Using NAFTA to Restrict Canadian Oil Imports?

  • In their submission, the environment groups charge that oil extraction processes leach contaminants into both surface and groundwater in the Athabasca watershed. (Photo courtesy of Aude CC-2.0)

You might think about imported oil and Saudi Arabia or Venezuela come to mind. But, the single biggest source of imported oil to the U.S. comes from Canada. And half of that comes from a dirty form of oil called tar sands oil. Lester Graham reports environmentalists are trying to use NAFTA to get restrictions on tar sands oil:

Transcript

You might think about imported oil and Saudi Arabia or Venezuela come to mind. But, the single biggest source of imported oil to the U.S. comes from Canada. And half of that comes from a dirty form of oil called tar sands oil. Lester Graham reports environmentalists are trying to use NAFTA to get restrictions on tar sands oil.

Environmental groups say extracting tar sands oil causes a lot of water pollution. Matt Price is with Environmental Defence Canada:

“We keep on presenting the evidence to the government, and they just sort of keep on ignoring it which is why we filed this citizens’ complaint.”

They’ve filed the complaint under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The say oil companies in Canada are not complying with Canadian environmental laws and that might be a violation of the NAFTA treaty. So, his group and others are taking the fight to Canada’s trading partners.

They’re hoping the U-S and Mexico will step in.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Shareholders Press Big Oil for Risk Information

  • The major risks with tar sand include dealing with pollution, and with lawsuits from native tribes that live near the oil sands.(Photo courtesy of the US DOE)

Several investors’ groups want four major oil companies to reveal the risks of getting oil from Canadian tar sands. Rebecca Williams reports shareholders will be considering this at BP’s general meeting this week:

Transcript

Several investors’ groups want four major oil companies to reveal the risks of getting oil from Canadian tar sands. Rebecca Williams reports shareholders will be considering this at BP’s general meeting this week:

Tar sands are kind of like they sound: they’re sand or clay soaked in oil. Canada’s tar sands are the second largest oil reserves in the world, so oil companies are all over them. But it’s a dirtier source of oil.

Several investors groups have filed shareholder resolutions with BP, Conoco-Phillips, Shell, and Exxon-Mobil. They want companies to reveal the risks to stockholders of getting oil from tar sands.

Emily Stone is with Green Century Capital Management.

“We want these companies to be more forthright about what they see as the big risks and how they’re mitigating those risks.”

She says risks include dealing with pollution… and lawsuits from native tribes that live near the oil sands.

BP did not want to be recorded for this story. But in a statement to shareholders, BP told them to vote no. BP says Canada’s oil sands are a proven and secure source of oil.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Tar Sands Get Tripped Up

  • Processing tar sands crude creates more air pollution than normal. (Photo courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

American gasoline refineries are
expanding to process a dirtier kind
of oil. Shawn Allee reports
one company’s plans hit a snag:

Transcript

American gasoline refineries are
expanding to process a dirtier kind
of oil. Shawn Allee reports
one company’s plans hit a snag:

The BP fuel refinery in Northwest Indiana wants to process more Canadian tar sands oil.
Processing tar sands crude creates more air pollution than normal. The federal
government wants more air pollution figures from BP before signing off on an air
permit.

Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council pressed the government to step in.
The NRDC’s Ann Alexander is glad BP’s tar sands project is getting scrutiny.

“If tar sands are going to be developed, we think it’s it’s critical they be developed in
a way that complies with the Clean Air Act, because the Clean Air Act is there to
make sure it’s not the community that pays for development of tar sands through
increased pollution and the health problems that result, but that it’s BP who pays
those costs.”

BP’s tar sands oil project in Indiana is just one of several going on in the Midwest.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Canada’s Blue Flag Beaches

  • Toronto is now getting its beaches certified as safe by an international program called 'Blue Flag' (Photo by Julie Grant)

Beaches on the Great Lakes have
been closed a lot this summer because of
pollution. But instead of raising the
white flag of surrender, in Canada, they’re
starting to raise a blue flag. Julie Grant
reports the Blue Flag Programme certifies
a beach is safe:

Transcript

Beaches on the Great Lakes have
been closed a lot this summer because of
pollution. But instead of raising the
white flag of surrender, in Canada, they’re
starting to raise a blue flag. Julie Grant
reports the Blue Flag Programme certifies
a beach is safe:

(sound of beach)

It’s a clear, cool summer morning by Lake Ontario. Some
people are playing volleyball, others are walking along the
boardwalk at Woodbine beach, on the east side of Toronto.
Nobody is swimming in the lake.

Beach person 1: “No I don’t swim here.”

Beach person 2: “I grew up here, and I’ve never actually
swam in Lake Ontario. Sometimes they were closed and it
was always off and on, so it never seemed like a good thing
to do.”

Beach Person 3: “It’s gross, man. It’s pretty nasty. One
time I found a couple of Band Aids. After that, I was like, ‘I’m
not going back in this water.’”

City leaders say those views are outdated.

Lou DiGeranimo is Toronto’s general manager of water.
He’s in charge of everything from drinking water to sewers
and storm water runoff.

DiGeranimo says the Lake’s bad reputation lingers
from the time when Toronto was a major port for lumber, for
shipbuilding, and for foundries.

“When you talk to certain people in the city, they remember
the old industrial heart of our city and they think that Lake
Ontario is polluted and you shouldn’t swim in it. Well we beg
to differ. You can swim in it and our water quality is actually
quite good.”

DiGeranimo is trying to change the public image of Lake
Ontario one beach at a time. So far he’s been able to get six
Toronto beaches certified as safe by an international
program called Blue Flag. DiGeranimo says the blue flag
shows that someone besides the city is checking up on the
beaches.

“There’s an external group, Environmental Defense, that
actually, we work with. And they themselves are part of a
larger international group who come round and audit to
make sure that we are following the program accordingly.”

Thousands of beaches in The Caribbean, Europe and South
Africa fly blue flags. Toronto has some of the first beaches
in Canada to be certified by the program. The city has to
test water quality every day. It also has to provide
lifeguards, recycling containers, and environmental
education programs.

But water quality is usually the biggest obstacle for beaches
trying to get a certification.

(sound of beach)

A blue flag waves in the wind at Toronto’s Woodbine beach.
But not without considerable cost. The sewer used to
overflow regularly here into Lake Ontario. The city built
underground retention tanks to store sewage overflow until it
could be sent to a treatment plant.

But multi-million dollar sewer fixes usually are not possible
for many cities.

So DiGeranimo says people also need to take action at
home. Toronto has been trying to educate people to be
careful what they wash down the drain. And DiGeranimo
says Toronto banned the use of some lawn chemicals
because they were polluting the Lake.

“If I took a bag of chemicals and then just dumped it in the
river, I could charge you for impairing the water quality. But
if you dumped it on your lawn first, and then it ended up in
the creek, that would be okay. So in the city we passed a
bylaw that restricted the use of certain chemicals.”

That kind of ban would be a tough sell in most U.S. cities. It
wasn’t easy in Toronto either.

But Jody Fry says it’s helped the city earn Blue Flags at
many beaches. Fry is Canada’s national Blue Flag program
coordinator. She says people on all shores are starting to do
the work to certify their beaches.

“It raises awareness both at the beach and throughout the
community of what actions people can take to help improve
the water quality. Which, I think, people are looking for,
because they want to help contribute to protecting the
environment.”

The city of Toronto hopes to raise Blue Flags at five more
beaches soon. For now, they want to spread the word – if
you see a Blue Flag flying at the beach, it’s a signal that you
can trust that the water is clean for swimming.

For the
Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Traffic Jam on the Tracks

  • This Canadian National train waits for a signal in South Holland, Illinois. South Holland, like Chicago itself, is criss-crossed with rail lines. South Holland would likely see fewer CN trains move through its town, should CN’s buyout of the EJ & E Railway get federal approval. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

American drivers hate getting stuck
in traffic jams. Well, they don’t get much
sympathy from railroads – they’ve got traffic
jams of their own. There’s one place in
particular where the train’s run so slow it
can take a day to move a train of chemicals,
furniture, and cars just a few miles. One
company tried to buy its way out of the problem.
Reporter Shawn Allee explains how that blew up
into a fight all of us might pay for:

Transcript

American drivers hate getting stuck
in traffic jams. Well, they don’t get much
sympathy from railroads – they’ve got traffic
jams of their own. There’s one place in
particular where the train’s run so slow it
can take a day to move a train of chemicals,
furniture, and cars just a few miles. One
company tried to buy its way out of the problem.
Reporter Shawn Allee explains how that blew up
into a fight all of us might pay for:

If you buy a new car or build a new house, there’s a good chance the stuff to build it
sat in a Chicago-area rail yard for a while. Railroads from the East Coast, the West
Coast, the South, and Canada all converge there. Trains in Chicago compete for
track, so they practically crawl.

Canadian National Railway doesn’t like it, and PR guy Jim Kvedaras, says no one in
America should like it either.

“Everything anybody eats, drinks, wears, lives in, moves by rail somewhere in its
production chain. If we, as the transportation provider, can offer a better service for
customers, the ultimate that contains their cost structure with the ultimate beneficiary
being the consumer.”

Kvedaras says Canadian National has a fix. It would buy a competing rail line that
runs a loop around Chicago. The company would shift trains to that less-congested
track.

The deal needs federal approval, but before that happens, Chicago-area towns are
fighting over it.

Those along the current route tell horror stories of living with too many
trains. Suburbs along the proposed by-pass route don’t want those hassles in their towns.

One place that would benefit by train traffic moving away is South Holland.

Mayor Don DeGraf says a quick car ride shows why he supports the deal.

“We’re approaching the intersection where it’s not at all unusual where we have a
train blockage.”
Shawn Allee: “Speaking of the devil, look right ahead.”

Mayor DeGraf: “It’s right up in front of us. It’s a daily occurrence.”

Allee: “I mean it’s not moving.”

Mayor DeGraf: “No, it’s just standing there. And the reason is very simple: there’s just no place for
these trains to go.”

DeGraf says inconvenience is the least of his worries.

“It becomes almost like the Bermuda Triangle, where you can’t go from one side of
town to the other side of town. So we rely on a neighboring community to give us
additional fire protection for situations like we’re experiencing right now, where a
train’s blocking the crossing.

South Holland is just one of sixty-six towns that could benefit from Canadian National’s buyout of
the by-pass route.

But dozens of towns are fighting the deal. One is Frankfort.

Frankfort gets just a trickle of rail traffic, but it might get four times as many trains
going through town.

Resident Ken Gillette’s backyard is right next to the by-pass route.

“Here I buy a house out here and ten months later, this is gonna go through. I
actually had told me wife, she wanted the house and I says, one day, those tracks
could be sold and there’d be hundreds of trains going by there every week and sure
enough that’s what happened.”

Allee: “Did you guys have some serious discussions after that?”

Gillette: “Oh yeah, not good ones, you know.”

Other Frankfort residents have similar stories. It’s little wonder the town wants the
government to stop Canadian National’s buyout deal.

Mayor Jim Holland says Frankfort’s not just being selfish. He says suburbs will want
protection from traffic hazards, and Canadian National’s offering to pay a fraction of
the cost.

“It’s assumed that the American taxpayer will eventually have to pay for the
overpasses, the extra gates and such that will be put on the railroad. And that’s
mostly United States tax dollars that pay for those.”

There’s no perfect ending to Chicago’s rail traffic mess. Even when companies like
Canadian National want to fix the problem themselves, everyone pays.

We’ll likely pay to soften the blow to towns that will see more trains passing through.
But we also pay higher transportation costs if too many trains sit idle.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Feds Pass on Wolverine Listing

  • Wolverine display at Arctic Interagency Visitor Center at Coldfoot. (Photo from the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:

Transcript

The federal government announced that it will not put
the wolverine on the endangered species list. Steve Carmody
reports:

A federal court ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take a fresh look
at whether the wolverine should be listed. After the review, the agency
announced that it would not propose a listing for the animal.

Shawn Sartorius is the wolverine expert for the Wildlife Service.

He says the wolverine’s future is not dependant on the estimated 500 animals
that live in the lower 48 states.

“The healthy part of the population, the real genetically diverse and well connected population, is in Alaska and
Canada.”

Sartorius says between 15 and 20 thousand Wolverines live in Alaska and
Canada.

Wolverine numbers are down in the lower 48 states because they have been trapped for fur and
pushed out by development.

A former director of the US Fish Wildlife Service called the decision
“irresponsible.”

For the Environment Report, I’m Steve Carmody.

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Breast Cancer Dragon Boat

  • The Dream Team of breast cancer survivors paddles away. (Photo courtesy of the Dream Team)

It’s hard to imagine you would be glad to have breast cancer.
But some women are now saying getting the disease has changed
their lives for the better. These crazy-sounding women are finding new life in a sport called
dragon boat racing. Julie Grant brings us their story:

Transcript

It’s hard to imagine you would be glad to have breast cancer.
But some women are now saying getting the disease has changed
their lives for the better. These crazy-sounding women are finding new life in a sport called
dragon boat racing. Julie Grant brings us their story:


(Sound of women talking and laughing)


The sun is just beginning to set on another weekday as twenty middle-aged women start
gathering near a boathouse. They’re all wearing bright pink racing jerseys.
And they’ve all survived breast cancer.



A few work together to pull the canvas cover off their baby, a long, thin wooden boat.
This is what’s known as a Chinese dragon boat. The front end is a dragon’s head, with a fierce
red face and green scales running down the dragon’s neck. Dragon boat racing started 2500
years ago in China. Some say it was believed to ward off evil and disease.


At this Midwestern boathouse, these breast cancer survivors give thanks for their chance to
paddle a dragon boat. They get in, sit in pairs, and push off. There’s still some fun and laughter,
but most of the women grimace as they attempt to synchronize their race-strokes.


(Sound of prayer)



They get in, sit in pairs and push off. There’s still some fun and laughter, but most of the women grimace as they attempt synchronize their race strokes.


In a race, paddlers stroke about 75 times per minute. That’s a big change for breast cancer
survivors. They used to be told not to use their upper bodies. No carrying groceries, babies, or
vacuuming. It was thought they could get lymphedema, a swelling of the arms. But testing on
women in dragon boating has shown paddling is actually beneficial.


Paddler Lynn Fritz has had two bouts with breast cancer over the past ten years.
Fritz says she’s talked about her feelings with a support group to help her deal with the cancer.
But she loves dragon boating, she says, because it’s helping her get on with her life:


“This was something that I thought, this is fun. Instead of just, gotta introduce myself and say when I
had cancer, don’t worry you’ll get through it. We don’t talk about it out here, out on the lake it’s
just peaceful. I needed it, bad.”



The “Dream Team,” as they’re known, has started competing in dragon boat races. It’s one of
the fastest growing water sports worldwide. Some of the other teams are also exclusive to breast
cancer survivors. The Bosom Buddies and Abreast in a Boat are two Canadian teams. But most
dragon boaters are just regular paddling competitors. The women have to be strong to keep up.
The Dream Team, in only their first year on the water, won one of their races.


(Sound of boat)


Jessica Madder remembers watching dragon boaters from the dock of her vacation home in Nova
Scotia. She always admired the women. She remembers the summer of 2005, toasting them
with pink champagne as they paddled by:


“Little did I know that the following summer, I was going to arrive home and have the birthday greetings that I had developed breast cancer that year and I had been through all the treatments. In fact, I wasn’t even two
months out of treatment when I first got in a dragon boat. So that was my first introduction.”


Madder paddled all that summer in Nova Scotia. Then she came back to her home in Ohio, and
went to see her doctor:


“His nurse greeted me for my appointment and she said, ‘How are you?’ Because of course
she had seen me as a recovering patient in the spring. How are you? And I said, fantastic! I’m so healthy, I’m a
summer athlete. And I just bounced.”


When the doctor saw how well she was doing, he wanted that treatment for the rest of his
patients, so he bought the Dream Team boat and life jackets. Madder didn’t know if she could
recruit 22 women to form a full paddling team. She quickly had 72 interested. She gets teary
when she talks about them:


“I still remember Linda saying to me, ‘I’m a survivor for 11 years and this is the first time the
loneliness of cancer has left my heart.’ I mean, how am I not gonna cry? And then they say thank you. I stand there, and I am so
truthful, and say, look, I did this for myself. I just wanted to paddle a dragon boat.”


Madder jokes with her husband, she wishes she’d been diagnosed ten years earlier. She’s
hoping she’s got enough time left to start a dragon boat team on every waterway in her state.


For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Can Trash Shipments Be Stopped?

Political pressure is building for elected officials to do
something to stop shipments of trash from Canada. But as the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports, there’s no evidence to
suggest Canadian trash haulers will be stopped at the border anytime
soon:

Transcript

Political pressure is building for elected officials to do something to stop
shipments of trash from Canada. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rick Pluta reports, there’s no evidence to suggest Canadian trash haulers
will be stopped at the border anytime soon:


The effort to ban Canadian trash shipments has always been complicated by
the fact that waste headed to landfills is considered a commodity. And – on
the U.S. side of the border – international trafficking in commodities can
only be regulated by the federal government.


There is a bill in Congress to give states such as Michigan the authority to
regulate waste-hauling. And a bill in the Michigan Legislature would ban the
shipments from Canada 90 days after a federal law is enacted.


But there’s a question on whether Congress can hand a federal responsibility
over to the state of Michigan. And there’s a question on whether the state
of Michigan can legally cancel Canada’s contracts with private landfills.


Another possibility is simply increasing dumping fees. But that would place
an added burden on Michigan taxpayers who would also have to pay more to
have their trash hauled away.


For the GLRC, this is Rick Pluta.

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Will Katrina Ease Lumber Trade War?

Hurricane Katrina may be able to do what years of squabbling, negotiations and trade panel rulings have failed to do…lift the duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk explains:

Transcript

Hurricane Katrina may be able to do what years of squabbling, negotiations, and trade panel rulings have failed to do: lift the duties on imports of Canadian softwood lumber to the U.S. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk explains:


There are concerns in the U.S. that the huge job of rebuilding New Orleans in the wake of the hurricane could lead to spikes in the cost of construction materials.


The U.S. Treasury Department says it will monitor the situation, and if it’s in the best public interest, then it could drop the tariffs on Canadian lumber. Jamie Lim is with the Ontario Forest Industries Association. Lim says it would be the best move for all.


“Katrina was a natural disaster, but the illegal tariffs that have been put on lumber over the last twenty years is a man-made disaster, and it’s U.S. consumers who’ve been paying the price.”


Canada provides up to a third of the softwood lumber used in construction in the U.S., but for the past four years, Canadian producers have been paying more than twenty-five percent in tariffs and punitive duties.


That’s estimated to have increased the average cost of a house by about a thousand dollars.


For the GLRC, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

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Officials to Release Draft Water Diversion Agreement

  • The decision as to who gets to use Great Lakes water is currently under debate. (Photo by Helle Bro)

A ground-breaking document that will dictate how Great Lakes water will be used is one step closer to completion. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports on the second draft of the Annex 2001:

Transcript

A groundbreaking document that will dictate how Great Lakes water will be used is one step closer to completion. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports on the second draft of what’s being called the Annex 2001:


The eight Great Lakes governors and their Canadian counterparts are reviewing the document. It could be made public near the end of the month.


Todd Ambes is a water expert. He’s working on the draft on behalf of Wisconsin governor Jim Doyle.


“What we’re trying to do here is come up with an equitable process for dealing with requests for Great Lakes water, whether it is within the basin, or outside of the basin.”


Ambes says that’s more of an issue now because of increasing development just outside the basin’s edge.


Requests for Great Lakes water from those communities have already caused controversy in some areas. That’s because often the groundwater outside the basin doesn’t naturally flow back to the Lakes.


This second draft takes into account more than ten thousand comments from people across the region. Another public review period will begin after it’s made public.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

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