks.
But Grand Rapids and neighboring villages and townships
started planning years ago to rescue the city from the problems
that accompany sprawl. And that planning is starting to pay off.
A key factor in Grand Rapids’ success has been the
mayor, John Logie. He’s retiring this year after 12 years in
office. Logie has lived in Grand Rapids for most of his life. He
recalls how the city looked when he returned after serving in the
Navy.
“When I came back to Grand Rapids in the late 60’s, I could have taken my bowling ball in any
downtown street at 5:18 PM and hurled it down the sidewalk as hard as I could, secure in the
knowledge I’d never break an ankle, because nobody was there.”
Logie realized then that his beloved city would not survive unless something was done to revitalize
the downtown and encourage people to live there. In the 1970’s, he helped
write a state law that allowed local governments to set up historic districts. Grand Rapids now has
five historic neighborhoods, including Heritage Hill, where Logie lives in a
Queen Anne style home.
“And also I had read Jane Jacobs book years ago, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”
and she talks in there about the need to preserve what you’ve got. And
the need to find adaptive re-use when a buggy whip manufacturing company goes out of business
because the automobile has replaced the horse-drawn carriage. There’s a building there that needs
new life.”
To that end, Logie helped write another state law setting up Renaissance zones in inner cities where
businesses and residents could get substantial tax breaks for re-using old
buildings. Grand Rapids now has seven Renaissance districts. The city also changed the zoning on
several old warehouses and industrial buildings to encourage what Logie
calls “layer cakes” – retails stores, restaurants, offices and apartments – all in the same building.
Some of the old furniture factories have been renovated, including the Burkey and Gay building –
built in the late 1800’s. Burkey and Gay went out of business in the 1950’s.
“It had been sitting cold iron for 50 years. And now it’s all back to life. Two-hundred sixty middle
of the road apartments, and some offices.
“We got tired of the quiet life and wanted a little diversity.”
Connie Thompson and her husband Jim used to live in a
new suburb north of Grand Rapids. About a year and a half
ago, they moved into an apartment in the Burkey Gay building.
“We like the downtown city feel, which is really fun. We can walk to a bakery, we can walk to
shopping.”
“Grand Rapids has almost got kind of a European feel to it. There’s a couple of little side walk
cafes – during the summer – it doesn’t work too well in the winter. But, yeah, we
like it. I think we’re more city people than the country people we tried to be for a while there.”
But it wasn’t enough just to work within the city limits. Grand Rapids Mayor John Logie knew he
had to work with planners in the surrounding suburbs to promote better land-use
policies. He convinced local officials in 47 different jurisdictions to set limits on how far their
communities would grow around Grand Rapids.
“We invited each of them to draw a line somewhere in the middle of their real estate. And you
decide where that line should go. And then we’ll create a formula together that you’re going to
encourage future growth inside that line and discourage it out until you get to a certain level of
density – at which point you can move the line.”
Logie says the growth boundaries have kept the population closer to the inner city, cutting down on
long commutes, pollution and preserving at least some of the farmland
around the metropolitan area.
As he prepares to step down as mayor at the end of the year, Logie says he’s proud of what he’s
accomplished. He says it’s not rocket science – just common sense about what
makes a city a good place to live.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Gretchen Millich.
If you compare a ten-year-old map of any urban city in North America with a recent one, you’ll notice that almost all of our major cities are getting bigger. That means more suburbs, more cars, and according to traditional ways of thinking, the need for more roads. But is road building the solution? Or is it part of the problem? The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner takes us to a place where the debate has been going on for half a century. As she reports, not everybody agrees that the debate is settled:
Transcript
If you compare a ten year old map of any urban city in North America with a recent one,
you’ll notice that almost all of our major cities are getting bigger. That means more
suburbs, more cars, and according to traditional ways of thinking, the need for more roads.
But is road building the solution? Or is it part of the problem? Victoria Fenner takes us to
a place where the debate has been going on for half a century. As she reports, not everybody
agrees that the debate is settled:
On this sunny morning, a hawk sits in watch high atop a power line in the Red Hill Valley in
Hamilton. It gazes down over the valley – 1600 acres in the middle of this gritty industrial
steel town on the western tip of Lake Ontario. And soon, if the current city council has its
way, the hawk will be looking down on an expressway.
This is a story that happens over and over again in communities throughout North America.
This expressway plan in Hamilton has been on and off again for fifty years. It has polarized
the community, and with a municipal election happening soon, decision day for the valley is
looming. If a pro-expressway council is elected, it will go ahead.
Don McLean is with the Friends of Red Hill Valley, an organization that has been mobilizing
opposition to the freeway plan since 1991. He explains why he doesn’t want the expressway.
“The Red Hill Valley is potentially the largest urban park in Canada, and the expressway proposal
comes right down the middle of it, takes down twenty five percent of its forest and so on. There is
a large creek running through it that drains half the urban area of Hamilton. It has twenty four
species of fish that have been recorded since 1995. It’s quite an interesting place because it’s
completely surrounded, really, by urban area.”
But other people say there are also good arguments why the freeway should be built. Larry
Dianni is running for mayor and is building his whole campaign around this single issue. He
says he sees no other options, especially since parts of the freeway have already been built.
“This has been a project that has been fifty plus years in the making, and of course people have
now turned it around to say this is a fifty year old solution to current problems. Wrong. This is an
overdue solution to problems that manifested themselves fifty-four years ago, and by virtue of
ignoring them, the problems have gotten worse.”
The problems Larry Dianni is referring to are all about economic growth. His arguments for
the expressway are not a lot different from other cities across North America. He says as
more people and businesses move into the area, the road is necessary to accommodate
increasing traffic.
But Don McLean says this is outmoded thinking.
“There are good studies now in the U.S., and this has been understood in Europe for a long time,
that building more roads mainly results in generating more traffic. It does not address congestion
issues, it actually increases them because it encourages more driving and it encourages people to
move further and further away from their destinations.”
Don McLean’s position is one shared by the Sierra Club of Canada. The Sierra Club
recently published a major report called “Sprawl Hurts Us All.” Janet Pelley, the report’s
author, has heard the full range of the debate on both sides of the border. She is an
environmental journalist who recently moved to Canada from the U.S.
“The fact that you see on both sides of the border that there are these battles over freeways that
have been going on for fifty years just shows it’s an outmoded way of thinking, that the
government hasn’t caught up with the new smart growth initiatives and the new ways people are
looking at cities.”
The bottom line, Janet Pelley says, is we’re too dependent on motorized traffic. She says we
have to find ways of reducing our dependency on our cars.
“If you’re assuming people have to have cars, then you’re going to be sucked into that whole “car
junkie” habit of “we have to have more freeways to get people to move around. It’s really key
how you build your city. If you build your city for pedestrians and for public transit then you don’t
have to worry about the car traffic.”
It’s a story that is repeated over and over again as communities such as Hamilton try to
balance economic growth with environmental responsibility. In Hamilton, it’s still not a
foregone conclusion whether or not the freeway will proceed. November’s municipal
election is shaping up to be a single issue campaign, with pro-expressway and anti-
expressway candidates staking their political future on the issue. Whether or not this will
settle the matter is another question. With many sides to this story, this is an issue that
many communities will be wrestling with for a long time to come.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.
Due to many different catalysts, including climate and habitat change, amphibians are said to be rapidly disappearing. (Photo by Linda Lundberg)
