Life Is Rough in the Median

  • Brian Dold works for the Olmsted Conservancy, he says Olmsted designed wide boulevards to be tree and plant friendly. (Photo courtesy of Joyce Kryszak)

Most modern city streets were designed only with traffic in mind. There was little or no attention given to green space. Over time, some cities revamped their streets adding landscaped medians to make them more attractive. But not all cities thought ahead to what it would take to keep those green areas growing. Joyce Kryszak reports, in one city the volunteers who maintain the plants in the medians – are pretty stressed out.

Transcript

Most modern city streets were designed only with traffic in mind. There was little or no attention given to green space. Over time, some cities revamped their streets adding landscaped medians to make them more attractive. But not all cities thought ahead to what it would take to keep those green areas growing. Joyce Kryszak reports, in one city the volunteers who maintain the plants in the medians – are pretty stressed out.

It’s about eight o’clock on a chilly morning. Linda Garwol is dodging two lanes of traffic to take care of the shrubs and trees planted in the City of Buffalo’s Main street medians. At least, what’s left of the greenery.

“Uh, two trees are left. Things have been replanted in some of them,” said Garwol. “It’s a nice project, but it wasn’t well-thought out, obviously.”

Gawrol says just a couple of years after the medians were planted more than 70 of the trees and shrubs have died.

The federal plan that called for the green medians in the street didn’t include money for maintenance or irrigation. The City of Buffalo says it doesn’t have the money to maintain the green strips. Garwol says that’s when she and other volunteers stepped in. But she says there simply aren’t enough of them to get the job done.

“It is tough work. It’s bending, it’s picking up garbage, it’s weeding. So, it’s not easy to get volunteers, especially at this time of the morning. This is the big problem. To avoid the traffic you have to be up early,” said Garwol.

But it turned out that weeding was the least of their problems. Late last summer, it stopped raining. And, the strips are too narrow, the dirt too poor to retain enough water. And… there’s no irrigation system. Unless you count Sister Jeremy Midura. The Catholic nun started braving the traffic to save the wilting landscape in front of her church. Every week day morning at dawn, she tugs five gallon buckets of water between the racing cars.

“They recognize me as the crazy median woman,” said Midura.

“How many of buckets of water do you have to take out there?” reporter. “Well, we use about 12-14 buckets on the larger median across from Catalician Center and our church. Then about ten buckets over by our school area,” said Midura.

But the traffic-dodging nun couldn’t carry enough water for all the two-mile stretch of thirsty plants. By fall, the city finally sent some tanker trucks to water the medians twice a week.

And still trees and shrubs died.

This appears to be a case of bad planning. Experts say anything planted in small medians need to be drought and salt resistant. They have to be planted in the right kind of soil. And irrigation systems should be part of the plan. Otherwise, experts say cities are just throwing away their investment. We wanted to ask the City of Buffalo about that, but the city did not return our calls.

“Right now, we’re walking along what was a Olmstedian bridle-path…”

Frederick Law Olmsted was a 19th century landscape architect. Brian Dold works for the Olmsted Conservancy. Dold says Olmsted designed the boulevard to be tree and plant friendly. It’s thirty feet wide. Two rows of elms arch over the broad, grassy lawn.

Dold says there’s more than enough soil for roots to spread wide and deep and survive droughts. He says, unfortunately, that’s not the case in many urban landscapes today.

“And that really creates an environment where you’re asking too much of a common plant to survive and do well in,” said Dold.

But cities such as Buffalo are learning from their mistakes. The medians now being added down the rest of Main Street will have irrigation systems. A special adaptive soil is being used. And… there’s a good chance the new plantings will survive in the green strip between the lanes of traffic.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Lawn Chemicals Cause Concern

  • Nationwide, farms use the bulk of chemicals. But one expert says homeowners are more likely to overuse pesticides and fertilizers. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

New laws restrict pesticides and fertilizers in some cities. In recent years, farms have cut the use of chemicals. But, Rebecca Williams reports, some environmentalists say there are still far too many chemicals polluting streams and lakes:

Transcript

New laws restrict pesticides and fertilizers in some cities. In recent years, farms have cut the use of chemicals. But, Rebecca Williams reports, some environmentalists say there are still far too many chemicals polluting streams and lakes:

There are 40 million acres of lawns and sports fields in the US. That’s only one-tenth of the amount of cropland.

But some experts say lawn pesticides and fertilizers can be more of a problem.

Charles Benbrook is the Chief Scientist with the Organic Center. It’s a non-profit research group in Oregon.

“While there are many more acres of corn and soybeans and cotton treated with pesticides than there are lawns, the rate of application on lawns in urban areas often is far higher than on the farm.”

And, he says people are more likely to get exposed to chemicals on lawns.

“There’s many more opportunities for significant exposures, particularly for children and pregnant women in urban areas.”

Nationwide, farms do use the bulk of chemicals. But Benbrook says homeowners are more likely to overuse pesticides and fertilizers.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Whose Grass Is Really Greener?

  • Molly Aubuchon and Stefan Meyer survey their lawn. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Many Americans love full, lush
lawns. Fertilizers and herbicides
might help. But there’s concern
about water pollution from lawn
chemicals. Julie Grant reports
that some experts say you can use
them, just don’t over-use them:

Transcript

Many Americans love full, lush
lawns. Fertilizers and herbicides
might help. But there’s concern
about water pollution from lawn
chemicals. Julie Grant reports
that some experts say you can use
them, just don’t over-use them:

Molly Aubuchon and her husband Stefan Meyer aren’t sure
what they’re going to do. Their two little kids are running
around the yard. Stefan wants a lawn of thick, soft grass for
them to play on. But that’s not what he’s got.

Stefan: “As you can see, there’s no grass here.
I don’t know what some of this stuff is. Some kind of moss.
I think even the moss died, so now we have dead moss
that’s like yellow and brown.”

Molly: “It’s not attractive dead.”

Stefan: “No. I just think, when I’m out here cutting my grass,
I’m like, man, if I lived across the street, I’d be like, ‘hey look,
they’re cutting absolutely nothing again. They’re just running
that lawn mower over bare spots.’”

They see their neighbors, with those thick, green lawns,
spreading chemicals a few times a year. Molly and Stefan
don’t want to do that.

Molly: “Well, the fact that I’ve got kids running around here
all day. And the fact that it seeps into the water supply and
the rivers, that’s a concern to me.”

There are lots of people who are concerned about lawn
pollution. Lawns have gotten a bad wrap in some places –
because of the fertilizers and other chemicals people use on
them. In much of Canada, lawn chemicals have actually
been banned.

Lou DiGeranimo is General Manager of Water in Toronto.
He says lawn chemicals were damaging the water quality.

“People were over-fertilizing, they were using commercial
pesticides. That chemical ended up in the rivers and ended
up in the lake. We passed a bylaw that prohibited that.”

But some experts say the chemical bans in Canada are
extreme.

David Gardner is professor of turf grass at the Ohio State
University. He doesn’t think banning lawn chemical will do
anything to improve the environment.

“Based on the work that I have seen, based on the research
that has been conducted, I believe that if there is a unilateral
ban on the use of pesticides it will make absolutely no
impact on our environmental footprint.”

Gardner says compared to
other sources of pollution, like cars and over-use of
chemicals on farms, the impact of lawn care is miniscule.

Still, Gardner says people like Molly and Stefan can keep
nice lawns – without using a lot of chemicals.

He says you’ve got to cut the grass and water regularly.
He also recommends fertilizing lightly in the spring and more
heavily in the fall.

That’s what Gardner does at his house – and he uses only 6
to 8 ounces of herbicide a year.

“Putting it another way, if I were to go to a store and buy one
of those gallon jugs of ready-made herbicide, that would be
enough to last me for about 16 years.”

Gardner says the herbicide will hit its expiration date before
he has a chance to use it all.

But Molly and Stefan just aren’t sold. They don’t want to use
lawn chemicals just to appease the neighbors.

Stefan: “I just want to feel good about the way my yard
looks for my own satisfaction. I would like to cultivate some
grass that looks good, you know, with my hands.”

Besides, Stefan says, they don’t have the worst looking lawn
on the street and they’d just rather not add unnecessary
chemicals into the environment.

Stefan: “We don’t have the worst lawn on the street. Our
street is not that long. It’s only four blocks, five blocks long –
there’s a house down there and their yard looks worse than
ours.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Hiring Lambs as Landscapers

  • Louise Engel admits she and her husband were initially a little nervous about setting the lambs lose in their valuable vineyard. (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines. Joyce Kryszak visited the winery to get a first hand look:

Transcript

Wine makers are shaking things up in their vineyards. Some of them use natural and organic methods to control pests and weeds instead of using pesticides. Now, one winery has discovered a unique, natural way to prune their grape vines. Joyce Kryszak visited the winery to get a first hand look:

At the Featherstone Winery in Southern Ontario there are 20 acres of perfectly manicured grape vines. They stretch out in neatly groomed rows across rolling green hills.

But no man or machine maintains this vineyard. There are 40 cute, little, wooly lambs on duty pruning the grape vines into tip-top shape.

David Johnson says he knows the idea of using lambs on his vineyard is a bit odd. Johnson thought so too when he first heard the idea. He found out about it visiting wineries in New Zealand.

“I didn’t believe them at the time. I thought they were having fun with a tourist and that this would be a big joke, some Canadian when he went back home, telling a story. So, yeah, I’ve taken a ribbing on the lamb thing, for sure.”

But Johnson ignored the jokes and decided to try it out.

His wife Louise Engel admits they were a little nervous at first setting the lambs lose in their valuable vineyard.

“We watched these lambs like hawks. I mean, all the staff were sitting out there and following them around – ‘did they eat any grapes, did they eat any grapes?’ But they didn’t. They’ve got very nimble little mouths and little teeths and little lips and they just eat around them.”

You see, pruning grape vines is delicate business. Only a targeted area of leaves is removed from the lower part of the vines to help the fruit grow better.

But Engel and Johnson say the lambs are perfectly designed to handle the job. The young, spring lambs aren’t tall enough and their necks can’t stretch up to reach the grapes. And, since they only weigh about 50 pounds, they don’t trample the soil. And, yes, their droppings do make excellent organic fertilizer.

(sound of lambs bleating)

Three years, and three flocks of sheep later, nobody’s laughing. Area vintners even have copied them; and for good reason. It would cost about $300 an acre to hire seasonal workers to come in for seven weeks in the summer to hand prune the vines. The lambs cost a fraction of that. And, when the pruning is done in August, off they go to the butcher.

Johnson says it turns out that free-range lambs fed a diet of grape leaves end up being pretty tasty.

“We sold them off last year to some caterers and some pretty nice restaurants, and they got back to us and said, ‘wow, these lambs are really special.’ They’re different; they’re almost veal-like in color and flavor and very, very lean. And they’re going to do lamb specials all month and pair it with our wines all month.”

But he admits there are some drawbacks.

They had a tough time finding enough lambs to do the job. There are about fifty million of them in New Zealand. But, it turns out, they’re kind of sparse in Ontario.

Johnson says there are some logistical problems, too. Even some organic pesticides are toxic to lambs. And, there’s all that fence building and moving around to limit the lambs’ access, so they don’t over-prune.

Still, they think it’s worth the hassle. Engel says the lambs fit in beautifully with their philosophy of sustainable farming and diversity in the vineyard.

“They’re lovely, tranquil, placid things, and there’s something almost biblical about having lambs roaming the place and wine here. And, it’s just, I don’t know, there’s just some itch that scratches that’s quite fulfilling.”

People visiting the vineyard enjoy watching the lambs too.

Customers enjoy lunch on the veranda as they look out on the pastoral scene. And, of course, they have a little wine. And one of the top selling wines is Black Sheep Reisling.

For The Environment Report, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Interview: Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar

  • Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar (Photo by Andy Pernick, courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation)

The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:

Transcript

The Department of Interior includes
agencies such as the US Fish and
Wildlife Service, the National Park
Service, the Bureau of Land Management
and many other bureaus, services and
offices. Former Senator Ken Salazar
directs it all. Lester Graham recently
talked with the Secretary of Interior
about the Department and the problems
and challenges he faces:

Lester Graham: Interior is a huge department, with many services and bureaus. Some of those departments deal with oil and gas exploration on public lands and places such as Alaska, Utah, and offshore. During the Bush Administration, the Department of the Interior was criticized for being too cozy with the oil and gas industry. And it culminated with a scandal involving oil company execs, government workers, and wild parties – complete with cocaine and sex. Secretary Salazar stressed to me, those days of partying and sweetheart deals with oil and gas companies are over.

Ken Salazar: It is unfortunate that the department was blemished in the Bush era because of the transgressions which occurred here and the paradigm which unfolded – which we are seeing the results of today – is that there was a bending of the rules and a flaunting of the law. There is a lot of cleaning up that has to be done.

Graham: Recently you came to a memorandum, I’m understanding, with FERC about offshore wind turbines. How soon might we see wind turbines off the coasts of the US?

Salazar: I expect that it will happen during the first term of the Obama Administration. I think that there is a huge potential for wind energy, especially off the shores of the Atlantic, because of the shallowness of those waters.

Graham: Will we ever see a point where we have windmills near coast, and drilling rigs out farther, along the Atlantic Coast?

Salazar: I do believe that we will see the wind potential develop. I think it will be similar to what we already see in the United Kingdom and Denmark and Norway. In respect to oil and gas off the Atlantic, I think that is still a question that needs to be looked at. And it’s part of what we’re doing in looking at a new 5-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf. And we are not making a decision at this point, or pre-judging where we will end up after we complete the comment process which ends in September.

Graham: Secretary Salazar says domestic oil and gas will play a role in American energy. He talked about the Department of Interior’s role in the nation’s energy independence, and noted the departments 15,000 scientists will be helping deal with the big issues such as global warming and climate change. Ken Salazar says that since the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and other nature-related agencies make up Interior, one of its top priorities is a program called ‘Treasured Landscapes.’

Salazar: I am hopeful that we will be able to, in this Administration, create the kind of legacy that was created by Teddy Roosevelt. President Obama has a vision for the landscapes of America, which is one that I believe we can deliver on. Restoration of major landscapes, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes and the Everglades and so many others, will be a part of that agenda.

Graham: Secretary Salazar, thank you so much for your time.

Salazar: Thank you very much, Lester.

Graham: Ken Salazar, President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior. For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Costs of Building in Danger Zones

  • In San Diego’s suburbs, the homes on the outer edges of developments and in close proximity to the surrounding countryside are the first to burn. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

During the past 20 years, we’ve been building
homes closer to nature. Whether it’s near coastal areas
or in the wilderness, homebuyers want to live in more
natural settings. But… Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports
often that means putting people and property in the path
of floods or fire:

Transcript

During the past 20 years, we’ve been building
homes closer to nature. Whether it’s near coastal areas
or in the wilderness, homebuyers want to live in more
natural settings. But… Lisa Ann Pinkerton reports
often that means putting people and property in the path
of floods or fire:

2007 was the second worst in history for wildfires in the U.S. Nine-million acres were
scorched and Southern California bore the brunt of it. Most of the property damage was
in San Diego where wildfires in wilderness areas spread to suburban neighborhoods. Half a
million people were evacuated and Shannon Denton was among them. She says her
neighborhood was cleared out at 4 in the morning.

“We were scared. ‘Cause we didn’t – luckily we had all our pictures organized, so we just took most of our pictures and our video stuff, grabbed our kids at the last minute and left within a half-hour. It was scary, very
scary.”

(construction sound)

These days, Denton’s subdivision is busy. There are bulldozers demolishing the burned
out remains of old houses. And construction crews are building new ones on every single
street.

Denton’s thankful her house was spared. But she says even if it had burned down, she’d
take the risk of it happening again, because she likes living here.

“It’s pretty close to nature. There’s a lot of walking and hiking, a lot of mountains that you can take trails and different things.”

Despite the risk of fire, people like Denton don’t want to leave. Some of the 18-
thousand homes lost in San Diego last fall were built in places where wildfires had
burned only four years earlier.

That’s not unusual. The US Fire Administration says nearly 40% of new home
development across the country is in places where residential homes and wilderness meet,
and thus, are more prone to fire.

“They have a right to build that single family home.”

That’s Jeff Murphy of San Diego County’s Department of Planning.

“As a jurisdiction its our responsibility to have codes and ordinances that are
in place to make sure that there’s minimal structural damage as the result of wildfire and minimize
the risk of loss of life.”

Murphy says people are going to live where they want to, all government can do is
require smart development. And San Diego’s building codes are the most restrictive in
the California. They were reevaluated after the 2003 wildfires, when seven percent of the
homes were destroyed.

In the 2007 wildfires, Murphy says the new codes reduced that loss to one-percent.

“Even though we had a lot of structure loss during these fires, what these
numbers are showing us is that our codes are working.”

And Americans aren’t just building in areas at risk of fire. We build in flood zones, too.
FEMA estimates around 10 million people in the US are at risk of flooding. And
according to the United Nations, we saw the most floods of any country last year.

Roger Kennedy is a former director of the National Park Service. He says this kind of
“risky living” costs US taxpayers about two-billion dollars a year in firefighting and
rebuilding costs. The total in property damage hovers around 20 Billion.

Kennedy says people are choosing to build and live on land that’s in danger-prone areas
because they’re not responsible for the true costs. Insurance, guaranteed mortgages, and
federal disaster relief have reduced the personal financial risk.

“People wouldn’t settle in places from which they knew they would not be
rescued and where the taxpayers wouldn’t pick up- or the insurance company which is
essentially the same thing- wouldn’t pick up the tab.”

Kennedy says knowing about a home’s potential risk might reduce the material cost of
fires and floods. And, it might save lives.

But he says, people have to want to know their risks. And even then… they might choose
to ignore it. Because for many, the enjoyment their property brings far outweighs the
occasional “Act of Nature.”

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

Related Links

Growing Zones Warm Up

  • The National Arbor Day Foundation's revised hardiness zone map. (Photo courtesy of the National Arbor Day Foundation)

If you’ve been thinking about landscaping your yard, you should know things have
changed. The climate is warming so quickly that one organization has changed the
plant hardiness zone map. That’s the little map you sometimes see on the back of
seed packets. Lester Graham reports… you might want to check out the new map
before you spend hundreds of dollars on a tree that might not live long in your
warmer zone:

Transcript

If you’ve been thinking about landscaping your yard, you should know things have
changed. The climate is warming so quickly that one organization has changed the
plant hardiness zone map. That’s the little map you sometimes see on the back of
seed packets. Lester Graham reports… you might want to check out the new map
before you spend hundreds of dollars on a tree that might not live long in your
warmer zone:


You know, I’ve talked to a lot of gardeners and homeowners who do their own
landscaping about this plant hardiness zone map change, and at first they’re
kind of astounded. The growing zones are changing? Because it’s getting warmer?


But then, they sort of pause and think for a moment… and usually say something like,
“That makes sense.”


The United States Department of Agriculture issues the plant hardiness zone map.
It’s basically a map of the annual average low temperatures that helps folks figure
out what they can plant and expect to survive. But the USDA hasn’t updated its map
since 1990.


The spokesman at the National Arbor Day Foundation, Woody Nelson – I kid you not,
the Arbor Day guy’s name is Woody – Woody says his organization issued a new
map because it really needed to be updated:


“You know, people were asking us to help out, you know, ‘This old USDA map just doesn’t
seem to work for us anymore. I don’t think it’s accurate. What can you do to help?’
So we took it upon ourselves to give tree-planters the most up-to-date information
that we could.”


So the National Arbor Day Foundation looked at the low temperature data gathered
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration since 1990, and the people
were right: things are warming up:


“And over that 15-year span that we used, much of the country had warmed a full
hardiness zone.”


And there’s a ten degree difference from one zone to the next. It shows a real on-
the-ground trend.


Richard Andres is with Tantre Farm. They grow organic produce for farmers’
markets like this one in Michigan. Andres didn’t know about the new Arbor Day
Hardiness Zone map, but it makes sense to him. He says he’s seeing more
extremes:


“You know, last winter was unusually warm. The winter before, unusually warm.
So, we really didn’t even get a decent freeze. We had a huge amount of bugs the
following spring. So we are noticing more extremes.”


But a farmer or gardener can adjust things for annual plants. Long term, you’re
probably wondering whether you can now plant that dogwood or whether you
should plant that spruce from up north.


(Sound of sprinkler)


Phil Walsh sells a lot of trees at Lodi Farms nursery. He knew about the new Arbor
Day Hardiness Zone map. But, he says there’s a lot more to think about than just
the annual average low temperature when you’re thinking about planting:


“Cold is not the only, or really the most, important factor when determining plant
hardiness. Questions like soil: is it well-drained; is it not; is it wet; is it dry; is it acid
or is it alkaline; do you have wind; do you have shade? Questions like this: is it high
in organic material or low in organic material? These tend to have more impact on
whether or not plants survive than strictly the zone rating.”


Walsh says the trees are pretty tough, and most of them can adapt:


“Yes, things have warmed up over the last 15 years and they may well continue or it may change and it may go down. Pick a good, hardy plant that’s well-suited for your soil
and typically one that’s native here, that’s gone through these temperature changes
in the past and I don’t expect anybody’s going to have any problems with them.”


That’s not to say that every kind of tree is taking this in stride. For example, black
spruce trees adapted to Canadian and upper New England cold might not be such a
good choice as far south as it’s been grown in the past.


Woody Nelson at the National Arbor Day Foundation says trees native to the North
are starting to be affected by the warming climate:


“There’s a whole lot of white pines that have been planted in Georgia, in the South
as a nice landscape tree over the years. And now those white pines are coming
under a little bit of stress. The native lodge pole pines, the native loblolly pines in the
deep South, again native species are something that we want to promote and stick
with.”


So, the basic rule is: if the plant hardiness zone map has shifted one growing zone
warmer in just 15 years, you’ll probably want to stick to trees native to your area, or
from just a little south of you just in case this warming trend sticks around for a while.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Concrete Shores

  • Hardened shorelines protect buildings, roads, and homes, but many developers say a more natural method should be used. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Along many Great Lakes cities, long concrete or stone seawalls protect property against
wind and wave erosion. It’s a hardening of the shoreline that some people say is
necessary to protect expensive real estate. But some scientists and environmentalists say
it’s part of one of the ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. They’re worried those concrete
seawalls are not only hurting the environment… in the long run, they’re hurting the
economy. Lynette Kalsnes has this report:

Transcript

In our series ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes,’ we’ve been looking at how humans make
changes that affect the health of the lakes. Lester Graham is our guide through the series.
He says the next report shows how far we’ll go to try to manage nature:


Along many Great Lakes cities, long concrete or stone seawalls protect property against
wind and wave erosion. It’s a hardening of the shoreline that some people say is
necessary to protect expensive real estate. But some scientists and environmentalists say
it’s part of one of the ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. They’re worried those concrete
seawalls are not only hurting the environment… in the long run, they’re hurting the
economy. Lynette Kalsnes has this report:


(waves lapping against concrete wall)


In the middle of a miles-long concrete shoreline, there’s a tiny beach. Steve Forman points
toward a small bluff at the base of a tree. The professor of earth and environmental sciences at
the University of Illinois at Chicago says the sand, grass and dunes help soften the impact of
waves and rain.


“This kind of relief is what you’d see in many natural coastlines, a coastline like this can
accommodate change better than one that’s been concreted up.”


Just feet away, the concrete picks back up, like a stark white runway that bisects the land and the
lake. Concrete revetments like these in Chicago are a familiar sight in urban areas across the
Great Lakes.


Roy Deda is with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps manages much of the
construction on public shorelines. Deda says hardening the shore is one way of protecting against
erosion.


“Where hardening of the shoreline is important and used, is where you have an existing
community in an urban area like Chicago. You have a lot of development in place already, and
basically you’re protecting what’s been built over a long history.”


Deda says it protects property. But scientist Steve Forman says using concrete walls comes at a
cost: the destruction of natural systems that are often helpful.


Forman says wetlands and stream valleys normally act like a sponge to absorb high lake levels.
They also release some of the water back when lake levels are low. Forman says concrete can’t
buffer those fluctuations.


“It makes the extremes potentially even more extreme in terms of lake level variations.”


So, when there’s a rainstorm, Forman says the water runs off the concrete quickly… instead of
being absorbed across sand or wetlands slowly.


He says the same thing is true for the water flowing into the lakes from rivers.


Discharge into rivers can go up by 50 times the amount it would if natural areas buffered the
rivers.


“Any time we change the landscape from its natural components, we also change the plumbing of
the Great Lakes. We change the way water is routed in and around and through the Great Lakes
as well.”


It’s not only rushing rivers and lake levels that cause problems.


When the shoreline is hardened… the wildlife and organisms that once lived there disappear.


Cameron Davis is with the Alliance for the Great Lakes. He says many rare species live in that
narrow ribbon where the land meets the water.


“When we harden the shorelines, we basically sterilize them in a lot of ways, because we’ve not
providing the kinds of habitat and cover that we need for many of them.”


And beyond the effect on wildlife… hardening the shoreline can also be a bad economic decision.


Steve Forman says permanent structures built near the shores are not as stable as they might seem
when lake levels are high and winter storms cause big waves that erode the land underneath them.


“When the lake levels go up, the erosion rates are just phenomenal…what you see are hanging
stairs everywhere, instead of stairs that take you down to the beach, they’re hanging over the lake,
basically.”


That’s why scientists and planners are taking action. The Alliance for the Great Lakes’ Cameron
Davis is calling on planners to balance protecting the shoreline … with preserving ecology.


“Frankly I don’t think shoreline planning across the region is that great. There really is no single
unifying policy we’re all using to guide what our shorelines ought to look like.”


He’s hoping that some cities will experiment with restoring natural areas along their shorelines…
He says we need to see if in the long run, nature can do a better job of protecting the shores.


For the GLRC, I’m Lynette Kalsnes.

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Ten Threats: Rethinking Urban Runoff

  • Everybody's got a gutter... and they're part of the urban runoff problem. Rain picks up dirty soot and other chemicals from roofs and heads into the gutter. During storms, the dirty water rushes down the gutters and down streets into storm drains... and can pollute beaches, drinking water and wildlife habitat. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

One of the ten threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is nonpoint
source runoff. It’s a catchall category for pollution that’s not being spewed from one identifiable
source. The federal government’s finding that rain washing off concrete and asphalt in cities and
suburbs poses as big a threat to the Great Lakes as waste coming out of a factory pipe. Shawn
Allee has a look at the government’s effort to cut water pollution by remaking the urban
landscape:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series on Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham is our guide through the series. Today a look at a broad problem
with no simple solution:


One of the ten threats to the Great Lakes identified by experts across the region is nonpoint
source runoff. It’s a catchall category for pollution that’s not being spewed from one identifiable
source. The federal government’s finding that rain washing off concrete and asphalt in cities and
suburbs poses as big a threat to the Great Lakes as waste coming out of a factory pipe. Shawn
Allee has a look at the government’s effort to cut water pollution by remaking the urban
landscape:


(rain running into a sewer)


Water from a rain gutter is pouring into a nearby storm sewer drain. That protects property from
water damage and flooding. But at the same time, they pose an environmental problem for the
Great Lakes.


Roofs, streets and parking lots are made of hard materials like concrete or asphalt. During
storms, rain rushes off these surfaces into storm drains.


The problem is this: the runoff isn’t pure.


Brian Bell’s a storm water expert with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says rain picks
up pollutants on all those roofs and streets, things such as:


“Antifreeze from cars, motor oil, brake fluid, copper from the brake pads, cigarette butts from
trash, household hazardous waste, pesticides that may be overapplied.”


And for most sewer systems, that’s not the worst of it.


“The problem with storm water is, once its mobilized and goes into a storm sewer system, that
system does not treat the waste, so all of those things go to the local waterway untreated.”


In this region, runoff flows into the Great Lakes, where it pollutes beaches, drinking water, and
wildlife habitat.


To fight this, the EPA’s trying something new. It wants to make hard, urban landscapes softer.
The idea’s to replace concrete and asphalt with more soil and plants. That way, water can sink
into the ground and stay out of storm drains.


But how do you do that?


Well, the EPA’s working with places like the Chicago Center for Green Technology to show people
how. The city hopes residents and developers will use what they see here in their own projects.


(city sounds in)


Grace Troccolo’s guiding a tour of the facility.


First stop?


“Our parking lot is slightly pitched, so all of our rainwater flows off into these vegetated bioswales,
which when I’m not with people in the business, I call ‘ditch with plants.'”

The plants aren’t typical bushes or flowers. They’re mostly tall, prairie grasses native to the
Midwest. Their roots help water seep deep into the ground. The Center has several bio-swales,
and they all keep runoff on site and in the ground.


Another stop on the tour is a 40-foot section of the building’s roof. It’s covered with a matt of
short, tangled creeping plants. Grace explains why they’re here.


“So here we are at our green roof. Again, getting back to our issue of storm water management,
the city would like to see more vegetated surfaces and of course, in the city like Chicago there are
a lot of roof surfaces and so this section of the roof is designed to hold all of the rainwater that
falls on it during a one-inch storm.”


Again, the roof’s vegetation retains water and keeps it out of storm drains. Because of these
technologies, the building is an urban runoff success story.


All told, the Center releases less than half as much water to storm drains as similar buildings do.


The EPA wants the average home or business owner to follow suit, but price might keep that from
happening. Green roofs, for example, are more expensive than conventional ones.


But some observers say the biggest obstacles in fighting urban runoff are political. Stephen
Bocking teaches environmental policy at Trent University. He says the public’s used to pointing
fingers at a handful of big, industrial polluters.


People just aren’t used to seeing every house and business as a source of pollution.


“It’s much more difficult to deal with the problem when you’re talking about millions of separate
sources. People can’t just say well, it’s the job of industry or the job of the government to deal with
it. It’s the job of everyone to deal with it in some way.”


In other words, we’re all to blame.


Every new building in a city, or home in a subdivision, creates more hard surfaces, such as new
driveways, new parking lots and new roofs.


“It’s pretty hard to deal with a form of development which is intrinsic to our way of life. It involves
thinking about how we live our lives and how design and build our cities.”


Bocking says the EPA’s plan might not be enough to make up for all the roads and other hard
surfaces we’re building. He says, to succeed, we’ll need to change how we develop land.


There’s not much political support to stop that kind of development right now, so for the time
being, hard surfaces will continue to win out.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Chemical Companies Put Green Spin on Lawn Care

  • Some people use chemicals on their lawn to fertilize or kill weeds. But many cities are now restricting use of lawn chemicals because they are concerned about the safety of these chemicals. (Photo by Ilja Wanka)

As the weather’s heating up… so are ad campaigns on the use of lawn pesticides and fertilizers. The campaigns are responding to a growing number of local restrictions on the use of these lawn chemicals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

As the weather’s heating up, so are ad campaigns on the use of lawn
pesticides and fertilizers. The campaigns are responding to a growing
number of local restrictions on the use of these lawn chemicals. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:


Dozens of cities in North America, mostly in Canada, now have restrictions
on using lawn chemicals. In response, lawn care and chemical companies
formed a PR group called Project Evergreen.


The group is producing ad campaigns targeted to landscape companies. One ad
warns that the industry will lose money because of the regulations. Den Gardner directs Project Evergreen.


“We felt it was important that there be another side to that story, and all
the products that are used and are being recommended for elimination all
have been approved by the EPA and have gone through years and years of study
and tests.”


Critics of lawn pesticides argue that the chemicals have not been thoroughly
tested.


In a brochure published on its website, the EPA states that although all
pesticides legally sold in the U.S. must be registered by the agency,
“registration is not a guarantee of safety.”


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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