Osprey Nest Near Fish Hatchery

  • The osprey is a bird that scoops fish out of rivers and lakes (Photo courtesy of the National Parks Service)

Ospreys are birds of prey that eat fish. Todd Melby tells us about a pair of osprey that tried to nest near a fish hatchery:

Transcript

Ospreys are birds of prey that eat fish. Todd Melby tells us
about a pair of osprey that tried to nest near a fish hatchery:

The osprey is a raptor that scoops fish out of rivers and lakes.

So when a pair of osprey decided to mate near a DNR fish hatchery south of
Minneapolis, biologists were delighted and worried.

Ospreys rarely nest so far south. So that was good news. What worried biologists was
whether the birds would eat the fish. Biologists decided these fish were too small.

Another worry was the ospreys’ choice of a nesting site. In this case, the birds picked an
electrical power pole.

Lisa Gelvin-Innvaer is with the Minnesota DNR.

“They like high areas. Places that have room for them to put their nest. Transmission
poles often provide that.”

Biologists decided that was a bad idea, so they’ve built a tall nesting platform near the
power pole.

“We’re hopeful with the new nesting platform, that they’ll come back and attempt to nest
again.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Todd Melby.

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Bugs Getting Confused by Asphalt

  • Dragonflies are one of the insects tricked by false light (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

Bugs are getting confused by the
reflections from manmade structures.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study:

Transcript

Bugs are getting confused by the
reflections from manmade structures.
Rebecca Williams reports on a new study:

If you’ve ever noticed swarms of insects hovering over your car, there’s a
good chance they’re mistaking it for water.


Smooth, dark surfaces like cars and asphalt reflect polarized light. That’s
what bugs see – and that tricks insects such as dragonflies.


Bruce Robertson is an author of the study in the journal Frontiers in Ecology
and the Environment.


“Asphalt actually reflects polarized light more strongly than water and so it
looks more like water than water! And so these organisms are thinking
they’re finding a place to breed and hunt and lay eggs and mate when in fact
they’re finding a place that’s very dangerous.”


Robertson says these bugs swarm over buildings and roads in huge numbers,
and can die of exhaustion.


But he says it might be possible to stop tricking the bugs. Things like
adding white curtains to dark windows or adding a little bit of gravel to
asphalt to make the surfaces reflect less polarized light.


For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Planting More Trees on Coffee Farms

  • Many coffee growers in Latin America are now replanting the shade trees. (Source: MarkSweep at Wikimedia Commons)

Songbirds on their way south might
find more trees at coffee plantations. Lester
Graham reports there’s a shift in thinking by
coffee growers. And a new study might encourage
more farmers to plant shade trees:

Transcript

Songbirds on their way south might
find more trees at coffee plantations. Lester
Graham reports there’s a shift in thinking by
coffee growers. And a new study might encourage
more farmers to plant shade trees:

A few decades ago, coffee growers in Latin America were given incentives to clear the
shade trees on their plantations. More sun equals more coffee beans. They also found
more sun meant more weeds. So they had to spray expensive herbicides.

Now a new study published in BioScience shows cutting down those shade trees has
also left the coffee plants more exposed to damage from bad weather. Ivette Perfecto
at the University of Michigan is one of the authors.

“The vulnerability of the farms are much higher if they eliminate the shade. The shade
trees provide like a buffer against extremes.”

Many coffee growers in Latin America are now replanting the shade trees. The added
benefit is the trees provide habitat for wildlife, including those migrating birds that spend
their summers here and travel south to that region.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Airports Ask for Bailout

  • Fuel costs are skyrocketing. That means air carriers are cutting back on routes... and airports say they're losing revenue as a result. (Photo courtesy of Boeing)

The airport industry says high fuel prices are

threatening the stability of the entire system. Rebecca

Williams reports the industry wants its fuel needs to be

given top priority:

Transcript

The airport industry says high fuel prices are threatening the stability of the entire system. Rebecca Williams reports the industry wants its fuel needs to be given top priority:


Fuel is a big deal for the airline industry. The industry says for every dollar increase in the price of a barrel of oil – fuel costs go up 465 million dollars for the airlines.

So they’ve been cutting back… stopping service on more than 400 routes since March.

And for airports… that means losing their main source of revenue.

So they want the federal government to bail them out if fuel keeps going up.

Sean Broderick is with the American Association of Airport Executives.

“Petroleum based products are what make airplanes fly, period. And while industry and aircraft manufacturers are working on alternatives there is no equivalent to wind power.”

The group wants the government to allow airlines to borrow from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve… or be given subsidies for jet fuel.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Turbines and Bats: A Deadly Combo

  • Many bats are being killed by wind turbines (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The wind turbine industry has made
changes to reduce the number of birds killed
by the spinning blades. But scientists are
finding that more bats are being killed.
Rebecca Williams reports one research team
thinks it now knows why:

Transcript

The wind turbine industry has made
changes to reduce the number of birds killed
by the spinning blades. But scientists are
finding that more bats are being killed.
Rebecca Williams reports one research team
thinks it now knows why:

It’s been a mystery why bats are getting killed by wind turbines. They’re
usually great at avoiding collisions because they sense moving objects
even better than still ones.

A team from the University of Calgary looked at dead bats near
turbines. They found that 90% of the bats had internal bleeding.

Erin Baerwald is the lead author of the study. She says there’s a sudden
drop in pressure near the tips of the turbine blades. And when bats fly
close enough, the pressure drop makes their lungs over-expand and
burst. She thinks the bats are attracted to the turbines.

“Maybe they see these tall turbines as trees.”

That’s because most of the bats that are getting killed are tree roosting
bats.

Baerwald says researchers are looking at ways to change turbines to
avoid killing bats.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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On the Lookout for Fireflies

  • Researchers have started a project to document firefly sightings (Photo by Don Salvatore, courtesy of Museum of Science, Boston)

Scientists want your help counting
fireflies. Mark Brush reports researchers
hope to answer a commonly asked question:

Transcript

Scientists want your help counting
fireflies. Mark Brush reports researchers
hope to answer a commonly asked question:

People often ask, ‘Why don’t we see as many fireflies anymore?’

Don Salvatore is an educator at Boston’s Museum of Science. He says he and other
researchers don’t have a good answer. They don’t even know whether there are fewer
fireflies or not.

So Salvatore and a few bug scientists started up the Firefly Watch Project. They’re
asking people to help them out by spending a few minutes in their backyard.

“So what we want them to do is to go outside at night and then for a ten second period
count the number of fireflies they see. As well as that we ask them to just key in on a
couple of fireflies and give us just a little information.”

Salvatore says they hope to discover whether thinks like frequent lawn mowing, light
pollution, and pesticides are harming firefly numbers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Grand Bridge Scaled Back for Birds

  • A tern chick at Mille Lacs Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats:

Transcript

There are few things as aggravating as getting stuck in a traffic jam. But for some drivers crossing a busy bridge from the U.S. to Canada there’s aggravation on top of aggravation. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s because a plan to build an additional bridge is being blocked by concern for a bird and a little fish that it eats.

Every year, millions of people cross the mighty Niagara River on the Peace Bridge that connects Buffalo, New York to Canada. And many of them sit for hours in a traffic jam. The border crossing and passport checks slow things down. But there are just not enough lanes for all the traffic.

Ice delivery man Tim Holliday is one of those who is fed up with hours and hours of bridge delays.

“Like, I gotta go to the duty-free here, and when I’m coming out of here I have to go through customs and they always ask, what were you doing in Canada?” said Holliday. “I’m just sick of the hassles, you know?”

Transportation officials say a new bridge is needed. The traffic problems will only get worse. Because of increased trade, about eleven million additional travelers are expected to be using the Peace Bridge over the next decade.

And that’s a headache for Ron Rienas. He manages the busy international bridge crossing. He says building a new bridge would help with the traffic delays and help with national security.

“This is a border improvement project designed to address redundancy issues, security issues, traffic flow, all of those things, maintenance issues…all of those are impacted by not being able to proceed with the project,” said Rienas.

A second bridge has been designed. It’s a cable-stayed bridge with towers as high as the Washington monument.

Brian Higgins is Congressman for the area. He’s pushing for federal approval of the impressive cable design. He says the region needs an iconic symbol of progress.

“We are in the eleventh hour of a project that’s been going on for fifteen years. We need additional capacity at the Peace Bridge to promote the efficient, predictable flow of commerce between the United States and Canada – we need an iconic bridge, a signature bridge,” said Higgins.

But that signature bridge is exactly the kind of design that is dangerous to many birds.

And the Niagara River is a virtual highway for nearly three hundred kinds of birds. The cables can be invisible to the birds and they can fly into them and die.

Among those birds is the Common Tern. It’s an endgangered species.

Terry Yonker knows these and other birds better than most.

“We probably documented somewhere in the range of half a million birds, and there’s a common tern right there.”

Yonker is a scientist and a former Ornithological Society president. He wrote an environmental study that recommended against the bridge’s cable design because it could kill hundreds of different kinds of birds, including the endangered tern.

Yonker says even if it avoided hitting the cables by flying over the bridge, the tern would be stressed by such a tall bridge design. That’s because it has to make eight trips over the bridge each day to feed its young. But he says it probably wouldn’t make that many trips if the new bridge is any higher than the Peace Bridge.

“You raise that structure and they’ll have to spend a lot of energy doing that. They’ll maybe make five or six trips a day and that means one or two chicks are going to get less food out there,” said Yonker.

The other concern is a food source for the tern.

Fishery experts say the enormous piers would change water currents, eventually killing off the Emerald Shiner. That’s the tiny fish the endangered bird feeds on.

So a new design is being recommended: A lower bridge with smaller piers to protect the tern and the emerald shiner.

Federal and state agencies are working to find a way to mitigate the threat to the birds and fish by altering the plans for the new bridge. But environmental experts say you can’t mitigate extinction.

Environmentalists and some biologists say the common tern is more than an endangered bird. They say it’s a warning, about what happens when sound science is ignored for the sake of progress.

But, try explaining that to the people stuck in traffic for hours because a second bridge is being blocked to save a small bird and a little fish.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Around the World in a Solar Plane

  • A computer-generated image of the solar plane (Photo courtesy of Solar Impulse/EPFL Claudio Leonardi)

A team in Switzerland is gearing up for
the first around-the-world flight of a solar
powered plane. Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

A team in Switzerland is gearing up for
the first around-the-world flight of a solar
powered plane. Rebecca Williams has more:

Bertrand Piccard was the first to fly a hot air balloon non-stop around the
world.

“You know a lot of people think something is impossible just before someone
else finds the solution to do it.”

Now he’s leading a team that’s building a solar powered plane to fly around the
world. The plane will have long skinny wings with solar panels, and room for
just one pilot.

“My greatest hope is that enough people will follow our adventure. These
people will say ‘Wow! If there was there a team that could do it in a solar
powered airplane, of course we should do it also ourselves in our daily lives.’”

Piccard says they have a lot to test out, especially how to fly at night.

If all goes well, the first real test flight is planned for next year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Community Wins Suit Against Egg Farm

An Ohio jury has awarded neighbors of a large factory farm $19.7 million in damages. People living near Buckeye Egg Farm in central Ohio have complained for years of fly infestations and odors. The outcome is seen as a victory by those living next to large-scale farm operations throughout the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has the story:

Transcript

An Ohio jury has awarded neighbors of a large factory farm 19.7 million dollars in damages. People living near Buckeye Egg Farm in Central Ohio have complained for years of fly infestations and odors. The outcome of the lawsuit may or may not affect similar cases in other states. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports.


(Natural sound of locusts, wind, dog barking in the distance)

Freda Douthitt’s house sits at the end of a gravel lane. The driveway is surrounded by trees and wild flowers. She’s always liked it here because it’s secluded … she’s a couple miles from a rural road. She likes to sit on the multi-tiered back patio that overlooks a small pond. That’s where she grades composition papers from her Freshman English class at Ohio University.

(sound of flies)


But she has also had to swat at flies for the past ten years. Douthitt collects flies in a container that is nearly the size of a gallon milk jug. She estimates this one has about 2-3 inches worth of decomposing flies and maggots collected since August 22.


“It smells out here. That’s the flytrap. That keeps some of them from getting in the house. Today there’s a few flies out here. There are days when that wall would be just polka dotted with them.


Douthitt has frozen the containers of flies and collected them over the years. She took them to court with her to prove the problems she deals with living near a factory farm.
That’s what helped her win a 1.2 million dollar share of a settlement with Buckeye Egg Farm. It’s one of the world’s largest egg-laying producers. Douthitt’s house is three-quarters of a mile from one of the company’s egg-laying plants. The flies come from the vast amounts of manure produced by millions of chickens housed at the company’s barns. The manure gets spread on farm fields that surround Douthitt’s house after harvest season in the fall. Since then … she has watched as run-off from Buckeye Egg properties killed tens-of-thousands of fish in a nearby creek. She has even seen the creek water turn purple.


She says she never expected to win in court against the company when she began the legal battle 9 years ago.


“I never thought about suing. Until one of the neighbors I’d been working hard with trying to get the EPA to do something … trying to get the county health department interested … um, we were both frustrated at that point. She called up one evening and said we’re ready to call a lawyer, are you? And I said, yeah, I’ll meet with you.
As the years went by I became pretty frustrated, and wondered what would make a difference.”


Douthitt and 20 of her neighbors won a 19.7 million dollar lawsuit against Buckeye Egg.
This win has other people in Great Lakes states hopeful they too can win in court against large factory farms.


Julie Janson of Olivia, Minnesota knows Douthitt’s story all too well. Janson has been fighting hog factory farm owner Valadco for 6 years. Her house sits sandwiched between two of the company’s hog barns. Janson and her husband filed a lawsuit this spring against the company. They are asking for close to 200-thousand dollars because Janson says her family of eight gets sick from manure odors.


Janson says she took her 11-year-old daughter to a specialist in California to prove she has brain damage from smelling hydrogen sulfide.


Decomposing manure creates hydrogen sulfide gas and ammonia that smells like rotten eggs.


“Sometimes it’s enough to gag a maggot. The stink is putrid. And, it penetrates through your house, through the windows and doors. Every little crack in your home.”


Janson says her family has spent one hundred thousand dollars to fight Valadco.
She had to close her daycare center, which she ran from her home, partly because of the stench. Her husband is supporting the family with his truck-driving job that brings in nearly 38-thousand dollars a year.


She says a win over Buckeye Egg farm in Ohio is a victory that can help her cause.


“There’s finally been some justice served. Some of these people have been fighting for over ten years. And … to me … it just says no matter how long and painful it is, you need to fight for justice because if us citizens don’t fight it’s never gonna happen.”


Both Janson and Douthitt say it’s not the money that will make them happy.
Douthitt says she will probably never see the money that she is owed.
But … she says the county judge may force the company to clean up its farms and the surrounding communities.


“How can they have that many animals and that much manure and let it just pour out and not treat it? They let it just pour out onto the land.”


Buckeye egg farm officials have said they may appeal the verdict. The company says it has already spent millions of dollars to try and clean up its facilities. Earlier this year, Buckeye Egg settled a multi-million dollar lawsuit with Ohio’s attorney general’s office. The state sued the company for dumping dead chickens in a field and polluting creeks by spilling contaminated water. The state has since filed seven sets of contempt charges against Buckeye Egg for not correcting the problems. It’s still undecided whether Buckeye Egg will file for bankruptcy following the verdict.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.

Airport Thaws De-Icing Problem

Each winter, airports around the country use more than 30 million
gallons of deicing fluid. The gooey substance prevents ice and snow from
building on a plane’s wings. However, the fluid can also seep into the
ground and pollute groundwater. It’s a costly problem for airports. But
now, one has found a unique solution. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Each winter, airports around the country use more than 30 million gallons of deicing fluid. The

gooey substance prevents ice and snow from building up on a plane’s wings. However, the fluid can

also seep into the ground and pollute groundwater. It’s a costly problem for airports. But now, one

has found a unique solution. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


(sound of plane)


It’s a cold, overcast day in Albany, New York as a passenger plane lifts off the runway. It’s one

of the hundred or so planes that take off from here every day. At this time of year, they’ll all

have to be deiced. Steve Lachetta is the Albany airport’s planner and environmental manager.


“We’re in the Hudson River basin and our winter season extends for over 214 days, from early

October through late April or early May. Albany, being a typical small hub, uses 100 thousand

gallons of PG per year.”


PG is propylene glycol, the main ingredient in deicing fluid that makes it gooey. Any time the

temperature dips below 40 degrees, airports are required by the FCC to use PG. The problem is,

propylene glycol also seeps into the ground.


And in Albany’s case, it started showing up in the nearby Mohawk River – a local source for

drinking water. So, Albany became the first airport in the country to receive a state mandate to

clean up its deicing fluid.


“We were spending one million dollars to dispose of our winter storm water after collection. So we

tried every form of recycling the fluid, trucking it off airport. And we took a common sense

approach to cost control and became very interested in establishing biological treatment.”


In other words, Lachetta turned to microorganisms for help. He added bacteria to the dirty storm

water. And found they started digesting the propylene glycol. The bacteria broke it down into

acidic acid and then carbon dioxide and methane. The process gives the microorganisms fuel to grow.


“The manufacturers refer to propylene glycol as the filling of the Oreo cookie of the microbe world

and very readily digested so we did much experimentation and found total removal. Byproducts are 85

percent pure methane and 15 percent carbon dioxide.”


(sound inside treatment plant)


That pure methane is put to use here – providing heat for the airport’s storm water treatment

plant. It looks like something out of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The room is filled

with a jumble of brightly colored pipes. There’s deep purple, vibrant green and canary yellow. Each

one has a special purpose.


“The large blue pipes are cycling 22 gallons per minute through the large vessels outside standing

35 feet high, 14 feet wide, and the brown pipes are the dirty storm water directly off the aircraft

aprons and the light blue pipes are for the clean water.”


Those pipes run to and from a pair of giant mixing vats. They stir up a brew of dirty storm water,

microorganisms, and some extra nutrients. It’s all cooked at a temperature of 85 degrees. And the

result is clean water.


Shelly Zuskin-Barish is the project manager for the EPA’s Airport Deicing Operations Study. She

says Albany has the most stringent treatment program in the country.


“I was very impressed when reviewing their treatment system. We found they were getting very good

removal in terms of not only propylene glycol but also an additive called tolyltriazole.”


Zuskin-Barish says there’s growing concern about tolytriazole because of its impact on aquatic

life. This is the first system she’s seen that removes it. As for propylene glycol, most airports

use a combination of recycling it and trucking it off site. Albany’s system removes more of the

pollutants, and it’s cheaper. Zuskin-Barish says Albany is on the cutting edge because it had to

be.


Albany airport has a local limit through their own state of 1 part per million propylene glycol.

For the different airports we’ve seen, that’s a very tight limit and I think in large part, pushed

them to go to this technology, which is helping them achieve those levels on a daily basis.


But now, other states – and countries – are starting to crack down as well. And Albany’s Steve

Iachetta is getting lots of visitors.


“We’ve been visited by Tokyo International, some European airports, the Department of Defense, much

larger airports, Denver, Nashville, other hubs that have come to see our early pioneering efforts.

It’s great to be on the leading edge. It’s nice to know we can contribute to improving the

environment.”


Right now, airport pollution controls differ from state to state. But next winter, the EPA will

consider national regulations to govern the disposal of deicing fluid. That may bring even more

visitors to Albany – to find out how a small airport ended up with the country’s most innovative

system.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly in Albany, New York.