The Cleaner Dry-Cleaner

  • Jim Gilligan, president of Snedicor’s Cleaners, made the big switch to liquid silicone (Photo by Kyle Norris)

There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:

Transcript

There’s a push in the dry cleaning
industry to become more environmentally
friendly. But this change can be a big risk
for business owners. Kyle Norris talks to
one dry cleaner who has made the change.
And he says he’s not looked back yet:

Jim Gilligan is president of Snedicor’s Cleaners.

And for years, his business has used a chemical called perchloroethylene to
clean clothes. Actually, let’s just call it ‘perc’ which is what everyone calls
it. But Gilligan says he did not like perc, for lots of reasons. For one thing,
he had to store the chemical in these big tanks.

“It was hard to deal with, it was heavily regulated, there was potential for
spills and other types of disasters.”

Perc is a toxic air contaminant. There’s evidence it can cause cancer, as well
as liver and kidney damage. Contact with perc can cause lots of problems
like nausea, dizziness, skin irritation, loss of consciousness, and even death.
If perc leaks into the soil or ground water it can be a disaster. Partly because
perc is hard to extract from water.

Perc was the industry standard for years. And today about 70% of American
dry cleaners still use it. But there’s a growing movement to stop using it and
embrace greener techniques.

Gilligan had heard about some of these newer, eco-crunchier techniques. But
he’d also heard that they did not work as well as perc.

Then he visited another dry cleaning plant. Its owner had switched from
using perc to using liquid silicone. Which is basically liquefied sand.

“That gave me a confidence, right. That was, because we’d been hearing
from the industry as whole that it didn’t clean as well. And of course it’s
great moving into a green technology but if your customers wind up
dissatisfied and you go out of business, that would sort of defeat the
purpose.”

Gilligan says he was impressed with how well liquid silicone cleaned
garments. So he made the big switch. He got rid of his perc machines. And
he bought a new machine that used liquid silicone. To the tune of $80,000
bucks.

And as he gathered his employees to show them the new machine, he did
something kind of kooky.

“I actually took a little cup and I drank it.”

The liquid silicone. The stuff that cleans the clothes. Dude drank it! Says it
tasted like salty vegetable oil.

“Everyone was shocked to see that, but I just wanted to show them that how
confident I was that this was a safe technology.”

And since that shot of liquid silicone, Gilligan hasn’t had any issues. His
customers tell him they’re happy with the results. And financially he’s done
really well this year.

But not all dry cleaners are ready or willing to take this kind of risk. Dry
cleaning is a tough business to make a profit in. So plenty of cleaners want
to stick with what they know works—which for a lot of them, is using perc.

In fact, there’s a tension in the industry these days. Between the old
schoolers—cleaners who use perc. And the new schoolers—people trying
out newer, greener methods.

Chris Allsbrooks is with the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute.

“And right now our mix is changing because there’s
more people coming into the industry as some of the people with the older
views are leaving the industry.”

And the laws are changing, too. California has said that perc can no longer
be used by that state’s dry cleaners by the year 2023. And New Jersey is
considering following in California’s footsteps.

For Jim Gilligan, the switch was the just right thing to do: as a business
owner and as someone who cares about the environment. He says now, he
breathes easier. And so do his employees. And his customers say a green dry
cleaner works for them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Indian Treaty 2.0

Five Indian tribes claim the right to hunt, fish and gather on lands
and lakes they sold to the federal government years ago. Their
claim extends back to the Treaty of 1836. But it’s been
challenged in court by state officials who say those rights expired
long ago. As Bob Allen reports, now all the parties have reached
an uneasy compromise:

Transcript

Five Indian tribes claim the right to hunt, fish and gather on lands
and lakes they sold to the federal government years ago. Their
claim extends back to the Treaty of 1836. But it’s been
challenged in court by state officials who say those rights expired
long ago. As Bob Allen reports, now all the parties have reached
an uneasy compromise:


170 years ago, the tribes sold millions of acres to the U.S.
government. But they reserved for themselves the right to hunt
fish and gather foods and medicines until the land was settled.


Hank Bailey is an elder with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa
and Chippewa. He’s scouting out a favorite fall hunting spot
even though it’s pelting rain:


“I know these hills well all around here just from exploring
it…hunting, gathering mushrooms…”


Bailey is a direct descendant from a tribal leader who signed the
original treaty. He says the exercise of those rights in times past
were the difference between survival and starvation. And he
doesn’t think a new piece of paper can ever erase what his
ancestors preserved:


“They were told that this treaty was forever. And I know in
my heart that’s what they believed in. And they thought well
as long as we can hunt, fish and gather we will be able to
survive as a people. This is what bothers me about is, I’m
being told now that when we sign this paper, this is going to
be forever and here we go again.”


Four years ago, the state of Michigan went to court to argue tribal
hunting and fishing rights had expired because the land had been
settled long ago.


But then state officials noticed court rulings in other Great Lakes
states that upheld treaties and in some case awarded tribes as
much as half of the natural resources.


Tribal leaders thought they had a strong case, but they too were
leery of how today’s courts might interpret the phrase that said
their treaty rights exist “until the land is settled,” so the parties
were motivated to negotiate a deal outside court.


Jim Ekdahl is with the state Department of Natural Resources:


“We were in a strange kind of legal limbo where the state
wasn’t exactly sure what the ground rules should be in
light of the fact the federal courts hadn’t ruled on the inland
rights. The tribes weren’t 100% confident that they could
advise their membership in terms of what they ought to be
doing.”


From legal limbo, there are now 130 pages of rules and
regulations on how and where the tribes can exercise their rights.
There’s been some grumbling on both sides.


Some tribal members complain, with some exaggeration, that they
have to fill out a form now before they can pick a single
blueberry, and there are sportsmen who don’t like a special set of
rules for Indians.


What the tribes have agreed to is their rights to hunt, fish and
gather will only apply on lands open to the public. And they only
can take enough for subsistence, not for commercial sale.


Tribal resource managers say what their members take is a drop
in the bucket of the overall resource. And Jim Ekdahl with the
state says there’s still plenty to go around:


“There’s sufficient harvestable surpluses of resources
available to accommodate tribal interests. There’s essentially
no effect on harvest by state licensed recreational users. And
essentially no changes in state regulations are gonna be required as this
thing moves forward.”


The parties to the agreement say is it avoids a bitter legal battle
that could last a decade or more and cost millions of dollars.
Both sides remember an ugly dispute that raged 30 years ago
when tribes reasserted their right to fish commercially with nets
in the Great Lakes.


Matthew Fletcher is a specialist in tribal law at Michigan State
University. As far as he can tell, this is the first time a state has
voluntarily recognized tribal treaty rights extending to off-
reservation lands without being told to do so by a court:


“There are tribes and there are treaties nationwide that have
similar language. And I’m sure they’re watching this very
carefully. And this kind of consent decree is going to create a
kind of precedent for other states that are engaging in similar
kinds of negotiations.”


The agreement still needs to be accepted by a federal judge
before it becomes binding in law. For tribal elder Hank Bailey
the deal might chip away some free exercise of historic rights,
but it also reasserts that those rights can’t ever be taken away:


“For me that’s… that is about the most powerful part of it is
being able to know that I will continue to be an Odawa, black
wolf clan, a man… somebody that respects the resources
around me. And I’m willing to work with anybody else that
feels the same way, whether they’re tribal or not.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Dirty Dozen Politicians

An environmental group is targeting members of Congress for their votes on environmental issues. Lester
Graham reports:

Transcript

An environmental group is targeting members of Congress for their votes on environmental issues. Lester
Graham reports:


Each election cycle, the League of Conservation Voters releases its Dirty Dozen List, twelve members of Congress
the group is targeting in the upcoming elections. Lester Graham reports:


The first two politicians to make the list have been released. One is Representative Joe Knollenberg, a
Michigan Republican, but topping the list is Republican Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe.


Kerry Duggan is with the League of Conservation Voters:


“As Chair of the Senate Environmental Public Works committee, he’s famously or infamously known for
calling global warming the biggest hoax to be perpetrated on the American people. That statement alone is
pretty offensive, given what kind of trouble we’re in.”


The environmental group is releasing the first two of its its list of twelve targeted members of Congress early this campaign season. The League of Conservation Voters says the politicians who make the list are
vulnerable to losing their seats in the 2008 elections.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Utilities and Wildlife

  • Land along transmission corridors, like this one, are heavily managed by power companies. (Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

A new report says power, water, and sewage utilities can play a significant role in
restoring wildlife habitat. That’s because they own or control thousands of acres of land
across the country. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

A new report says power, water, and sewage utilities can play a significant role in
restoring wildlife habitat. That’s because they own or control thousands of acres of land
across the country. Mark Brush has more:


A new report from the Environmental Law Institute says utilities can improve habitat in
many ways – including how they maintain ‘rights of way’: places where power, sewer and
water lines cut through forests and grasslands. Often companies will mow wide swaths
or use pesticides to control plants in those areas.


Jim McElfish is with the Environmental Law Institute. He says every state has a
voluntary wildlife conservation plan, and utilities can use these plans when making lots
of decisions:


“Imagine if you’re looking to do a siting of a new generating plant. Suddenly you have, in
every state and territory, a resource that tell you where the opportunities are for resource
conservation and where you’re likely to run into problems.”


McElfish says because of the vast amounts of land utilities control, it’s important for
them to take an active role in protecting wildlife.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Keeping an Eye on Eagles

  • The bald eagle was protected by the Endangered Species Act for 40 years, but researchers are still finding toxic chemicals in the eagles' plasma. (Photo by William Bowerman)

The bald eagle came close to extinction
before strong measures were taken to help pull
it back. The eagle was protected by the Endangered
Species Act for 40 years. And the government banned
toxic compounds such as DDT that caused damage to the
eagles’ eggs. Bob Allen caught up with researchers
who are monitoring the health of the birds. They’re
finding the birds are still being exposed to toxic
chemicals:

Transcript

The bald eagle came close to extinction
before strong measures were taken to help pull
it back. The eagle was protected by the Endangered
Species Act for 40 years. And the government banned
toxic compounds such as DDT that caused damage to the
eagles’ eggs. Bob Allen caught up with researchers
who are monitoring the health of the birds. They’re
finding the birds are still being exposed to toxic
chemicals:


We’re on a steep, heavily wooded hillside about a mile above a
barrier dam on the Muskegon River in Michigan. The land is part of a private
church camp. So, human intrusion on the site is low. And the
pond behind the dam provides plenty of food for eagles rearing
their young.


Once every five years researchers are permitted to come here and
take young birds from the nest.


“Usually we try to keep people about a quarter mile away from the
nest. And that way we don’t have human disturbance that
would cause them to fail.”


Bill Bowerman is a wildlife toxicologist from Clemson
University. He first became part of this eagle survey as a grad
student at Michigan State more than 20 years ago, about the time
researchers began taking blood and feather samples.


Wildlife veterinarian Jim Sikarskie says eagles sit atop
the aquatic food chain, so any contaminants in the ecosystem
eventually show up in them:


“The contaminants that are in the plasma from the blood and
from the feathers then help us evaluate the quality of the water in
the area around the nest. So we do birds from different watersheds
every 5 years as part of the water quality surveillance plan.”


The nest is a tangled mass of twigs in an aspen tree swaying in a
strong breeze about 60 feet off the ground. As the research team
approaches, the female lifts off and begins to circle and squawk
just above the tree-tops.


They lay out syringes and test tubes on the ground. Walter
Nessen gets ready to climb the tree. He’s worked with
Bowerman monitoring sea eagles in his native South Africa.


Walter buckles into his harness and straps a pair of climbing
spikes to his boots. He has the kind of wiry strength and agility
that makes for a good climber. He prefers not to use gloves to
handle the eaglets because he relies on a sense of feel between
his hands and their legs:


“Immature birds, nestlings, are quite delicate because their
feathers are not hard-pinned. In other words, there’s still
blood circulating inside the feathers as it’s growing. One has
to be careful not to bend them or break them because they
will not develop further. That’s the most important thing.
The other thing is you need to take care the birds have big
claws. It’s one of the first things developing on the birds so
they can attack you and claw you and scratch you and that
kind of thing.”


Walter wraps his climbing rope, really a polyester-covered steel
cable, around the trunk of the tree, locks it into his harness and up
he goes.


First he checks nestlings to be sure they’re old enough and in
good condition before lowering them down in a special padded
“eagle bag.”


With young eagles on the ground, everyone becomes hushed and
businesslike. Bowerman writes down the eaglet’s weight and
other measurements. They’re four to five pounds with some
down-like feathers still clinging to them. Most prominent are
their dark beaks and yellow-orange claws.


Sikarskie carefully drops a cloth hat over an eaglet’s head to keep
the bird calm. Then, he talks a young grad student through
taking her first blood sample from the underside of a delicate
wing.


The two nestlings are examined for parasites. Then, they’re leg
banded, tucked gently back in the bags and hoisted aloft. They’re
out of the nest for maybe fifteen minutes.


Places like this, far upriver from the Great Lakes, were refuges
for eagles back in the DDT era. Eagles survived here because
fish couldn’t pass above barrier dams on the rivers and carry their
toxic burden with them, and Bowerman says the difference is still
noticeable today:


“If you live along the Great Lakes you still have higher levels
of PCBs. You still find DDE, which is the egg shell thinning
compound that caused the eagle’s decline in the first place. If
you’re in an area like this which is upstream of the Great
Lakes, there’s much less level in these inland birds.”


Eagle research in Michigan extends back 47 years.
Bowerman calls it the oldest continuous wildlife survey in the
world. It’s a record that documents the recovery of a species in
trouble, but sometimes the information has a more immediate
impact.


Bowerman says some years ago, tests on baby eagle’s blood
from Michigan showed a spike of an unknown chemical. Lab
tests found it to be from a product called Scotch Guard, a stain
repellent for fabric produced by the 3M Company.


When told about it, 3M hired Bowerman’s professor, John Geise,
to find out how widespread the compound was:


“John’s lab went all across the world collecting tissues of
different wildlife species. And they found it world-wide. And
that’s why 3M took scotch guard off the market.”


Bowerman worries that monitoring efforts will slack off when
bald eagles are off the Endangered Species list, and that new
contaminants will be missed. But he can’t help being inspired
by the birds’ recovery:


“Does it make you any more alive to watch that beautiful
eagle soaring around? And it’s really neat to see how many
there are now. So this is just spectacular.”


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

E-Waste Polluting Overseas

  • Exposed to toxic chemicals such as lead and mercury, workers stay at the scrap yards for the $130-a-month pay. (photo by Ted Land)

At your home, chances are your TV, computer and other electronic gear were made
overseas. That’s because it’s cheaper to make them there. And it’s cheaper to get rid of old
electronics overseas. Someday, your old cell phone or CD player might end up right back
where it started: in China. Ted Land visited a Chinese city where electronic waste, or e-waste, is shipped by the thousands of tons. Pollution from that waste is threatening the
health of people who live there:

Transcript

At your home, chances are your TV, computer and other electronic gear were made
overseas. That’s because it’s cheaper to make them there. And it’s cheaper to get rid of old
electronics overseas. Someday, your old cell phone or CD player might end up right back
where it started: in China. Ted Land visited a Chinese city where electronic waste , or e-
waste, is shipped by the thousands of tons. Pollution from that waste is threatening the
health of people who live there:


The city of Taizhou is in eastern China. It’s an industrial port city. A lot of the people
who travel here are here on business. Ships loaded with new products are often headed
for the United States. But it’s not just what leaves this city that makes business boom…
it’s also what’s coming in:


“I know it’s polluted here but it’s not a big deal. The most important thing is my
children, that’s the reason why I found work here.”


Liu Qinzhen works at this Taizhou scrap plant. It’s the final stop for some of the nearly
4,000 tons of scrap and e-waste that enters the port each day. Liu is one of hundreds of
workers who squat under an outdoor pavilion picking apart old circuit boards and wires.
She works 9 hours a day, 7 days a week, earning about 130 dollars a month.


The work is dangerous. She and the other workers are exposed to harmful chemicals
from e-waste such as lead and mercury. The 23-year-old moved here for this job because
she needed to support her two kids:


“I used to work in a shoe factory but then I had a baby and it’s not convenient to have a
baby there so I moved here even though the pay is the same. I come from the countryside.
You can’t earn money on a farm.”


The plant where she works is considered safer than scrapping these materials in the
countryside where families work in their front yards and in their homes. They melt
circuit boards and burn wires to extract bits of valuable copper and gold.


Environmental organizations have documented evidence that what’s left over after the
valuable metals are retrieved is dumped into local rivers and streams:


(Land:) “I noticed when we arrived they shut down the other door of that other shop?


“They are doing the same kind of e-waste, but they are afraid of being discovered by
others.”


Afraid, says Taizhou resident Chen Yijun because what they’re doing is illegal. Chinese
law forbids the import of e-waste, yet piles of foreign electronics litter the countryside
and pour into scrap plants daily.


Yijun is a teacher at Taizhou #1 High School, where students are concerned about what
the e-waste industry is doing to their environment. They’ve been testing the water in
local streams, looking for signs of harmful chemicals:


On this day they draw several gallons from a stream. The banks are littered with piles of
electrical cable. Chen Zhengyan has been working on the project for years:


“The frogs here are different from frogs in other places because sometimes they have
extra limbs. We are sure the pollution is from e-waste because in this area there is no
other industry.”


Chen and her colleagues say this pollution is harmful to people, too. They tell local
government officials such as Liang Xiaoyong that something has to be done to improve
the situation. But, Liang says there’s only so much the government can do to combat an
illegal industry that so many residents make their living off of. He says cutting off the
imports is difficult because sometimes e-waste is hidden in with other scrap. He doesn’t
deny the waste industry is a big business here:


This industry generates a lot of tax money for us in the form of tariffs. So, if this industry
doesn’t exist, the Taizhou harbor won’t survive.


Jim Puckett is coordinator of the Basel Action Network, a Seattle based group that
confronts toxic trade issues around the world. He says it’s not that the Chinese
government is unwilling to stop imports, it’s simply unable to stop them.


“They’ve banned the import, the problem is they can’t control that flow, it’s just coming at
them container load after container load through various ports and they can’t possibly check every
single one.”


American waste is literally fueling the fires burning electronics that dot the countryside in
China. And many of the original owners of this gear had taken it to be recycled, and
thought they’d done the right thing. But, often it ends up on a ship, headed for scrap
yards overseas.


About seven thousand miles away from Taizhou, practically the other side of the globe,
there’s a warehouse in Springfield, Illinois stacked with old electronic gear.


The Illinois State Department of Central Management Services, or CMS, disposes of old
state property, including old copy machines, computers, and monitors. In 2005, CMS
was contacted by the Basel Action Network with some disturbing information. The
group was finding State of Illinois computers dumped in developing countries around the
world. Curtis Howard is manager of CMS state and federal surplus property:


“It hit me pretty hard, the fact that, not realizing, you know I always look at it, these guys
were here, they come in, they bid on our property, you know I’m maximizing the return on
the state’s investment, I’m doing a good job, I never really thought about the tail end of
the dragon.”


Basel Action Network coordinator Jim Puckett says if the Chinese are unable to stop the
imports, then it’s up to the United States to control what they export:


Other countries have laws forbidding it, laws controlling it, but in the United States, we
don’t even have a law to control this export.


The U.S. is one of only a handful of countries that have not signed and ratified the Basel
Convention, an international treaty that bans hazardous waste exports. That means if
anything is going to be done to stop electronic waste from polluting countries overseas,
it’s going to be up to the States to take action.


It starts with buying electronics from companies that make products that are more easily
recycled, and ends with making sure old electronic gear is getting into the hands of
responsible recyclers who don’t simply ship the e-waste to scrap yards overseas.


For the Environment Report, I’m Ted Land.

Related Links

Wetlands Ruling Confusing

Federal officials just announced which
wetlands they’ll protect and which ones they
won’t. The announcement was supposed to clear up
the confusion around federal wetlands
protection. But as Mark Brush reports, the
confusion and the controversy continue:

Transcript

Federal officials just announced which
wetlands they’ll protect and which ones they
won’t. The announcement was supposed to clear up
the confusion around federal wetlands
protection. But as Mark Brush reports, the
confusion and the controversy continue:


The controversy began when government officials stopped developers from building on
wetlands. The Supreme Court ruled the government should clear up exactly which
wetlands are protected under federal law.


Federal agencies now have new guidelines, but the Assistant Secretary of the Corps of
Engineers says it’s not clear whether more wetlands are at risk:


“It’s, I would say, very difficult if not impossible to determine the precise impact of this
vis a vis the prior existing regulation.”


Some environmentalists believe that more wetlands will be at risk because of the new
guidelines. Jim Murphy is an attorney with the National Wildlife Federation:


“It increases confusion. It puts a lot of important resources at risk. It’s really a disaster
all around.”


Now, Congress might step in with new laws to protect more wetlands.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Banned Firewood for Sale

  • Logs from ash trees that had to be cut down after they were infested with emerald ash borer beetles. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

In more and more places, you can’t bring firewood with you when you go
camping. That’s because officials are worried about a destructive
beetle that people are spreading by moving firewood all over the
nation. Scientists say the best thing you can do is buy firewood where
you camp. But as Rebecca Williams reports, even then… you can’t
always know if the wood you’re buying is safe:

Transcript

In more and more places, you can’t bring firewood with you when you go
camping. That’s because officials are worried about a destructive
beetle that people are spreading by moving firewood all over the
nation. Scientists say the best thing you can do is buy firewood where
you camp. But as Rebecca Williams reports, even then… you can’t
always know if the wood you’re buying is safe:


(Sound of crackling fire)


There’s something sort of magical about a fire. Without it, there’d be
no roasted marshmallows, no ghost stories. And it would get pretty cold at
night. That’s why a lot of people toss some firewood in their car on
the way to camp out. It’s just habit.


But lately it’s gotten risky to move firewood. That wood could be
carrying tiny stowaways with big appetites. Especially a metallic
green beetle called the emerald ash borer.


The ash borer eats through the living layer of ash trees, so the trees
starve to death. It’s thought to have gotten into the States in wood
packing material from China. So far, it’s killed more than 20 million
ash trees in the upper Midwest and Ontario. That’s costing
millions of dollars in lost trees and wood.


People can move the beetle long distances unknowingly by moving
firewood, because the bug hides underneath the bark.


Elizabeth Pentico is trying to stop people from moving that infested
wood. She’s with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She supervises
USDA inspectors looking for people moving firewood out of quarantined
states:


“If someone has a shipment of logs that’s fairly easy to see, but 25
pieces of firewood in the back of a pickup truck with a camper is a
whole different issue. The firewood pathway is very difficult because
it is so low profile and because everyone moves firewood.”


Pentico says the best thing to do is buy firewood locally… and burn it
all up. But she says a lot of times, if you buy it from a gas station,
supermarket, or home improvement store, there won’t be any way to know
for sure if the firewood is safe.


Recently, that’s been a problem. Firewood from a company in Illinois
was shipped to Menard’s home improvement stores in 10 states. Illinois
is under a federal quarantine for emerald ash borer. So no hardwood
firewood can cross state lines, unless it’s been treated to kill
emerald ash borer larvae.


But somebody messed up.


Jane Larson is a spokesperson with the Wisconsin Department of
Agriculture. She says in this case, the firewood company had an
agreement with the federal government to ship firewood across state
lines:


“Part of that agreement is they’d sell wood that had the bark removed,
or it would be ‘debarked.’ And we were finding here that the wood was not
debarked.”


Larson says a nationwide recall was put in place. But she says a few
Menard’s stores were still selling the firewood a week after the recall
notice was issued.


In a written statement to The Environment Report, a Menard’s
spokesperson says quote – “Menard’s was in complete cooperation with
the USDA firewood recall and has obtained a new vendor.”


But officials say this incident shows how easily the ash borer can
spread.


USDA’s Elizabeth Pentico says even if you buy a firewood
bundle that says it’s from Texas, that doesn’t mean that’s where the
firewood came from:


“We had a distribution center here in Michigan. The broker for the
firewood was in Texas. The wood itself came out of Missouri and the
wood was distributed to Ohio and Indiana.”


So you can see, firewood can travel around a lot.


You can even buy firewood on eBay, by the semi-load. Pentico says her
inspectors have to watch the Net closely:


“They’ve even come across some firewood chatrooms that have firewood sales.
You can indicate that firewood is illegal. The officers stopped a sale
of Michigan firewood going to California by just typing in and saying
you know, that’s an illegal movement.”


But Pentico says officers do have to catch the wood actually crossing
state lines before the laws can be enforced.


Some people in the firewood industry agree it’s like hide and seek for
inspectors.


Jim Albring is a firewood dealer who’s been in the business for more
than 25 years:


“A lot of firewood business is done by little individuals, guys that
cut on the weekends and so forth, and you try to change the mindset of those people
and say you can’t cut ash, you can’t sell ash, well they’re going to
cut what they want to cut. They’re individuals… and if there’s ash in
it, so there’s ash in it.”


The inspectors say it’s very hard even for a trained eye to tell the
difference between ash wood that might be infested and any other kind
of wood that’s safe. So they say the best thing to do is to not move
firewood at all. Buy local and burn it up as soon as you can.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Raw Pet Food Junkies

  • Some vets claim commercial pet food has never been good for pets like Woody (pictured), even before the tainted food scare. (Photo by Alexandra Murphy)

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:

Transcript

Reports of contaminated pet foods,
causing illness and even death, have pet owners
scurrying for safe alternatives to feed their
animals. Joyce Kryszak reports that’s opening
a door of opportunity for advocates of holistic
pet feeding:


“This is Woody.”


You’d never guess that Woody is 11 to look at her. The mid-sized
mixed breed is as spry as a puppy. And as hungry as one, too, since we
rudely showed up at her dinner time. But Woody’s owner, Alexandra
Murphy says this is a good time to get a peek at Woody’s menu.


“Today, for breakfast she got two chicken wings, and she got a couple
of chicken gizzards. She’s going to have that for dinner and before she goes to bed tonight she’s going to have two
to three ounces of ground up veggies.”


Murphy says she’s a “raw feeder.” That means her dog Woody and 11-year-old cat, TJ, only eat raw meat and veggies. No kibble food from a
bag for these guys:


“Okay, I start with vegetables that I like. I like broccoli a lot because
nutritionally, it’s a very dense food.”


Murphy says she began feeding raw about seven
years ago after a doing a lot of research. And after getting a lot of
flack from fellow pet owners and skeptical veterinarians:


“I’m looking to give them something that is as close to what their species would get in nature.
I know my dog’s not a wolf. But I also know that pet food has only been made for the last fifty years. They
didn’t go through such a drastic change, that all of a sudden all of
this real food is going to make them sick.”


(Sound of prepping food and Murphy explaining)


Murphy is certainly not alone in her passion for holistic feeding.
There’s almost a cult following of pet owners who spend hours grinding
or cooking their own pet food. And there are some vets out there who
whole-heartily support them.


Cynthia Lankenau is a holistic veterinarian. Lankenau says commercial
foods have never been good for pets – even before the tainted food
scare. She says dogs and cats simply can’t digest grain very well.
But grain is the main ingredient in most commercial pet foods. So, why
do most vets still promote them? For starters, Lankenau says it was a
major pet food-maker that taught nutrition at her vet school:


“Yeah, just about any vet that graduates is truly, honestly, strongly
believing that that’s the best nutrition that’s available. But we were
brainwashed.”


But some vets are breaking free of traditional training. Jim Albert is
a small animal veterinarian and a vet for the Buffalo, New York zoo.
Albert’s still not sure how he feels about raw meat diets for pets. But
Albert admits that the nutritional requirements are quite similar, no
matter the size of the canine or the cat.


“Small animals have small canine teeth for a reason, dogs and
cats. And those were typically used to apprehend and hold prey, so I
guess you could make the argument that meat should certainly constitute
a percentage of their diet.”


Albert concedes there are plenty of good options out there. And
there’s good reason for people to be exploring those options. Albert
says he’s treated half a dozen pets that became very sick from tainted
commercial foods. And he says that has even some of his busiest
clients are trading in their processed food and making their own in
food processors.


“It certainly wasn’t feasible for a lot of our clients in the past, but
I think they’re taking these kind of matters into their own hands.”


Back in Alexandra Murphy’s kitchen it’s pretty obvious how much work
homemade pet food can be. Murphy says her pets are worth it. But she
admits making homemade pet food isn’t for everyone:


“Although I love doing this, I would say to someone, if you’re the
kind of person who says, ‘Oh, I really don’t want to have to do this,
can I cut this corner, can I cut that corner,’ you may not be cut out
for it. Because if you can’t do it right, you shouldn’t be doing it at
all.”


She says one of the best ways to find out is to find a good mentor.
And they are out there. You can find them by calling a local holistic
vet. Or, go online and you’ll find packs of natural feeders who love
to share their philosophies… and their recipes.


For the Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Co2 “Upstream” Battle

There’s a lot of talk these days in Washington about creating new laws
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One major question right now is how
the government will handle carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Any
new regulation is expected to have some financial impact on automakers.
And, as Dustin Dwyer reports, the carmakers are looking to share the
burden:

Transcript

There’s a lot of talk these days in Washington about creating new laws
to cut greenhouse gas emissions. One major question right now is how
the government will handle carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Any
new regulation is expected to have some financial impact on automakers.
And, as Dustin Dwyer reports, the carmakers are looking to share the
burden:


Back in March, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing
on how the auto industry could help fight global warming. All the
bigwigs in the U.S. auto industry were there: the heads of Ford,
General Motors and Chrysler, the North American president of Toyota and
the head of the United Auto Workers.


At the hearing, all of them agreed they would support a cap on CO2
emissions from vehicles, but they had a sort of caveat:


“We believe that there’s a lot of merit to it. And we believe if it’s
upstream…”


“For Cap and Trade, I think the further upstream you go, the more
efficient you’re going to be.”


“I’d just echo the upstream part.”


“The upstream as I stated earlier and the rest is absolutely critical.”


That was Ron Gettlefinger of the UAW, Jim Press of Toyota, Alan Mulally
of Ford, and Tom Lasorda of Chrysler.


So what do they mean by “upstream”? Here’s Ford spokesman Mike Moran:


“Lower carbon fuels, so that it’s just not what comes out of the
tailpipe, but you’re moving upstream and including the fuels that would
be included in the equation in the transportation sector.”


Basically the idea is, if you have less carbon in the fuel, you’ll pump
less carbon dioxide into the air.


But car companies really can’t take the carbon out of fuel. That’s
really more of a job for the oil industry. So are auto executives just
passing the buck?


David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says yeah, they’re
dodging the issue:


“The auto companies are basically finding more creative ways to say,
‘No,’ they won’t do anything to improve their products.”


Auto executives would say they’re already working to improve their
products, with millions of ethanol-capable vehicles on the road, and a
growing number of gas-electric hybrids. And many in the auto industry feel that they’ve been singled out for
regulation in the past.


The carmakers main lobbying group, the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers says that for the past 30 years, the auto industry has
been the only industry subject to carbon dioxide regulations. Though
most people try to avoid saying so in public, there is clearly some
tension between the auto industry and the oil industry.


Louis Burke is with Conoco Phillips. He says his company is willing to
do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the oil company just
came out in favor of setting up mandatory federal rules. Those include a
possible system that caps carbon dioxide emissions, and allows
companies to trade carbon credits as if they were commodities:


“You can cap and trade at some point down within the value chain,
whether it’s all the way upstream, or whether it’s pretty far downstream. You
can also apply a carbon tax throughout the whole value chain. The whole
idea is it’s gotta be transparent, it can’t penalize any one group.”


So upstream, downstream, the point is something needs to be done.


David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists says everyone can
do a little more:


“Everyone has to do their part. That means car companies have to
produce vehicles to get more miles to the gallon. Oil companies need to
have lower carbon fuels and yes, even consumers need to find ways to
drive less.”


It’s still not clear what exactly what approach Congress will take
toward cutting auto emissions, but while leaders in Washington try to
settle on a plan, local and state officials across the country are
coming up with their own plans.


California and 10 other states have their own plans to regulate
tailpipe emissions. Those plans are being challenged in court by the
auto industry. And California has also gone forward with the nation’s first low carbon
standard for fuels.


That “upstream” plan has the support of both auto and oil companies.


For the Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

Related Links