Tag: forest

Romancing the American Chestnut

  • 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)

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.

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Companies Push for Forest Certification

  • Magazine publishers and other companies are thinking ahead and getting their paper from forests that have been certified. But what does this really mean? (Photo by Stanley Elliott)

Officials in the Midwest want to prove they’re not damaging their state forests. States that sell timber to paper companies are spending thousands of dollars to earn a certificate that says they’re managing the forests in a sustainable way. Paper producers are demanding that state foresters earn certification because officials want to stave off protests from consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:

Transcript

Officials in the Midwest want to prove they’re not damaging their state forests. States that sell timber to paper companies are spending thousand of dollars to earn a certificate that says they’re managing the forests in a sustainable way. Paper producers are demanding that state foresters earn certification because officials want to stave off protests from consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:


It’s lunchtime and employees on break from Compuware in downtown Detroit are browisng through the magazine racks at Borders. Melody Kranz says she reads three different magazines every month. She says she is an avid recycler and an impassioned environmentalist, but never considered what kind of paper was going into her magazines.


“I don’t know why I haven’t thought about it, I just haven’t. I will now. Because I’m a gardening nut, I love to garden. So yeah, I just never really thought about it.”


But executive David Refkin is betting that Franz and others like her would think twice before picking up Time Magazine if they thought a forest was demolished to make the paper. Refkin is the Director of Sustainable Development for Time Incorporated. He says he’s noticed a strong surge in environmental awareness over the past two or three years.


“We don’t want people looking at a magazine and feeling guilty that a stream has been damaged and the fish are dying in there, or that habitats aren’t being protected because people are practicing bad forestry practices.”


Refkin says his company wants to take action now, before consumer groups decide to boycott its magazines over ecological issues. Time uses more coated paper for its publications than any other company in the U.S. The company is asking that 80 percent of all paper products Time buys be certified by 2006.


To the average consumer, that may not seem like big news. But for paper producers and foresters, it’s earth shattering. Larry Pedersen is with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Pedersen says getting certified means years of work for state employees. The government has to prove to investigators that its management standards take into account issues such as biodiversity, water quality, soil erosion and wildlife habitat. Pedersen says the state is also required to provide records for each tree from the moments it’s planted or inventoried to the time it’s cut down and then made into planks or paper. But he says it’s worth the effort.


“A number of wood and paper-using companies brought it to our attention that they needed to have certified products because their consumers were demanding those. And with us having four-million acres of state forestlands, we saw the writing on the wall that we needed to jump on this.”


State forests in the region generate a lot of revenue. Wisconsin’s forests earn two and a half million dollars from timber sales and Ohio pulls in almost three million. Michigan’s forests bring in 30 million dollars annually. Earlier this year, Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm announced that all state forests will be certified by January 1st of 2006. And the Great Lakes State is not alone… New York, Wisconsin, and Maine are also pursuing certification and Ohio and other states are considering it.


Andrew Shalit, with the environmental activist group Ecopledge, says he’s glad Time Warner is encouraging paper companies and state governments to get certified. But he says that doesn’t necessarily mean the paper is produced in an environmentally friendly way.


“It’s great to say that they’re going to get all of their paper from certified forests. The question is, who is certifying? And in the case of Time Warner, a lot of the forests are certified by a group called SFI, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and their standards are so weak as to be almost meaningless.”


There’s a heated debate over just what certification means. There are currently two groups that certify forests in the U.S. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or SFI, was originally founded by the timber industry but is now an independent body. The Forest Stewardship council, or FSC, came out of the environmental movement… or more specifically, out of the effort to protect South American rainforests. Shalit says he doesn’t think SFI certification is as rigorous or as comprehensive as FSC.


“It really is a problem for the consumer because you see something in the store and it has a little green label on it with a picture of a tree and it says sustainably certified, and you think you’re buying something good. It’s hard for the individual consumer to keep up with that.”


Shalit says several states, like Michigan, have solved the dilemma of rival certification programs by getting dual certification. he says although the system has flaws, it will improve if consumers demand more stringent forestry regulations.


Executives at Time Warner hope they can avoid boycotts and pickets by taking action preemptively. The company is leading the push for forest certification in the U.S., and environmentalists say the federal government may have to bow to pressure eventually and get the national forests certified as well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.

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Mining vs. Old-Growth Forest

  • Dysart Woods in southeast Ohio is an old-growth forest. Many of the trees are more than 300 years old. (Photo courtesy of dysartwoods.org)

The need for cheap energy is coming into conflict
with efforts to preserve a forest. Coal mining companies are using a technique that causes the land to subside and sometimes changes natural underground water systems. Environmentalists say mining underneath a forest preserve could destroy the ecosystem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports on environmental activists who are defending the
forest:

Transcript

The need for cheap energy is coming into conflict with efforts to preserve a forest.
Coal mining companies are using a technique that causes the land to subside and sometimes
change natural underground water systems. Environmentalists say mining underneath a forest
preserve could destroy the ecosystem. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lisa Ann Pinkerton
reports on environmental activists who are defending the forest:


For decades, the coal mining industry has been using a technique of extraction called
long wall mining. Industry officials say it’s the most effective way to get the bituminous
coal out of the ground. In traditional room and pillar mining, the land above is not disturbed.
But the long wall machine leaves no support for the 1000-foot tunnel created in its wake. After
the coal is extracted, the ground caves in, causing the land to sink.


Dysart Woods, in southeastern Ohio, is slated for such a fate. The conservation group,
Buckeye Forest Council, wants to block the woods from mining. Its members believe long
wall mining will destroy the old-growth forest. The four hundred and fifty acres, fifty-five
acres of the trees are more than 300 years old. Fred Gittis is an attorney who has volunteered
his services to protect the woods.


“And these woods are precious, and they are among the last old-growth forest areas remaining,
not only in Ohio, but in this part of the country. Recently a documentary was filmed in Dysart Woods, because it has some of the conditions that would have existed at the time of George
Washington’s life.”


Gittis argues state should repeal the mining permit granted for Dysart Woods. Ohio Valley
Coal was granted the permit in 2001. As steward of the woods, Ohio University disputed the
permit for three years. But last November, it agreed to drop its appeal, in exchange for $10,000 from the state to study the forest’s water, as it is undermined. Ohio Valley
Coal Company would drill the wells needed. But the Buckeye Forest Council says a study doesn’t
solve the problem.


“First of all it is just a water monitoring project. It offers no protection to the woods.
Second of all, they don’t have the base line data right now to compare to what it normal.”


That’s Susan Heikler, Executive Director of the Buckeye Forest Council. When Ohio University
accepted the mining permit, her organization took up the fight. The group worked with lawyer
Fred Gittis and nationally known experts to review the science of the Coal Company’s mining
plan. Gittis says the Council’s experts were not impressed.


And, both hydrogeologists and mining experts have indicated that the basic science related
to this mining permit is, not to be insulting but, junk.”


The plan calls for long wall mining within 300 feet of the old-growth forest. However,
experts from the Buckeye Forest Council say a 1500 foot buffer around the woods
is the only way to insure the protection of the hydrology – the natural water system that
sustains the forest.


In a major concession two years ago, the Coal Company agreed not to long wall mine directly
under Dysart Woods. Instead, room and pillar mining is planned. The Company says that will
delay subsidence for centuries to come. Attorney Fred Gittis says without core samples from
directly under the woods, the company doesn’t have the data to back up this claim.


“If you don’t know what that rock is, if it’s soft like claystone or shale, it can collapse.
And so its pretty basic stuff.”


Attorneys for the company declined to be interviewed for this story. In statements, the
Company defends its lack of data by pointing to exemptions they were granted by the Department
of Mineral Resources. The Company stands by its assertion that, quote, “trees and other surface
vegetation will absolutely not be affected by mining.” But in September, the story changed. In
court, a mining consultant for the company, Hanjie Chen, testified that the forest floor would
sink 5 inches. Attorneys for Ohio Valley Coal abruptly stopped his testimony after this
statement. But Gittis says the damage to the coal company’s case is already done.


Although Buckeye Forest Council rested its case in July, the defendant, Ohio Valley Coal is
still adding witnesses and dragging out the case. Fred Gittis says the Company is trying to
exhaust the Buckeye Forest Council’s legal funding. He adds that this is why he volunteers his
expertise.


For the time being, mining under the old growth forest has been pushed back until the hearings
conclude in November.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

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Outdoor Lab Forecasts Global Warming Effects

  • Mark Kubiske checks the valve that controls the flow of greenhouse gases to a stand of sugar maples, birch and aspen. (Photo by Jennifer Simonson)

Scientists from around the world are studying how higher levels of carbon dioxide will affect forests 100 years from now. They’re doing that by pumping higher levels of CO2 and ozone into stands of trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson visited the experimental forests and has this story:

Transcript

Scientists from around the world are studying how higher levels of carbon dioxide will affect forests 100 years from now. They’re doing that by pumping higher levels of CO2 and ozone into stands of trees. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson visited the experimental forests and has this story:


(sound of “quiet area”)


The north woods of the Great Lakes states are stands of millions of acres of pine, maple, birch, and aspen forests. It’s a perfect place to try to figure out how trees will react to the higher levels of ozone and carbon dioxide scientists expect in the future.


(sound of beeping fence gate)


The first thing you notice at Aspen Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment Project – Aspen FACE for short – is two huge tanks inside the fenced in enclosure. Each one is bigger than an 18-wheel tanker truck. They’re full of carbon dioxide… CO2. So much CO2 is used in this experiment, the tanks are filled twice a day.


(sound of filling tanks)


If you looked at the site from an airplane, you’d see 12 circular tree stands surrounded by 30 foot high pipes. Those pipes pour CO2 or ozone gases or both into the air surrounding birch, sugar maple, and aspen trees. The scientists know that greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere have been increasing. They believe two centuries of industrial pollution has contributed to the problem. And they expect the CO2 and ozone levels to double by the end of this century. They’re raising the level of greenhouse gasses in different mixes to see what the predicted levels will do to forests.


This open air project is different than previous experiments. David Karnosky is with Michigan Tech. He’s the Project Manager for Aspen FACE. He says before these kinds of projects, they just tested trees inside places like greenhouses.


“We needed to get out of those chambers. We needed to have a more realistic, real world sort of situation where we had multiple trees. We wanted real intact forest communities. We didn’t want to have just a small number of trees inside of a chamber.”


The United States Department of Energy launched this experiment in Wisconsin’s northwoods seven years ago. Karnosky says they’re learning how the trees react to the higher CO2 levels, and that could shape the future of the world’s timber industry.


“Who will be the winners? Who will be the losers? Will aspen or birch or sugar maple? In northern Wisconsin here we’ve got probably 40 million acres of those species mixes. What’s going to happen under elevated CO2 in the next 100 years? Will these forests remain as they are?”


(sound of driving on gravel)


Driving to one of the experimental circles, we pull up to a ring of trees. Mark Kubiske is one of the two full-time on-site researchers.


“Now this particular ring is an elevated CO2 plot. CO2 is delivered through this copper pipe. It runs to that fan, there’s a large fan right on the end of that gray building.”


The scientists have found that trees in the CO2 circles grow 30 percent faster than trees without the gas.


“The trees are larger in diameter, they’re straight, they have lots of leaf area, they just look very healthy. That is just in tremendous contrast to the ozone ring. We’ll go up around the corner and look at one.”


Nearby another circle of trees is not doing nearly as well. The trees are skinny, twisted not as tall as the other sites. Higher ozone levels are hurting the trees.


At the sites where pipes emit both ozone and CO2, the tree growth seems normal – except for some stunted maple trees. The leaves of the aspen and birch take in much of the CO2, convert it to sugar which goes to its roots, eventually becoming a natural part of the soil. That suggests forests may help alleviate gases that cause global warming. The Project Director, David Karnosky says CO2 and ozone appear to cancel each other out. But he says it’s too early to draw any firm conclusions. Ultimately, he says governments will be able to look at this glimpse into the future and try to come up with emissions policies that help.


“The whole issue of the Kyoto protocol, our government not signing off on that. There’s been some relaxing of the feelings from what I’ve seen from the President’s report now that they’re beginning to realize that elevated CO2 is having an impact on global warming and could be impacting our plant communities.”


Karnosky says it’s possible that besides reducing emissions, governments might determine that planting more trees might be very helpful in reducing greenhouse gasses worldwide.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

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New Gmo Grass to Get Federal Approval?

  • The quest for a perfectly manIcured lawn has driven some lawn care companies to create a grass resistant to weed killer. Some worry, however, that they've created an invasive species. (Photo by Philipp Pilz)

An environmental watchdog group is hoping to block federal approval of a new genetically modified type of grass. The group says the grass poses a threat to natural areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

An environmental watchdog group is hoping to block fedral approval of a new genetically
modified type of grass. The group says the grass poses a threat to natural areas. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


Two companies – Scotts and Monsanto – want the government’s approval to commercialize a type of
creeping bentgrass. The grass would mainly be planted on lawns and golf courses because it’s
resistant to Roundup, a popular weed killer. But critics of the bio-engineered grass say it
needs more testing. For one thing, they say, genes from the grass can spread and strengthen
non-native plants.


Joe Mendelson is with the International Center for Technology Assessment.


“The end result is you’re going to create a grass that is invasive, that will take over natural
areas like our grasslands and or forest areas, and we won’t be able to control it. That’s going
to have a very negative impact on a number of sensitive ecosystems.”


The U.S. Forest Service has also weighed in, saying the grass has the potential to have a
negative effect on all of the country’s grasslands and natural forests. Scotts has said the
bio-engineered grass poses no threat to natural areas.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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Clear-Cut Demonstration Angers Forest’s Neighbors

  • Stands of pine like this have been clear-cut to demonstrate an option that forest owners can take to manage their property. (Photo by Keran McKenzie)

Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S. Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:

Transcript

Most forests in the Great Lakes region are privately owned. That concerns the U.S.
Forest Service because the agency says many forest owners don’t know how to properly
manage their woodlands. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports that a
new education project that demonstrates tree-harvesting techniques has angered some residents:


(sound of chain saws)


Workers are cutting down trees in a fifty-year-old pine crop. At the same time, state
foresters are leading a botanist, a private tree farmer, and a reporter through this forest
education site. One of the foresters, Rick Miller, is directing the chain saws to show what
needs to be cut for what’s called a “crop tree release.”


“This one here we selected out with the orange flags, the trees that show the best form and
dominance in the crown. They have a nice big healthy crown. And then what we’re doing is removing
any trees that are touching the crowns of those ones that are orange, and just opening it up
to give the crown more room up there to spread out and possibly increase their growth and their
vigor.”


A forest owner who wants to make money off his pine stand might do a crop tree release to
improve the quality of the remaining timber. The bigger the tree, the more money it’s worth
to a logging company.


Heading deeper in, a crop of pine trees lined up like soldiers trails to our right, and wilder
hardwoods shade us from the left. There are signs to demarcate different timbering techniques:
improvement cut, understory removal, selective cut. Project manager Frank Corona stops at one
section of oaks, maples and cherries.


“You have small trees, medium trees, some larger trees. Trees are probably selectively
harvested in here and you have all different ages of trees in this stand…”


The cool shaded path abruptly opens up. The lush canopy is replaced by harsh sunlight.


GRANT: “Oh wow, so this is the clear-cut…”


CORONA: “This is the clear-cut.”


The forest is gone… cut to the ground. All that remains are the 120 hardwood stumps on
the torn-up dirt. Botanist Steve McKee suports construction of the demonstration site.
But he also loves trees.


GRANT: “What do you think when you see that clear-cut?”


MCKEE: “Well, clear-cuts are never pretty, ya know? So, uh, I think the most shocking thing
for me is I’ve walked in this my whole life and it was surprising. But I knew it
was coming too, so…”


But some people in the community say they didn’t know the demonstration project would include
clear-cutting older trees. Anne McCormack hikes the Mohican nearly every day, clearing trails,
cleaning garbage, or enjoying the woods. The education site has been roped off from the public
during construction. But she found out there was a clear-cut demonstration in an old growth
section of the forest.


“So, I just was… I was just shocked. I mean I can’t say anything more. I just felt
terrible for… I felt terrible for the trees that stood there since before white settlers
were even in Mohican. And there they just were bulldozed and chain cut for education.
I mean, it doesn’t add up.”


McCormack’s not the only one who’s upset. A lot of people didn’t realize this is what
the Forest Service had in mind. Back at the clear-cut site, Corona says many trees suffer
from disease when they mature to 120 years. He says it’s a good age for private land owners
to consider the clear-cut option.


“This was a time where before they would rot out or anything and we see more damage, more
susceptibility health-wise in the entire stand, we could make a harvest in here and utilize
those trees and start this whole new cycle of growth in here.”


The foresters and forest owners say clear-cutting is a viable option, and just one of the
many examples at the demonstration project in the Mohican forest.


Tree farmer Scott Galloway says people need to understand that owning a forest is another
form of family farming. For instance, he got a call recently from a man who inherited 30
acres and needed money right away. He doesn’t know how to manage his tree crop.


“Where does he go? How do you make the right decisions quickly? The faster he can make
decisions, in his lifetime with his forest, the sooner he’ll be able to enjoy the benefits
of those decisions. It’s all about forestry, wildlife, natural resources. So the more education he
can get, the better those decisions will be and the better off all of us are environmentally because of it.”


The Forest Service says a demonstration project is needed because forest acreage is getting
cut up into smaller and smaller parcels. That means the forests are owned by more and more
people who need to know how to manage their timber. The Forest Service hopes this project
will help them make better decisions.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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Region’s Forest Cover Growing

  • Forestland along the shore of Lake Superior. According to a new report, the amount of forests in the Great Lakes basin is increasing, but the researchers have yet to determine the quality of these forests. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes National Program Office)

This week, researchers, government agencies, industry, and environmental groups are meeting in Toronto to try to assess the overall environmental health of the Great Lakes. The gathering is known as the State of the Lakes Ecosystem Conference. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush reports, the group says there’s good news about the amount of forestland in the region:

Transcript

This week, researchers, government agencies, industry, and environmental
groups are meeting in Toronto to try to assess the overall environmental
health of the Great Lakes. The gathering is known as the State of the Lakes
Ecosystem Conference. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush
reports, the group says there’s good news about the amount of forestland in
the region:


The report prepared for this year’s conference says there is more forestland
in the Great Lakes Basin when comparing recent data to data collected more than
a decade ago. The report’s authors say forestland now covers a little over half
of the basin’s total land.


Constance Carpenter is with the U.S. Forest Service. She helped develop the report.
She says forests are crucial to maintaining the environmental health of the Lakes.


“They do a lot of things in terms of water quality. They’re able to provide conditions
that really contribute to watershed health in terms of, you know, moderating flood peaks,
storing water, filtering pollutants, transforming chemicals, all those things.”


Carpenter says one of the reasons forestland is increasing is because fewer people are
farming. She says as people leave behind fields and pasturelands, those lands often
convert back to forestland. The authors caution that their data did not look at whether
these forests are near lakes and streams, where their influence on the overall health of
the Lakes is greatest.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.

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Do-It-Yourselfers Reuse Scrap Materials

In springtime, many homeowners’ thoughts turn to home improvement projects. That typically means a hit in the wallet, and for some, guilty feelings about consuming too much. Most do-it- yourselfers saw up a lot of trees in the lumber they use. And they use other materials that affect the environment. But there are ways to keep more green in your pocket, and boost your green conscience. As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Cari Noga reports:

Transcript

In springtime, many homeowners’ thoughts turn to home improvement projects. That
typically means a hit in the wallet, and for some, guilty feelings over consuming too
much. Most do-it-yourselfers saw up a lot of trees in the lumber they use. And they use
other materials that affect the environment. But there are ways to keep more green in
your pocket, as well as a green conscience. As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Cari
Noga reports:


If you’ve ever sat in a high school gym, you’ll likely get a sense of déjà vu when you
walk into John Patterson’s home. That’s because in its former life, the house’s flooring
was high school bleachers. Cleaning them up was a chore. Patterson says he and his
wife filled up a five-gallon bucket removing the gum wads from the 20-foot yellow pine
planks. But Patterson says the work was worth it…


“What I like about them the best is the wood is so old, because they were in the school
for like 40 years. I hope they stay here for 40 years. You can’t replace them, or regrow
trees this long and tall. It’s something I’m really proud of doing.”


The floor is just one part of the couple’s overhaul of their home. Two summers ago they
stripped the tiny ranch-style home down to the studs. They nearly doubled the square
footage, and added a second floor. The windows, siding and even the 2 by 4s, are reused
or recycled.


A growing number of homeowners are combining a do-it-yourself attitude with an
environmental ethic. Instead of shopping at big box chain stores, they go to auctions and
used building material stores. They buy everything from bathtubs to doors to, yes, even
the kitchen sink. Patterson’s wife Sarah Goss is the scavenger, scouting out the stuff for
him to install. For her, reuse has been a lifelong value.


“I think it’s upbringing. You just grow up feeling a little guilt if you overuse your
resources…any way you can conserve or be a part of that, I feel like it’s an added plus.”


They’re not the only ones who think this way. Kurt Buss is president of the Used
Building Materials Association. He says the reuse movement is spreading as
communities nationwide try to reduce landfill volume. Up to 40 percent of landfill space
is construction debris.


“You don’t throw away newspapers and tin cans. You shouldn’t throw away your house.”


Buss says reused materials can be better quality, too.


“More often than not the wood is old growth lumber, which is certainly preferable to
much of the lumber that you see in lumber stores today which is speed grown on tree
farms… So there’s premium materials that are available with environmental benefits
attached.”


So, reused materials are often higher quality, and go easy on the environment.
They also cost a lot less – typically half of what the same item would cost new.


Still, not everyone’s sold immediately. There’s a lot of sweat equity that offsets the cost
advantage. John Patterson and Sarah Goss worked a long time scraping off all that
bubble gum.


Then there’s getting over the fact that most of the stuff is someone else’s discarded
material… their trash.


Bruce Odom owns the Michigan store where Patterson and Goss found many of their
materials. He says many shoppers walk in skeptics, but become believers.


“You see a lot of one party tugging the other one along, and the other one saying, ‘No,
no, I don’t know about this,’ whether it be the husband or the wife. You see a lot of that.
And yeah, you do need to realize that it’s all done and installed, you probably aren’t
going to recognize the difference except in your checkbook.”


If you’re making a list of things to do around the house, you can find reused materials
stores in at least 30 states. A visit to one might deconstruct the perception that newer is
better.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Cari Noga.

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Study: Acid Rain Depletes Soil Nutrients

Acid rain isn’t a new threat to the environment. But its effect on trees and soils has been a point of debate. Now, a new study supports the theory that acid rain can deplete nutrients in forest soil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan has more:

Transcript

Acid rain isn’t a new threat to the environment. But its effect on trees and soils has
been a point of debate. Now, a new study supports the theory that acid rain can
deplete nutrients in forest soil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan
has more:


Acid rain is caused by emissions mostly from coal-fired power plants. It’s linked to “dead”
lakes and streams that have become too acidic for fish and other organisms.


But a new study published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal says the
addition of even a small amount of acid to forest soils can deplete minerals needed for
plant and animal survival.


Ivan Fernandez is the lead author of the study. He says the study showed the loss of
several nutrients, but he’s most concerned with calcium loss.


“Calcium both reduces the toxicity of bad things as well as being a required essential nutrient.
If you lose too much calcium, you can have direct nutrient deficiencies.”


Fernandez says when minerals like calcium and magnesium are lost the result is
slower plant growth. He also says the loss of these minerals can lead to poor water quality.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin Sullivan.

Moose Population Gets a Checkup

  • Researchers collect as much information as they can to take advantage of the rare opportunity of being close to a tranquilized moose. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Many wildlife lovers consider moose to have a special mystique. Adult moose are bigger than horses, and they seem fearless. But biologists don’t know much about many moose populations. A team of researchers is just beginning to learn about one herd of 4,000 moose in the Northwoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Many wildlife lovers consider moose to have a special mystique. Adult moose are bigger than
horses, and they seem fearless. But biologists don’t know much about many moose populations.
A team of researchers is just beginning to learn about one herd of 4,000 moose in the
northwoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Half a dozen big four-wheel-drive pickups are parked at a boat landing on MacDougal Lake. It’s
about 30 miles west of the Lake Superior shore, in the heart of the Superior National Forest in
Northeastern Minnesota. The forest is twice the size of Delaware.


It’s 25 degrees. At the edge of the frozen lake, men in conservation officer uniforms are standing
around a small fire. They’re waiting to hear from the helicopter. The crew on the helicopter is
shooting moose with a tranquilizer gun. They need to get up close to the animals to learn more
about them.


Scientists think more moose could be living in this area. Mike Shrage is a biologist with the
Fond du Lac band of Chippewa. He says they’d like to know why there aren’t more moose here.
There are several possible reasons.


“Wolves, bears, lack of habitat, hunting and other kinds of human-related mortality, automobile
accidents.”


Shrage is listening to a radio cradled in a canvas holster on his shoulder. He cocks his head to
catch every word.


“There’s three of them there.”


The helicopter crew has spotted some moose.


“Yeah, I think they’re bulls.”


“These are three bulls. It’s not uncommon this time of year, you’ll get small groups of them
hanging together for awhile. Little bachelor groups.”


Shrage says the helicopter crew will try to chase one of the moose into an open area, like a frozen
lake, where they can get an easy shot.


“And if it lays down right in the lake, then they can sit down on the ice next to it. It makes
everything a lot easier.”


“Yeah, he’s gonna hopefully drop in the spot where they can get right to him.”


“I think they must already have a dart in him and they’re just waiting for it to take effect.”


The helicopter drops off a crew member to stay with the moose, and comes back to the boat
landing to pick up a radio collar.


(sound of helicopter)


Counting moose is a challenge. A recent survey in this area showed a drop from 5,000 to 4,000
animals in one year. But researchers admit there could be a 25% margin of error in those figures.
That’s because it’s hard to find the moose in heavily wooded areas. The collaring project will
make counts more accurate.


Three biologists are gathered around the latest moose to be fitted with a collar. He’s a mature
bull. He’s lying on his side in the middle of a huge frozen swamp.


He’s blindfolded to make the process less stressful. He seems to snore, while the biologists poke
and prod.


(sound of moose)
“Sounds pretty peaceful, doesn’t it? Pretty nice looking animal.”


They take blood samples to check on hormones and blood chemistry, and to look for disease.
They also pull a tooth to send to a lab. They can get an exact age by measuring the rings on the
tooth.


Glenn Delgiudice takes notes on the animal’s fat reserves. That’s a good indication of its overall
health.


Delgiudice even uses an ultrasound machine to measure the fat in the moose’s rear end.


“Rump fat is one of the main fat depots of these animals, and also one of the first to go. They
mobilize their fat depots generally in a sequence. So we measure the depth of the fat with
ultrasound.”


Another key indicator of the animal’s health is the condition of its hair. This moose has most of
its hair. They aren’t all so lucky. Some of them have scratched a lot their hair off.


<"Rick yesterday saw a calf of one of our cows that was what'd you say Rick, only 25% hair. So that one's been rubbing and scratching for a long time. And, of course, when they're doing that rubbing and scratching and biting, they're not foraging, and it can drain them over time."


The collar has to fit just right. If it’s too loose, a moose can get a foot caught in it. If it’s too
tight, it can bind, especially in the fall mating season when the bulls’ necks get thicker.


“Yep, that looks good.”


(clicking)


Finally the moose is given an antidote to the tranquilizer, pain-killer, and sedative that have kept
him immobile for about half an hour.


“You know, you’ll see his ears twitch, and he’ll start to lift his head,” Delgiudice says. “The
moose are better at getting up than deer typically. They just get up, loosen up a little bit, and
then lope away.”


The moose struggles up, stands for a minute, and then saunters off toward the trees.


That’s moose number five for the day. The team is planning to track 60 moose for five years.


It’ll tell them what kills these moose and what’s keeping the population from growing.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill, in the Superior National Forest.

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