Nature and Ice Wine

  • Vidal blanc grapes used in ice wine. The vines are netted to protect the grapes from high winter winds and animals. (Photo courtesy of Mario Mazza)

When you think about wine you might think about sunny Italy or warm
Napa Valley in California. But one wine is the product of cold
weather. Ann Murray has the story:

Transcript

When you think about wine you might think about sunny Italy or warm
Napa Valley in California. But one wine is the product of cold
weather. Ann Murray has the story:


Today, the weather and the sales are brisk at the Mazza Winery and
Vineyards.


Sales Person: “Did you want these in a bag?”


Mary Ventura: “Yes, this is all going to the same spot.”


Mary Ventura is buying small bottles of wine that she describes as
“liquid candy.” Ventura and the sales clerk chime in when I ask her
what she’s talking about:


“This is ice wine. It’s not something you can find on all the shelves.
And so we came across this little winery and it’s great.”


Mazza’s is one of the few wineries in the United States that sells and
produces ice wine. More and more people are discovering this rare,
super sweet dessert wine:


“We’re going to head out right behind the winery, actually.”


Mario Mazza is a third generation grower. He says their vineyard’s
location along the Lake Erie shoreline in Pennsylvania makes ice
wine production possible. For vineyards in this region, the Great Lake
changes the local climate:


“In the spring it keeps the shore a little bit cooler, keeps the grapes
from budding too early, which is a good thing… prevents them from
getting hit from the later spring frost. In the fall, we have the reverse
happen. In September and even in October we have a little bit more
warmth along the lake shore here.”


But the real ticket to producing ice wine is a final burst of cold winter
weather. In December or January, winds off Lake Erie can bring the
temperature to well below freezing. As snowflakes whip around the
vineyards, Mazza stands next to rows of grapes still on the vine. The
rows are netted by hand to protect the vines from high winter winds
and hungry animals:


“These vineyards we’re looking at here are vidal blanc grapes.
They’re a great variety because they have a relatively thick skin and
can hold up to the colder climate, to the colder weather and leaving
them on the vine for an extra two months.”


Natural ice wines require a hard freeze to occur sometime after the
grapes are ripe. If a freeze doesn’t come fast enough, the grapes
might rot and the crop will be lost. If the freeze is too severe, no juice
can be extracted.


(Sound of bottling inside winery)


Back inside the winery, Mazza helps out with bottling. During a break,
he says that catching the right sustained freeze means that workers
must be ready to roll out of bed early to pick the grapes used in ice
wine:


“When we go out there and pick ’em about 5:00 in the morning with
headlights down the rows, you’re actually picking these grapes at
about 18 degrees Fahrenheit so they’re actually frozen, just like a marble.
You get very, very sweet juice when you press that out.”


Ice wines are very sweet because the grapes dehydrate the last two
months on the vine. That concentrates the sugar and the flavor:


“The sugars are twice that we get in a normal harvest date in October. And
the flavors are just so much more intense and concentrated.”


Murray: “So you don’t end up with a lot of juice then?”


Mazza: “Hence the rarity, the sale in a smaller bottle and the price
tags on ice wines. A lot of people look at them and say wow, those are
awfully expensive. When they learn about the extensive effort put into
making these wines, they then understand that it’s well worth it.”


At $40 dollars a half-bottle, ice wine generally is worth the extra work
for growers. It might take months to completely ferment ice wine.
Regular wines take days or weeks. Each year, the Mazzas produce
only about 250 gallons of ice wine — a tiny amount compared to other
wines.


Worker: “There should be about a case down there.”


Upstairs, customers continue to stream in and out of the Mazza wine
shop, some of them eyeing the small bottles of liquid gold that nature
and patience help make possible.


For the Environment Report, this is Ann Murray.

Related Links

Green Goo Finds New Home

  • Sandy Binh works for the Waterkeeper Alliance. She's kept a close eye on water quality problems in western Lake Erie. She and her neighbors are worried about the emergence of a new algae in the Lake - Lyngbya wollei. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Life along the water can be pretty nice – sunsets, strolls along the
beach, and boating. It’s no wonder more Americans are moving closer to
big lakes. But it’s not all fun at the beach these days. Mark Brush
brings us the story of one lake shore community that seems to be stuck
with a green gooey invader:

Transcript

Life along the water can be pretty nice – sunsets, strolls along the
beach, and boating. It’s no wonder more Americans are moving closer to
big lakes. But it’s not all fun at the beach these days. Mark Brush
brings us the story of one lake shore community that seems to be stuck
with a green gooey invader:


For many people living along the western edge of Lake Erie, seeing
algae is nothing new. Lake Erie is the shallowest and warmest of the
five Great Lakes. Algae like to grow here. But the cold winter months
usually kill off what grows over the summer.


(Sound of lake)


That’s not the case for a new type of algae that has spread through
this area in the last year. Jerry Brown has lived and paddled his
boats along these shores for years. We’re standing next to a beach
that is piled with mounds of dried green and brown algae three feet
high:


“It’s like a carpeting that grows on top of itself and becomes matted –
and it appears to dry but it doesn’t deteriorate. What used to be my
wonderful seafront, and waves lapping up against my seawall, is now
what I call my lower forty because it’s a field.”


The algae are known as Lyngbya wollei. Residents have been
warned not to touch it because it might cause skin rashes.
Lyngbya algae are common in Florida and some other southern
states. It probably hitched a ride up here from a pleasure boat.


(Sound of tractor)


Just down the road Brown’s neighbor is John Pastorek. He’s using his
tractor to lift a water pump out of the Lake. He uses the pump to water
the lawns around his house. Recently, his pump stopped working. It’s completely
covered by the dark green goop:


“And so the pump can’t suck through that. So now I’ve gotta clean
that off of here so that the filter can once again work. But it’s a short
term solution because it’s going to fill back up again.”


Pastorek says he’d love to find a way to get rid of the algae. What
he’s not aware of is that he might be contributing to the problem.
His house is surrounded by green lawns:


“You know my wife and daughter just returned from Ireland and yesterday
they said, ‘Boy, this looks just like Ireland. It’s so green.'”


It’s that green because it gets treated with fertilizers by a lawn care
company. The invasive algae feed on fertilizers that are washed off
the land by rain. I’m here with Sandy Binh of the environmental group
the Waterkeeper Alliance. She’s also Pastorek’s neighbor.
And she tries to convince him to tell his lawn company to stop using
phosphorus as a fertilizer:


“It will be just as green. It will not change it a bit. In fact
Lowe’s now on their Scott’s products that they sell – there’s no
phosphorus. I checked this year. A lot of companies are adopting it because they know it’s not needed. It can actually have less cost because they don’t have to put that in it. It doesn’t have any effect on your
lawn – there’s no reason to have it.”


Binh says to stop the invasive algae – one of the most important things
people can do – is to stop giving it nutrients such as phosphorus.
These nutrients come from a lot of places. They leak from septic
systems. They come from sewage treatment plants. And they wash off
farm fields and lawns:


“We really need to get it out of dishwasher detergent, to get it out
of lawn fertilizers, to work with the agricultural community to reduce
it. We need to find out what’s causing it quickly because we don’t
want to become the old poster child where Lake Erie is really having major
problems.”


Researchers say phosphorus isn’t the only problem. They say people
need to cut back on on another of the algae’s favorite food – nitrogen.
Hans Paerl is with the Institute of Marine Sciences in North Carolina.
He says once these mats of algae get started – it can be tough to stop
them, because they can start to make their own nutrients:


“In many ways – once that bloom gets going it becomes a sort of self-
fulfilling prophecy. The bottom line is we need to think about
nitrogen as well as phosphorus as far as ultimately controlling and managing these blooms.”


(Sound of lake)


Back at the lakefront, boater Jerry Brown says he hopes they can solve
the problem soon:


“You now, I’m seventy years old. I’ve been here 40 years. I love
living on the lake and I no longer have any use for the lake. I’m very fearful that this won’t be corrected and
that I’ll end my days not being to use the lake that I love so much.”


To stop the spread of these kinds of algae it will take cooperation
from farmers, cities… pretty much everyone. Anything we put on the
land or in our pipes flows into the water. But at the moment, most
people don’t seem to know that they’re a part of the problem and
nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen continue to pollute the
water.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Bird and Fish Poisoning Spreads in Great Lakes

  • Botulism is killing fish and the shorebirds that eat them. The cause is likely due to a disruption in the ecosystem by invasive zebra and quagga mussels. (Photo by Lester Graham)

A deadly toxin is killing fish and birds along the Great Lakes shoreline.
Researchers think type-E botulism works its way up the food chain from
the bottom of the lake through several invasive species. Bob Allen
reports:

Transcript

A deadly toxin is killing fish and birds along the Great Lakes shoreline.
Researchers think type-E botulism works its way up the food chain from
the bottom of the lake through several invasive species. Bob Allen
reports:


These days, Ken Hyde dreads walking the pristine sandy beaches along
the Sleeping Bear Dunes. He’s the biologist in this national lakeshore
along the Michigan coast, and he only has to hike maybe a hundred feet
to find a dead bird twisted head down and half-buried in the sand:


“This is a cormorant. Just in the last two or three weeks we’re
starting to see a lot more of them. So they’re probably starting to
migrate down from the upper parts of the lake.”



Last year botulism killed over 2,500 dead birds along this 35 mile stretch
of shoreline, mostly gulls and diving ducks, including nearly 200 loons
migrating south from Canada.


This year the die-offs started earlier in the summer and struck more
species. The park lost four endangered piping plovers. The National Park
Service brought in a research team from Minnesota to look for answers.
They’ve been diving in the lakeshore now for two years.


What they’ve found is a huge shoal stretching more than a mile off shore.
It’s covered with native green algae and loaded with invasive zebra and
quagga mussels:


The Park’s research boat docks at a small village along Lake Michigan.
Dive team leader Brenda Moraska Lafrancois was surprised when she
first saw the underwater landscape:


“Last year when we first dove this area we went down and it was
shocking how little of the biomass down there was native. I think
we’re looking at a really altered system.”


Here’s what researchers know so far. The mussels filter nutrients from
the water, the clearer water allows more sunlight to reach the bottom, and
that spurs more algae growth. For good measure, the mussels excrete
phosphorus, in effect fertilizing the algae in the near shore zone. When
millions of mussels and big globs of algae begin to decompose, that uses up
most of the oxygen in water near the bottom of the lake, and that’s a
condition just right for a naturally occurring botulism to grow.


So how does the botulism migrate from the bottom to the surface and
poison shorebirds? Enter the round goby. It’s a small invasive fish that
comes from the same Caspian Sea area where zebra mussels originated.


Last year the research team at Sleeping Bear saw gobies in some places.
Now, says Byron Carnes, everywhere they looked when diving on algae
beds there solid sheets of mussels and blankets of gobies, and he
watched them feeding on mussels:


“Part of the zebra quagga mussel that is the juiciest these guys tend
to go right in and do this frenzy feeding where they just come in and
start pounding away at all the broken shells and trying to get out as
much of the good stuff inside the quagga mussel as they possibly
can.”


Mussels don’t have a nervous system, so they aren’t harmed by botulism
toxin. But when gobies get a dose they flop around on the surface for a
day or so while succumbing, and that’s when shorebirds pick up an easy
but potentially deadly meal.


Some diving ducks may also get poisoned by feeding directly on the
mussels. That’s the theory most scientists in the field think explains
what’s happening, but Harvey Bootsma says it’s not active all the time, so
it’s hard to prove each step. He’s with the Great Lakes Water Institute in
Milwaukee:


“I think the problem is it’s usually a sporadic and short-lived event
when this occurs. And unless somebody happens to be fortuitously
collecting the right samples at the right place and the right time it”s
very difficult to pin down the process as it’s occurring.”



While researchers try to pin down the effects of invasive species in one
place, the cycle spins off somewhere else. This fall there are half as
many dead birds along the Sleeping Bear Dunes shore as last year, but
the die-off is now spreading farther north along the Lake Michigan coast,
and there have been similar outbreaks along Lakes Erie and Huron.


So far Harvey Bootsma says there are no good solutions to break the
cycle of algae, mussels and gobies that scientists think is transporting
botulism toxin to shorebirds.


“And it’s just a great example of how huge an impact a new species
can have on an ecosystem. And I think it makes it all the more
imperative that we try to stem the tide of exotic species coming into
the Great Lakes.”


Researchers say it may take decades for the Great Lakes to recover from
the effects, if they ever do.


For the Environment Report, I’m Bob Allen.

Related Links

Fish Detectives

  • The fish detectives (a.k.a. scientists who specialize in fishery genetics) survey the scene. (Photo courtesy of the Lake Erie Center)

On television, the CSI detectives make forensic lab work look glamorous. It’s a cinch for them to track a criminal by the DNA left behind at the scene. In real life, DNA is also a powerful tool for solving environmental crimes and mysteries. Rebecca Williams visits the Fish Detectives:

Transcript

On television, the CSI detectives make forensic lab work look glamorous. It’s a cinch for them to track a criminal by the DNA left behind at the scene. In real life, DNA is also a powerful tool for solving environmental crimes and mysteries. Rebecca Williams visits the Fish Detectives:


(Sound of gulls and reel being cast)


It’s midday, and it’s so hot the gulls are just standing around with their beaks open.


But Joe Al-Sorghali is still trying to get himself a fish dinner:


“Hopefully I can get a good amount of perch today… they’re not that fishy so they’re a really good catch.”


It takes a lot of these little fish to fill up a dinner plate. But that doesn’t stop Al-Sorghali from going after perch and walleye any chance he gets. A lot of people call Lake Erie the Walleye Capital of the World.


Fishing is a really big deal here. So it makes sense that Lake Erie’s also home to the Fish Detectives.


(Dragnet theme music)


The fish detective headquarters is tucked away on the edge of a quiet cove. The investigators at the Lake Erie Center are not wearing trench coats. They’re not even wearing lab coats. This crew of laid-back lab techs and grad students comes to work in jeans and T-shirts.


Carol Stepien heads up the fish detective squad. She says they solve lots of cases of mistaken identity.


Take the Case of the Fried Perch.


Last year the detectives got a call from a TV station in Milwaukee. The news crew was suspicious that the fried local perch on restaurant menus wasn’t really local.


Stepien says she asked the news station to send her some frozen filets.


“So instead they sent their news crew out into restaurants and had their news crew eat the fish and put a little bit of the breaded, cooked fish in a plastic bag and froze those and sent them to me. We were pretty shocked to get those in our laboratory. We didn’t know if we could get DNA from breaded, fried material like that.”


But Stepien says they scraped off the breaded coating… and they actually were able to extract DNA from the little bits of cooked fish.


“And we found that about half of those fish were yellow perch from Europe.”


Stepien says it’s gotten more common for fish brokers to import yellow perch from outside the U.S. because it’s cheaper. She says even though the foreign perch might taste the same when they’re deep-fried… a close look at the DNA of the European yellow perch reveals big differences from Great Lakes yellow perch.


“They probably could be called freshly caught lake perch, but they were certainly frozen and didn’t come from any local lakes, they didn’t come from the Great Lakes. Instead they came from overseas.”


Stepien’s team will tackle any sort of mystery, as long as it involves gills and fins.


Lately they’ve solved cases of home invasion. That is, invasions by exotic species that’ve gotten into the Great Lakes. The scientists can track the invaders by their DNA fingerprints, and find out where they’ve been.


Joshua Brown is a Ph.D student at the lab. He’s been tracking the round goby. It’s a fish native to Europe. Scientists say it caught a ride to the Great Lakes in the ballast tanks of ocean going ships. It’s been crowding out native species.


“We’re going to find somebody to point the finger at, as it were. We’ve found evidence they came from the northern portion of the Black Sea, right around one of the major ports.”


That port is in Ukraine. Even though they’ve found the culprit, Brown says there’s not much governments can do, because everyone’s guilty.


“I don’t think you could really sue a nation for you know, not keeping their species under wraps. If so, we’d be open for a lot of lawsuits too – we export almost as many as we import.”


But Brown says knowing exactly where a foreign species comes from might help keep the door closed to future invaders from that same region.


Whether it’s a case of consumer fish fraud or defending the home turf from invaders, there’s one bottom line for these detectives. They want to find out as much as they can about native fish so they can keep them from going belly up.


For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Refineries Expanding on Great Lakes

The demand for gasoline is leading oil companies to expand refineries around the
Great Lakes region. But those expansions are leading to howls of protests from citizens,
politicians and environmentalists. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The demand for gasoline is leading oil companies to expand refineries around the
Great Lakes region. But those expansions are leading to howls of protests from citizens,
politicians and environmentalists. Lester Graham reports:


British Petroleum went through all the proper channels, public hearings and
permitting processes to expand its refinery in Whiting, Indiana, not too far from
Chicago. The permit allows BP’s refinery to increase the amount of ammonia and
total suspended solids discharged into Lake Michigan.


But when word got out that it would be increasing the amount of pollution released
into the lake, suddenly citizens, Members of Congress, the Mayor of Chicago and
environmental groups lashed out.


BP has now suspended its expansion plans until the first of September. It’s looking over
suggestions on how to reduce the amount of additional pollution into the Great
Lakes.


Meanwhile, another refinery – this one in Detroit – is looking at expanding, which
likely would cause additional pollution. That Marathon plant sits on the River Rouge, a short
distance from the Detroit River which connects the upper Great Lakes to Lake Erie.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Rooftop Wind Power

  • Power lines lead from a wind turbine placed near a coast to catch steady breezes. New designs for smaller turbines might be used in urban areas where wind is more turbulent. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The government wants 20% of the
energy generated in the nation from renewable
resources. Today, we’re at a mere fraction of
that goal. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports experts
believe the US could get there sooner if wind power
technology can be moved successfully to where the
electricity is actually consumed, America’s
cities:

Transcript

The government wants 20% of the
energy generated in the nation from renewable
resources. Today, we’re at a mere fraction of
that goal. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports experts
believe the US could get there sooner if wind power
technology can be moved successfully to where the
electricity is actually consumed, America’s
cities:


Right next to Lake Erie, a large wind turbine spins hypnotically in the
breeze. Its three big propeller blades provide only around 6% of
the energy consumed at the museum where it’s located, the Great Lake
Science Center. So the big turbine is mainly for educational purposes.
The museum’s Executive Director, Linda Abraham Silver says turbine
catches the steady winds off the lake:


“We don’t want turbulence, that’s right. Steady wind is what produces
the best energy and saves the gears and instrumentation inside.”


The single wind turbine stands in a wide open space near Lake Erie, but here
on the streets of downtown Cleveland, the wind is blustery and
unpredictable. These conditions are hostile to traditional turbines.
So the conventional wisdom was wind power couldn’t flourish in urban
environments… that is, until now.


“I think the problem was the propeller, not the whole idea that wind
power was somehow unable to be captured in the city. Some people even tell
you there is no wind power in the city”


Bill Becker is an urban wind developer from Chicago. He’s abandoned the three-propeller design for a horizontal one.
And it kind of looks like a metal DNA double-helix strand. He says it’s
actually two turbine designs in one so the machine can function in low and high winds. The turbine, manufactured
by Aerotecture, is a lot smaller than traditional ones so it can be mounted on rooftops. Becker’s installed 16 on skyscrapers in
Boston and Chicago. They can generate enough electricity to power two homes annually in a typical breezy day.


Becker’s not the only inventor who thinks there are better alternatives
to expansive turbine wind farms sprouting up on ridges and bluffs
across the country. And in England, the three-blade concept isn’t dead
yet.


The company Quiet Revolution has a vertical turbine with blades curving
up and down it. It creates power in even the slightest breeze, but that
power isn’t any more than Becker’s model and it costs 4 times as much.


Instead of catching open wind, in California entrepreneurs are
capturing a very specific type of wind: breezes traveling up and over
building parapets. Those are walls that extend past the roof lines of
big box retailers and factories:


“There’s a potentially great wind resource on those buildings that’s
not being tapped into today.”


Spokesman Steve Gitlin says the company AeroVironment is tapping into
this wind with systems of 15 turbines each. These futuristic rotating
fans, each about six feet tall, line the parapets of flat-roofed
buildings:


“What we’ve done is figured out there’s a unique acceleration of wind over that edge of the building
so the turbine’s designed to actually extend above and angle slightly downward
over that acceleration zone.”


The AeroVironment system is the most expensive… six times as much as the Aerotecture double-helix
design and generates slightly more electricity. It does, however, operate in very low wind, five miles per hour or less.


Ken Silverstein says this range in cost and efficiency shows the urban wind industry is
still growing. He edits Energy Biz magazine, and
adds to make an impact on the market, these turbine costs must come
down. And the government could help jumpstart the industry:


“It needs to develop, it needs to reach economies of scale so that the
technology improves, so that the costs come down and so that wind becomes more widespread than it is today.”


But Silverstein says, urban wind designs like these offers the hope
that businesses and even homeowners could capture the energy of the wind
directly on their own.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton

Related Links

Pros and Cons of Offshore Wind Farms

  • While the tower is around 3 miles north of Cleveland's shore, a viable wind farm would need to be at least 6 times farther out in Lake Erie. The wind monitoring tower measures the speed, direction, and height of Lake Erie's wind to determine if wind power generation on the lake is economically viable. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Proposals for offshore wind farms, from the coasts of Texas to New England have the potential to generate more electricity than land turbines do. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports these projects face various hurdles to becoming reality, but they’re not completely insurmountable:

Transcript

Proposals for offshore wind farms, from the coasts of Texas to New England have the potential to generate more electricity than land turbines do. Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports these projects face various hurdles to becoming reality but they’re not completely insurmountable:


Over the past few months, whenever the weather is favorable, Aaron Godwin of Green Energy Ohio rides a power boat several miles out into Lake Erie. Out on the on the city of Cleveland’s century old water intake structure he’s built a tall wind monitoring tower.


“The upper part of the tower is about 168 feet above the water, so we’re measuring at about 30, 40 and 50 meters, and dual instrumentation at each level, anemometers that measure wind speed and vanes that measure direction.”


Godwin’s got almost a year of wind data and today he’s installing a small wind turbine to confirm what he’s discovered: that the lake’s wind is roughly twice as strong as wind on land. So to Godwin offshore wind farms are inevitable, especially since 75 percent of the nation’s energy use is near coastal cities.


However, proposed projects everywhere face a number of hurdles. One of them is bird and bat migration. Some land turbines have killed creatures that flew too close. But in Denmark, where offshore wind is 15 years old, extensive water foul surveys show little change in bird behavior. Charlotte Boesen is an environmental planner for Dong Energy in Denmark.


“These birds, they do fly around the wind farm. They do not like flying over land you can say and maybe they in some sort they perceive the turbines or wind farm as a similar object.”


Even so, no wind project in the US will ever get off the ground without a full assessment of potential wildlife impacts. That’s why 60% of Lake Erie has already been ruled out by a preliminary study conducted by the wind consulting firm AWS True Wind. Its Executive Director Bruce Bailey says that leaves most of eastern Lake Erie still available, with the best wind about 15 miles northwest of Cleveland.


“That’s where the strongest winds would be found. With water depths still being under say 70 feet.”


Bailey adds the shallow depth of Lake Erie combined with its solid lake bottom and fresh water makes it more friendly to offshore wind generation than oceans.


“You wouldn’t have to deal with the corrosion or the extra cost to safeguard your hardware from corrosion if you’re sighted in a fresh water lake.”


Bailey adds designing against hurricanes makes ocean projects more expensive. On the flip side, Lake Erie’s been known to freeze.


“There are ways to deflect the ice from actually pushing too strongly against or lifting out a turbine foundation. Some of them have already been deployed already in offshore projects in Northern Europe, and some of them are located in locations where you might even get icebergs.”


Another concern is whether these turbines will ruin the natural beauty of America’s Coastlines, even though on the horizon a turbine might only look a big as a thumbnail. Walt Musel of the US Department of Energy says this worry is unfounded.


“It’s worth noting there are no projects in the United States, so most people who object to offshore wind have never seen one.”


Fifteen years ago, projects in Denmark faced the same prejudice. Today tourists rent boats to go see them.


Above all, perhaps the largest impediment to offshore wind power is its high cost. Installation in water is expected to be double the cost of on land construction. However, once farms are producing power, electricity companies are open to buying it.


Out on Lake Erie, Aaron Godwin is packing up his tools for the day. He says there is an up side to those high capital costs. He says in the future, turbines will be so large it’ll make more sense to manufacture the parts locally, giving America’s manufacturing industry a ray of hope.


“Energy is a guaranteed growth market. Wind power is the fastest growing energy sector in the entire world. Why would you not want to get involved in that guaranteed growth market? It just does not make sense.”


Godwin says if the US can clear these hurdles of public perception, engineering, and environmental impacts, he thinks the US economy might find a pleasant surprise: consistent, green energy, built and harnessed off the blue coasts of America.


For the Environment Report, I’m Lisa Ann Pinkerton.

Related Links

Return of the Toxic Algae

A new report says the Great Lakes are being threatened by toxic algae growth. The blue-green algae is reappearing despite efforts in the 1970’s to combat the problem. The GLRC’s Laleah Fernandez reports:

Transcript

A new report says the Great Lakes are being threatened by toxic algae
growth. The blue-green algae is reappearing despite efforts in the
1970’s to combat the problem. The GLRC’s Laleah Fernandez reports:


Environmental groups say phosphorus pollution is causing the growth of
blue-green algae, which can kill fish and plants in the lakes. Phosphorus gets in the lakes
when lawn or farm fertilizers run off into waterways and because dishwashing detergent
still contains phosphates.


Hugh McDiarmid is with the Michigan Environmental Council, which released
the report. He says invasive species, such as zebra mussels, also promote
the growth of the toxic algae:


“They filter the water and make it clearer, which would seem on the surface
to be a good thing, but allows sunlight to reach deeper into the water
column and allows algae, therefore, to grow much deeper in the water than it
had before the mussels arrived.”


McDiarmid says shallow lakes such as Lakes Erie and St. Clair are especially
vulnerable because the algae on the bottom of the lakes is closer to sunlight.


For the GLRC, I’m Laleah Fernandez.

Related Links

Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Wetlands Case

  • The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case that will determine how much power the federal government has over isolated wetlands - wetlands that aren't adjacent to lakes or streams. (Photo by Lester Graham)

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments that could decide which wetlands the federal government can regulate. The case before the court involves a couple of construction projects in the state of Michigan, but it’s being followed closely throughout the country. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:

Transcript

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments that could
decide which wetlands the federal government can regulate. The case
before the court involves a couple of construction projects in the state of
Michigan, but it’s being followed closely throughout the country. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Michael Leland has more:


The federal Clean Water Act is supposed to stop people from polluting
streams, wetlands and other waterways that are connected to the
country’s major lakes, rivers and coastal areas, but what if the wetland in
question is located 20-miles from the nearest major waterway? Is it
covered by the Clean Water Act? That’s the question the court will
consider.


In the 1980’s John Rapanos started moving sand from one part of
property he owned in Michigan to another, to fill in some wetlands. He
wanted to sell the land to a shopping mall developer. Trouble is, he
didn’t get permits from the Army Corps of Engineers to fill in the
wetlands. The government says he should have.


“The property has a drainage ditch that runs through it…”


Robin Rivett is a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation. It’s a
property-rights group that is representing Rapanos.


“And because of the movement of the sand on the property, which is
characterized as wetlands, the government came in and has prosecuted
him for actually discharging fill material into the navigable waters.”


Rapanos was charged with violating the Clean Water Act. Washington is
demanding 13-million dollars in fines and fees, and wants him to set
aside about 80-acres as wetlands.


In another case, that’s been combined with the Rapanos matter,
developers in Southeast Michigan were denied permits to fill in wetlands
so they could build a condominium complex. That site is about two
miles from Lake St. Clair, which lies between lakes Huron and Erie.


In both cases, the federal government says the sites fall under the Clean
Water Act because they’re located near navigable waters. Actually, that
term – navigable waters – has evolved over the years and come to mean
“interstate or intrastate waters,” along with their wetlands and tributaries.


The plaintiffs, their attorneys and supporters say the land should be
governed by state environmental regulations, rather than the federal
Clean Water Act, but on the side of the government in this case is 35
state governments, along with many environmental and conservation
groups.


Jim Murphy is a lawyer for the National Wildlife Federation. His group
has filed briefs on behalf of more than a dozen organizations that support
the federal position.


“What is at stake here is the ability of the act to protect the vast number
of tributaries that flow into navigable waters and the wetlands that
surround and feed into those tributaries. If those tributaries and wetlands
aren’t protected under the federal Clean Water Act, it becomes difficult if not
impossible under the Clean Water Act to achieve its goal to protect water
quality.”


Murphy says if the Supreme Court rules that Congress did not intend to
protect wetlands like the ones in this case, then about half the wetlands in
the country could lose their federal protection. Murphy and others on his
side worry that wetlands could begin disappearing more quickly than
they already do today.


Scott Yaich directs conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited – a
wetlands protection group.


“The landowners who have those wetlands would no longer be subject to
getting the Corps of Engineers to review, so essentially they could do
anything they wanted.”


The lawyers for the landowners don’t see it that way. The Pacific Legal
Foundation’s Robin Rivett says individual states would have something
to say.


“I believe there are 47 states that have their own clean water programs.
If it is clear that the federal government doesn’t have jurisdiction over
local waters, the states will step in to protect those waters.”


Maybe they will; maybe they won’t, say environmental groups. They
fear a patchwork of water protection laws. They say it could mean
polluted water from a state with weaker laws could flow into a state with
stronger water protection laws.


Jim Murphy of the National Wildlife Federation.


“The Clean Water Act provides a floor. It provides comprehensive
protection, a floor beyond which states must maintain that level of
protection.”


Those who support the property owners in this case say it’s about more
than clean water – it’s also about land use. They say if the court rules
that waterways and wetlands are interconnected and all deserving of
protection under the Clean Water Act, then what could be left out?


Duane Desiderio is with the National Association of Home Builders,
which has filed briefs supporting the property owners.


“All water flows somewhere. Every drop of water in the United States,
when it goes down the Continental Divide, is going to drain into the
Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, or the Gulf of Mexico. Pretty much.”


Both sides are hoping the Supreme Court provides a clear definition of
which wetlands and tributaries Congress intended to protect when it
passed the Clean Water Act. A decision is expected this summer.


For the GLRC, I’m Michael Leland.

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Ten Threats: Botulism Kills Beach Birds

  • Interns for Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania walk along a Lake Erie beach picking up dead birds. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

We’ve been bringing you reports from the series, ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes’ which is now looking at the threat to beaches. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He reports that scientists are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly caused by humans.


Researchers are beginning to understand what’s killing thousands of
Great Lakes shorebirds. It might be part of a larger problem indirectly
caused by humans. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:


Along parts of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Lake Huron, large numbers
of dead birds and fish are washing up on shore. If they’re left there, the
disease that killed them can be passed on to other wildlife. That’s why
park officials such as Mike Mumau at Presque Isle State Park at Erie,
Pennsylvania ask their staff to watch out for the dead carcasses.


“Our interns do a great job. They’re the eyes of the staff that are out. So,
there’s probably three to four days a week that they’re out on the
beaches, checking to see if they have anything.”


Since 1998, untold numbers of fish and sometimes hundreds of dead
birds a year have washed up on just these eight miles of Lake Erie beach.


Eventually, researchers figured out the problem: type “E” botulism. It
slowly paralyzes the birds until the respiratory system shuts down. Most
of them don’t make it that long. They get so weak they can’t hold their
heads up out of the water and they drown.


(Sounds of walking and shovel)


Leslie Jones and her fellow interns are headed out to an area to pick up
some dead seagulls on the beach.


“When we’re out here doing migratory bird studies, we might see some
and then we pick them up as soon as possible. A lot of times, we get
radioed from different people like lifeguards and they have us come out
and pick them up so that the disease doesn’t spread throughout the rest of
the ecosystem.”


They find five dead birds rotting on the beach. They bury the maggots
because they could carry the botulism toxin and other birds might eat the
maggots. They shovel the bird carcass into a black plastic garbage bag.


“If they’re very fresh, this one, obviously not very fresh, but, if we get a
fresh one, we actually freeze them and they’re sent off to be tested
botulism, but, something like this we’ll just bag up until we can get them
incinerated to get rid of all the disease.”


The fresh carcasses are shipped to the National Wildlife Health Center in
Madison, Wisconsin.


There, Grace McLaughlin is among the researchers who are beginning to
put the puzzle together.

Here’s what they think is happening. The invasive species zebra mussels
and quagga mussels create huge mussel beds that begin a complicated
biological phenomenon. Organic matter collects there, and then decays. It
lowers the oxygen level in the immediate area of the mussel beds. Type
“E” botulism spores occur naturally, but when the oxygen level goes
down, they begin reproducing like crazy. The waste they produce is the
toxin.


“That toxin will accumulate in the organic matter as well as in the water
in the immediate vicinity of the mussel beds. As the mussels do their
filter feeding, they will accumulate the toxin in their tissue. They are not
susceptible to the toxin. However, when the fish start coming down
there and eating the mussels, they become intoxicated, lose their ability
to swim properly and become easy prey for the birds that come in.”


The fish that feeds on the mussels the most is another invasive species,
the round goby. Researchers made the connection when they noticed the
botulism started being a problem shortly after round gobies arrived in big
numbers.


The type “E” botulism toxin has killed tens-of-thousands of birds such as
cormorants, terns, loons, ducks, and seagulls.


Back at Presque Isle State Park, Mike Mumau says it’s terrible to see so
many birds die.


“We just do our best on our end to stop the botulism cycle. When we
can, provide samples, and also, keep it a positive recreational experience
for all our visitors. They don’t want to see birds decomposing and
rotting out on the beaches, so we’re pretty diligent with that.”


Researchers say that’s about the best that can be done. Since ocean-
going vessels brought zebra mussels, quagga mussels, and round gobies
to the Great Lakes, all three of the invasive species have flourished. It
will likely be a long time before we’ll ever begin to understand the full
extent of the damage to the native wildlife of the lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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