dry - The Environment Report

Climate Change and Wildfires

Jennifer Pierce and David Wilkins stand in front of a ponderosa pine forest just outside the city of Boise. They hope to study the relationship between fire and climate here and recreate a snapshot of ancient climate. They are both teach at Boise State University's Geosciences Department. (Photo by Sadie Babits)

Twenty years ago this year, the
country watched its oldest national park
go up in flames. Looking back, scientists
believe the 1988 fires of Yellowstone
National Park were the signal fire of
climate change. Researchers have been
working ever since to understand this
relationship between climate and wildfire.
Sadie Babits reports on two scientists
searching for clues to ancient climates,
using trees as their guide:

Transcript

Jennifer Pierce wears work boots as she plows down a steep slope in a
ponderosa pine forest.

(sound of walking, twigs breaking)

Her blonde hair is tucked up under her Boise State bronco cap, but it keeps
sneaking out. She has to keep brushing it back under. She and her
colleague David Wilkins are professors who work for Boise State
University’s Geosciences Department. They’re in the middle of tall pines in
a forest just outside of Boise, Idaho. Suddenly she’s crashing across the
brambles and heads for this tree.

“Oh that’s a great one! Wow! Sweet!”

She drops to her knees and shows me how this tree has been scarred by
fire.

“You see this little V shaped cat face here at the bottom of the tree that’s
blackened? So during a fire when the bark of the tree gets damaged that
preserves a record of the fire as a scar on the tree.”

Pierce says since the tree has annual growth rings, she can tell when the
tree got burned.

It’s one way Pierce and Wilkins reconstruct the fire history of this forest.
It’s a key to understanding how climate has affected forest fires in the past.

“I think as we move into a likely warmer and drier future, it’s going to be
increasingly important to understand the relationship between climate and
fire.”

She says climate is the primary control for wildfires. As the West warms,
there’s less control. Recently, that’s meant a lot more wildfires.

(popping sound) “There you go!” (sound of a drill bit going through the tree
with sound of birds and forest)

David Wilkins is twisting an auger into the tree.

“It’s a good upper body workout!” (laughs)

It’s a way to take a sample of the rings of this tree. Within a half-minute,
Wilkins’ auger is stuck. The tree is rotten inside. An eight-inch core is all he
gets.

(sound of drill bit coming out of the tree)

Jennifer Pierce takes a look at this sample Wilkins twisted out. The rings –
some light, some dark – reveal just how the tree has responded to moisture
and temperature.

“If you have a tree that kind of is at the edge of its comfort zone so to
speak, it will be more of a sensitive recorder of those environmental
stresses. See this one looks pretty good.”

Tree rings aren’t the only clue these scientists use to reconstruct historic
climates.

(scraping sound)

“I didn’t bring my big shovel. I kind of feel naked without it.”

Pierce scrapes away dirt and she finds bits of charcoal. She can sometimes
use charcoal for radio carbon dating. But these won’t do.

“But, um, I wouldn’t use them for dating because you want to make sure
that the charcoal is stratographicly in place and that you haven’t had
critters burrowing and mixing things up.”

Charcoal can be dated much further back than the tree rings. It helps
Pierce and Wilkins understand what happened here thousands of years
ago. With samples from other scientists, they’ll get a snapshot of ancient
climate and how it affects wildfire.

And possibly determine what climate change will mean for forests in the
future.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

The Cleaner Dry-Cleaner

Jim Gilligan, president of Snedicor’s Cleaners, made the big switch to liquid silicone (Photo by Kyle Norris)

There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:

Transcript

Jim Gilligan is president of Snedicor’s Cleaners.

And for years, his business has used a chemical called perchloroethylene to
clean clothes. Actually, let’s just call it ‘perc’ which is what everyone calls
it. But Gilligan says he did not like perc, for lots of reasons. For one thing,
he had to store the chemical in these big tanks.

“It was hard to deal with, it was heavily regulated, there was potential for
spills and other types of disasters.”

Perc is a toxic air contaminant. There’s evidence it can cause cancer, as well
as liver and kidney damage. Contact with perc can cause lots of problems
like nausea, dizziness, skin irritation, loss of consciousness, and even death.
If perc leaks into the soil or ground water it can be a disaster. Partly because
perc is hard to extract from water.

Perc was the industry standard for years. And today about 70% of American
dry cleaners still use it. But there’s a growing movement to stop using it and
embrace greener techniques.

Gilligan had heard about some of these newer, eco-crunchier techniques. But
he’d also heard that they did not work as well as perc.

Then he visited another dry cleaning plant. Its owner had switched from
using perc to using liquid silicone. Which is basically liquefied sand.

“That gave me a confidence, right. That was, because we’d been hearing
from the industry as whole that it didn’t clean as well. And of course it’s
great moving into a green technology but if your customers wind up
dissatisfied and you go out of business, that would sort of defeat the
purpose.”

Gilligan says he was impressed with how well liquid silicone cleaned
garments. So he made the big switch. He got rid of his perc machines. And
he bought a new machine that used liquid silicone. To the tune of $80,000
bucks.

And as he gathered his employees to show them the new machine, he did
something kind of kooky.

“I actually took a little cup and I drank it.”

The liquid silicone. The stuff that cleans the clothes. Dude drank it! Says it
tasted like salty vegetable oil.

“Everyone was shocked to see that, but I just wanted to show them that how
confident I was that this was a safe technology.”

And since that shot of liquid silicone, Gilligan hasn’t had any issues. His
customers tell him they’re happy with the results. And financially he’s done
really well this year.

But not all dry cleaners are ready or willing to take this kind of risk. Dry
cleaning is a tough business to make a profit in. So plenty of cleaners want
to stick with what they know works—which for a lot of them, is using perc.

In fact, there’s a tension in the industry these days. Between the old
schoolers—cleaners who use perc. And the new schoolers—people trying
out newer, greener methods.

Chris Allsbrooks is with the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute.

“And right now our mix is changing because there’s
more people coming into the industry as some of the people with the older
views are leaving the industry.”

And the laws are changing, too. California has said that perc can no longer
be used by that state’s dry cleaners by the year 2023. And New Jersey is
considering following in California’s footsteps.

For Jim Gilligan, the switch was the just right thing to do: as a business
owner and as someone who cares about the environment. He says now, he
breathes easier. And so do his employees. And his customers say a green dry
cleaner works for them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Ten Threatened Rivers

Grand Canyon National Park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

An environmental group says some of America’s
rivers are endangered by people using too much water.
Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

An environmental group says some of America’s
rivers are endangered by people using too much water.
Lester Graham reports:

Each year the group American Rivers lists ten rivers that are at risk because of
upcoming decisions. Rebecca Wodder is the president of the group. She says several of the rivers face a common problem.

“Of the ten rivers, six of them are threatened by the same issue and that is excessive
water withdrawals.”

Most of the because of expanding populations, one because of agricultural irrigation.
Using too much water from a river endangers fish and water supplies downstream.

The rivers on the list include the Catawba-Wateree in the Carolinas, Rogue River in
Oregon, the Poudre in Colorado, the St. Lawrence River connecting the Great Lakes to
the Atlantic Ocean, the Minnesota River, St. Johns in Florida, the Gila in Arizona and New
Mexico, the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in Maine, the Niobrara in Wyoming, and the
Pearl River in Mississippi and Louisiana.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Interview: Great Lakes Compact

Map of the Great Lakes, the basin, and the 8 connecting states. (Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, NOAA)

The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Compact is an
agreement to stop shipping water out of the Great Lakes
basin. But all eight Great Lakes states and Congress
must approve it first. Lester Graham talked with Peter
Annin, the author of the book “The Great Lakes Water
Wars.” Annin says some of the states have been reluctant
to approve the treaty because Michigan has an image of saying
‘no’ to water requests from other states while putting
almost no water restrictions on its own towns and businesses:

Transcript

Peter Annin: “Michigan has been a laggard in monitoring and regulating its own domestic water
use. And so it’s seen by some other states as being somewhat hypocritical in the water debate.
For example, Minnesota, which is the most progressive domestically, if you’re going to withdraw
water from the Great Lakes at 10,000 gallons a day or more, you have to get a permit. In the state
of Michigan you can go up to 5 million gallons of water withdrawn from Lake Michigan per day
before you have to get a permit. 10,000 gallons in Minnesota, 5 million gallons in Michigan, and
this is what is causing tension between Michigan and some of the other Great Lakes states.”

Lester Graham: “Lets assume that all 8 Great Lakes states do pass this within the next year or
two, Congress then has to pass it – and many of the members of Congress are in those thirsty
Southwestern states. What happens then?”

Annin: “Yeah, that’s a really good point. We have to remember that the compact is just a piece of
paper until it passes all 8 Great Lakes legislatures and then is adopted by Congress. And there
are a lot of concerns among the general public, given that we have these dry-land states that have
a lot of problems with water perhaps opposing the Great Lakes compact. I’m not so certain that
that’s going to be an issue, because those states also have a lot federal water projects that come
up for renewal all the time that require the Great Lakes Congressmen to sign off on. And I’m not
sure they’re in a position, given how precious and important water is for them to survive on a daily
basis down there, that they’re really that interested in getting into a water fight with the Senators
and Congressmen in the Great Lakes basin. But, we’ll see.”

Graham: “I’ve looked at different models for getting Great Lakes water down to the Southwest,
and economically, they just don’t seem feasible. It would be incredibly expensive to try to get
Great Lakes water to the Southwest states, yet, State Legislators say again and again ‘oh no,
they have a plan, they know how it will happen.’ And as water becomes more valuable, they could
make it happen. How likely is it that there would be a canal or pipe and pumping stations built to
divert Great Lakes water, if this compact doesn’t pass?”

Annin: “It looks highly unlikely today, for the reasons that you just mentioned. It takes an
extraordinary amount of money to send water uphill, which is what would be to the West, and we’d
certainly have to cross mountain ranges if you’re even going to send it a shorter distance, to the
Southeast. To the point where it would be cheaper for many of these places to, even though it’s
expensive, to desalinate water from the ocean and then send it to inland places. But, you know, a
lot of water experts in the United States say ‘never say never’, because the value of fresh, potable
water is probably going to skyrocket in this century. We’re leaving the century of oil; we’re entering
the century of water. But, for right now, you’re absolutely right, it is extraordinary cost-prohibitive.
But let me say one other footnote here, it’s hard to find a federal water project in this country that
actually made economic sense.”

Ten Threats: Farmers Wasting Water?

A farm in Manistee County, Michigan using an irrigation system. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Land Use Institute)

In the Great Lakes region, farmers are one of the biggest users of water. They
pump water from underground aquifers or from lakes and streams to irrigate their
crops or water livestock. Agriculture has been criticized for its large withdrawals
of water. Farmers say they want to be recognized in a Great Lakes water use
agreement as efficient water users, but as Erin Toner reports… it’s unclear
whether that’s true:

Transcript

The series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is now looking at the threat of water withdrawals from the Great Lakes. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He says a lot of businesses and homes use water from the basin, but one group says its use is especially efficient.

Scott Piggott is the sixth generation to grow up on his dad’s cattle farm in a small
town in central Michigan. He says not everything on the farm is perfect, but he
says he grew up knowing that you have to do things right to protect the
environment.

“If we don’t begin to stand up and say, look, this is what we’re doing to protect
the environment, I think more people will continue to say, hey, they’re not telling
us what they’re doing, they must be doing something wrong.”

Piggott also works for the Michigan Farm Bureau. He says his goal is to make
sure every farm in his state is doing everything it can to protect the environment,
including conserving water they use for irrigation.

But Piggott and the farm bureau oppose broad regulations for large water users,
such as farmers. That’s proposed in a draft of a Great Lakes regional water use
agreement. Piggott argues the agreement should treat farmers differently because
the water they use goes right back into the ground.

Piggott said in a Farm Bureau press release that, “95 percent of the water that
touches a farm field seeps into the soil providing aquifer recharge.”

Later, he qualified his statement.

“It is estimated that 95 percent of the water that touches an open, pervious space
seeps into the soils and a portion of that, which I would infer that, it does provide
aquifer recharge, but necessarily does all 95 percent of it go towards aquifer
recharge. I think that might be debated. The quote could probably be stronger in
a given direction, but I stand by it.”

Piggott says his information is based on Environmental Protection Agency
estimates. But is his 95 percent figure true?

Jon Bartholic is with Michigan State University. He’s done research on water
use on farms. He says of all the water that falls on a farm – that’s rainfall and
irrigation – about 70 percent of it evaporates.

“So the remaining part, 30, 40 percent depending where you are. It might be
almost 0 percent, if you’ve got clay soil and it’s all run off, is there to potentially
to go back and recharge the aquifer.”

Bartholic’s estimate is that 30 to 40 percent potentially flows back into the Great
Lakes basin and its aquifers – that’s nowhere near 95 percent. Bartholic says farmers
do consume water.

“Clearly, farmers are being very conscientious about their water use, but, yes, if
you use water for crops and have economic value, there is some consumptive
usage of that water.”

Other water experts in the region say the issue is complicated. A lot of factors
effect how much water used to irrigate crops actually gets back to the aquifer.
Although one expert says at best the 95-percent estimate is “theoretically
possible” if conditions were perfect.

Conditions are rarely perfect.

Mark Muller is director of the Environment and Agriculture Program with the
Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. Muller says it’s
generally agreed that right now there’s plenty of groundwater in the Great Lakes
region, but he says there is still reason for concern. That’s because in other areas of the
country, aquifers thought to be plentiful have gone dry.

Muller says managing Great Lakes water resources is important for the close to
40-million people who rely on the basin for their drinking water. He says
managing that water correctly is also crucial to sustaining the region’s farming
industry.

“Industry and agriculture is going to look at the Great Lakes basin as a place
where they should set up shop. So, I think we should realize that we have a very
valuable resource that’s only going to become more valuable in future years.”

Muller adds that public opinion is very important to shaping the Great Lakes
regional water use agreement. He says any misleading information, from any of
the stakeholders, is just not helpful. That’s why the farm bureau’s claim that 95-
percent of the water used for irrigation recharges the aquifers is more important than
just an optimistic viewpoint. It’s seen by some as a public relations spin.

For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Ten Threats: Coastal Development Pressures

Construction along the shorelines can put a strain on natural systems. (Photo by Carole Swinehart/Michigan Sea Grant Extension)

One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:

Transcript

We’re continuing our look at ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’
Lester Graham is our guide through the series. He says the
experts who were surveyed to determine the threats say rapid
development is among the problems affecting the lakes:

Greg Reisig is standing at the edge of a 20-acre construction site
just down the street from the shore Lake Michigan.

Below him is a man-made pond a few hundred feet long. It was a
dry summer around here, but the pond is full.

In fact, Reisig says the water level is always the same.

“And that indicates there’s a lot of ground water flowing
here…there’s a lot of water in this pond and you can see what
was a whole big wetland complex…there’s a lot of cedar and red
osier dogwood…all the wetland plants.”

There are no wetlands here now.

The site in northern Michigan was excavated for homes a few
years ago.

But now the Army Corps of Engineers says the wetlands that
were here need to be restored. A few acres likely will be
restored. But Reisig says almost the whole site was wetlands
once. He expects it will soon be a subdivision with not much
more than a drainage ditch connecting it to Lake Michigan.

“What will that do to the amount of flow of water going into the
bay? Because of hard road surfaces, hard driveways, roofs,
buildings and supposedly fertilized lawns. What will happen to
the water and how will that increase the flow to the bay?”

The developer’s attorney says this is nonsense. Matt Vermetten
says this land was heavily farmed and mined for clay.

“There are pockets of quote unquote wetland and those are there
because of excavation for clay. So is this a wetland complex of
the nature we speak of when we typically speak of such a thing? I
think not.”

Disputes like this are becoming more common around the Great
Lakes. John Nelson is the baykeeper with the Grand Traverse
Bay Watershed Center. The bay off Lake Michigan and attracts a
lot of people. But Nelson says development doesn’t have to be a
problem.

He says the problem is people don’t think about the ecology of
the lakes. For example, east of Traverse City, Michigan, resorts
dominate the coastline. Along the beach, thick stands of sedges
and rushes extend out a few hundred feet. But the sections of
dark green marsh alternate with stretches of clean sand and white
lawn chairs.

(birds calling on beach)

Nelson grew up here and says this part of the lake was never a
sugar sand beach.

“They’ve located in a coastal marsh. Instead of celebrating and
dealing with that they’ve chosen to see it as they would like to
have it and then change it.”

The impacts of the changes are cumulative. Fish and wildlife
habitat is fragmented. The natural filtering properties of the
wetlands are gone.

So every time the city gets a rain shower all the dust and grime
and pollution are washed right into the lake.

Census data show people are leaving many of the Great Lakes
coastal cities and spreading out along the coastline. But it’s not
clear how local governments should plan for the growth.

Mike Klepinger studies land use planning for the Michigan Sea
Grant program. He says it’s hard to make direct connections
between a healthy lake and particular land uses.

“We are getting more planning along the shoreline than we had
thirty years ago in the state. The number of counties and number
of townships that have a plan has gone up, for example. But we
don’t know whether those plans are really doing any good.”

And it’s hard to implement good planning on a broad basis. In
any area, dozens of different local governments might have
independent control over development.

Multiply that by the number cities, townships and counties along
the coasts of the Great Lakes… and it’s hard to see how it all can
be managed so that enough coastline habitat is preserved.

For the GLRC, I’m Peter Payette.

Up Close and Personal With a Prairie Fire

Park managers determined that this area of land in southeast Michigan was historically a prairie. They're using fire to return it to that state, and to keep invasive plants and shrubs in check. (Photo by Mark Brush)
A burn crew member keeps an eye on a hot section of the 'burn unit.' (Photo by Mark Brush)
The blackened ground after the burn. The freshly burned ground traps heat causing soil temperatures to rise which encourages new plant growth. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Some natural areas need fire. A number of prairie plants and pine trees must have fire for their seeds to pop open or germinate. But burning a natural area can quickly turn into a wildfire without a team to keep it under control. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent a day with a burn crew… and brings us this audio postcard:

Transcript

Some natural areas need fire. A number of prairie plants and pine trees
must have fire for their seeds to pop open or germinate. But burning a
natural area can quickly turn into a wildfire without a team to keep it
under control. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent a day
with a burn crew… and brings us this audio postcard:

(sound of walking through dry grass and birds)

“Good morning, Hi, How’s it going?”

“Little dry?”

“It’s pretty dry, it’s forecasted, I think to be twenty one percent humidity…”

“My name is David Mindell, and I am the burn boss for this project. I’m a contractor that does ecological restoration. The first step is we’ll take a quick walk through and rake some of the fuel around stuff we don’t want to burn. This is the kind of thing if fire got in here, it’d burn for hours and hours and just put out a lot of smoke…”

“My name is Lee Root, and I just am a burn crew member. I’m filling up what’s known as an ‘Indian tank. It’s a backpack frame that has a water tank and a hand pump. This is our little portable fire engine, is what it is. So, you see where the black top is? If that was our fire, and we didn’t want the fire to come onto the grass, we would just…

(sound of squirting)

“…spray like that, and that would prevent the fire from crossing over.”

“Well, my name is Ross Orr, and I’ve been working with David for a couple of years, and um, we’re wearing these crazy, screaming yellow body suits that are flame-retardant fabric, and also helps keep us cool from the radiant heat of the burn, and big, big cumbersome helmets with visors that flip up and down…

(Sound of visor plastic clacking)

“…we’ll ingite using drip torches, which are these canisters filled with a mixutre of diesel and gas. It’s got a wick on the end, a burning wick, and as you tip the canister, it dribbles gas-diesel mix across the wick, and trails fire as you go.”

(sound of fire crackling and wind)

“Okay, I’m gonna burn it up right next to you Lee. All right, here we go.”

(sound of crackling and walkie-talkies)

“Catherine, keep coming right around.”

“Is this one of the crabapples we wanted to save, or they’re on the other end?”

“I believe they’re on the other end, unless they’re crabapples there?”

“Nope, it’s a hawthorne.”

“My name’s Catherine Marquardt, and I do whatever they tell me to do…

(sound of laughter)

“…whether it’s lighting fires or putting them out. Um, I think it looks like a Dr. Seuss story, actually, sometimes when you burn and it’s all black. You don’t get to see this very often, it’s very cool. And then it greens up so quickly, that’s the other amazing thing, is that if you come back here in a couple of days, it’s already getting green. So, it changes so quickly.”

“You know, I’m guessing it took probably forty-five minutes for the backburn to go a third of the way through the unit, and I think the headburn will run through the other two-thirds in about three minutes.”

(sound of large flames fading out)

(sound of walking, rubber squeaking and metal clanging)

Mindell: “And we’re, basically just walking around looking for things that are still smoking. Got a juniper that’s smoking at the base…

(sound of spraying)

“And just spraying out the smoldering bits.

“Burning is extremely fun, but it’s also a great management tool for improving the ecological quality of natural areas.”

(sound of wind and bird chirping)

HOST TAG: “This audio postcard of a prairie burn was produced by the
GLRC’s Mark Brush. To see photos of the burn and learn more about fire
as a management tool, you can visit glrc dot org.”

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

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)

Proposals to Limit Great Lakes Water Diversion

The Great Lakes from space (Color satellite photo courtesy of NOAA).

Leaders of the states and provinces around the Great Lakes have released two draft agreements to manage the region’s water supply. The proposals’ aim is to block any attempt to divert water from the lakes to drier parts of the world. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

Leaders of the states and provinces around the Great Lakes have released a draft agreement to
manage the region’s water supply. The proposal’s aim is to block any attempt to divert water
from the lakes to drier parts of the world. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett
reports:

There’s no immediate threat by outside interests to ship or pump large amounts of Great Lakes
water to the arid Southwest, or to any other part of the world that needs freshwater. And the
draft agreements aim to keep it that way.

There are two documents up for consideration by the public and policy makers. One would be a
binding compact between the states. The other would be a voluntary agreement between the
states and provinces.

Ohio Governor Bob Taft co-chairs the Council of Great Lakes Governors – which released the
plans.

“The whole effort is premised out of our concern that we have a legally enforceable framework,
and a clear standard.”

There’s already a federal law on the books that allows any one Great Lakes governor to veto a
diversion of water from the lakes. But there are concerns about challenges under the U.S.
Constitution, or free trade agreements.

The Great Lakes Charter Annex would require the approval of all eight states for any proposal to
divert more than a million gallons a day out of the basin. Even if a diversion is approved, there’s
a catch: whatever’s taken out of the basin would have to be returned once it’s used.

Noah Hall of the National Wildlife Federation says the practical effect of those requirements
would be a guarantee that the lakes don’t get pilfered by drier parts of the U.S….

“…Where they have growing populations and dwindling supplies of water, and they’ve been
looking at using the Great Lakes to meet their water needs for some time. I think they’ll
obviously see this agreement for what it is, which is a pretty large barrier – perhaps an
insurmountable barrier – to accessing Great Lakes water down the road.”

The agreement would also allow any three states to block withdrawals from within the basin of
more than five million gallons a day. Existing users would be grandfathered in, so only the most
mammoth project would likely come up for consideration – a new power plant, for example.
Hall says that means at most one project a year that would come up for review.

“But what it guards against is the threat of the absolute largest diversions. The massive
withdrawals. The ones that could by themselves harm or impact the Great Lakes, and lower lake
levels.”

Eventually, states would be required to put rules in place for managing smaller withdrawals
within the basin. Even under a best-case scenario, that wouldn’t happen for at least a dozen
years. But Ohio Governor Taft says the end result will be preservation of the lakes for future
generations.

“We have a responsibility as stewards of this precious resource – 20 percent of the world’s fresh
water supply – to protect and preserve it for the benefit of the people within the region, and that
is what the draft agreement is intended to accomplish.”

The plan is up for public review over the next three months. Each Great Lakes state would have
to sign off on the interstate compact. It would also require the approval of Congress. And the
fast-growing arid southwest has more representation in Congress every term.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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