Drilling for Radioactive Gas?

  • The Rulison device at insertion, 1969 (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy Digital Photo Archive)

There are proposals to drill for oil
and gas very close to the site of a
nuclear explosion. The device was
exploded underground in western Colorado
40 years ago this month. Natural gas
from wells near the site could be
distributed throughout the U.S. Some
experts are concerned the natural gas
could be radioactive. Conrad Wilson
reports regulators could allow drilling
closer to the blast site in the next
couple of years:

Transcript

There are proposals to drill for oil
and gas very close to the site of a
nuclear explosion. The device was
exploded underground in western Colorado
40 years ago this month. Natural gas
from wells near the site could be
distributed throughout the U.S. Some
experts are concerned the natural gas
could be radioactive. Conrad Wilson
reports regulators could allow drilling
closer to the blast site in the next
couple of years:

On September 10, 1969 the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a 40-kiloton
nuclear bomb a mile and a half under ground. It was called Project Rulison. The
bomb was three times the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima.

The idea was to find peaceful uses for nuclear weapons. The federal government
hoped that nukes could be used to free up pockets of gas trapped below.

(sound of video)

The nuke did free up gas.

The government tested the gas by flaring it – burning it in the open – over the next
year. They discovered the natural gas was radioactive.

Marian Wells is a long time resident of Rulison. Her parent’s home was close to
the detonation site and the gas flares. Both of her parents died of cancer. So did
many of her neighbors.

She spoke before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

“My parents were given no notice that you were flaring contaminated gas. And
yet both my parents died of cancer. Cancer is prevalent in this area. And yes, no
one has studied those cause and effect. You don’t really care about us.”

There’s been no government studies connecting cancer and the Rulison blast,
but the community remains fearful and suspicious.

Gas drilling is allowed as close as three miles of the blast site. That natural gas
is piped around the country.

Now some companies say they want to drill for natural gas within a half mile of
ground zero.

The Department of Energy maintains that, for the most part, the gas near the
blast site is safe, but there’s some uncertainly.

Jack Craig heads up the Rulison site for the Department of Energy. Craig says
drilling closer to the nuclear blast site should move forward slowly.

“What we’re saying is do it in a sequential manor. So that you come in slowly
testing the wells as you go in for contaminants – specifically tritium – and, if you
don’t find anything, move in closer.”

Tritium is a radioactive substance produced by the blast. Breathing tritium can
cause cancer.

Chris Canfield works on environmental protection for the state oil and gas
commission. He heads up an annual audit on the Rulison site.

Canfield: “Simply put, everything that’s coming out of the ground is being
sampled, being analyzed.”

Wilson: “If someone were to come to you and say they want to drill within the
half mile of the Rulison blast site, would you say that’s safe?”

Canfield: “I wouldn’t really know at this time.”

Canfield says that the state would require a special hearing before it would
approve any drilling permits any closer.

Oil and gas commissioner Jim Martin says there are still too many unanswered
questions to allow drilling that close to the blast site.

“There are significant information gaps and that makes is very difficult to really
understand the risks either to the workers or to the public who live within some
distance of the drill site.”

Martin says he understands why people are skeptical. He says the United States
has made a lot of mistakes with radioactive materials. Navajo uranium miners
got cancer because of radio exposure. People downwind of above ground
detonations suffered. Martin says skepticism is warranted.

“So it’s not unreasonable to ask some pretty tough questions of the federal
government before we go further into that half mile perimeter and produce more
gas.”

Gas that could be burned to heat homes across the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

Related Links

Destructive Beetle Creates Blue Wood

  • These mountain pine beetles are very destructive, killing millions of trees (Photo courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Research Station)

For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating

forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:

Transcript

For more than a decade, mountain pine beetles have been devastating

forests in Canada and the Western United States. Colorado
has been hit especially hard. Millions of dead pines are creating the potential for huge forest fires. So, the trees are being cut
down. Conrad Wilson reports, some business are using that
timber:

(sound of a beetle)

That’s the sound of mountain pine beetles hard at work, laying
eggs beneath a tree’s bark. That kills the tree.

Here in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains,
two million acres of pine trees have been killed.

But the same destruction caused by the bugs has also created an
opportunity.

The beetles introduce a fungus that stains the wood a unique
blue. And that’s caught the attention of Colorado’s woodworkers. They’re using the wood for everything from furniture to decking.

(sound of sawing and pounding)

Outside Boulder, a company called Kitchens by Wedgewood is using the wood for
cabinets.

Wedgewood President Jim Ames says his company started working
with the timber three years ago.

Despite the drop in the housing market, Ames says customers like the blue stained finish.

“People are starting to ask for it more and more. Again, as
we get into this green movement, everybody wants to see what all those
dead trees in Colorado look like when they’re turned into a cabinet door.”

Ames says, with so many trees being killed, there will be enough timber to make beetle
wood cabinets for the rest of his lifetime.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

Related Links

Fighting Over Oil and Water

  • The richest oil shale deposits lie in the Piceance Basin, which runs northwest of the town of Rifle, Colorado. The bands of dark grey along the edge of this snow- capped ridge are oil shale. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes over water in the American
West a lot worse. It’s because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.
Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the richest oil shale deposits happen to be
in the dry state of Colorado. Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and
oil could be in the works:

Transcript

In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes over water in the American
West a lot worse. It’s because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.
Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the richest oil shale deposits happen to be
in the dry state of Colorado. Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and
oil could be in the works:

Oil companies have their eyes on vast oil shale deposits in western Colorado, Utah and
Wyoming.

The federal government says companies could pull 800 billion barrels of oil out of that shale.

That’s about three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.

Oil shale’s an impressive resource but it depends on water and there’s not much available
there.

How much would an oil shale industry need?

Shell Oil PR guy Tracy Boyd says the simple answer is that it will likely take his company
three barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil.

It’s because oil shale doesn’t really have oil in it – it’s got something called kerogen.

“You can heat this kerogen up. If you do it really slow, which we do for about 3.5 –
4 years, by putting heaters down in the rock formation, (you) produce a crude-oil
like material but with a little processing this is the first product we get out of it
which basically transportation fuels.”

Heating the ground require loads of electricity from new power plants and generators, and
they’d be cooled by water.

Oil companies are just experimenting with shale right now, but they’re securing rights to
water just in case.

Shell’s latest water claim is on Colorado’s Yampa River.

When Shell filed its court papers – some town governments warned they might fight the
claim.

One of these towns was Parker – a Denver suburb hundreds of miles east of the oil shale
region.

Frank Jaeger runs Parker’s water district.

Jaeger says, like other Colorado cities, Parker plans to expand.

“We know approximately what our numbers are and it will be somewhere in the
neighborhood of 150,000 people. In order to assure 150,000 people for another
150 years from now, I have to be proactive, I have to be at the front of the line for
the next drop of water available in the State of Colorado.”

Oil shale developers and cities across Colorado are set to fight over the water they might
need for the future, but some feel oil companies already have an edge.

“They’re actually one step ahead of the game.”

David Ableson is with Western Resource Advocates, an environmental group.

Ableson says energy companies tried developing oil shale several times in the last century.

They failed, but each time, they bought more water rights – just in case.

Now, they’ve got loads of water rights – and if the industry takes off, they’ll use them.

That could stop cities like Denver and its suburbs from getting water they hoped to have for
new homes and businesses.

Ableson says this isn’t just a Colorado fight, though.

He says some congressmen sell the idea of oil shale as an energy source the whole country
can depend on – even though its future could get tied up in Colorado water courts.

“And so, folks who are looking at this issue who do not live in CO, UT, or WY, need
to understand that when an elected official says, “this can solve our energy woes,”
that it’s actually a far more complicated situation than that and if there are severe
water impacts, that makes it much less likely that you could develop that
resource.”

The energy industry claims the concern over water is overblown – they say they just might
not need all that much water.

Ableson says that’s only true if oil shale fails. But if it succeeds, and we fill up on oil shale
gasoline – he predicts some towns or industries in the West will be left dry.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Getting Water to the Dry, Dry West

  • Colorado Springs pumps water through the Rocky Mountains into town (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau)

Out West, a lot of cities figure many more people will be moving in over the next few decades. Water engineers wish those people would bring along all the water they’ll need, but of course they won’t. Shawn Allee reports these cities want to pipe more water from far away, and some people think that’s a bad idea:

Transcript

Out West, a lot of cities figure many more people will be moving in over the next few
decades. Water engineers wish those people would bring along all the water they’ll
need, but of course they won’t. Shawn Allee reports these cities want to pipe more
water from far away, and some people think that’s a bad idea:

The air in Colorado Springs is usually so dry it quickly chaps your lips.

What gives? Colorado Springs sounds wet enough.

“There’re really no springs in Colorado Springs, so when you start talking
about water, it’s a divergence between our name and reality. Sounds like we
had a lot, and in reality we didn’t.”

This is Matt Mayberry, Colorado Spring’s historian.

I’ve heard about this massive water pipeline project the town’s cooking up, and I was
curious just how long the city’s worked to quench its thirst.

Mayberry’s got an exhaustive book on that with an exhaustive title.

“Blah, blah, blah … the emergence and appropriation of rights in Colorado
Springs.”

The crib notes version?

Early on, buffalo manure poisoned Colorado Spring’s creek, so people dug wells.

Then, the wells got infested with grasshoppers.

And the town grew, and grew, and grew again.

“Very soon you had to bring water from further away, and ultimately to the
Western Slope which is a couple hours drive of here.”

Today, Colorado Springs pipes water through the Rocky Mountain range.

Doing the extraordinary for water is kinda ordinary for Colorado Springs.

Its latest pipeline project is called the Southern Delivery System, and it’ll pump nearly
80 million gallons into town each year – and it’ll pump that water forty five miles –
completely uphill.

Impressive, but some people are asking tough questions about it.

“Our concern with this project is the greenhouse gas emissions that it would
contribute to.”

Stacy Tellinghuisen is with Western Resource Advocates, a Colorado environmental
group.

She says there’s a connection between pumping water uphill and a large carbon
footprint.

“Water is heavy. Pumping it over a great distance takes a lot of energy, and
in the process it would require something along the lines of 60 MW of power,
which is about a tenth of a power plant.”

And, for the most part, the utility burns natural gas and coal to generate power. Both
emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

Tellinghuisen says Western cities are considering at least five other water pipeline
projects, some with even larger carbon footprints.

She wants Colorado Springs to set an example by using dedicated low-carbon sources
like wind power for its water pumps.

I ask the Colorado Springs Utilities about that.

Keith Riley helped plan the Southern Delivery System.

“We think there are some ways we can minimize the carbon footprint by
looking at some new technologies.”

Riley says there were lots of environmental regulations to wade through before the
Southern Delivery System got approved.

But a large carbon footprint doesn’t disqualify utility projects.

Riley says, even if carbon were considered, the project might have gone forward
anyway because the city’s expected to grow over the next few decades.

“Water is the essential element for all of us, so when it comes to that level of
sustaining our own lives, then you get to some trade-offs on what we’re
willing to do to keep ourselves alive where we we live, where our cities are.
No matter what happens, we’ve got to move water to Colorado Springs, and
we’re uphill from the river, so we’ve got to get the water uphill one way or
another.”

Riley says Colorado Springs Utilities is considering low-carbon renewable power for its
new pipeline.

But it’ll be expensive, and no one’s stepped forward with all the money.

Other Western cities are engineering clever ways of moving loads of water around,
too. And it’ll be a political and financial challenge for them to pay for the carbon
footprint.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

New ‘Deer Crossing’ Technology

  • The Colorado Department of Transportation is trying out a new system to detect deer about to cross the highway (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Every year there are about 1.5 million
deer-car accidents. Now highway officials are
testing a new system to cut down on those
accidents. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Every year there are about 1.5 million
deer-car accidents. Now highway officials are
testing a new system to cut down on those
accidents. Rebecca Williams has more:

There are some animal detection systems that use lasers or infrared motion
sensors. But those systems can be tripped by tumbleweeds or small animals.

In Colorado, highway officials are testing a new device.

Nancy Shanks is with the Colorado Department of Transportation. She says
they’ve buried cables along each side of the highway. The cables emit an
electromagnetic field. When an animal crosses a cable a warning sign with a
picture of a jumping deer lights up.

“It will detect a change in the field to the tune of a large animal. The system
will not pick up a smaller animal – a skunk or a rabbit, mouse.”

This cable system isn’t cheap. The pilot project costs 1.2 million dollars.

But Shanks says if this system works out, the price should come down a bit
over time.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Cougars Creep Into Suburbia

Wildlife biologists say cougars are gradually moving from the Mountain
West into Midwestern states. Usually the large cats avoid people, but in
one suburban neighborhood residents are worried. They say they’ve
spotted a cougar in their backyards six times in the last two years. They’re
worried about their pets. They’re worried about their kids. Bob Allen
reports:

Transcript

Wildlife biologists say cougars are gradually moving from the Mountain
West into Midwestern states. Usually the large cats avoid people, but in
one suburban neighborhood residents are worried. They say they’ve
spotted a cougar in their backyards six times in the last two years. They’re
worried about their pets. They’re worried about their kids. Bob Allen
reports:


On a June morning two years ago, David Hanawalt was hunched over a
flower bed in his back yard loosening the soil with a hand rake. He says
he caught something out of the corner of his eye moving toward him:


“I started to prepare myself because it seemed like a large dog that was
making a beeline for me.”


(Allen:)”As if it was going to jump on you?”


“Yeah. And as soon as I stood up and turned it veered off. And the way it
ran, the way it moved, and its ears, I swear it was a cat.”


The cat disappeared into a patch of brushy woods behind his
house. Hanawalt says he became more convinced it was a cougar when his wife, T, saw
a big cat with a long tail sauntering across a neighbor’s blacktop driveway.


“…And it was just walking up like this. Just walking up. And then it went
just right off into those woods. Casually. It wasn’t in any hurry.”


The creature’s nonchalance is what has people in this northern Michigan
neighborhood worried. Some of them have read David Baron’s book
Beast in the Garden. It recounts how people have built their houses in
foothills surrounding Boulder, Colorado, right into prime mountain lion
country, then they saw cougars coming into their yards, taking their dogs and cats.
Eventually, a cougar killed a high school boy when he was jogging on a
wooded trail outside Boulder.


There are significant differences between the situations in Colorado and
Michigan, but author David Baron says if people are seeing a cougar and
it’s not running away from them, and in fact begins to approach them, then
that can be a warning sign:


“That’s what was seen in Boulder in the years before there was a fatal
attack not too far from Boulder. That’s what was seen in Missoula,
Montana back in the late ’90s before a little boy was attacked who did
survive. But again, if there are multiple reports of what is clearly a cougar
in one neighborhood, it’s probably worth looking into.”


Back in the northern Michigan subdivision Patty Barrons lives in the
house at the end of the cul-de-sac. It backs right up to a stretch of woods.
She was walking up the street one early morning last August when she
spied a big cat heading into her back yard. She took off running for her
front door because she remembered she’d left her housecat on the back
deck:


“…And I ran through the house, and onto my deck and down the two steps.
And went, I can’t believe I did this, it’s so embarrassing but I went, shoo,
shoo.”


It didn’t shoo.


Instead, Barrons says, it turned and took two steps toward her. She took
two steps back onto the porch. Barrons describes the animal as
enormous. She says she and the big cat watched each other from a
distance of fifteen feet for about half a minute:


“The face when we looked at each other eye to eye I felt that I was looking
at, I mean I knew I was looking at a lion. I knew I was looking at a lion,
there was no doubt. It was very muscular. It never crouched down or
anything so I didn’t feel threatened. But it stared at me and then, um, it
turned and walked around my flower garden, behind the tennis courts
and kept going.”


Patty Barrons keeps a careful eye out when she takes her early morning
walks, and she won’t work in her garden in the early morning or
late evening hours anymore.


(Sound of model airplanes buzzing)


Next to her house is an open field where kids play soccer and neighbors
walk their dogs, and its where T Hanawalt’s sons fly the remote controlled
model airplanes they love to build, but she won’t let them go out by
themselves anymore:


“Day or night. I mean they used to run around this neighborhood and play
with all the children at night and we’re not doing that anymore. I just, I
can’t have that it’s too scary. In fact, I’m looking to move.”


State wildlife officials won’t come out to investigate unless there’s clear
evidence of what could be a cougar. That means a photo, a paw print,
maybe some scat or droppings from the animal.


The people in this neighborhood didn’t get any of that, but now they have
their cell phone cameras handy.


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Could Humans Get Chronic Wasting Disease?

  • A deer wasting away from Chronic Wasting Disease. (Photo courtesy of Michigan's Department of Natural Resources.)

A disease that infects deer and elk has been alarming wildlife officials and hunters for years. But now it seems the disease could be more dangerous than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

A disease that infects deer and elk has been alarming wildlife officials
and hunters for years, but now it seems the disease could be more
dangerous than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Christina Shockley reports:


Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD, affects the brain tissue of deer and
elk. Sponge-like holes form in the brains of sick animals. The deer
begin to waste away, become weak, and then die.


Since CWD was discovered in Colorado nearly forty years ago, wild deer
in nine other states have tested positive for the disease. Little is known
about CWD – including how to stop it.


What scientists do know is that the infectious proteins-called prions –
thought to cause CWD are found in the brain and spinal cord areas of
infected animals, but officials still don’t have the answer to the big
question.


Judd Aiken is a professor of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences at
the University of Wisconsin.


“The ultimate question is whether venison from infected animals, CWD infected
deer, poses a risk to humans. Clearly the first question that needed to be
asked and addressed was whether there was infectivity in muscle.”


Recent findings say there is.


Researchers at the University of Kentucky injected muscle from an
infected deer into the brains of genetically altered mice. The mice
displayed signs of CWD. This is the first time the infectious proteins
blamed for CWD have been found in deer meat.


The finding raises questions about whether eating venison is safe.
Researchers including Aiken say the study is important, but has limits.
For example, he says it doesn’t replicate what would happen in real life.
Plus, he says it’s probably unlikely humans can even get CWD. He says
studies suggest it’s difficult for the disease to jump to other species. Still,
he urges caution. Hunters should get the meat tested before they eat deer
from an area where CWD has been found.


“I, in no way, can advocate the consumption of infected deer, and indeed,
I would suggest due to the limitations of the CW tests, I don’t advocate
the consumption of deer obtained from a CWD endemic area.”


Even if the test comes back negative, Aiken says a negative result isn’t
always accurate, and infected animals in the beginning stages of the
disease can look and act normal.


(Sound of sporting goods store)


John White is a deer hunter from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He’s in the
hunting section of a nearby sporting goods store. White isn’t too
concerned about Chronic Wasting Disease.


“Not a whole lot of people are worried about it. I mean, when it first
came out, some people were a little leery about it and didn’t want to hunt
that year, but they kinda got over it. I’m not really worried about it being
in the meat at all, because by the time the test comes back I’ll probably
have the deer eaten already and then it’s already too late.”


State wildlife officials say… that’s not a good idea. They recommend that
if you hunt deer in areas where the disease has been found, get the deer
tested before eating it. That message hasn’t changed… since learning the
prions could be in the meat. Some argue… it should change.


John Stauber is with a government watchdog group in Wisconsin, and
is co-author of “Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?”
He says officials are keeping quiet about the risk of CWD so they don’t
lose revenue from hunting licenses.


A large portion of state conservation agency budgets are dependent on
fees from hunting licenses. He says all deer that die should be tested for
the disease. Stauber also says CWD is a major human health concern.


“The biggest risk might not be the people who would die from
eating venison, but rather, the people who would die from the
contamination of the blood supply. This is a problem that would unfold
not in days or months or years, but even over decades.”


Stauber says it’s just a matter of time before Chronic Wasting Disease
spreads to people… he says some might even have the disease already,
and not know it.


But researchers like Judd Aiken from the University of Wisconsin say
people shouldn’t over-react.


“People should be concerned, but I don’t want people to panic, either. If
you think you may have consumed venison from infected animals, I don’t
think it’s likely that you’ll ever develop a human prion disease.”


But, Aiken says there’s too much we don’t know about the disease, and
since studies can take years to complete, we might be in the dark for a
while longer.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

Related Links

Containing Chronic Wasting Disease

  • An elk showing symptoms of chronic wasting disease. CWD affects elk, white-tailed deer and mule deer. It's not known to be naturally transmissible to livestock or people. (Photo by Dr. Beth Williams, University of Wyoming, courtesy of CWD Alliance)

Throughout most of the Great Lakes region,
there are huge numbers of white-tailed deer. Deer don’t have the natural predators that they once did… so states rely on hunters to manage the deer herds. Recently, that’s become even more important with the discovery of a fatal disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports there’s extra pressure on hunters to keep the disease from spreading:

Transcript

Throughout most of the Midwest/Great Lakes region, there are huge numbers of
white-tailed deer. Deer don’t have the natural predators that they once did…
so states rely on hunters to manage the deer herds. Recently, that’s become even
more important with the discovery of a fatal disease. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Rebecca Williams reports there’s extra pressure on hunters to keep the disease from spreading:


“How are you today? Successful morning, or are these from yesterday? This
morning… oh okay…”


Hunters are bringing their deer into a check station. Department of Natural Resources staff
determine the age of the deer by looking at their teeth. If it’s an adult deer, a technician
saws the head off so brain tissue and lymph nodes can be tested for chronic wasting disease.


(sound of deer head being cut off)


Chronic wasting disease, or CWD, affects white-tailed deer, mule deer and elk. It’s always
fatal. So far, there’s no evidence that CWD can hurt people or livestock. For now, most wildlife
managers are just worried about the health of the deer herds.


Western states such as Colorado and Wyoming have been dealing with CWD for decades. Wisconsin
found the disease in wild deer in early 2002. Illinois found the disease later the same year.
So far, it hasn’t shown up in wild deer in neighboring states, such as Indiana, Michigan or
Minnesota.


Wisconsin has a lot of deer crowded into a relatively small space, and that worries state
officials. Tami Ryan is a wildlife supervisor with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.


“Some of the genetic research that’s been done to date on Wisconsin deer, they are not
resistant to CWD. It could be severely detrimental to the herd, which is why we feel so
strongly about trying to contain the disease where it exists and prevent it from spreading.”


Wisconsin’s attempting what state officials call aggressive herd reduction. At first, the
state wanted to kill all the deer in the heart of the disease eradication zone. Now, the state
wants to kill five of every six deer in those zones. That means reducing the deer to fewer than
five per square mile.


The Department of Natural Resources is trying to do this by making hunting seasons longer
and handing out more permits. In the disease eradication zones, people can hunt on private
land all fall and all winter – September to March.


Many hunters say they like the opportunity to take a few extra deer. Mike Snodgrass hunts
regularly in one of the areas where the state’s trying to reduce the herd.


“From just being out and observing the deer, there’s a huge number of deer out in the woods.
I’ll do my part, I enjoy the venison, and so I’ll take a couple of does out, no problem.”


The Department of Natural Resources says hunter participation is crucial for controlling
chronic wasting disease. That’s because the state doesn’t have nearly enough wardens to kill
all those deer.


State officials worried at first that CWD would turn hunters off from the sport. But from some
recent surveys, it’s been clear that most hunters say they understand the problem and they still
want to hunt where they’ve hunted every year – whether or not there are sick animals in those
areas.


The state’s also reaching out to private landowners. Most of the land in the disease zones is
privately owned. The state’s encouraging landowners to open up their land to more hunters.


Mike Albert is a landowner who hunts. He owns 275 acres near where the first three infected
wild deer were found. Albert says he’s hesitant to open up his land to strangers, but he does
let friends and family hunt on his land. He says something has to be done about chronic wasting
disease, but he says he’s afraid the state’s going too far.


“It’s not that I don’t feel a responsibility to help. As an ethical hunter when you’re asked to
just blatantly shoot every deer you see no matter how, it’s hard to overcome that. They’re asking
us to totally devastate our herd, ruin our tradition, and do all this stuff before we know for
sure whether it’s the right thing to do.”


Albert says more of the effort should be focused on understanding the disease before acting.
Researchers are still asking many questions about the disease itself. It’s still not known
exactly how the disease is transmitted.


Beth Williams is a veterinarian at the University of Wyoming. She’s also a leading expert on
CWD. Williams says there aren’t any proven methods for stopping CWD. She says killing off
much of the deer herd is controversial, but the state’s options are limited.


“I think it was a good idea for Wisconsin to see whether or not taking fairly radical steps
like they have to do their herd reduction, whether or not that might stop CWD. The alternative
is, based on everything that we know, if you don’t try and do something, the disease is then
going to spread.”


Williams says it’ll be years before anyone can tell whether reducing the deer herds
will help. But many people agree chronic wasting disease needs to be stopped as soon
as possible, before it spreads to deer herds in neighboring states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

West Nile Virus Shifts West

The risk of contracting West Nile virus from mosquitoes is highest at this time of year. Nationwide, the number of serious cases is up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

The risk of contracting West Nile virus from mosquitoes
is highest at this time of year. Nationwide, the number of
serious cases is up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca
Williams has more:


West Nile virus made its way farther west late last year,
reaching Colorado, and it continues to spread.


Dr. Anthony Marfin is an epidemiologist with the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. He says nationwide this year,
health officials have reported more serious cases of West Nile
virus than last year at this time.


“So we have every reason to believe we’ll have as many cases
this year as we did last year. It’s just that it’s somewhat
shifted, it’s more in the west and the north central states.”


Marfin says early mosquito control efforts in the Great Lakes
states might have helped.


“States and communities that have a large number of cases
do a lot more preparation in the coming year to reduce the number of breeding
sites for mosquitoes.”


Marfin says it’s still important to avoid getting bitten by
mosquitoes, and to drain standing water where mosquitoes breed.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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WHAT IS CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE? (Part 1)

Wildlife officials in the Midwest are battling the appearance of a deadly illness found in elk and deer. Called chronic wasting disease, or CWD, this ailment attacks an animal’s brain, slowly eating away healthy tissue. Several captive elk herds in the western U.S. and Canada have been infected with chronic wasting disease. Those herds have now been quarantined, but not before other animals from those herds were sold to farmers in 21 states nationwide, including several in the Midwest. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby has this first report of a two-part series:

Transcript

Wildlife officials in the Midwest are battling the appearance of a deadly illness found in elk and deer. Called chronic wasting disease, or CWD, this ailment attacks an animal’s brain, slowly eating away healthy tissue. Several captive elk herds in the western U.S. and Canada have been infected with chronic wasting disease. Those herds have now been quarantined, but not before other animals from those herds were sold to farmers in 21 states nationwide, including several in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby reports.


Chronic wasting disease is a neurological disorder. That means it affects the nervous system of elk and deer. It’s related to a number of other conditions, including scrapies in sheep and mad cow disease. Humans can also contract something similar — it’s called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.


All these conditions are related — and that’s making some health officials nervous. That’s because at least one, mad cow, can be transferred to humans. Dennis Stauffer is a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He says now more and more people are also keeping an eye on CWD.


“It’s been called the mad cow disease of deer. It is certainly similar biologically. There are also some important differences. Unlike mad cow disease, or CWD as we call it, we don’t yet have any evidence it is transmittable to humans. So that particular health risk is not confirmed.”


But that doesn’t stop people from worrying.


In the 1990s, mad cow disease in Great Britain triggered a similar ailment in humans, eventually killing dozens of people. But public health officials downplayed that possibility, leading to less vigilance in eliminating mad cow. Some people now say the same thing is happening here with CWD. Sheldon Rampton is the author of “Mad Cow U.S.A.”


“You are getting the same pattern of reassurances. The same pattern of government authorities and government scientists coming forward and not quite saying there is no danger, but saying they don’t see any evidence of danger. And then saying that in such a way that the public is led to believe that absence of evidence is evidence of absence.”


One of the problems is, little is known about the disease. Kris Petrini is a veterinarian with the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.


“We don’t know exactly what the incubation period is. We don’t know the youngest possible time an animal can get infected. The testing itself, right now, the only test we have that we can do is the animal has to be sacrificed and the brain tested.”


The outward signs of CWD aren’t exhibited until death is near. Again, Dennis Stauffer of the Minnesota DNR.


“Well, if you were to see a picture of one of these animals, they would be stumbling around, they would look wasted away. In advance stages, they would look disoriented, they would tend not to fear humans. They would look very, very sick and it would be very obvious that they are sick animals.”


Since learning that 36 elk from CWD-infected herds in Colorado and Canada were imported to Minnesota, state officials have set up a voluntary CWD surveillance program. All herds with exposed animals are participating in the program. Of the elk tested for CWD so far, none have had CWD.


(sound from Spooner, Wisconsin deer testing station: Cars on nearby two-lane highway.)


In neighboring Wisconsin, state officials are aggressively testing for CWD. On the opening weekend of deer hunting season, veterinarians took hundreds of brain samples from dead animals at locations throughout the state. In previous years, such efforts turned up no cases of CWD in the wild deer population, just like Minnesota. Ken Jonas is a wildlife biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.


“Right now, I’m not too concerned. If I were in Colorado or perhaps Wyoming or a state that was near to a chronic infection, I would be very concerned.”


While Kris Petrini, the Minnesota veterinarian, understands CWD hasn’t made it into the wild deer population, she says she wouldn’t be surprised to find it among the captive elk population in the state.


“No, not completely. Not with the number of elk we have and the amount of trading that goes on in the industry, I think it is highly possible that we will find chronic wasting disease.”


Six western states are home to elk herds with CWD infections. Elk farmers in another 15 states — including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — own animals from the original infected herds. So far, tests haven’t turned up any traces of CWD in herds with exposed animals in those states.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Todd Melby in Minneapolis.