A bill in Congress would extend a moratorium on drilling in the Great Lakes, but higher gas prices and a lower amount of OPEC oil production could make extending the ban tougher. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
Transcript
A bill in Congress would extend a moratorium on drilling in the Great Lakes, but higher gas
prices and a lower amount of OPEC oil production could make extending the ban tougher. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:
A bi-partisan group of senators is pushing to extend the moratorium on drilling for gas and oil in
the Great Lakes. The moratorium is set to expire next year. Democrat Russ Feingold of
Wisconsin is optimistic the moratorium will be extended to 2007, but he says the energy lobby is
opposed to it.
“The oil industry would love to drill in all kinds of places. Not only Alaska, but our coasts. They
even have a desire to drill in places like Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.”
Most Great Lakes states already have tight controls or bans on drilling in the lakes. Michigan
Geological Division Chief Harold Fitch says drilling has gone from an uproar four years ago to a
non-issue now. Even so, he says there are reservoirs of gas and oil under the Great Lakes.
“We have seven producing wells, producing from reservoirs that are beneath the Great Lakes.
We suspect there are other reservoirs out there.”
Fitch says other states including Indiana and Ohio have potential to tap into the gas and oil
reservoirs.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.
Two Great Lakes states – Pennsylvania and Michigan – top the list of destinations in North America for solid waste disposal. In Michigan, that designation is spurring action to slow the pace of trash being shipped to its landfills. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
Transcript
Two Great Lakes states – Pennsylvania and Michigan – top the list of destinations in North
America for solid waste disposal. In Michigan, that designation is spurring action to slow the
pace of trash being shipped to its landfills. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Rick Pluta:
A new report says one-quarter of the trash going to Michigan’s landfills comes from out-of-state.
Some of it is from neighboring Midwest states such as Illinois and Indiana, some it from as far
away as the east coast. Most of Michigan’s out-of-state waste comes from Canada.
Landfill space is abundant in Michigan and dumping costs are low. But there’s a movement afoot
to try and slow the pace of trash headed to Michigan landfills.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.
“We have sited so many landfills over the past decade or so that we have literally become the
dumping ground of North America.”
Legislation is pending to limit the types of waste that can be dumped in the state’s landfills, and
to make dumping more expensive.
Those efforts have been dealt a setback. A court has ruled transporting trash is a form of
interstate commerce that can only be regulated by the U.S. government.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Rick Pluta.
Four Great Lakes states have some of the most severe cases of mercury contamination in the country. That’s according to a recent report by the group Environmental Defense. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has more:
Transcript
Four Great Lakes states have some of the most severe cases of mercury contamination in the
country. That’s according to a recent report by the group “Environmental Defense.” The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner has more:
Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania made the group’s top 10 list of places with the worst
mercury pollution. Mercury can cause brain damage in babies whose mothers eat contaminated
fish. The report says mercury in the ground and water often comes from local sources, such as
power plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is working on new mercury rules for power plants.
But Michael Shore, of Environmental Defense, says the rules aren’t strong enough.
Other sectors have been required to reduce their mercury pollution by 90 percent. These
standards would only reduce mercury pollution by 70 percent. Also, these standards wouldn’t be
in place until 2018.
The EPA’s policy could use a market-based approach. That allows companies to buy pollution
credits from others that have emission controls in place. Environmentalists say instead, the EPA
should force all power companies to pollute less.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.
Most of the Great Lakes states are taking advantage of a federal program to get money to help make creeks, rivers, and lakes cleaner. But one state has not found a way to get the federal dollars. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Most of the Great Lakes states are taking advantage of a federal program to get money to help
make creeks, rivers, and lakes cleaner. But one state has not found a way to get the federal
dollars. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program is making
hundreds of millions of federal dollars available to states if they come up with matching funds of
about 20-percent. The money would go to private landowners to take measures to reduce soil
erosion and pesticide and fertilizer runoff. Seven of the eight Great Lakes states have signed
agreements with the federal government, each earmarking tens of millions of dollars to leverage
much more from the federal government. The state of Indiana has a proposal before the USDA,
but instead of tens of millions of dollars set aside as the other states have done, according to a
report in the Star Press newspaper, Indiana so far only has set aside 120-thousand dollars.
Conservationists in that state are calling on the legislature to tax bottled water and bagged ice as a
way to come up with the matching funds to leverage the federal money.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Many cities throughout the Midwest enjoy the benefit of curbside recycling in their towns. But for some areas curbside recycling just hasn’t taken root. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Julia King says those towns might want to follow the lead of two creative bicyclists from her city. Are they nuts? Or are they on to something?:
Transcript
Many cities throughout the Midwest/Great Lakes States enjoy the benefit of curbside recycling in
their towns. But for some areas, curbside recycling just hasn’t taken root. Great Lakes Radio
Consortium commentator Julia King says those towns might want to follow the lead of two creative
bicyclists from her city. Are they nuts? Or are they on to something?
According to a U.S. Department of Transportation Study, nearly a quarter of all Americans rode a
bike at least once during the past year. Most of the nearly 21 million people in this country who
hopped on a bike did so for fun. In other words, we view our bikes more like toys than tools.
But two guys in Northern Indiana are trying to change that. Some people are locking up their
bicycles for the season, tucking them away in garages and sheds. Tom Benevento and Brian
Krushwitz are pumping up their tires and oiling their chains, preparing to put their bikes to use.
Borrowing from a project in Ames, Iowa, called “Bikes at Work,” the men will twice a month lead
a small crew of cyclists through a Goshen, Indiana neighborhood collecting recyclables. But these
are no ordinary bikes. These are bikes equipped with trailers that can pull up to three hundred
pounds of material. And these guys aren’t just recycling – they’re also providing paid work for a
couple of financially struggling residents.
Here’s how it works: In a town with no curbside recycling, volunteer organizers Benevento and
Krushwitz easily found twenty families to pay $5 a month each for the no diesel pick-up service.
The families put their stuff in a container, the crew comes by and straps all the full containers on
the bike trailer, leaves empties in their place, then deposits the glass-plastic-paper-etc. at the nearest
recycling site.
According to Krushwitz, it only takes about 2 1/2 hours each month. It’s not a lot of work, but the
work pays twice the hourly minimum wage. With expansion and tweaking, this could bring real
salaries to people who need them. And those salaries would be generated with a positive
environmental impact.
Benevento started the project because he wanted to demonstrate that old problems can be solved in
new ways. His passion is bikes, but he also relished the opportunity to create work for the poor in
his small community. He wanted to tangibly express his belief that social justice is a key
component of sustainability.
Ultimately, these are the sorts of innovations that stretch the imagination. Some will no doubt laugh
at using so much human power when a big truck would do. Others will say riding a bike in January
doesn’t sound innovative; it sounds crazy.
But naysayers should remember that every solution doesn’t work in every community. Bike-
powered recycling might not work in Anchorage Alaska, but it just might in any number of other
cities across the country. Every good problem-solver knows all ideas are with exploring.
Moving the bicycle beyond a recreational toy is an idea worth exploring.
Julia King lives, writes, and watches from her window as her
recycling gets picked up in Goshen, Indiana. She comes to us by way of the
Great Lakes Radio Consortium.
Some low-income suburbs of major metropolitan areas are dumping grounds for used tires. But who’s dumping the tires continues to stump the authorities. In one state, authorities hauled off more than 40,000 used tires last year… and more keep showing up. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Transcript
Some low-income suburbs of major metropolitan areas are dumping grounds for used tires. But
who’s dumping the tires continues to stump the authorities. In one state, authorities hauled off
more than 40-thousand used tires last year… and more keep showing up. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Jenny Lawton has this report:
Today’s job is a small one — inspectors from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency
have been called in to remove about 3-thousand tires buried in an overgrown junkyard in a remote
corner of Blue Island, a suburb south of Chicago.
The state is paying for this clean-up, because tires are more than a nuisance, they’re a public
health problem.
This unpenned junkyard is overgrown with weeds and swarming with mosquitoes.
State EPA tire inspector George Skrobuton swats a big one from his elbow as he directs his crew.
“You’ve got all these tires here right now. They’re mixed between mattresses, garbage, clothes,
trash, leaves… See what they do is they get these tires out of the trees, the bushes, and the trash –
and they put them in a nice big pile, and they load the piles into the truck – it’s easier that way.
So, I mean, we’ll do the best we can, we’ll try to get every tire off the ground, if possible. And
hopefully, it’ll stay this way.”
The head of a back-hoe pushes aside a heap of garbage and its jaws close on a pile of almost a
dozen tires. Water streams from the knot of rubber as its lifted and dumped into an open semi
truck.
Skrobuton and his team have been called in to remove thousands of tires across the state, piles left
by rogue transporters who are paid to take them away, but pocket their fee instead of taking them
to be processed legally.
Some speculate the dumpers come from as far as Indiana to dump semi-truck-loads of the tires
under the cover of darkness.
Because these tires are on public land, Skrobuton’s team is cleaning them up for free as part of the
state EPA’s tire removal program.
But Skrobuton says this is a problem that just won’t go away.
“We can’t keep cleaning up these tire sites – it costs a lot of money. Y’know especially out here in
the south suburbs, I mean, there are so many forest preserves, and nooks and crannies like this,
that they could dump tires forever. And we don’t know where they’re coming from and that’s a
problem. Y’know, and unlesss they catch them in the act, we’re stuck with this problem.”
Over the last two years, dumpers left over 35-thousand tires in suburban Dixmoor.
With a population of less than 4-thousand, this poor suburb doesn’t have the money to remove the
tires… or fund a police force to keep the dumpers at bay.
So dumpers left their loads in alleys, vacant lots, even behind a school for years.
Village trustee Jerry Smith says the town was helpless until the state EPA came in and removed
all 18-truck-loads of tires last month.
“It’s just horrible, y’know – you go out there one day and it’s clear. And then you come back the
next day, you got 10,000 tires facing you. Well, what are you going to do with them? You can’t
pay the money to dispose them because you don’t have the money to dispose of them. There’s
nothing in our budget we got in there to dispose of tires what’s been dumped. So it’s just a burden
on us.”
But the state EPA’s Todd Marvel says the town had to move the tires because they’re a health
hazard.
He says the mounds of used tires draw more dumpers. And when tires catch fire, they produce a
toxic smoke, and Marvel says spraying water on them just makes things worse.
“So when that tire burns and you put that water on it, you’ve got a pretty contaminated run-off
there, a very oily run-off. And any surface water that’s in the area can be immediately
contaminated if that oily sheen is not contained properly.”
And, of course, there are mosquitoes. Marvel says each tire off its rim can breed thousands of
them, so these dumps are a breeding ground for West Nile.
Because of health concerns in the past, the state started a program to help get rid of these tires.
The state’s used tire clean-up program was created as a way to get the tires out of the state’s
junkyards, and into a useable industry.
People who purchase tires in Illinois pay a fee of $2.50 for each tire, new or used, which goes to
fund clean-ups and put back into the state’s used tire industry.
Most of the tires are shredded and mixed with coal to burn in power plants. Shredded tires can
also be used as the surface for everything from football fields to highways to playgrounds.
Marvel says the program has been so successful, Illinois’s demand for used tires actually exceeds
its generation rate.
“In fact, Illinois is a net importer of used tires. And the state of Illinois is constantly looking at
other markets and developing those markets to ensure that all of the used tires that we generate
and that all of the used tires that we clean-up through the dumps throughout the state have
someplace to go.”
But not all the tires end up where they’re supposed to go. Even though dumpers charge the fees
to process them properly, some of them steal the money and dump them in places such as
Dixmoor.
Dixmoor trustee Jerry Smith says once the tires show up in his town, they don’t have the money
to process them.
He says one company quoted him a price of $6 a tire. Multiply that by thousands.
So for now, he’s hoping the state EPA’s clean-up will last the town a long time.
Although the state EPA has offered Dixmoor support for added surveillance, Smith says a few
well-placed boulders and barricades seemed to do the trick.
Until last week, when 15 truck tires showed up in an alley.
Smith is cautiously optimistic this most recent find won’t multiply overnight.
“Let’s hope not. (laughs) I hope not. I really hope they don’t.”
But Dixmoor’s a small town and can’t afford a large enough police force to stop all the dumpers.
That means, chances are, abandoned tires will start showing up in back alleys and vacant lots
again soon.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton.
A recent study shows a possible link between breast cancer and a toxic chemical we’re exposed to every day. And people living in some Great Lakes states might face higher exposure to this chemical. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erika Johnson has more:
Transcript
A recent study shows a possible link between breast cancer and a toxic chemical
we’re exposed to everyday. And
people living in some Great Lakes states might face higher exposure to this
chemical. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Erika Johnson has more:
Cadmium is a toxic metal present in trace amounts in the air, water, soil, and in
most foods. It is also found in
batteries and cigarettes, and is released by some industries.
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are at the top of the list for overall cadmium exposures.
Recent findings published in Nature Medicine suggest that even low levels of cadmium
in lab rats caused changes
in their sexual development. Cadmium mimics estrogen, the female hormone that
regulates the reproductive
systems of men and women.
Steve Safe is a Toxicologist at Texas A & M University.
“Women have high doses of estrogen. They have much higher rates of breast cancer
than men. And estrogen has
been clearly linked to breast cancer. What we don’t know is, ‘Can cadmium
contribute to that? Does low dose
cadmium have any effect on humans at all?'”
Safe says more research is needed before any clear links can be made to human health.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erika Johnson.
Junk cars dumped on the banks of the Illinois River. (Photo
by Romy Myszka)
Americans generate 14-billion tons of waste each year. Most of that trash winds up in landfills, some of it is recycled. But some of it slips through the cracks, winding up in illegal trash dumps throughout the country. Environmental officials are cleaning up a 7-acre pile of waste that was overlooked for so long that it caught fire a few years ago – and kept burning. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:
Transcript
Americans generate 14-billion tons of waste each year. Most of that trash winds up
in landfills,
some of it is recycled. But some of it slips through the cracks, winding up in
illegal trash dumps
throughout the country. Environmental officials are cleaning up a 7-acre pile of
waste that was
overlooked for so long that it caught fire a few years ago — and kept burning. The
Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:
Tucked away in a non-residential section of South Philadelphia, just around the
corner from the
Philadelphia Airport, lies a heap of construction debris. The material was dumped
here years ago
by a demolition contractor, and left to rot…
Occasionally sparking up into flame, the densely packed wood, metal, carpet, and
other debris has
been smoldering below the surface for the past few years.
Down the street is a police impoundment lot, and the Water Department’s waste
treatment site.
And directly across from the dump is a series of community gardens.
Edward Burnabiel’s been tending vegetables here for two decades.
Burnabiel spends six days a week in his garden. He jokes that it would be seven if
his wife didn’t
drag him to church on Sundays.
A few years ago, he and his fellow gardeners noticed something unusual at the trash
pile across
the street. Every now and again, smoke would billow up from the site — and combine
with the
stench from the nearby sewer plant.
“The smell was awful when it started burning. It would stink, even to go by. It’s
bad enough we
have to smell the poop down there, but then we got to smell that too!”
The gardeners complained to the city. But the trash has been around for well over a
decade.
Kathleen McGinty is Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental
Protection.
She says the contractor responsible for the mess has long-since disappeared. That
contractor,
Harold Emerson, also skipped out on a 5-million dollar fine for illegal dumping.
“About thirteen years ago, Mr. Emerson was contracted to take some houses down in
Philadelphia. As part of the deal, for a one year window of time, the agreement was
that he could
temporarily store some of that construction debris here. What Mr. Emerson
conveniently forgot
was the temporary part. And he just took off without ever having done that.”
Today, the trash pile is sometimes referred to as the “Emerson Dump.”
Environmentalists
worried that the burning trash could be a health risk. Construction debris can
include hazardous
chemicals like arsenic. But city Managing Director Phil Goldsmith says tests showed
the fumes
weren’t dangerous. Still, he says cleanup was long overdue.
“Fourteen years for something like this to be sitting around is far too long. And
it’s become a
nuisance. It’s been a place where our fire department has had to come to put out
fires. We should
not have allowed this to happen in the first place. And once it happened, we should
not have
allowed to have it continue here for so long.”
The Emerson Dump is hardly unique. There are illegal dumps all across the country.
But most
are hidden in forests or other out-of-the-way areas, and don’t have the high profile
that comes
with a flaming pile of trash in an urban setting.
Allen Hershkowitz is with the environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense
Council. He
says illegal dumping is often overlooked for more serious environmental concerns,
such as air
and water pollution, or global warming. But he says it’s still a problem
authorities must deal
with.
“In the next 10 years, this country will have to manage about 140-billion tons of
waste of
different types. More than 2/3rds are managed in ecologically inferiors ways,
landfills, surface
impoundments, or incinerators. When you illegally dump waste, you make it that much
harder
for that material to wind up being recycled or properly disposed of.”
Hershkowitz says illegal dumping is directly related to the cost of proper waste
disposal.
Dumping was most prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s, when strict environmental
regulations
led many landfills to close, driving up the costs of waste hauling. Illegal dumping
still occurs,
Hershkowitz says, but less frequently.
Pennsylvania officials are still hunting for demolition contractor Harold Emerson to
force him to
pay his 5-million dollar fine.
But in the meantime, state and city taxpayers are funding a 3-million dollar cleanup
effort. The
fire’s been extinguished, but cleanup efforts are expected to continue through the
end of the year.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brad Linder.
Beach closings due to high levels of bacteria are still causing problems in some parts of the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Beach closings due to high levels of bacteria are still causing problems in some
parts of the Great
Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Health officials are doing a better job of monitoring many of the beaches around the
Great
Lakes… but that leads to the beaches being closed more often. Each year the Natural
Resources
Defense Council compiles data it gathers from its own sources and from the
Environmental
Protection Agency. Nancy Stoner is with the NRDC. She says the data show not all
beaches are
monitored the same.
“There are comprehensive monitoring programs in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania and
more limited monitoring programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and New York.
Before
going to the beach, I would encourage people to find out and ensure that that beach
is monitored,
that it’s monitored frequently, and that it’s using criteria that are protective of
public health.”
Stoner says the federal government is not spending enough money to find ways to
reduce or
eliminate the polluted runoff and other sources of bacteria-contaminated water that
cause the
beaches to close.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
In response to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers say they will remove Federal Clean Water Act protection for small wetlands that are considered “isolated” from larger waterways. That leaves it up to the states to decide whether or not to protect them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corie Wright has more:
Transcript
In response to a 2001 Supreme Court ruling, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers say they will remove Federal Clean Water Act protection for small wetlands that are considered “isolated” from larger waterways. That leaves it up to the states to decide whether or not to protect them. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corie Wright has more:
Environmentalists say small, isolated wetlands are crucial to local ecosystems. They filter soil
pollutants, prevent erosion, and provide a habitat for fish and wildlife. But the Bush
administration’s plan to redefine wetlands protection could leave twenty percent of the nation’s
wetlands unguarded.
Critics say the move would benefit homebuilders and other developers, who have long
complained that federal agencies have over-extended the Clean Water Act.
Julie Sibbing is a wetlands policy specialist with the National Wildlife Federation. She says if
states try to protect these wetlands themselves, they’ll meet opposition from the same interests
that lobbied to limit federal wetlands protection.
“Even if state wetlands were protected all along for the last 30 years under the Clean Water Act, it’s still
very politically difficult for states to change their own laws – that will bring a lot of opponents of
regulation out of the woodwork.”
Despite those difficulties, legislators in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Minnesota have all
pushed for tighter wetlands protection. So far, Wisconsin is the only Great Lakes state to pass a
bill protecting areas no longer covered by the Clean Water Act.
Michigan is one Great Lakes state in the process of trying to preserve wetlands that fall through
the regulatory gap. Under Michigan law, isolated wetlands smaller than five acres don’t qualify for state
protection.
State Senator Paul Condino is championing a bill to preserve those areas. He says it’s
up to the state to protect Michigan’s public wetlands.
“I don’t think President Bush and the folks in office on the federal level have any sense that
they’re going to go out to create further safeguards. Michigan has lost an estimated 5.5 million acres
of wetlands, or almost 50% of its original wetland heritage. That’s significant.”
But the National Wildlife Federation’s Julie Sibbing says it will be an uphill battle for any state to
pass regulation.
“They’re being left with pretty large gaping holes in their own state water quality statutes, and at
a time that couldn’t be worse. Many state governments are really reeling from budget deficits, so
right now is just a really hard time for them to step into that breach.”
Sibbing says her group is pushing for a congressional bill that would slightly modify the Clean
Water Act so the EPA can once again protect smaller isolated waterways.
But she says the bill is certain to meet stiff opposition from House Republicans. Sibbing says if
the bill doesn’t pass, it’s unlikely states can shoulder wetlands protection on their own.
And that means that small, isolated wetlands could be left out to dry.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corie Wright.
