Tag: pollutants

Public Outcry Absent From Invasives Problem

  • Government, industry, and activists work to inform people about individual threats of non-native invasive species. However, there is no comprehensive approach to reducing biological contamination of the Great Lakes region.

One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Great Lakes is the introduction of foreign plants and animals. Invasive species such as the zebra mussel are causing havoc to the lakes. Local, state, and federal governments know about the problems. But there’s not been much public pressure on the governments to do much about them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Great Lakes is the introduction of
foreign plants and animals. Invasive species such as the zebra mussel are causing havoc
to the lakes. Local, state, and federal governments know about the problems. But there’s
not been much public pressure on the governments to do much about them. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Here’s a factoid for you. In the United States alone in the 1980’s and ’90’s, it’s estimated
that it cost more than two-billion dollars to keep zebra mussels from clogging up water
intake pipes. Two-billion! Guess who paid for that? You did – in higher bills.


Zebra mussels are an invasive species. That is, they are native to a foreign place and they
were transported here – like many invasives – by a ship. Zebra mussels were sucked up in
ballast water in a foreign port and then pumped out in a Great Lakes port. The zebra
mussels have spread all over the Great Lakes, in huge numbers. They attach to
everything, including intake pipes. They’ve crowded out native mussels. And zebra
mussels eat the microscopic plant life at the bottom of the food chain, making fish more
scarce and causing fish prices to go up.


And that’s just the beginning. There’s been something like 160 invasive species such as
foreign fish, aquatic nuisances, plants, and insects brought into the Great Lakes region
one way or another and each one has caused problems. Dutch elm disease kills trees. A
fish called round goby eats the eggs of native sport fish. Invasive mites are killing off
honey bees.


“People aren’t outraged about it. And they’re not outraged about it because, I think, we in
the public interest community and the government side haven’t done what it takes to
clearly communicate why this is a problem to people.”


Cameron Davis is with the Lake Michigan Federation, an environmental group that
works to get policies changed in the Great Lakes basin. Davis says most of the time
people just don’t understand that because the government is not doing enough to stop
invasive species from entering the country, it ends up costing them and takes a toll on the
natural environment.


“When zebra mussels, for example, get into drinking water intakes, municipalities have to
pay to keep those things out of there. That means higher rates for you and me. For other
people, fishing is impacted. Invasive species getting into the lakes can mean competition
for those native species like yellow perch because of round gobies, because of zebra
mussels and other invasive species getting into the Great Lakes.”


The government agencies which work on these kinds of problems know about them and
some things have been done to try to prevent new invasive species from being introduced
or control them once they’re here.


Tom Skinner is a regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and also heads up the EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office. Skinner says there
are several obstacles to stopping the invasions.


“One is identifying all the possibilities out there. Two is identifying how they get into the
lakes. Three is coming up with a technical solution to deal with the invasive nature of the
species. And four is getting the resources to make sure that you put the technical
solutions into place.”


And there’s another problem – government agencies, much like people, tend to deal with
one problem at a time. For example, sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes after a canal
was opened. They decimated lake trout populations. Government agencies attacked that
problem. Asian carp are threatening to spread from the Mississippi River system into the
Great Lakes through a canal. Government agencies are putting up barriers. One problem
equals one fix.


Tom Skinner’s counterpart in Canada, John Mills with Environment Canada, says
governments are beginning to realize that stopping the spread of invasive species cannot
just be fixed one problem at a time.


“It isn’t a simple problem of just focusing in on ballast water. It’s a much broader
problem. You can get organisms coming in on wood or other commodities that will take
up residence in the basin and create havoc.”


So, there are lots of ways for invasive species to enter the Great Lakes region. But the
Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says no one seems to be looking at the
overall problem.


“We’ve got a number of different gateways to get into the Great Lakes, but we have all
kinds of different departments looking at A) individual gateways, or B) looking at
individual species. Nobody’s really there to pull it all together. We have a big
institutional problem that way.”


And there’s no one movement among environmental groups or consumer groups to
pressure the governments to step back and look at the policies that allow shipping and
trade to continue to easily transport invasive species into the Great Lakes region.


The EPA’s Tom Skinner says government agencies are working on it.


“We’re going to continue to work with the Coast Guard, with the Corps of Engineers,
with our friends to the north in Canada and try and come up with a comprehensive
solution to these various invasive problems. But, it’s easy to say; it takes a great deal of
work and effort to do that.”


And government agencies are not getting any real kind of public pressure to do it because
the public doesn’t realize the price it’s paying for invasive species.


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

Emissions Trading for Telecommuters

Companies who fear that their greenhouse gas emissions may soon be regulated are being offered a new alternative. A Virginia-based firm has created an emissions trading system that will capitalize on telecommuting. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Companies who fear that their greenhouse gas emissions may soon be regulated are being
offered a new alternative. A Virginia-based firm has created an emissions trading system
that will capitalize on telecommuting. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly
reports:


The company is called “Teletrips.” And it’s created a system in which industries that
need to reduce their emissions can buy credits from businesses with large numbers of
telecommuters.


Teletrips president Mary Beatty says the trading system would force polluters to buy
credits to offset the amount they pollute. They’d buy the credits from companies who
keep their employees off the road.


“We felt like if you could find an incentive that would motivate companies to set up
(programs) trip reduction programs and (be able to quantify that) and give them some real
financial benefit back for creating those programs, that was much better than mandating
an approach.”


The company’s software converts the number of trips saved by working at home into the
amount of emissions averted.


It’s currently being pilot tested in five U.S. cities.


For the Great Lakes Radio consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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African American Health Problems Tied to Air Pollution

A new study shows African Americans are disproportionately affected by power plant pollution. The study finds most African Americans are concentrated in urban areas, closer to power plants. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports, health problems in the community such as asthma have been tied to air pollution:

Transcript

A new study shows African Americans are disproportionately affected by power plant pollution. The study finds most African Americans are concentrated in urban areas, closer to power plants. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell reports, health problems in the community such as asthma have been tied to air pollution:


The study shows blacks are hospitalized for asthma attacks at more than three times the rate of whites, and their death rate from asthma is twice that of whites.


Brian Urbaszewski with the American Lung Association says there’s a direct link between air pollution and asthma, especially within the black community.


“African Americans just tend to have a higher rate of asthma, so you have the people who are more likely to be sick in an area where the air is more likely to trigger an asthma attack.”


In one Great Lakes state, 90 percent of blacks live in counties with air pollution levels that exceed federal health standards.


African-American babies are in greater danger of sudden infant death syndrome and respiratory mortality because they live in more polluted areas.


The groups that put out the study want stricter laws to reduce emissions from coal-burning power plants.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.

Downsides of Dam Removal

States have been removing old dams from rivers for safety and environmental reasons. But researchers say water managers should be sure to take a close look when considering dam removal as an option because, in some cases, it might be bad for the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

States have been removing old dams from rivers for safety and
environmental reasons. But researchers say water managers should be
sure to take a close look when considering dam removal as an option
because, in some cases, it might be bad for the environment. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:


This year, 45 dams are slated for removal across the country. Half of
those dams are in this region.


Emily Stanley is a river ecologist at the University of Wisconsin.
She’s been studying rivers after a dam has been removed and recently
published her findings in the journal “BioScience.” She
says in farm country, dams can help trap fertilizers that have been
over-applied on nearby fields.


“Small reservoirs can act like wetlands, and can be effective filters
for removing the nitrogen that has come in off of farm fields through
groundwater into the system, and can be actually some valuable points
of improving water quality.”


Stanley says, in many cases, sediments have been collecting behind the
dams for decades. When the dam is removed, the sediments are suddenly
released downstream and can lead to harmful algae blooms. In some
cases, the sediments can contain more dangerous substances, such heavy
metals and PCB’s. Stanley says communities should be sure to weigh the
environmental consequences before removing a dam.


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

Voters Love the Lakes

The Michigan Legislature voted recently to ban new oil and gas drilling under the Great Lakes. Until the ban was enacted, Michigan had been the only state considering to allow such drilling. As the nation heads into a new round of federal, state, and local elections, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Cameron Davis says that the region’s drilling debate provides some invaluable lessons for candidates:

Transcript

The Michigan legislature voted recently to ban new oil and gas drilling under the Great Lakes. Until now, it had been the major holdout on such a ban. As the nation heads into a new round of federal, state, and local elections, Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Cameron Davis says that the region’s drilling debate provides some invaluable lessons for candidates.

The first lesson to our future leaders is to beware of one element of news “spin”- that if you repeat something long enough it will become true. In pressing their case, oil and gas interests said that drilling would not result in oil bubbling up to pollute Great Lakes water. As a result, they repeated, drilling was quote -“safe.” They failed to listen, however, to citizens troubled by something different: oil and toxic hydrogen sulfide leaks on land that could put human health and fragile coasts at risk. Given the small amount of oil and gas below the lakes, citizens said drilling wasn’t worth it. So, we get to lesson number one: Our future leaders should define public safety and environmental health broadly, not so narrowly that they gloss over legitimate concerns.

Lesson number 2: the debate was as much about the need for states to be credible leaders in natural resource protection as it was about drilling itself. The Lake Michigan Federation looked at 30 active wells in Michigan and found that eight of them had in fact contaminated water supplies. According to the same research, state oversight continues to fail in the clean up of any of those sites. In the drilling debate, citizens believed that without responsive agency action, the only way to prevent similar damage from shoreline drilling was to prohibit the practice in the first place. Congress responded to citizens’ concerns over the summer by suspending new drilling for two years. Candidates can take away from this that if states don’t want Congress stepping on their toes, they need to do a credible job themselves of protecting the Great Lakes.

Last, pro-drilling interests argued during the debate that other serious challenges besides drilling deserved more attention. While concerned citizens believed that a drilling ban was the best way to prevent new shoreline damage, advocates also agree that a number of other important threats need to be addressed. The third moral of the story is that people’s interest in protecting the Great Lakes environment from drilling is the beginning, not the end.

It’s time to move onto other pressing threats such as harmful water diversions in an increasingly thirsty world. We need to prevent future invasions of foreign pest species like the zebra mussel that throw the multi-billion dollar Great Lakes fishery out of whack. With women of childbearing age and other sensitive populations unable to eat certain fish because of contamination, it’s time to eliminate cancer-causing and other pollution once and for all. And, it’s time to restore fish and wildlife habitat, including the region’s precious wetlands, forests, and sand dunes.

Voters love the Great Lakes. Because of that, whoever commits first in upcoming elections to protect them, wins.

Parental Common Sense

Two recent medical studies have shed some light on the cause and possible prevention of childhood asthma. The first, a Canadian study, examines the relationship between breastfeeding and the risk of developing childhood asthma. The second study out of southern California indicates a connection between smog and childhood asthma rates. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that the reports confirm what the parents of many asthmatic children have understood all along:

Transcript

Two recent medical studies have shed some light on the cause and possible prevention of childhood asthma. The first, a Canadian study, examines the relationship between breastfeeding and the risk of developing childhood asthma. The second study out of southern California indicates a connection between smog and childhood asthma rates. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston says that the reports confirm what the parents of many asthmatic children have understood all along:

I’ll never forget the day that the pediatrician marched into our infant daughter’s hospital room and demanded that I stop breastfeeding her. Sarah had been in intensive care for several weeks in an attempt to control her asthma – without success. Her doctor turned to the only remaining variable he could identify – breast milk. My husband and I were convinced that the immunological benefits of breastfeeding offered Sarah the best chance for survival. We put up such a stink that within 24 hours Sarah was allowed to resume breastfeeding. Months later, a specialist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children not only commended our decision – he felt that breastfeeding had probably saved Sarah’s life.

Eight years later a new study out of the same Toronto hospital confirms our parental intuition. According to the report, breastfeeding actually protects children against asthma. The longer they breastfeed, the more protection they’re offered. The study found that when infants were breastfed for nine months or longer, the risk of asthma and wheezing was reduced by 50%.

The results of the study are no surprise to me. It has been eight years since Sarah first left the oxygen tent that was her home as an infant. Today, her once life-threatening condition has been replaced by a mild asthma. It’s only triggered when she has a bad cold or if she’s exposed to high levels of air pollution.

Which leads me to a second study out of Southern California. Researchers there have spent eight years studying the effects of ground level ozone on childhood asthma. They’ve concluded that ozone not only triggers asthmatic attacks, it can actually cause it.

What both these studies confirm is that environmental factors – both positive and negative – can have a dramatic effect on the incidence and severity of asthma. As the parents of a severely asthmatic child, these are common sense lessons that we learned by carefully observing our daughter. For us, they simply confirm what we already knew.

The big lesson here is that parental observation and intuition provide us with valuable tools for protecting our children’s health – often years before the scientific community reaches the same conclusions. Unfortunately, this anecdotal evidence is too often dismissed as being unscientific -as if that were the watermark that everything should be measured by. In light of these recent studies, maybe its time we considered the importance of good ol’ common sense.

Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.

WEBSITE INFO:

“Breastfeeding and Asthma is Young Children – Findings from a Population -Based Study”, Sharon Dell, MD, Teresa To, PhD., (November 2001) can be found at the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine website at www.archpediatrics.com

Information about the Children’s Health Study can be found at the National Institute of Health Studies at www.niehs.nih.gov/oc/news/ozasth.htm and the California EPA site at arbis.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr013102.htm

Proposed Pipeline Divides Community

A Findlay, Ohio-based oil company says it needs a new petroleum pipeline to help get gasoline and jet fuel products to market in the Great Lakes states. But Marathon-Ashland’s proposal has sparked opposition from environmentalists and some small business owners in Southeast Ohio who fear possible contamination of waterways and disruption of some pristine areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Borgerding has the story:

Transcript

A Findlay, Ohio based Oil Company says it needs a new petroleum pipeline to help get gasoline and jet fuel products to market in the Great Lakes states. But, Marathon-Ashland’s proposal has sparked opposition from environmentalists and some small business owners in Southeast Ohio who fear possible contamination of waterways and disruption of some pristine areas. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Borgerding reports.


The proposed 149-mile long pipeline will cross the Ohio River from Kenova, West Virginia and snake through parts of the Wayne National Forest and scenic Hocking Hills in Southeastern Ohio and South Central Ohio. Company spokesman Tim Aydt says the project will help stabilize gasoline prices in a region stretching from eastern Illinois to western New York.


“The existing pipeline infrastructure that serves us today is decades old and it was designed when there was only one grade of gasoline and one grade of diesel fuel. And it was designed to serve a population about half the size it is today. Over time, with the growth we’ve had in the Midwest we’ve outgrown that pipeline capacity and as a result we’ve witnessed the last two summers where we’ve had constrained supply that’s resulted in price spikes.”


The pipeline might help stabilize gasoline prices in the region by adding a second source of supply for refined petroleum products. Currently, The Great Lakes region is dependent solely on pipelines running out of refineries in the Gulf Coast states such as Louisiana and Texas. But, Marathon-Ashland’s proposal also presents a potential environmental risk. The pipeline will cross 363 streams, 55 wetlands, and parts of three watersheds. For some, the prospect of a pipeline carrying gasoline and jet fuel through environmentally sensitive areas has sparked fears. Jane Ann Ellis is a founder and trustee of Crane Hollow…. a privately owned, dedicated state nature preserve in the path of the pipeline.


“If this pipeline would be built and if there was any kind of leak this would decimate the clean water that we have. It is easier to keep your drinking water clean than it is to clean it up afterwards. And it’s cheaper in the long run for the general public.”


Michael Daniels also opposes Marathon-Ashland’s project. He owns a country inn that attracts tourists from Ohio and surrounding states. He says many of his customers come to the region to hear chirping birds, babbling brooks, and to see the fall foliage. Daniels says both construction and operation of the pipeline will have a negative effect on his business.


“Certainly! Who would want to come as a tourist and be exposed to that kind of noise and intrusion into their experience? So, there’s no question that it will impact my business.”


But company spokesman Tim Aydt says the pipeline route through parts of a national forest and other environmentally sensitive areas is the best possible route.


“We wanted to avoid population centers. We wanted to avoid residential or commercial developments and we wanted to avoid flood plains where we could. So, when all of that was put into the mix we came up with the best route overall. Obviously it’s not the cheapest route because it’s not a straight line between two points. But, about 80 percent of the route follows existing utility corridors or those areas that are less prone to development.”


Marathon-Ashland says without the pipeline the Great Lakes could soon face shortages of gasoline, lines at the pump and greater fluctuations in gas prices. The tension between the company and pipeline opponents turns on the question of whether Marathon-Ashland will be required to submit an “environmental impact statement.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to make that decision early this year following a recommendation from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Corps spokesman Steve Wright says there’s no question such a requirement will delay the project.


“That will take longer. You know they take varying lengths of time but certainly they can’t be done very quickly.”


Marathon-Ashland contends an environmental impact statement (EIS) is unnecessary. But, opponents of the plan say the EIS is critical since the pipeline puts so many streams and wetlands at risk for potential pollution.


For the Great Lakes radio Consortium I’m Tom Borgerding

States Disagree About Water Pollution

A new report finds states don’t measure water pollution in the same way and that makes it more difficult for the nation to identify its most polluted waters. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Regulating Ballast Water as Pollution?

It looks as though the Environmental Protection Agency will reject the idea of requiring cargo ships to get pollution permits before they’re allowed to discharge ballast water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:

Battery-Powering Bacteria

U.S. scientists have identified bacteria that can eat pollution and generate electricity at the same time. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports: