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Muddy Waters Around Wetlands Ruling

  • Federal protections for isolated wetlands like this one are in question after a 2001 Supreme Court ruling. Experts say it's not just wetlands that are at risk. They say lakes or streams that have been deemed "isolated" are losing protections as well. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Around the country, there are small, isolated swampy areas that are home to a lot of plants and animals. You can often hear frogs singing, or see ducks dabbling for food in these murky waters. Some experts say the government has weakened regulations that once protected these smaller wetlands. Now, they say, many of these wetlands are being drained, filled in and lost. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

Around the country there are small, isolated swampy areas that are home
to a lot of plants and animals. You can often hear frogs singing, or
see ducks dabbling for food in these murky waters. Some experts say
the government has weakened regulations that once protected these
smaller wetlands. Now, they say, many of these wetlands are being
drained, filled in and lost. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark
Brush has more:


This small wetland is nestled in the middle of a woodlot. Mud is
squishing under our feet as we walk around it. The water is still, and
dark… filled with last year’s rotting leaves.


This is no place for humans to live. But for wildlife, this is home.


(sound of chorus and wood frogs)


“That looks like what was left of a whirligig beetle – that’s a real
common insect in these types of habitats.”


We’re out here with Dave Brakhage. He’s a conservationist with Ducks
Unlimited. He says these small wetlands are where ducks take their
ducklings for food.


Brakhage brought us here to show us an example of a wetland that was
once protected by federal regulations:


“These wetlands are isolated because there’s not a direct water
connection from them to a lake or stream or other water body in the
area. They’re geographically isolated.”


Being isolated puts these wetlands into a sort of regulatory limbo. To
dredge or fill a wetland like this 4 years ago – you needed to apply
for a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers.


Now – in many parts of the country – you don’t need that permit.


That’s because in 2001 the Supreme Court ruled on a case from the
Chicago area that changed everything. The court’s decision opened up a
lot debate about whether isolated wetlands should be protected by the
federal government.


Dave Brakhage says the ruling gave the Bush Administration an
opportunity to issue a guidance to government agencies.


“The Supreme Court ruling certainly threw into question a lot of the
protections that were in place there. And that opened the door to the
guidance. And depending on how the guidance came down and the
interpretations associated with it. It could certainly make things a
whole lot worse.”


The Bush administration issued these instructions to the federal
agencies in January of 2003.


But conservation officials and environmentalists believe the
administration went too far with these instructions, going beyond what
the Supreme Court ruling required.

The instructions were issued prior to drafting a final, formal rule.


But before it finalized the rule – the Bush Administration got an
earful.


“There was a lot of concern expressed on the part of a pretty broad
swath of the American Public.”


Scott Yaich is the Director of Conservation Programs with Ducks
Unlimited. He says the Administration heard protests from those they
considered friendly:


“We were talking about people who were concerned about the environment,
and in this case there were a lot of hunters and a other sporting
groups and angling groups that went into him, and those are a pretty
core part of the Republican and the President’s base.”


So President Bush stopped the rule-making process that would lift the
protections.


But… the original instructions to the agencies still stand.


And the Administration has no plans to change them.


Julie Sibbing is wetlands policy specialist with the National Wildlife
Federation. She says getting the President to back away from finalizing
the rule was a small victory, but there’s still a lot to be done:


“It was a right decision at we do recognize that and we praise the
administration for taking the right step, but they’ve got a long way to
go yet. We still have a long way to go – and there’s a lot at risk.
In fact the EPA’s own estimates are that the guidance has put about 20
million acres, or about 20% of what we have left in the lower 48 states
of wetlands at risk.”


But the risk is not the same for wetlands in different areas of the
country. So today, when developers and landowners go to the Army Corps
of Engineers to apply for a permit, they get different responses
depending on where they are.


Some Corps districts have turned their back on the isolated wetlands,
telling developers no permits are needed.


Other Corps districts are waiting for clearer direction.


Mitch Isoe is the Chief of the Regulatory Branch for the Corps’ Chicago
District. He says he just wants to know what he’s supposed to do.


“We would like to have revised rules on the definitions for our
jurisdiction. We’d just like to have the critical terms that are
causing all of these difficulties defined in a way that two people in
two parts of the country can read the same sentence, go out on the
ground and end up at the same point. And, you know, right now the
field is helpless to do that, because the decision on not to pursue
rulemaking was made in Washington.”

With mixed messages coming from the White House, the Corps of Engineers
and the Environmental Protection Agency are struggling with how and
whether to regulate these wetlands.


In the meantime, it’s generally left up to the states to pass laws to
protect these areas.


Some states have laws that do that, others don’t.


(sound of frogs)


Ducks Unlimited and other conservation and environmental groups are
working with the Administration to protect these wetlands. Dave
Brakhage says doing so will benefit more than just ducks:


“And it’s not just the wildlife – you know wetlands are important in
terms of storing floodwaters, an important site for restoring ground
water recharge, and also have a big role to play in improving our water
quality.”


The Bush Administration says it’s committed to preserving wetlands, and
it even says it plans to increase the amount of wetlands in the U.S.


Environmentalists and hunting groups say they don’t see that happening
right now. But they’re pushing the Administration to make good on that
promise.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.


(frogs fade)

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Bigger Homes, Better Living?

  • American houses are getting bigger and bigger, but some architects question whether more square footage leads to a happier life. Photo by Lester Graham.

Although family size is growing smaller in the U.S., house sizes are growing larger. The square footage of a home built in the 1950’s seems tiny compared to the houses typically built in the suburbs today. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham looks at the trend of ever-larger houses:

Transcript

Although family size is growing smaller in the U.S., house sizes are growing larger. The square
footage of a home built in the 1950’s seems tiny compared to the houses typically built in the
suburbs today. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham looks at the trend of ever-
larger houses:


There’s no one answer as to why we’re building bigger houses. For some people, it’s a matter of
investing. Housing prices continue to rise and bigger houses sell well. People trade up. But…
for some homebuyers, it’s more than that. It’s a statement.


Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Home Builders.


“A lot of that could be a status symbol. Move out of the city; move into a rural-like area because
‘I’ve made it,’ because ‘This is my dream.’ It used to be people would move up, sell their homes
every seven to ten years. That’s changed now and the sale of homes is now three to five years.
You build up the equity in a new home or an existing home, you have the opportunity to build or
move into something else later. It is an investment.”


Investing in a house only explains some of the reason houses are getting larger. Another reason is
government. Local governments are zoning residential areas into large lot subdivisions. Egbert
says that means the builder has to build a big house, just to recoup the cost of the sizeable piece
of land.


“That is a preclusion, a prohibition against Smart Growth. When they have large lots sizes, it
absolutely dictates and mandates that anybody who moves in there is going to have a large
home.”


It’s an attempt by towns to keep out lower-income people who might build homes that lower the
property values of a neighborhood.


But there’s a demand for the bigger houses and it doesn’t seem to be letting up. So, cities and
towns zone for them, builders build them, and people buy them – bigger and bigger.


Linda Groat is a professor at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture. She
says it’s not too surprising. People feel less connected to the community at large because they
move often, drive somewhere else to work, and see their home as a refuge. Home is where they
can relax and escape from the rest of the world.


“There may be, on the part of some people, a feeling of need to really make it more of a castle to
compensate for what feels more complicated or out of control in the larger world.”


We feel we need private places that we can call our own. But there might be social costs to that
refuge. There’s often little interaction with neighbors and the rest of the community in which we
live. And Groat says even within the home all that space means family members don’t have to
bump into each other on the way to the bathroom. Groat says in the new large suburban homes,
sometimes derisively called McMansions, everyone can pursue their own activities in different
parts of the house.


“If you buy a McMansion and the master bedroom is off on one wing and or a different floor and
the kids are off in huge rooms way on the other side of the house, is that really going to foster
family connection?”


Some architects are becoming aware the scale of housing is beginning to leave smaller
families with a sense of emptiness, not a sense of space. Sarah Susanka is one of the leaders of a
movement to re-evaluate the concept of whether bigger is really better. The first question is
“Why?” Why are we building bigger houses?


“Well, there’s obviously a large market for larger and larger homes. And my belief is that people
are trying to fill a void in their lives with the only tool that we’ve really defined for ourselves in
this culture which is: more. More stuff. More square footage. You know, more indication that
we’ve arrived. All that stuff.”


But Susanka says there’s a longing underneath all that, an idea that there should be some better
quality of life that’s not being satisfied by just more square footage. She’s the author of a series
of books that started with one entitled “The Not So Big House.” She argues that people can use
the money they’d spend on additional square footage for space that’s rarely used for better
designed spaces where they actually live day-to-day. She says if the house is an investment, then
it should be an investment in quality craftsmanship and better living, not just more space.


“When something is thrown together and just is sort of raw space, but not much else, over time
it’s going to degenerate. And, the amount of square footage obviously has a direct correlation
with the amount of resources it takes to build it. So by making something that’s tailored to fit – in
other words, not with excess material – and then that’s going to last a long time that that should be
the first step in sustainable design.”


Graham: “So, you suspect a lot of these McMansions or starter-castles, as you call them, aren’t going to be
around very long?”


“Yeah, I think in the long haul those are not going to survive in the same way and are probably
not going to be looked after in the same way over time just because they’re not as well put
together and they don’t have the charm that’s going to make somebody want to look after them in
the future.”


Susanka says using resources for bigger houses is not environmentally friendly and does not
necessarily mean better living. She says builders and homebuyers should think about it this way:
build the space you need and do it well and do it in a way that somebody in the future will want to
preserve.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Building Demand for Green Construction

To the environmentalist, “green” refers to something environmentally friendly. When manufacturers refer to green, they usually mean money. But with an increase in the demand for environmentally sound buildings, manufacturers have the opportunity to combine the two definitions. For those who see the possibility, retooling to meet the demand for green construction could mean a large payoff in a burgeoning industry. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shula Neuman reports:

Transcript

To the environmentalist, “green” refers to something environmentally friendly. When
manufacturers refer to green, they usually mean money. But with an increase in the demand for
environmentally sound buildings, manufacturers have the opportunity to combine the two
definitions. For those who see the possibility, retooling to meet the demand for green
construction could mean a large payoff in a burgeoning industry. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Shula Neuman filed this report:


There’s an 86-year old abandoned building in a Cleveland neighborhood that was left for dead a
few decades ago. It’s a shame because inside the building are 26-foot high ceilings with ornate
molding, original Tennessee marble walls and wood trim. But recently, the building, which was
once the Cleveland Trust Bank, was identified by a coalition of local environmental groups as the
ideal spot for their offices. The Cleveland Green Building Coalition spearheaded the task of
converting the old bank building into the new Environmental Center. Executive director Sadhu
Johnston explains, the project is not your average renovation.


“What we’re really trying to do is to demonstrate to people that you can do green while
preserving and that’s often they are seen to butt heads and this project is showing that the two
movements have a lot in common.”


While touring the mostly finished building, Johnston points out seemingly endless
environmentally friendly features. First, there’s a radiant floor heating and cooling system. Then
there are the geothermal wells under the parking lot. They use insulation made from recycled
paper and cardboard. And the roof is divided into three sections: one part has traditional black
tar, another has a white reflective coating and the third segment is a living roof, which looks like
a garden.


Johnston says the layout is meant to demonstrate a more than 100-degree temperature variation
between the three surfaces. All of the different materials and methods used to construct the
Environmental Center, could signal a forward thinking manufacturer to see financial reward from
the burgeoning interest in green buildings. After all, green buildings tend to save money.


The Environmental Center is 67-percent more energy efficient than required by code. In fiscal
terms, that adds up to a half-million dollar savings over 20 years. This might make you wonder
why more people aren’t building green. Actually, according to U.S. Green Building Council
president and CEO Christine Ervin, interest in green construction has been increasing over the
past decade. Since the group established green certification standards three years ago, nearly 700
projects have registered to meet certification. And, Ervin adds, the increase in interest is not
exclusive to tree-huggers


“The diversity of the kinds of projects also is telling us that this is a serious trend that is moving
into the mainstream market. We have projects that are registered firehouses, small schools, FAA
stations. All the way up to manufacturing plants and convention centers.”


Several cities and government agencies are already mandating green construction on new
buildings, including the city of Portland, the General Services Administration and the U.S. Army.


David Goldstein is with the Natural Resources Defense Council and environmental group in San
Francisco. He says there’s a movement afoot to establish national incentives to build green. In
other words, the time is ripe for the construction industry to get with the green program.


“From the point of view of the manufacturers of the equipment and supplies, and of the expert
building designers who put all these things together, once these policies for green buildings are
there, that’s a new market opportunity for them. So it is in their interest to promote these kinds of
policies.”


Goldstein adds green regulations also have a coincidental social benefit. With 35-percent of
pollution coming from the electricity and gas buildings use, requiring green buildings is as much
a public health issue as it is an economic one.


Some manufacturers in the great lakes region have caught on to the possibilities. The Cleveland
Based Garland Company manufactures and installs roofing systems all over the country and is
responsible for the Environmental Center’s roof—its first in-town green job. Garland
incorporates recycled materials into about 80 percent of its products. Nathan Schaus, project
manager at Garland, says about 15 percent of their business comes from their green product line.
Schaus says the market for green materials will continue to grow, especially with manufacturers
pushing its benefits.


“It’s a two-fold education. You need to educate the buyer, the end user that what they’re buying
is a building solution for the long term. So the initial investment, you have to explain that cost
over its life cycle. With the incentives, it’s changing the mindsets of the people that regulate
government and electricity today.”


Government regulators may work even faster on establishing incentives when they see the
increase in demand for residential green building on top of the commercial market. According to
the National Association of Homebuilders, about 13,000 green homes were built last year – a
huge increase over any single year before that. If demand continues to increase at such a rapid
pace, those business that go green now may be making plenty of green in the future.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Shula Neuman.

Tree Farmer Makes Season Merrier

  • 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.

Solar Houses Power Up the Grid

  • Some people are reversing the spin of their electric meters by selling their excess energy back to the power grid.

Most people think of houses as buildings that consume energy, but homeowners who generate their own electricity from rooftop solar panels are finding they often make more than they need. Some have begun selling their excess energy back to the utility… which puts it on the power grid for others to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Robbie Harris has this report:

To see your state’s policies regarding ‘net metering’ click here:

Transcript

Most people think of houses as buildings that consume energy. But home-owners who generate their own electricity from rooftop solar panels, are finding they often make more than they need. Some have begun selling their excess energy back to the utility… which puts it on the power grid for others to use. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Robbie Harris has this report:


(natural sound)


Marjie Isaacson’s one hundred twenty year old, brick four flat is wedged onto a typical Chicago city lot… From the street, the only thing that distinguishes her property from her neighbors, is the bright blue recycling bin, at the front gate… What you can’t see from the street is an array of twelve, 4 by 6 foot solar panels on the roof. A bank of batteries in the basement allows Isaacson to store enough electricity to power her house for four days.


“Here’s my messy basement.”


(laughs)


A huge wall full of batteries like this, used to be the only way to
store solar energy, but Marjie Isaacson
is taking part in an experimental
energy project.


“And how it works is.. When I’m producing energy from my solar panels it goes into the grid and gets mixed up with everyone else’s energy.. But Com Ed is keeping track of that for me.. And at the end of the year if I’ve used
more than I’ve given them, I don’t get any money. But if I’ve given them more than I use them, I get money.”


“And how’s that equation working?”


“I got money.”


“Can I ask how much?”


“Umm… I got 200 dollars.”


Com Ed, the Chicago utility company,
calls this its “Wind and Photovoltaic
Generation Pricing Experiment.” About
half the states in the country are experimenting
with something similar. Homeowners purchase
their own solar panels. Then the utility gives
them something called an inter-tie. The inter-tie
feeds their excess electricity to the power grid.
So the grid itself, effectively becomes the
home-owner’s battery back -up. On
cloudy days if someone’s system is
not generating enough power, the electrical
grid will supply it. When solar powered
houses produce an excess, Com Ed
will buy it from the homeowner. This
experiment has been going on for
three years. So far, fewer than 20
houses in Chicago have signed on to
the program.


“It’s a number that’s small that we’re
hoping to increase. It’s a hard sell in
the Midwest. Folks don’t think that
solar is as viable here as it is in
Florida or in California.”


Mary O’Toole is an Environmental
Strategist who oversees the alternative
energy experiment for Com Ed. She
gets a lot of phone calls from interested
homeowners… but when they hear it
costs anywhere from 10,000 dollars
on up to put a solar array on your roof,
that’s where the conversations end.


“I think most folks look at the cost of
solar or photovoltaic and say, “Oh!
I’ll wait for the price to drop.” Where
right now in Illinois we’ve got the ability
to cut the price in half for you… and
that’s… that’s huge.”


The state of Illinois has one of the
best incentive packages in the country
for offsetting the cost of installing
alternative energy systems. It offers
grants and rebates up to 60 percent.
But even with that price break, it still
takes 30 years or more for a solar energy
system to pay for itself. For most
homeowners, that’s way too long.
In this mobile society, it’s longer than
most people stay in their houses.


“We are in a society where nobody
cares for the future.”


Vladimir Nekola is an electrical
engineer who installs solar power
systems. He came to the U.S. twelve
years ago from Argentina. Nekola
longs for the day when he can tell
clients their payback will come in five
years. He points to other nations like
Japan and Germany which provide
homeowners with solar panels – and
allow them to pay off the high startup
costs over time. German utility
companies also encourage their
clients to participate in programs like
this by paying them far more than
Com Ed does for energy.


But the cost of conventional energy
is much higher in other countries
than it is in the US. Vladimir Nekola
says one of the things holding back
progress in alternative energy here
is that power is still relatively cheap.


“In my country, in Argentina,
everybody turns off the switch
because electricity is expensive. But here
it’s so cheap – we don’t care – we live
twenty four hours a day with the lights
on all the time… heating, air conditioner… it’s a luxury.”


Nekola believes most Americans
are just not thinking about alternative
energy. While he installed quite a few
solar energy systems around the
Y2K scare at the turn of the century…
he hasn’t done any in the last two
years. The few clients he is
working with are people who don’t
even have to think about price. To put
a solar array on your house, it seems,
you either have to be rich… crazy… or
fancy yourself an environmentalist.
Marjie Isaacson considers herself
the latter.


“I haven’t regretted it a day since I put
it in. It’s just been a source of
immense satisfaction to me.”


Marjie will tell you she was willing to
foot the bill for a solar power system –
the way other people might choose to
buy a new car – or some other
quasi-useful luxury.


“For me it was discretionary income.
I could have bought a fur coat.. but the
point is that if I had a fur coat or
fancy car no one would think I was
eccentric. But with this people seem
to think that it’s a little odd.”


In her dreams, Marjie envisions the
million solar rooftops former
President Bill Clinton spoke
about.. .. all generating energy
back to the grid.. and maybe, just
maybe, precluding the need for
another conventional energy power
plant.


Power industry officials say we’re
still a long way from that. But Marjie
Isaacson insists that it has to start
somewhere… and why not with her.


“People keep saying when we get
enough people getting these, the
solar panels are gonna start getting
cheaper.. so somebody has to start
buying them and I felt a responsibility
to put my money where my mouth
was.”


For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Robbie Harris.

Getting Back to Simple

Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Michael Delp muses over the notions of home and possessions only to find that home is not necessarily about what you own:

Transcript

Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Michael Delp muses over the notions of home and possessions only to find that home is not necessarily about what you own.


For years I’ve lingered around home most of the time. Given the choice to go to Paris or South America, I’d opt to stay home. In fact, at 52, my notions of home seem to go much farther than the actual structure, wandering into the considerations of rooms, smells and the plethora of information which signals I am in friendly territory. Over the years, I have sometimes confused a sense of home with the accumulation of possessions. I have accrued massive collections of objects and artifacts, which fill my home and storage shed.


Lately though, I seem to be heading for a definition of home which is marked by the ideas of simplicity and forgiveness. Home for me now is a refuge from the noise of this culture disintegrating around me. Sadly, confusingly, I carry the psychic shrapnel of living in an acquisitive age. My home is a temple to the power of credit.


However, there is hope. Almost every six months I grow tired of all my things. I imagine myself dancing out of my life, giving all my worldly belongings gladly into the arms of my friends, stepping out the door one last time, naked.


When I really drift down inside my darker self and think about home, I think of my friends Nancy and Dave Lemmen who literally lost everything they owned in a forest fire eight years ago in Grayling, Michigan.


I was there the day after and stood with them in the smoke and chaos of what was once their home. In the darkest reaches of my heart I see us sifting through the layers of debris in the garage finding the charred bodies of their three dogs. I knew their grief and seem to carry it now in my bone marrow. And I use this grief, this charred knowledge to help me jettison the “stuff” of my life, to help me re-define my own life in terms of home.


Now, a powerful organizing force in my life is that I know what it’s like to sift through the ashes of home, bring the smell of memory up out of the blackened ground. And I know everyday what it means to run my hands through my wife’s hair, my daughter’s braids, then down over the soft fur over a dog’s ears.


For what it’s worth, I haven’t given enough away lately and I’m reminded daily that Dave Lemmen once told me before he died of cancer how happy he was thinking of the things from his life he gave away before the fire.


Now in my imagination it seems I am always tending a fire. I still have fits of simplicity, I call them, probably some dire chemical reaction to owning too much stuff: mostly fly rods and high-tech jackets, and enough fishing gear for a theme park. So I stroke a fantasy fire. I imagine going down to the beach some black night carrying everything I own. I know I should give it all away, but in the fantasy I need the purge. I’ll douse the pile with gas, touch it off, wander back upstairs, then gather my wife, my daughter and the dog at the window. I’ll sift my hands through their hair and then settle back to watch my life burn down to simple again.


Michael Delp is an author and poet who teaches creative writing at Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan.

Gm Promises Fuel Cells for Homes

In the next few years, homeowners across the Great Lakes region could get a new, environmentally friendly way to power their homes – thanks to an automaker. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Poorman reports:

Transcript

In the next few years, homeowners across the Great Lakes region could get a new, environmentally friendly way to power their homes – thanks to an automaker. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, Bill Poorman reports.


General Motors has announced that it’s going to begin selling fuel cell power plants for use in homes or in offices in the next two or three years. Daniel O’ Connel is a staff engineer with GM’s fuel cell program. He unveiled the new system at a recent automotive conference.


“The unit we demonstrated this morning is a 5 kilowatts. That would be about enough to provide for an average home. The unit we showed this morning was about the size of a conventional refrigerator.”


All of Detroit’s automakers are working on fuel cell systems for their vehicles, not for homes. They are considered something like a Holy Grail that will let car companies escape environmental criticism. When they’re perfected, fuel cells will take in hydrogen from some source – perhaps methane, natural gas, or even everyday gasoline. Through a chemical process, they will produce electricity, and the main waste product is water.


But fuel cells have been a long time coming. Automakers are working to reduce the weight, size, and cost of the systems so that they can be put into cars. Auto analyst Paul Eisenstein of the car web site thecarconnection.com says that car companies moving into the home seems unusual at first. But it has some basic business reasons behind it.


“The automakers are hoping that they can use the home fuel cell technology to learn a lot about it, and to get it into mass production, and lower the costs of on-the-road or mobile fuel cells, as well.”


Plus, Eisenstein says, the move could help speed up research into fuel cells for all applications.


“This way they might be able to go to market much sooner and develop a revenue source that could fund further fuel cell development efforts.”


But GM still has to put a lot of pieces into place before it starts selling home fuel cell units. GM’s Daniel O’Connel says the company is still looking for the best way to jump into an unfamiliar business.


“Currently GM does not have the distribution network to set up a non-automotive applications, so we’re looking for partners to help us out in that arena.”


Of course, the ultimate goal for GM is to be the first company to mass produce affordable fuel cell powered cars and trucks. But the timeline for that is a bit longer. Most automakers believe it could be up to a decade before the cars are ready. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Bill Poorman.

Cordwood Homes Finding Their Niche

From a distance a cordwood building looks deceptively like it’s made
of
stone. But if you take a closer look you’ll see that what you thought
were stones actually are the ends of short logs laid widthwise to form
a
wall. In Europe, cordwood homes, sometimes called "poor mans’
architecture", have existed for over a thousand years. In North
America
the technique arrived with the early pioneers. Today, in the United
States, cordwood masonry is experiencing a renewed interest as
affordable housing because it’s cheap, easy to build, and energy
efficient. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Linda Anderson has more:

Transcript

On the far end of a pond, in upstate New York, a group of people are working away, busy as

beavers. The comparison works nicely here, because like beavers, these people are building with

logs and a mud-like mortar.


To one side, a group of men vigorously mix mortar in a wheelbarrow. When they get it just right,

it’s delivered to another group of people whoa re busy stacking 6-8 pound logs. Carefully and

methodically, men, women, and children take the mortar and slather it around each sixteen inch

log. It looks like they’re stacking a wall of firewood. Only this wall is designed to last more

than one season. It’s designed to last a lifetime.


Rob Roy has been building with cordwood for over twenty years. He says there are areas in northern

Greece and Siberia where one-thousand-year-old cordwood structures still stand. Roy and his wife

Jaki discovered cordwood masonry during the energy crisis in the 1970’s.


“My wife and I just needed low cost shelter. This was back in 1975. We had worked on a log

building of heavy pine logs in Arkansas, and we found we just couldn’t heft these large logs by

ourselves. About that time there was an article in National Geographic that showed two pictures,

one interior and one exterior, of a cordwood wall… and we said jeez that makes sense. We can do

that. You are not handling anything more than a six to eight pound log end.”


No literature was available, so Roy and Jaki did their own research. They build their house,

learned from their mistakes, and wrote a book about it: The Complete Book of Cordwood Masonry

Housebuilding. Now they teach workshops at their home near Plattsburgh, New York and speak at

conferences. They’ve become missionaries of cordwood masonry.


“Cordwood makes use of waste wood which is unsuitable for other building uses. Logs which, for

example, are not strait enough to take to the saw mill. perhaps dead wood that has been fire

killed or disease killed on your property. I have even heard of people using driftwood or peeler

cores left over from plywood plants. All sorts of sources of so-called junk wood is perfectly fine

when you cut it into sixteen inch pieces.”


Roy says depending on how resourceful you are, materials can cost between ten to twenty dollars

per square foot. Roughly half of the cost of a standard frame building. Roy says a properly made

cordwood home will be energy efficient. It’s easy to heat in the winter and stays cool in the

summer.


“It has this wonderful combination of insulation and thermal mass. The mortar joint between the

log ends does not pass through the wall. There is insulated space. That space can be filled with

loose insulation such as vermiculite or pearlite. We use sawdust treated with lime. It’s equal to

about R3 insulation value per inch of thickness, roughly the same as fiberglass.”


Not only is cordwood masonry easy on the environment, Roy says it’s easy on people as well.

Light-weight logs allow an ease of construction that invites everyone to participate, including

Grandma. Although it’s probably unlikely you’ve ever seen one, Rob Roy says cordwood construction

is on the rise. Today there are three times as many cordwood homes in the United States as there

were a decade ago. Most can be found in Wisconsin and New York.


Eight years ago, in Cambridge, New York, Scott Carrino built a cordwood home with his family. Like

many cordwood homes, his is round. Colored glass bottles have been placed in patterns in the

walls. When the sun shines, it looks like stained glass. Carrino became interested in cordwood

masonry after reading Rob Roy’s book.


“I had actually visited Rob Roy pretty quickly after seeing this book, and saw some of his

buildings and really connected with it, and just fell in love with this building technique.”


TO keep his costs down, Carrino used lots of recycled materials, scavenging old windows, tubs and

sinks. He says many people look at his house and think it was an enormous amount of work. But his

friend, Jon Carlson, says that’s relative.


“It is a lot of work, but all building of homes is a lot of work. When you lay up a cordwood wall

its finished. Don’t have to come back and paint it. Don’t have to come back and side it. So not

only are you finished, but also you are creating something that is pretty maintenance-free.”


Cordwood builders, like Carlson and Carrino, love living in a home made of strong, natural

materials built by their own hands. Rob Roy says with the right materials and friends, anyone can

have that experience. And just like beavers, they’ll be experts in no time.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Linda Anderson in Cambridge, New York.

Educating Parents About Mercury

Over the years, parents have become more aware of the dangers
in their own homes. So they keep kids away from things like pesticides,
electrical cords, and plastic bags. Still, most people remain unaware of
another threat from a common household item. Ironically, it may be the
first thing you reach for when your child is sick. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Wendy Nelson reports:

Educating Parents About Mercury

Over the years, parents have become more aware of the dangers in their ownhomes. So they keep kids away from things like pesticides, electricalcords, and plastic bags. Still, most people remain unaware of another threatfrom a common household item. Ironically, it may be the first thing youreach for when your child is sick. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s WendyNelson reports: