Tag: farmlands

Reining in Diesel Exhaust

  • The EPA is planning to regulate smoke from diesel engines in farm and construction equipment. Photo courtesy of NESCAUM.

You see them every time you pass a construction site: big machines belching thick diesel smoke. The smoke isn’t just annoying. It causes major health and environmental problems. Now, after years of dealing with other issues, the EPA is taking on this major source of uncontrolled pollution: emissions from farm and construction equipment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert looks at the challenges the EPA faces in this far-reaching regulatory effort:

Transcript

You see them every time you pass a construction site. Big machines belching thick diesel smoke. The smoke isn’t just annoying. It causes major health and environmental problems. Now, after years of dealing with other issues, the EPA is taking on this major source of uncontrolled pollution: emissions from farm and construction equipment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert looks at the challenges EPA faces in this far-reaching regulatory effort.


Emissions from diesel engines create problems for both the environment and people’s health. Diesels release nitrogen oxides, which are a factor in acid rain and smog. They also spew very fine particulates that can lodge deep in the lung when inhaled. And that causes respiratory problems.


Controlling these emissions is no easy task. That’s because most diesel engines still burn fuel containing high amounts of sulfur. The sulfur clogs up existing pollution control devices. And that makes it a lot tougher to come up with ways to reduce emissions. But Christopher Grundler, deputy director of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality in Ann Arbor, Michigan, says its an important challenge.


“In the year 2007 we estimate that off road or non-road emissions will make up over 40% of the air pollution from mobile sources or transportation sources, so it’s a big deal.”


In tackling air pollution, EPA’s first job was to clean up gasoline car emissions. Now its moving onto diesels. The agency’s first challenge came when they issued a rule for highway trucks last year. That plan drops sulfur content in diesel fuel from 500 parts per million to 15 parts per million. It also reduces overall diesel emissions by 90% by the year 2007. The EPA now wants to use this rule as a model for farm and construction equipment as well. But the agency is likely to face opposition from refiners, who are fighting the on road rule. Jim Williams is with the American Petroleum Institute.


“We feel that the ability of the refining industry to make sufficient volumes of 15 ppm in the timeframe that EPA wants us to is highly questionable, whether we can do that. We’ve done some studies that show there will be supply shortfalls with the 15-ppm limit.”


Williams is pushing to phase in the requirement over a longer period. He says that would give refiners more time to produce the necessary quantities of low sulfur fuel. Until then, refiners also want to continue providing high sulfur fuel.


But Engine Manufacturers don’t like that idea. They’ve agreed to support tough standards only if the switchover to low sulfur fuel happens quickly. Jed Mandel runs the Engine Manufacturers Association. He’s worried that if cheaper, low sulfur fuel remains abundant; users could continue relying on the dirtier fuel.


“If there are dual fuels available — if there’s cleaner fuel on the marketplace for some time, as well as higher sulfur dirtier fuel, and there’s a price differential in that fuel, there will be a disincentive for users to buy the cleanest engines.”


Mandel says that could cause a delay in purchasing these engines for several years.


Like Mandel, Jason Grumet, executive director of the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, also wants tight standards. Northeast states, plagued with acid rain and smog caused largely by these diesels, are pushing the EPA to develop the tightest standards possible to meet clean air goals and also to better protect equipment operators.


“The particles from diesel emissions can lodge very deep within the human lung and we know that these particles are carcinogens, so for folks who work with construction equipment every day or on construction sites, for people who farm or plow fields for several hours a day, we think that the emissions of diesel pollutants cause a very substantial and real threat to their health.”


(sound of tractor)


Herb Smith isn’t worried about his health. Smith hops off his tractor and stands on the land that his family has farmed in Ida Township, Michigan since 1865. Despite years of inhaling diesel fumes, Smith said he’s in perfect physical condition. Though he supports regulations to control diesel emissions, he’s worried that the EPA will place undue hardship on farmers.


“I am concerned about fuel costs because our margin in farming is very slim and anything we add to fuel costs, we have to absorb it.”


Smith fears that some of the smaller farmers may not be able to bear higher fuel and engine costs and could go out of business.


Despite the many different viewpoints on the issue, EPA’s Grundler is confident that his agency can develop a rule that will bring tremendous public health benefits at a reasonable cost.


“We’ve shown we can do it for cars and SUVs. We’ve shown it can be done for heavy duty on highway engines. I’m absolutely certain it can be done for these sorts of engines as well.”


The agency expects to issue a technical report outlining emission control options by the end of the year. A proposal is due by the middle of next year. For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.

RESCUING FARMS WITH ‘AGRI-TAINMENT’

According to the food policy group Oxfam-America, more than 300,000 small farms have gone out of business in America over the last 20 years alone. Falling prices, imported produce and encroaching suburbs have all taken their toll on the family farm. But some farmers are finding new ways to keep their land and their lifestyles intact. More than a dozen of them in the Great Lakes states and southern Ontario are doing it by marketing their farms as a great place to visit. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell reports from Hilton, New York:

Transcript

According to the food policy group Oxfam-America, more than 300-thousand small farms have gone out of business in America over the last 20 years alone. Falling prices, imported produce and encroaching suburbs have all taken their toll on the family farm. But some farmers are finding new ways to keep their land and their lifestyles intact. More than a dozen of them in the Great Lakes states and southern Ontario are doing it by marketing their farms as a great place to visit. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bud Lowell has more from Hilton, New York:


“We all love the outdoors. It’s fun it’s something we can all relax at. Its not far from where we live and we love doing it.”


Brian Camp is in the middle of a 15 acre cornfield with his family and friends. They’re more than half-a-dozen people who drove to this farm in the Town of Hilton. They’re not farmers. They’re here to have a good time wandering through a maze:


“It’s an interactive game right in the middle of mother nature. It’s a 15 acre cornfield that we carved an intricate pattern into.”


Pat Zarpentine and her husband have run Zarpentine farms and its apple orchards for the last 25 years. This year, they’ve been trying out one of the newest tools small farmers are using to keep their land in the family. It’s called “agri-tainment” – packaging a visit to a farm as an experience that people will pay to share.


According to the North American Farmers Direct Marketing Association, more than 400 farms in the United States and Canada are making money by turning at least part of their land into entertainment ventures. Charles Touchette is the association’s Executive Director:


“This is becoming very big. Especially in what we call direct farm marketing, where the people are encouraged to come to the farm directly or the farmer.”


The fall hayride at Zarpentine Farms circles land that’s been in the family since 1832. But today, the farm is under pressure from the expanding Rochester, New York suburbs. Foundations are being dug for new homes just a few hundred yards up the road.


Pat Zarpentine says she and her husband have been watching the Town of Hilton change:


“We’ve seen other people having to sell off lots and parcels to survive. But we wanted to hold onto this. There’s such a strong tradition here.”


Zarpentine Farms already sells directly to customers through a farm market. Pat Zarpentine says the family wanted something that would draw new customers, but be in touch with their farming heritage.


Some farmers have put in paint ball courses or motocross tracks. But the Zarpentine family found their answer through a Utah-based company called “The Maize” – that designs and cuts intricate mazes in cornfields:


“We deliberately chose a big maze. We wanted it so we could have the design so you couldn’t see from one path to the next path.”


The corn towers above your head in the maze and the wind rustles the stalks. You walk on beaten-earth paths, and follow clues in the form of riddles that can help you find the exit.


After about 45 minutes in the maze, 14-year-old Owen Camp and Shannon Popowich say it’s a good way to spend a Saturday:


“It’s a good way to spend a day…like when you have all day!”


Zarpentine Farms charges seven dollars a head for adults to wander through the corn maze. Pat Zarpentine says her family’s first experiment with agri-tainment hasn’t actually turned a profit. But she says the visitors have definitely boosted sales at her farm market, and the maze attracts the right people:


“We get a lot of families. It’s a good outing. It’s wholesome, a great time for family to come together and spend quality time enjoying the outdoors in a setting where most families don’t ever get an opportunity.”


Agri-tainment is a growing business. Charles Touchette of the Farmers Direct Marketing Association says it’s driven by a desire for some Americans to get back to their roots:


“It used to be a generation or two ago everybody knew their grandparents farm. Now that’s not the case – that’s three and four generations ago. It’s unique, it’s a novelty to most Americans yet it’s something that’s still in our blood – seeing some green grass and enjoying a favorite season.”


Touchette says there are no reliable numbers yet on how many farms in the U.S. are offering “agri-tourism,” but it’s growing aggressively as people start to appreciate farms at a different level. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bud Lowell.

Survey Respondents Favor Farmland Protection

A new poll indicates the majority of voters are concerned that farmland is being paved over by urban sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new poll indicates the majority of voters are concerned that farmland is being paved over by urban sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


The American Farmland Trust conducted a nationwide poll that found
53-percent of the nation’s registered voters want federal dollars spent to keep farmland from being developed. That was nowhere as true as in five midwestern states where sprawl is a pressing issue. In that region 73-percent of those surveyed agreed farmland should be protected from sprawl. Ed Minihan is the Director of the Upper Midwest Field Office of the American Farmland Trust.


“The general populous sees this. You can’t miss it. I mean, you just can’t miss it. And it’s pretty clear that the general public is far ahead of the politicians on this.”


Most of the midwestern states have not yet passed legislation to protect farmland from development. Across the nation, approximately one million acres of prime farmland are lost each year due to sprawl.

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