Biologists are trying to prevent invasive species such as the Asian carp, from traveling between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin. The latest plan proposed by some scientists is to remove all the oxygen from a section of the Chicago River. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Annie MacDowell has more:
Transcript
Biologists are trying to prevent invasive species such as the Asian carp from traveling between
the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river basin. The latest plan proposed by some scientists is to
remove all the oxygen from a section of the Chicago river. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Annie Macdowell has more:
Scientists say killing part of the river would create a barrier no fish could swim through and live.
Removing the oxygen is against the Clean Water Act, but biologists think it might be worth it.
Jerry Rasmussen is a river biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He says the
potential economic and ecological disaster from the invasive species justifies creating this dead
zone.
“The real problem has been reluctance of everyone, including myself, to take a measure like this
because of the implications of it and the precedents it sets, but the concern is significant enough
with these Asian Carp that a significant problem may require significant measures to stop it.”
Rasmussen says killing a section of the river buys engineers time to work on a long-term solution
to the invasives problem, such as building a second electric barrier. He says the river would be
shut down for a minimum of two years and then re-oxygenated so that living things could return.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Annie MacDowell.
Duke Wagatha drives down from northern Michigan each year to sell his Christmas trees. While in Ann Arbor, he and his crew live in this 1951 Vagabond trailer.
It’s that time of year again – parking lots across the country are filled with Christmas trees. Just about one out of every three people who celebrate Christmas buys a live tree. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush spent some time with one tree grower in the height of tree selling season:
Transcript
It’s that time of year again – parking lots across the country are filled with Christmas trees. Just about one
out of every three people who celebrate Christmas buys a live tree. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Mark Brush spent some time with one tree grower in the height of tree selling season:
(sound of generator, saws, people chatting)
It’s a crisp afternoon at this Christmas tree lot in Ann Arbor, Michigan. That generator you hear is
powering the electric saws. They trim up the base of the tree so it’ll fit your tree stand. The guys’ hands
are blackened with sap and dirt from handling the hundreds of trees that came off of flat-bed trucks. They
take the bundled trees – open them up, and stick them onto stands. They’ve created a makeshift forest in
the middle of this strip mall parking lot. Customers wander through the forest searching for the perfect
tree.
Duke Wagatha runs the tree lot. He appears each year from north Michigan to sell his trees:
“We get here the weekend before Thanksgiving. Takes us probably about a week, or
five days to get set up, with the idea of opening the day after Thanksgiving. We like to let folks get one
holiday out of the way and then we start on the next.”
“Hello folks, how may I help you?…” (fade tree lot sound under)
He calls his business ‘Flat-Snoots Trees.’ You couldn’t tell from looking at his face now – but he
calls it ‘Flat-Snoots’ to make light of a broken nose he suffered in high school.
Duke seems to be a hard working free-spirit. His coveralls are all tarnished with pine needles and sap.
And when he moves, you hear ringing from the bells on his hat. He moves between the trees in his
parking lot forest telling his customers jokes and filling their heads with visions of Scotch pine, Fraser
firs, and Blue Spruce.
Margaret Jahnke has been buying trees from Duke for more than six years:
“He just makes it really personable – and there was one year it was really kind of warm and he had his
Hawaiian shirt on and his straw hat, and he was out here partyin’ away! And I’m like, ‘Whoa!’ It’s fun
to come, you know, just to run in, you know, to talk to him. And they’re really helpful!”
While they’re in Ann Arbor, Duke and his crew live in a 1950’s vintage trailer. The trailer’s paint is
faded, but Duke spruces it up for the holidays with wreaths and pine bows. And when you step inside, the
old lamps and rustic furniture make it seem as if you’ve stepped back in time.
(sound of trailer door opening)
“Whooo! It feels better in here doesn’t it?”
(sound of trailer door closing)
The trailer also doubles as his office. Customers pay for their trees in here and on occasion they’ll have a
complimentary nip of what Duke calls his “bad schnapps.” And the kids might be offered coupons for
free hot chocolate.
Duke is from Mesick, a small rural town in northern Michigan. Christmas tree farming is big business
in Michigan. The state is second only to Oregon in the number of acres that are in Christmas tree
production.
Duke, however, calls himself a small-time grower. He’s a carpenter by trade, but his work tends to dry up in the
long winter months:
“It’s not enough to make a living for me and my family year-round, uh, but it’s a good extra source of
income and uh, winters are tough up there, so if you make a little bit of extra money – winters are tough
and expensive – uh, living in the country, you know, like anybody, you got propane bills and all that, and
it’s a little colder up there, so to make a little bit of money going into winter is pretty nice.”
A lot of work went into growing the trees that have now arrived on his lot. Each summer workers plod
through the rows and rows of trees swinging razor sharp machetes. They trim each tree to give them that
classic, symmetrical, Christmas tree shape.
After about ten years, the trees are ready for harvest. They’re cut, they’re run through a baling machine,
and they’re loaded onto trucks and shipped down to the lots.
(sound of tree lot with sound of Duke)
Even though there’s a jovial atmosphere on the lot, there’s also a sense of urgency. After all, Duke only
has a few weeks to sell trees that in many cases have taken more than ten years to grow.
And while selling the trees is an important part of Duke’s income – he gets something else out of it. He
really likes people. And he enjoys making connections with them – whether it’s getting them to laugh, or
just simply helping them buy a tree:
“Sometimes you get some grumpy folks coming in, and it’s usually just because they’re overwhelmed
with shopping, it’s cold out, they didn’t wear their long underwear, or whatever, but we can usually get
them turned around, you know, we have a little fun with them. Like I say, if we have to bring them to the
trailer and have a shot of bad schnapps with ’em – hey, that’s just fine too.”
It’s closing time at the tree lot. The workers are headed for a warmer space. Right now, Duke’s trailer is
filled with his relatives and friends.
(sound of door opening)
“Come on in! This is Duke’s family. It’s warm in here, huh?”
(more rowdy banter)
Duke will continue to sell his trees right up until Christmas Eve. Then he’ll drive home to spend a few
days with his family before he comes back to tear the lot down:
“It’s kind of like the circus coming to town. You build up your tree lot, you almost build like, well I
wouldn’t say a village, but a little spot where there was nothing – just an asphault parking lot. And when you leave – there’s nothing
left – we sweep up and go – so it’s almost like a mirage. Were those guys really here?” (laughter)
And so, they spring to their trucks and drive out of sight, knowing they helped make the season
merry night after night.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
Some environmental groups and labor unions are pushing for an end to using certain wood preservatives in treated lumber. They’ve jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court to push the Environmental Protection Agency to stop the use of the preservatives because they contain toxic chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Some environmental groups and labor unions are pushing for an end to using certain wood
preservatives in treated lumber. They’ve jointly filed a lawsuit in federal court to push the
Environmental Protection Agency to stop the use of the preservatives because they contain toxic
chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The EPA acknowledges that some of the wood preservatives such as penta and creosote contain
chemicals that can cause cancer. But, the agency has long maintained that it cannot just ban the
wood preservatives used to treat lumber, utility poles and railroad ties. That’s because it says
there are no viable alternatives. Jay Feldman is with the environmental group “Beyond
Pesticides” which is one of the organizations suing the EPA. Feldman says the EPA position used to be true,
but not anymore:
“The alternatives are on line; they’re ready to go. It’s unnecessary for us to continue to dump
over a billion pounds of these wood preservatives into the environment on an annual basis.”
Feldman argues that recycled rubber, steel and plastic materials are available at about the same
cost. And he adds many power, telephone and cable lines can be put underground rather than on
creosote-treated utility poles. The Treated Wood Council indicates that its products are safe, but the industry is
beginning to offer different preservatives without the cancer-causing chemicals because of the
concerns.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Some bird enthusiast clubs around the Midwest are calling on their members to put out extra bird feeders this winter, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports, the move might not be necessary:
Transcript
Some bird enthusiast clubs around the Midwest – Great Lakes Region are calling on their
members to put out extra bird feeders this winter. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Jonathan Ahl reports, the move might not be necessary:
Some of the clubs say birds are still suffering the effects of the West Nile Virus and need extra
food this winter to make sure they are healthy in the Spring. But not all scientists agree with that
claim. Barbara Frase is a biology professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. She says
there are only a few circumstances where birds need the extra food humans provide:
“In the winter, if there is a really long cold spell, then the birds are probably helped. The extra
food will help see them through that cold snap. Otherwise, it probably doesn’t add to their
survival ability.”
Frase says studies show birds that frequent bird feeders still get eighty percent of their food from
the wild. She says it is still a nice thing to help birds, but says the West Nile Virus is really not a
reason to put out an extra feeder this winter.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
Workers are busy picking up dead birds along some Great Lakes shores to try to slow the spread of a toxin that’s killing wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Workers are busy picking up dead birds along some Great Lakes shores to try to slow the spread
of a toxin that’s killing wildlife. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
It’s estimated that millions of fish and tens of thousands of birds have died because of a Type-E
botulism outbreak. Ward Stone is the wildlife pathologist for the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation. He says he has crews patrolling the shores of Lakes Erie and
Ontario picking up the carcasses of seagulls, cormorants, and diving ducks who’ve eaten fish with
botulism.
“Because if an eagle comes in and then feeds on one of these carcasses containing this poison,
they in turn become poisoned. So, we think we are saving thousands of birds and mammals as
well like raccoons and skunks and coyotes and even dogs that would feed on carcasses on the
beach.”
Stone believes the botulism outbreak is due to an upset in nature caused by zebra mussels, quagga
mussels, and round goby fish. All three are invasive species believed to have been transported
from foreign ports to the Great Lakes in the ballast water of cargo ships.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
An interfaith coalition of religious leaders is calling for automakers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more:
Transcript
An interfaith coalition of religious leaders is calling for automakers to produce more fuel efficient vehicles. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jerome Vaughn has more:
For the Christian part of this coalition, the question is, ‘What Would Jesus Drive?’ The group says the nation’s automakers aren’t doing enough to make cars that pollute less and use less gas. The coalition which includes representatives from a variety of Christian and Jewish organizations says automakers have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of the planet. But Rabbi David Saperstien says that just isn’t happening.
“Virtually all the cars the American auto industry is manufacturing are contributing to poisoning the air, warming the planet, punishing the poor, weakening American security by dependence on foreign oil, jeopardizing the future of our children, just plain violating that covenant with our creator.”
Ford and General Motors say they want to show the coalition how they are making progress on more environmentally-friendly cars.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jerome Vaughn in Detroit.
Emergency money is being spent to stop an exotic invader. Some experts think the Asian carp could be a ecological disaster for Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports on recent measures to stop the fish:
Transcript
Some emergency money is being spent to stop an exotic invader. Some
experts think the Asian Carp could be a ecological disaster for Lake
Michigan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports
on measures to stop the fish:
The only thing keeping the Asian Carp from leaving the Mississippi River
system and entering Lake Michigan through a canal is an electrical barrier.
That barrier repels the fish, but a power outage could shut off the barrier, and
allow the carp to enter the Great Lakes.
The International Joint Commission and three federal agencies, including the
Environmental Protection Agency, put together 300-thousand dollars for a
back-up power source.
Tracy Mehan with the EPA says it’s important to act quickly.
“It’s a modest investment with a huge payoff in terms of avoiding, yet
another scourge to the Great Lakes fisheries. We’ve got 160 exotic species
that weren’t here in the last century and we didn’t need another one
especially something with such a high impact as the Asian Carp can have.”
Asian Carp grow up to 4-feet long and 100 pounds. They eat native fish,
and have no predator in this part of the world.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.
The recent elections mean that there’s a power shift in the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that a group made up of Great Lakes states governors will change dramatically:
Transcript
The recent elections mean that there’s a power shift in the region. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports that a group made up of Great Lakes states
governors will change dramatically:
Of the eight Great Lakes states, five of them have elected new governors. And most of
the new governors are from a different party than their predecessor.
“Actually, this is the largest turnover in one election cycle that the Council’s had in its
twenty-year history. ”
That’s Maggie Grant with the Council of Great Lakes Governors. The council deals with
issues surrounding the Great Lakes and trade in the region.
“We don’t see major policy shift, although, we look forward to the new energy and ideas
of our governors that they bring to the table.”
Coming to the table are a lot more Democrats. Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Pennsylvania all elected Democrats to replace their Republican governors. Grant says
party affiliation isn’t that important to the group – fighting for the Great Lakes region is.
For the Great Lakes Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Government, industry, and activists work to inform people about individual threats of non-native invasive species. However, there is no comprehensive approach to reducing biological contamination of the Great Lakes region.
One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Great Lakes is the introduction of foreign plants and animals. Invasive species such as the zebra mussel are causing havoc to the lakes. Local, state, and federal governments know about the problems. But there’s not been much public pressure on the governments to do much about them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
One of the biggest environmental problems facing the Great Lakes is the introduction of
foreign plants and animals. Invasive species such as the zebra mussel are causing havoc
to the lakes. Local, state, and federal governments know about the problems. But there’s
not been much public pressure on the governments to do much about them. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Here’s a factoid for you. In the United States alone in the 1980’s and ’90’s, it’s estimated
that it cost more than two-billion dollars to keep zebra mussels from clogging up water
intake pipes. Two-billion! Guess who paid for that? You did – in higher bills.
Zebra mussels are an invasive species. That is, they are native to a foreign place and they
were transported here – like many invasives – by a ship. Zebra mussels were sucked up in
ballast water in a foreign port and then pumped out in a Great Lakes port. The zebra
mussels have spread all over the Great Lakes, in huge numbers. They attach to
everything, including intake pipes. They’ve crowded out native mussels. And zebra
mussels eat the microscopic plant life at the bottom of the food chain, making fish more
scarce and causing fish prices to go up.
And that’s just the beginning. There’s been something like 160 invasive species such as
foreign fish, aquatic nuisances, plants, and insects brought into the Great Lakes region
one way or another and each one has caused problems. Dutch elm disease kills trees. A
fish called round goby eats the eggs of native sport fish. Invasive mites are killing off
honey bees.
“People aren’t outraged about it. And they’re not outraged about it because, I think, we in
the public interest community and the government side haven’t done what it takes to
clearly communicate why this is a problem to people.”
Cameron Davis is with the Lake Michigan Federation, an environmental group that
works to get policies changed in the Great Lakes basin. Davis says most of the time
people just don’t understand that because the government is not doing enough to stop
invasive species from entering the country, it ends up costing them and takes a toll on the
natural environment.
“When zebra mussels, for example, get into drinking water intakes, municipalities have to
pay to keep those things out of there. That means higher rates for you and me. For other
people, fishing is impacted. Invasive species getting into the lakes can mean competition
for those native species like yellow perch because of round gobies, because of zebra
mussels and other invasive species getting into the Great Lakes.”
The government agencies which work on these kinds of problems know about them and
some things have been done to try to prevent new invasive species from being introduced
or control them once they’re here.
Tom Skinner is a regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and also heads up the EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office. Skinner says there
are several obstacles to stopping the invasions.
“One is identifying all the possibilities out there. Two is identifying how they get into the
lakes. Three is coming up with a technical solution to deal with the invasive nature of the
species. And four is getting the resources to make sure that you put the technical
solutions into place.”
And there’s another problem – government agencies, much like people, tend to deal with
one problem at a time. For example, sea lampreys entered the Great Lakes after a canal
was opened. They decimated lake trout populations. Government agencies attacked that
problem. Asian carp are threatening to spread from the Mississippi River system into the
Great Lakes through a canal. Government agencies are putting up barriers. One problem
equals one fix.
Tom Skinner’s counterpart in Canada, John Mills with Environment Canada, says
governments are beginning to realize that stopping the spread of invasive species cannot
just be fixed one problem at a time.
“It isn’t a simple problem of just focusing in on ballast water. It’s a much broader
problem. You can get organisms coming in on wood or other commodities that will take
up residence in the basin and create havoc.”
So, there are lots of ways for invasive species to enter the Great Lakes region. But the
Lake Michigan Federation’s Cameron Davis says no one seems to be looking at the
overall problem.
“We’ve got a number of different gateways to get into the Great Lakes, but we have all
kinds of different departments looking at A) individual gateways, or B) looking at
individual species. Nobody’s really there to pull it all together. We have a big
institutional problem that way.”
And there’s no one movement among environmental groups or consumer groups to
pressure the governments to step back and look at the policies that allow shipping and
trade to continue to easily transport invasive species into the Great Lakes region.
The EPA’s Tom Skinner says government agencies are working on it.
“We’re going to continue to work with the Coast Guard, with the Corps of Engineers,
with our friends to the north in Canada and try and come up with a comprehensive
solution to these various invasive problems. But, it’s easy to say; it takes a great deal of
work and effort to do that.”
And government agencies are not getting any real kind of public pressure to do it because
the public doesn’t realize the price it’s paying for invasive species.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Researcher Lee Harper bands a common tern. Photo by David Sommerstein.
Biologists like to find these common tern eggs – a sign the bird's population is recovering in the region. Photo by David Sommerstein.
The common tern is a bird best known for its graceful flight and dramatic dives. Over the past 50 years, its best nesting habitat in the Great Lakes has been taken over by more aggressive birds, like gulls, cormorants, and osprey. Today, common terns are a threatened species in New York and Minnesota, and monitored carefully in other states. A couple years ago, a biologist and some volunteers used gravel and navigational buoys on the St. Lawrence River to create artificial nesting habitats for the terns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the experiment’s progress:
Transcript
The Common Tern is a bird best known for its graceful flight and dramatic dives. Over the
past 50 years, its best nesting habitat in the Great Lakes has been taken over by more
aggressive birds, like gulls, cormorants, and osprey. Today, common terns are a
threatened species in New York and Minnesota, and monitored carefully in other states. A
couple years ago, a biologist and some volunteers used gravel and navigational buoys on
the St. Lawrence River to create artificial nesting habitats for the terns. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports on the experiment’s progress:
The St. Lawrence isn’t just a river – it’s a seaway – an aquatic interstate for ocean freighters rumbling into the Great Lakes. So it’s not strange.
I’m in a boat floating just upstream from one of the river’s highway signs, a seaway
navigation marker.
We’re not talking about a plastic buoy – it’s a fixed concrete column rising 8 feet above the
water. Its platform is big enough that you can walk around on it. On top, a tall steel tower holds a red light and signs that serve as channel markers for the seaway traffic. But for the conservationists I’m tagging along with, this is bird habitat. We sit in silence and listen to the call of the Common Tern.
(tern squawking in the clear)
Dozens of small white birds with pointy wings and black caps swoop above our heads.
They soar, suspended, then suddenly dive into the water. Their orange beaks snap at
minnows just below the surface, then they shoot back up into the air.
(more squawks)
This particular colony was formerly the largest and most productive Common Tern
colony on the entire lower Great Lakes.
Biologist Lee Harper is known as “the tern guy” in this part of the Great Lakes. He’s
tagged thousands of them and recorded them as far away as Brazil. He documented the
common tern’s dramatic decline over the past twenty years. Gull and osprey populations
exploded, displacing the more sensitive terns from their nesting sites. But today Harper
peers through binoculars and grins.
“The terns we’re seeing here today represent the first nests on this site in almost ten
years.”
Terns don’t need much to nest, just a dry, isolated spot near water. Harper noticed the
refugee terns were retreating to navigation markers like this one. They’d lay eggs on its
concrete platform. The problem was the eggs would roll around and the birds would abandon
them. So Harper enlisted volunteers to lug 5 tons of gravel out here. They spread it on the
platform so the terns would lay their eggs on top of the gravel and the eggs wouldn’t roll.
Suzie Wood was among them.
“The first time I saw it, it was a piece of concrete and I frankly thought that Lee was a
little bit cracked when I heard about it.”
That was two summers ago. Today’s the first day the volunteers have returned. They’re
going to count nests and eggs to see how the gravel is working.
(motor sound, then clanking and action sound as we tie up)
We inch the boat up to the marker and huddle under the canvas top in case the birds dive-
bomb our approach. Then we tie up to an iron ladder that leads up to the concrete
platform. One by one, we climb the ladder and peer over the platform’s rim.
“Wow, this is a beautiful nest right here.”
Lee Harper is right behind and he’s beaming.
“After ten years of no terns here, this is really a wonderful sound!”
Almost invisible amongst the gravel and weeds are clusters of brown spotted eggs. We
walk on tip toe, look before every step, careful not to crush a nest. Harper works quickly
to minimize the disturbance. He calls out the number of eggs he sees. A volunteer takes
notes on a clipboard.
(counting)
Harper was here two weeks ago and counted 18 nests. Today there are 40 common tern
nests. Volunteer David Duff is impressed.
“It was just such a simple thing to do. I mean, a hundred twenty dollars worth of gravel
and a two or three hours and half a dozen people helping with five gallon buckets of gravel
and I think we have a victory, at least a preliminary victory.”
The gravel nests are starting to catch on. The St. Lawrence Seaway Development
Corporation is spreading gravel on navigation markers all along the Seaway. Groups in
Michigan are planning similar restoration efforts, using dredging spoils from the St. Mary’s
River. They’re man-made solutions, but ones that just might restore the Common Tern
population to health in the Great Lakes.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
