Greening the Capital City’s Rooftops

  • This high-rise green roof in Washington DC required a large crane to lift the soil and gravel onto three floors. (Photo courtesy of DC Greenworks)

Green roofs are increasing in popularity across the US, especially in cities, where
there’s not a lot of space for gardens. Sabri Ben Achour explores the trend in
Washington, DC, where the city government is promoting the practice for it’s
environmental benefits:

Transcript

Green roofs are increasing in popularity across the US, especially in cities, where
there’s not a lot of space for gardens. Sabri Ben Achour explores the trend in
Washington, DC, where the city government is promoting the practice for it’s
environmental benefits:

In Washington, you can see flowers and vegetables growing on top of homes,
businesses, even government buildings throughout the city. DC officials say
Washington has nearly 70,000 square feet of rooftop greenery. Only Chicago has
more.

One big fan of these so called green roofs is a popular small hotel, Tabard Inn, just a
few blocks from the White House.

“There’s about 10 varieties of sedum on this roof.”

Sarah Murphy is giving a tour. She’s a horticulturalist.

“This is a very pungent oregano here on the corner, it looks heavily used.”

The city of Washington pays building owners about one-fourth of the cost of
incorporating greenery on rooftops. One big reason? Rainwater runoff.

Sarah Loveland works for an environmental consulting non-profit called DC
Greenworks.

She says Washington has what’s called a combined sewer system. The sewer
system doesn’t just take in what’s flushed down the drain, but also all the rain
running off roofs and streets.

“If you imagine that our sewage treatment plant has a dam, and the sewage system
combines with the storm water system before the treatment plant.”

So, when there’s a heavy rain, that dam at the sewage treatment plant overflows.

“You have both raw sewage and runoff from the streets going directly into the river
untreated.”

Three billion gallons of it a year, at one point.

The EPA sued the District of Columbia.

The city had to spend $150 million to address the problem. Part of that money goes
to green roof grants.

The green roofs slow down rain water – give it some place to soak instead of just
running off straight down the gutter. The city says roofs in the city prevent a million
gallons of storm water runoff from entering the Potomac River.

The roofs also insulate buildings – especially during the summer. Some studies
show they reduce energy costs by 20-30%. And they reduce the heat island effect in
the city, since they don’t get blisteringly hot like traditional roofs.

Green Roofs even offer some habitat for creatures, like bees.

Sarah Loveland with Greenworks, the consultant agency, says rooftop gardens are
also increasingly popular for growing food.

“Veggies are really popular, herbs are really popular – this is a trend that’s taking off
in the restaurant industry. There’s a lot of buzz around it.”

Blueberries and herbs abound in the rooftop gardens of the Tabard Inn, where Paul
Pell is executive chef.

(sound of celery chopping)

“Yeah, we go up and get whatever we want, so it’s fresh. We just climb out the
window when we need it. Chocolate basil goes with ice cream, nasturtiums go with
soups and salads.”

Washington has an advantage over some larger cities in its promotion of rooftop
gardens because federal law prohibits skyscrapers in the nation’s capital, so most
buildings don’t cast shadows over their neighbors.

As a result, most rooftops are sunny – all they need is greenery to soak up the rays.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sabri Ben-Achour.

Related Links

Stopping Septic Seepage

  • Dan Jacin stands by his newly landscaped sewage tanks (Photo by Julie Grant)

There’s an underground threat to water that’s making it harder to clean up for drinking. Julie Grant reports – it all
depends on where you live and whether the people who live nearby are maintaining their septic systems:

Transcript

There’s an underground threat to water that’s making it harder to clean up for drinking. Julie Grant reports – it all
depends on where you live and whether the people who live nearby are maintaining their septic systems:

More than one of every four homes uses its own septic
system.

That means it’s not hooked up to a city sewer line. When a
toilet is flushed, the water doesn’t go to a central treatment
plant. Instead, it drains into a septic system buried in the
yard. It’s supposed to decompose using a natural process to
clean it up before going back to the environment.

The problem is – those septics don’t get enough attention.

When they fail, as about one-in-five does, that untreated
toilet water winds up in rivers, lakes and wells. In a lot of
places, that untreated sewage drains into our sources of
drinking water.

“Well obviously, there’s potential health risks, that’s the
number one.”

Nate McConoughey is the sewage program manager with
the Board of Health in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He spends
a lot of his time inspecting home septics to see if they’re
working.

“We don’t want these pathogens getting out into the
environment and getting into the creeks and streams and
rivers that people come in contact with.”

Or get their drinking water from.

Even though he’s trying to protect water quality,
McConoughey is not a popular guy with homeowners.

“Nobody really wants to see you come out and take a look at
their system. Because most people with 40-plus year old
systems realize that they’re probably not working as good as
they should.”

It’s McConoughey’s job – and the other inspectors he works
with – to tell people when their system is leaking sewage,
and when it’s time to put in a new system.

“We’ve all seen people with different reactions. Whether it
be crying or very irate.”

People get so upset because replacing a septic system
costs big bucks.

Just ask Dan Jacin. Last summer he had to dig up his front
lawn and put in a new set of sewage treatment tanks.

“Oh yeah, it tears up your yard for a year and hits your wallet
pretty hard.”

But Jacin says he didn’t have a choice. His 43-year old
system was backing up atrocious-smelling sewage into his
basement.

“I wanted relief from sewage coming into my house, because
that’s just not a fun deal at all.”

Jacin also had sewage burping up in his yard.

If a septic is working right, sewage drains from the house
into a tank. And it’s slowly sent from the tank into an
underground absorption area – where it filters through the
soil.

But Jacin’s septic wasn’t working anymore. The sewage
was draining off his property into a nearby stream.

(sound of a stream)

This stream runs into the Cuyahoga River, which runs into
Lake Erie – a major source of drinking water. Jacin felt
badly about causing that pollution.

But he felt even worse about paying for his new septic
system. It cost more than $20,000!

“And just fortunately I had enough money to replace it at the
time. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have the
money. Who’s going to give you a loan to replace your
septic tank?”

Now Jacin’s lawn has grown back, he’s landscaped to hide
the treatment tanks. And he’s glad he’s no longer polluting
the waterways.

But he still isn’t happy about spending all that money.

Inspector Nate McConoughey understands. But he says
there are low-interest loans available for new septics – and
they’ve got to be maintained – so the water is clean for
drinking and other uses.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Video Games Shoot Up Energy Bills

  • Playing Sonic on a Wii. The Nintendo Wii uses less energy than Sony's Playstation 3 and the XBox 360. (Photo by Manish Prabhune)

People across the country are firing up one of their favorite gifts they got from the holidays – video games. Mark Brush reports on some surprising results about what home video games can do to your energy bill:

Transcript

People across the country are firing up one of their favorite gifts they got from the holidays – video games. Mark Brush reports on some surprising results about what home video games can do to your energy bill:

Video games are a quick escape into an alternate reality… (snd up) fortunately with multiple lives.

(snd of gunfire)

There’s a war going on in this basement.

Taurus and his partner Walt are using their M-16s, grenades, and knives to fight off the enemy.

(snd)

In real life – Taurus is Will Frey.

He’s a sophomore at Michigan State University.

And he’s been working really hard on his overall ranking:

“So I am currently seven hundred and eleven thousandth”

That sounds really bad.

But actually it’s really good.

He’s better than more than 5 million other people playing Call of Duty 4 on their Xbox consoles.

It’s estimated that forty percent of U-S Households have a video game.

And that number is growing.

The games are played for hours and hours – but they’re also left on – even if nobody’s playing them:

“A lot of sports games – you can’t save in the middle of a game – and the games are like usually a half an hour, so if you’re like twenty minutes and you have to leave, you don’t want to lose that twenty minutes kind of thing you know.”

Frey says he has friends that leave their games on all the time.

They never shut them off.

Some don’t want to lose their progress in a game, and some, he says, are just plain lazy.

The Natural Resources Defense Council says some game designers overlook the energy footprint of these things.

They added up the energy used by all the gamers in the country in a year’s time. And found it roughly equals the juice drawn by a big US city in one year.

The report’s authors compared the energy used by the three most popular gaming consoles.

And the big energy winner was the Nintendo Wii.

It uses about 8 times less energy than Sony’s Playstation 3 or Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

That’s because the Wii doesn’t have the same kind of high end graphics and sound as the Xbox and Playstation – those take a lot more power to run.

Nick Zigelbaum is an energy analyst with the NRDC.

He says the games should be designed better:

“What people don’t realize is that video game consoles, although they’re very similar to laptops and computers in terms of hardware, they don’t go to sleep or go into idle mode like a computer would.”

Zigelbaum says the power hungry XBOX and Playstation games do have an autoshutdown option.

That means the games will automatically turn off if nobody’s using them.

But the games are shipped with the option turned off.

You have to manually set it.

And not all games are equal.

For some games it’s easy to save your progress – for others…
you might lose your spot in that twenty four hour car race.

Zigelbaum says that’s where the industry needs to step in:

“That’s the issue is that it’s not really standardized, it’s not really uniform throughout the whole software industry. So it would be difficult to really implement a strong auto-shutdown feature.”

Zigelbaum says a strong auto-shutdown feature would be the biggest improvement game makers could make.

That would mean no matter what – your game would be saved when the device shuts down.

If the industry did that – homeowners could save more than 100 bucks a year on their energy bills.

A Microsoft spokesperson said they encourage their users to turn the games off when they’re done.

Zigelbaum and the folks at the NRDC are hoping Microsoft and Sony will go farther – and do a better job when designing their next gaming consoles.

(snd)

Will Frey says his friends don’t really think about the energy they use.

How could you when you’ve got other things to worry about?

“Oh my gosh! That’s why the M-4 is the cheapest gun in the game. Next to LMGs.”

(snd)

That stands for “Light Machine Guns.”

Maybe next year’s gaming consoles will shoot holes in the amount of energy they use up.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Landscaping to Slow Runoff

  • The bioswales are planted with species that are hardy and beautiful, like this snowberry. (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

Some cities are looking at taking away parking
on residential streets and replacing it with shallow
ditches full of native plants that filter stormwater.
It’s a way to reduce the polluted runoff that flows
into lakes, rivers and the ocean. As Ann Dornfeld
reports, not everyone is thrilled with the idea:

Transcript

Some cities are looking at taking away parking
on residential streets and replacing it with shallow
ditches full of native plants that filter stormwater.
It’s a way to reduce the polluted runoff that flows
into lakes, rivers and the ocean. As Ann Dornfeld
reports, not everyone is thrilled with the idea:

We’re walking down a winding lane lined with maple trees, tall, dry grasses and
evergreens. Bright white snowberries dot the dark branches. It feels like a walk
in the country. But we’re actually admiring a big-city sewer system.

This little valley – a sort of shallow ditch – is called a “bioswale.” Its plants filter
out pollutants that run off the street. And special, thirsty soil helps the water
absorb into the earth. Sections of the street are narrowed to make room for the
bioswales, so some parking along the street is lost. But houses without
driveways get two parking spaces between the swales.

The bioswales have thick layers of native grasses, shrubs and other plants. It’s
kind of a wild, natural look. Debbie Anderson lives on a nearby street. As she
walks by the bioswale she says to her it just looks messy.

“We think it looked nice when it was first built, but it hasn’t continued to
look good, I don’t think. We moved out here because there was no
sidewalks and the streets were wide open and we like that. Lots of parking,
we can have lots of company. This way you can have, what, two people
that can come? That’s it! No. I don’t want it.”

That’s a pretty familiar argument to Bob Spencer. He’s with the City of Seattle’s
Public Utilities office.

“The big thing is the lack of parking. People really get into using these
street right-of-way shoulders as their personal parking spots.”

But not everybody thinks parking spots are more important than doing something
to reduce water pollution. Spencer says the neighbors on this street actually
competed with other blocks to get these bioswales. It’s free landscaping – and
the city even worked with each homeowner to choose plants that would blend
with their existing garden.

Spencer says the city’s traditional method of dealing with stormwater has washed
contaminants into a nearby creek.

“Well, in the surrounding streets around here, we have what’s called ‘gutter
and ditch’ drainage. And what happens is the water runs off the property
and the impervious streets and rooftops. And it enters a ditch and then
goes pell-mell screaming down to our local salmon-bearing creek, Piper’s
Creek.”

It’s not just Seattle’s creeks that are flooded with runoff. Untreated rainwater
flows straight into lakes and the ocean, polluting them. Cities across the country
are looking for ways to deal with toxic runoff like that.

Spencer says Seattle is pioneering
large-scale natural drainage. In other words, the rain is allowed to drain like it
does in the wilderness. The plant roots slow the water so it can absorb into the
earth. That helps prevent flooding. Pollutants like heavy metals, pesticides
and fertilizers are trapped in the soil, and some of them are broken down in these bioswales.

“So we’ve got a little bit more like a forested system in that we have a duff
layer that acts as a sponge.”

Spencer says the city hasn’t tested the water quality of the runoff that eventually
enters the creek. But he says the runoff has been slowed to a trickle.

“It infiltrates and holds and keeps here 99% of that runoff. So that’s a
pretty large flush of water that’s not entering the creek with this system.”

Officials in Seattle’s city government like the green look of the bioswales. And
they help the city meet federal pollution guidelines. City Council President
Richard Conlin says over the course of three bioswale projects, the city has been
able to lower the cost to about the same as conventional stormwater treatment.

Seattle’s newest bioswale system will be at the foot of Capitol Hill. That’s where
seemingly half of the city’s young people live, in blocks full of apartments,
nightclubs and parking lots.

“It’s actually the densest urban neighborhood west of Minneapolis and
north of San Francisco. So it has a lot of impervious surface.”

Stormwater from Capitol Hill rushes off the hard surfaces and down to a lake. So
the city is taking advantage of new development at the bottom of the hill. It’s
planning to filter the runoff through bioswales before it pollutes the lake.

“And once we’ve done that, I think we’re pretty much ready to say this is
the standard from now on.”

Conlin says the city will likely install bioswales in all new developments, and on
streets where the most runoff enters waterways.

He says cities around the country are contacting Seattle to find out how to install
bioswales of their own.

For the Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Dental Offices Adding to Mercury Problem

  • George Washington's dentures. (Photo courtesy of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research)

Dental offices are producing higher levels than
expected of a toxic form of mercury. Rebecca Williams
reports on the findings of a new study:

Transcript

Dental offices are producing higher levels than
expected of a toxic form of mercury. Rebecca Williams
reports on the findings of a new study:

When dentists remove fillings, most of the mercury in the fillings is
trapped in a filter in the spit drains. But some of it does get through.

Mercury in its simplest form is not as toxic as what’s called methyl
mercury. That forms when mercury is exposed to certain bacteria. Methyl
mercury is very toxic even in small amounts.

Researchers at the University of Illinois say they found much higher levels
of methyl mercury in wastewater from dental offices than they expected. In
fact – they say they were the highest levels of methyl mercury ever reported
in an environmental water sample. And that toxic mercury is eventually
released into the environment.

The findings were published online in the journal Environmental Science and
Technology.

To put this all in perspective – the authors say the amount of mercury
coming from dental offices is really, really tiny compared to mercury coming
from coal-fired power plants.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Straining Water Supplies in the Southwest

  • Nancy and Dave Tom bought this home near Apache Junction, Arizona. They have to haul all the water they use with their pickup truck, so they quickly learned how to conserve. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Many areas in the Southwest are booming. With all this new
development, pressures on water supplies are growing. Mark Brush takes
a look at the lengths people go to, to get water in the desert:

Transcript

Many areas in the Southwest are booming. With all this new
development, pressures on water supplies are growing. Mark Brush takes
a look at the lengths people go to, to get water in the desert:


Nancy and Dave Tom used to get their water from a city water supply.
That was back when they owned a home in Tempe, Arizona. Like a lot of
people in the area, they had a pool, plants that needed water year
round, and a green lawn out back. Not exactly a desert scene. It took
a lot of water to support their lifestyle.


But life in Tempe was getting crowded. And when somebody rang their
doorbell and offered to buy their house for almost twice what they paid for
it, they jumped at the chance to move to a smaller town.


(Sound of birds)


They found a house for sale just outside of Apache Junction. It’s a
small city in the desert about an hour’s drive from Phoenix. The house
is at the foot of a dry mountain range and has spectacular views. But
the house didn’t have city water service:


“When we saw this piece of property we pretty much fell in love with it
immediately. And it was stated in the multiple listings that you did
have to haul water. And that the water trailer conveyed with the
property (laughs).”


(Sound of hooking up the truck)


To get their water, Dave Tom hooks up a trailer with a big plastic
water tank. He tows the trailer about 4 miles into Apache Junction.
There’s a water filling station here. He gets about 90 gallons of
water for each quarter dropped into the machine:


(Sound of truck parking)


“I’ve got my four quarters here – we’re going to put it in the vending
machine and have at it.”


(Sound of quarter and water rushing)


He makes about two trips a week, so he figures they’re using about 600
gallons of water a week. That’s quite a bit less than the 6000 gallons
they were using in Tempe.


Some of the things they did to cut back were obvious. Since they no
longer had a pool – and they didn’t water a green lawn – that helped.
But in their new place, they also bought a high efficiency washer and
dishwasher. And, when they don’t have guests around, they cut down on
the number of times they flush the toilet.


And they’re not alone in trying to cut back on water use. Even their
neighbors who have a well are really careful with their water. Phil
Reinhart lives just up the road. He’s rigged up a system of gutters
and pipes to catch rain water:


“You see it drains the front of my house and it comes down these
gutters into these storage barrels. And then I have a little pump that
I use and a little twelve volt battery that I use to pump my washing
machine full and then my washing machine then discharges into my citrus
trees – this is a lemon – here, take a lemon back with you.”


Reinhart is careful with his water. And he’s worried that the
population boom will put a strain on his well.


(Sound of water)


The tank on David Tom’s trailer is full. He tries to shut the water
off:


“Alright we’ll push the shutoff button – and watch out, you’re going to
get wet… no the shutoff isn’t working. We’re going to dump 25 to 30, maybe 40,
gallons of water, which to me it’s a shame they need to come down and
fix this.”


(Sound of water flowing)


A lot of this water spilling onto the ground has traveled a long way to
get here. The Central Arizona Project pumps water from the Colorado
River 230 miles away.


“Rather than a river than runs downhill by gravity, we’re a river that
runs uphill by pumps. We’re the largest electric consumer in the state
of Arizona.”


Sid Wilson is the general manager of the Central Arizona Project. He
says most of the water pumped into this region is used for farming.
But with rapid development, that’s expected to change. More water will
be used to service the new homes sprawling out into the desert.


“The CAP right now provides 40% of the water to this area, 40%, and that will increase
some over time.”


Wilson says people are going to continue to move to the Southwest. So,
future water supplies will have to be developed.


Back at their home near Apache Junction, Dave Tom has finished filling
up their underground storage tank. It’s taken him two trips with the
trailer.


(Sound of gurgling)


His wife Nancy says their new home has changed the way they think:


“Life out here in the desert has given me a greater appreciation for
water. There’s a part of me that says this is how everybody should
live in the desert. That they should have that awareness of their
water usage and embrace the fact that you live in the desert rather
than trying to change it into a lush tropical paradise.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Farmland to Wetlands

  • Installing vast networks of underground drains, known as tiles, is a common practice on farms throughout the country. Farmers can get their machines onto the fields sooner, and crops grow better when their roots aren't wet. This field, near Sherwood, OH, was once part of the Old Black Swamp. (Photo by Mark Brush)

One of the Ten Threats is the loss of wetlands. A lot of the wetlands of the Great Lakes were
turned into cropland – farmland. But before farmers could work the fields in the nation’s bread
basket, they first had to drain them. So thousands of miles of ditches and trenches were dug to
move water off the land. Losing millions of acres of wetlands meant losing nature’s water filter
for the lakes. Reporter Mark Brush reports… these days some farmers are restoring those wet
places:

Transcript

We’ve been bringing you stories about Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. On today’s report, the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham introduces us to a story about how farmers are
getting involved in restoring some of the natural landscape:


One of the Ten Threats is the loss of wetlands. A lot of the wetlands of the Great Lakes were
turned into cropland – farmland. But before farmers could work the fields in the nation’s bread
basket, they first had to drain them. So thousands of miles of ditches and trenches were dug to
move water off the land. Losing millions of acres of wetlands meant losing nature’s water filter
for the lakes. Reporter Mark Brush reports… these days some farmers are restoring those wet
places:


We’re standing in the middle of a newly-harvested corn field in northwest Ohio. This area used
to be wet. It was part of the old Black Swamp – one of the biggest wetland areas in the country.
The Swamp stretched 120 miles across northwest Ohio and into Indiana. It filtered a lot of water
that eventually made its way into Lake Erie. And it provided habitat for all kinds of wildlife.


Today, the Black Swamp is gone… It was drained and turned into farmland.


“Is it o.k. to go?”


“Yeah, go.”


(sound of trenching machine starting up)


Lynn Davis and his crew are cutting a trench into the earth. The trench is about a half a mile
long and five feet deep. Workers trail behind the machine feeding black, plastic pipe into the
trench.


The underground pipe will drain excess water to a nearby ditch.


Davis says these drains help the farmer grow more crops. It’s a common practice that’s been
going on for more than a hundred years. Farmers can get their machines onto the field sooner,
which makes for a longer growing season. And crops grow better when their roots aren’t wet.


Years ago, wetlands were considered a bad thing – places that stood in the way of farmland
development – and places where diseases spread.


The federal government actually paid people to drain them. And by the end of the 20th century
more than 170,000 square miles of wetlands were drained.


Lynn Davis’s family has been in this business for close to a hundred years. Davis admits that his
family helped drain the Black Swamp. But he says much of what’s been done can be reversed:


“You know, there is no question that this was of course one of the largest natural wetlands in the
country. And what we’re doing here was responsible for eliminating that wetland. Now what
we’ve done is relatively simple to reverse. If for some reason it was decided that we don’t want to
farm and live in this area any more, why we can put it back to a swamp real quick.”


And some of that is happening today.


Instead of paying people to drain wetlands, the federal government pays people to restore them.


(crickets)


We’ve driven about fifty miles north to where Bill Daub lives. He was hired by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife service to find suitable land for restoration. And he’s restored well over 500 wetland
areas in the fifteen years he’s been doing it.


Daub says nature bounces back. He says every time he’s broken an old drainage pipe, dormant
seeds of wetland plants stored in the soil popped open:


“What’s amazing with the wetlands is that you see all these cattails, and wetland plants growing
in here – that stuff was in a seed bank, even though they were growing corn here, there was a seed
bank of wetlands species, waiting for water.”


The federal government will pay a farmer to take marginal cropland out of production under the
Wetlands Reserve Program. And Daub says it’s worth the money:


“Every one of these wetlands is a purification system. The water that finally leaves this wetland
has been purified through the living organisms in the wetland.”


(natural sound)


Janet Kaufman lives just down the road from Bill Daub, and eight years ago, she had a crew dig
up an old drainage pipe on her farm. These days, on the back end of her property there’s a pond
with a tall willow tree draping over the water:


“So this wasn’t here before?”


“Not at all, not at all! I mean it’s just shocking. And when the backhoe hit that it was like a
geyser, the water just poured out it just flew up in the air. They had to crunch it shut. I mean the
quantity of water that flows underground is unbelievable unless by chance you see it like that.”


Kaufman says a lot of her neighbors have been signing up to restore wetlands on their property.
The wetter areas aren’t that good for crops… and with the government offering money to let
nature take its course… it makes financial sense for the farmers.


But because a lot of the old Black Swamp area is good for farming, it’s not likely that we’ll see
huge swaths returned to wetlands.


But even the restoration of a fraction of the wetlands will help improve the health of the Great
Lakes.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Thirsty City Waits for Water Diversion Law

  • Diversion of water from the Great Lakes is a controversial issue. Many worry that diversion could affect life in the ecosystem. Others worry about obtaining sources of fresh water for drinking. (Photo by Brandon Bankston)

Great Lakes governors and their counterparts in Canada are working on a legal agreement called Annex 2001. The document will determine how water from the Great Lakes will be used and who gets to use it. Controversy has already erupted over the possibility of one city’s bid for the water. The city is looking toward the completed Annex for guidance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:

Transcript

Great Lakes governors and their counterparts in Canada are working
on a legal agreement called Annex 2001. The document will determine how
water from the Great Lakes will be used and who gets to use it. Controversy
has already erupted over the possibility of one city’s bid for the water.
The city is looking toward the completed Annex for guidance. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


Dan Duchniak says he’s an environmentalist.


“We have the low-flow showerheads in our house, we have the low-flow faucets, we have the high-efficiency washers and dryers, our kids know about those, you know, they think they’re fun.”


But Duchniak is in the middle of a bitter fight with other environmentalists and officials over his area’s largest natural resource: water from Lake Michigan. Duchniak is the water manager for the City of Waukesha, Wisconsin. It’s just west of Milwaukee. Waukesha is only about 20 miles from the Lake Michigan shore. Right now, Waukesha gets its water from wells that tap an aquifer deep within the ground. But Duchniak says the wells won’t sustain the long-term needs of the city.


“As the water levels drop, the water quality degrades, and what happens is we’ve seen an increase in different water quality parameters, one of those being radium.”


And radium is a health problem. In very high doses, radium can cause bone cancer. To solve its water problems, the City of Waukesha might ask for access to Lake Michigan water. But even though the community considers the lake part of its back yard, there’s a major problem. Even though it’s close, Waukesha sits outside the Great Lakes basin.


That means the area’s ditches and streams drain away from the lake. Rain water runoff and treated water from the sewer system flow toward the Mississippi River Basin. The governors and premiers might include a rule in the Annex 2001 that says communities sitting outside the Great Lakes basin must return treated water to the lake, if they use it.


Engineers who study water in the area say Waukesha could make the case that the city is already using Great Lakes water. That’s because the city’s wells tap into water beneath the surface that supply water to Lake Michigan. But environmentalists say that argument isn’t going to fly. Derek Sheer is with the environmental group “Clean Wisconsin.” He says Waukesha would be pumping a lot more water directly from the lake than the underground aquifer would replace.


“They’re not returning 13 million gallons of water back to the Great Lakes by any stretch of the imagination.”


But the city of Waukesha knows that if the finalized Annex 2001 looks anything like the early drafts, the city would have to return most of the water it uses back to the lake. Waukesha’s water manager, Dan Duchniak says that could be done in a combination of ways. The city could pump it back to the lake, pump it to a nearby stream that flows to the lake, or stop using the ground water completely and let it flow back to the lake.


People on both sides of the water issue seem to agree on one thing: because of the huge amount of water in the Great Lakes system, and its natural ebb and flow, the amount of water the City of Waukesha would take would not harm the Great Lakes’ ecosystem. Even if it’s not pumped back.


Art Brooks is a professor at the Center for Great Lakes Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.


“The amount of water they intend to withdraw would probably lower the level of Lake Michigan on the order of a millimeter or so, probably less that five millimeters per year.”


But it’s not just Waukesha that has environmentalists worried. Professor Brooks and environmentalist Derek Sheer say if Waukesha gains access to Great Lakes water, it could set a dangerous precedent. Sheer doesn’t want other states and countries to start withdrawing Great Lakes water.


“If Waukesha and Arizona and Georgia and all these other places start pumping large amounts of water out of the basin, we could see a dramatic lowering of the water in the lakes.”


The city of Waukesha says it needs the water and would abide by whatever the Annex 2001 agreement sets down. And Waukesha’s water manager, Dan Duchniak, says that includes what it determines about return flow. He says arguing about the issue right now is a waste of time, since the Annex isn’t done. Beyond that, Duchniak says Waukesha is part of the Great Lakes system, and is not about to suck the lakes dry.


“Lake Michigan is in our back yard. We can see Lake Michigan from here. We’re not that far away from it.”


The experts say Waukesha would only be the first in line to ask for Great Lakes water. With suburbs sprawling away from the big cities on the lakes more and more towns will be eyeing the Great Lakes when demand for water exceeds their underground supplies.


A draft of the Annex could be ready this year, but it will most likely go through a lengthy series of votes before it becomes law.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Christina Shockley.

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Dry Urinals Aim to Save Water

  • "Look! No handle." Jim Fashbaugh shows off one of the waterless urinals Michigan State University is installing in new buildings. It uses no water. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s a change happening in certain restrooms across the country. With growing concerns about wasting water, companies have been looking at ways to use less water to flush… and now a new product uses no water at all. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

There’s a change happening in certain restrooms across the country. With growing concerns about wasting water, companies have been looking at ways to use less water to flush… and now a new product uses no water at all. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Alright… this is a story for the guys. I mean, you women might be interested, but this is really a guy thing. They’re taking the flush away from us. You’ve probably noticed that urinals have been changing from manual flush to some kind of automatic or motion-detecting sensor flush. Now a few companies are producing urinals with no handle, no button, no sensor. Companies such as Sloan Valve Company, Waterless Company and Falcon Waterfree Technologies are making urinals without flushers.


Bruce Fleisher is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Falcon Waterfree Technologies.


Fleisher: “Literally there is zero water consumption with the use of this urinal product.”


Graham: “Well how do you flush it?”


Fleisher: “Well, in fact, it’s the no-flush urinal.”


No flush. No water. The urine just goes down the drain, past a sealant and it’s trapped there. All the no-water urinal companies use similar technology.


“Because it’s a dry surface, that prevents the urine from breeding bacteria rather quickly. And, as a result, you have no odor.”


Hold it. What did he just say?


(sound of rewinding tape)


“And, as a result, you have no odor.”


Now, I couldn’t let that one go… so I asked Mr. Fleisher to explain how that works.


“The odor that people would typically experience in a urinal derives from the combination of the urine and the water creating a breeding ground for bacteria. Bacteria then generates ammonia gas. Ammonia gas is what most people are picking up. That’s what smells.”


I remember from some high school science class that urine, when it’s expelled, is sterile. So, it kinda makes sense. But hey, this guy’s in charge of sales. So I called up a nephrologist. Nephrologists study kidneys so they know something about urine. Dr. Akinolu Ojo is the director of nephrology outpatient services at the University of Michigan. He explained why urine smells.


Ojo: “The odor that one gets from the urine comes from exposure to atmospheric air and water moisture. As that happens there is decomposition of some of the compounds in the urine. One of the by-products is ammonia. And so you get at that point an ammonia smell.”


Graham: “So, this mixture with water, it becomes a better breeding ground for bacteria?”


Ojo: “That’s correct.”


Graham: “And then the chemical reaction in addition to that also could cause some odor?”


Ojo: “You are correct.”


Glad we got that cleared up. In fact, when I went to see the Assistant Manager of the Physical Plant and Maintenance Services at Michigan State Univesity, Jim Fashbaugh said an odor problem with flush urinals is what prompted that univeristy’s first experiment with no-flush urinals.


“We’d heard about the waterless urinals. We thought we’d give them a chance to see how they would work. And we installed it and it took care of the odor problem, but we also realized we were saving water at that point, so we thought we’d take a look at other applications.”


So, they had one installed in the bathroom in the building where the top maintenance guys work.


(sound of men’s room door opening)


We took a peek at it.


Fashbaugh: “It’s one of the first ones that we ended up trying out. That’s basically it.”


Graham: “It looks like it’s broken, like there’s-”


(sound of laughing)


Fashbaugh: “Yeah. As you see, there’s no flush valve. There’s no- anything else happning. It just goes down through the ports there and there’s a blue liquid that allows the urine to go through and it separates it out. Frankly, we have hard water here at MSU; we’ve got those deep water wells. And it eliminates that lime buildup and whatever that we had to clean up before. So it saves us on products to have to do that issue too.”


Fashbaugh says the janitors love them. Instead of disinfectant, water and a lot of scrubbing, it’s more of a spray and wipe procedure. The no-flush, no-water urinals have been around in Europe for a long time, and they became popular in the drier areas of the American Southwest a few years ago. Now, universities, stadiums, and airports among others all across the country are installing them.


Guys… it could be that this sound…


(sound of flushing)


…might soon be flushed down the drain of water-wasting history.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham


(sound of restroom door opening)


Fashbaugh: “Do a lot of interviews in restrooms?”


Graham: “Uh, not – I think that might be a first for me.”


Fashbaugh: “Yeah, really. I was glad we didn’t have to do a demonstration.”


(sound of laughing)

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