Styrene is one component in styrofoam containers (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
The styrene industry is suing to stop environmental officials from saying styrene could cause cancer and birth defects. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The styrene industry is suing to stop environmental officials from saying styrene could cause cancer and birth defects. Lester Graham reports:
Styrene is used in all kinds of products – containers like coffee cups, egg cartons, in construction, in cars.
The state of California wants to add it to a list of cancer-causing materials. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found styrene is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
Joe Walker is a spokesman for the Styrene Information and Research Center.
“Styrene is not a carginogen. Any listing that would categorize it as such basically would be illegal and would be erroneous and would have the potential of alarming the public unnecessarily about products that are made from styrene.”
If the court does allow California to put styrene on its cancer list, the styrene industry has a year to prove it doesn’t belong on that list.
Bob Gavlak and his partners organize freshly-harvested produce in
their cooling truck. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Deli owner Donna Chriszt is pleased with the quality of the beans
and other produce. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Most twenty year olds use online
networking sites. But most farmers don’t.
Until now. A team of recent college grads
is using their internet savvy to connect
farms and restaurants. Julie Grant reports:
Last summer Matt Szugye entered a college business school
competition. His team needed to make a plan for a new
business. They started throwing around ideas.
“It just happened, that the night before I was at a restaurant
talking with an owner, and they were telling me about the
trials and tribulations of starting their restaurant with the idea
that they would serve seasonal, local produce.”
But the restaurant owner couldn’t get food like onions,
zucchini or tomatoes directly from local farms. Szugye’s
team studied the idea. Lots of people in the food business
were saying the same things. Things like this:
“So I’m getting things shipped in from other states.”
That’s Donna Chriszt. She’s the owner and chef at Dish Deli
and Catering. It’s a small, gourmet deli in a downtown
Cleveland neighborhood.
“And the amount of fossil fuels that are coming out of that,
we hated. So, it’s not what I wanted to do for my
community.”
So now that the college team knew there was demand for a
product, they contacted farmers. Eureka. There was also a
supply. Lots of farmers wanted new ways to sell their fruits
and vegetables locally.
The team put together a plan for a distribution business – to
pickup produce from farms and deliver it to nearby
restaurants.
They decided they could use the internet.
It would work a little like an online dating service. Each
farmer could list what’s available and set the price. The
restaurant owners could browse through the list and place
their orders. The college students’ business plan would be
the match-maker.
The team won their business school contest.
After graduation this Spring, they launched an actual
business based on their model.
They call it Fresh Fork.
Donna Chriszt was thrilled.
“I was like hallelujah. Thank God someone will be able to
help a small place like me by doing all the foot work.”
(sound of a factory)
After picking up produce from farmers, Fresh Fork Team
member Bob Gavlak is finally getting back to the distribution
center. It’s 10 p.m. It could have gone a lot sooner, but he
got caught up talking with the farmers about what they’re
growing and how their kids are doing, you know, forging
relationships.
(sound of a cooling truck)
The team now has to move racks of produce in a cooling
truck. Then they organize it all.
“This is where we’re going tomorrow, is Dish Deli and
Catering. And you can see Knoble Farms. They have some
corn.”
When Gavlak and his partners started planning this
business, they didn’t quite get why there was such a fuss
about local food.
They were still college students fueled by Ramen and fast
food.
So they spent some time on the food prep line at an upscale
local restaurant – cutting onions, stirring soup – for hours.
Not pouring soup out of a bag like a lot of places. Gavlak
says he started to understand.
“I would go to the store and I’d have strawberries, and I’d be
like, ‘oh, these are so good’. But then, when we had
strawberries here in the spring and early summer, it’s like I’d
never had a strawberry before. It’s just seeing the difference
that happens between a product that’s fresh and homegrown
and the product that isn’t.”
The team finishes sorting all their fresh produce at midnight.
They’ve got to get up at the crack of dawn to deliver to 8
restaurants, a grocery store, and a hospital.
(sound of Dish Deli)
When Gavlak brings her order, deli owner Donna Chriszt
inspects the cucumbers, rhubarb, and red skin potatoes.
“And our big bushel of corn. And everything looks great. It’s
always exciting when it comes in, because we’re like, ‘what
are we going to do with this?’”
This week, they’re planning rhubarb cobbler, potato salad
and fresh pickles for a neighborhood festival.
Gavlak smiles. He’s says it makes him feel good that the
business he and his college buddies designed, Fresh Fork,
is connecting farms and restaurants and getting people
fresh, locally grown food.
He finishes the order, and then walks into Chriszt’s deli to
have some lunch.
The American Bald Eagle has made a remarkable recovery. It's done so well, it might soon be taken off the Endangered Species list. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)
The eagles and their nest at Crosswinds Marsh, a mitigated wetland in Wayne County, Michigan - click on "view" for a closeup. (Photo by Ed Herrmann)
Crosswinds Marsh in Wayne County, Michigan features a boardwalk and shelter for viewing the wetlands. (Photo by Ed Herrmann)
With more than 7600 breeding pairs in the continental United States alone, the American Bald Eagle has made a remarkable comeback. A new proposal to remove the bird from the Endangered Species list is expected soon. But that means removing a powerful safety net that can affect future research, monitoring and habitat protection. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sally Eisele reports:
Transcript
With more than 7600 breeding pairs in the continental United States alone, the
American Bald Eagle has made a remarkable comeback. A new proposal to remove the
bird from the Endangered Species list is expected soon. But that means removing a
powerful safety net that can affect future research, monitoring and habitat protection.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sally Eisele reports:
In the history of the Endangered Species Act, only a dozen or so of the more than 1200
plants and animals listed as threatened or endangered have actually recovered. The eagle
may be the latest to join that little group.
(Young birder: “I see a big birdie…”)
This is a pretty unlikely spot for an eagle — a manmade wetland by a landfill in a busy
airport flight path on the outskirts of Detroit. But state wildlife biologist Joe Robison
shows this young visitor the bulky nest across the marsh where two adult birds are
teaching their gangly fledglings to fly.
“Something just landed in the tree out there. Oh. That’s the other juvenile. This is the
first time I’ve seen them flying this year. They look like they’re flying good though.”
These birds are among more than 400 pairs in Michigan monitored by state and federal
wildlife officials. The eagles are banded, the nests are watched and when a bird dies it
ends up in the freezer of wildlife pathologist Tom Cooley.
(sound of Cooley opening the freezer)
“Lots and lots of ’em. You can see that one was a road kill along I-75…”
Right now, Cooley’s freezer is brim full of dead birds stacked like frozen Thanksgiving
turkeys in plastic bags. Road kill has become the leading cause of death among eagles
he examines, but Cooley says they still investigate suspicious looking deaths for the
heavy metals and pesticides—like DDT—which once caused the eagles’ demise.
“Birds that kind of send up a red flag to us are adult birds that are in poor condition and
you don’t see a reason why they could be in poor condition. Those are the ones that we
especially look at for pesticide analysis because there are still the organochlorines out
there. The DDTs are still picked up by eagles or still contained in eagles. Those
pesticides can cause real problems for them and actually kill them.”
Cooley sends tissue samples to another state lab for analysis. But the testing is
expensive. And with the eagle on the way to recovery, it’s not as urgent. Right now, he
says all the samples he sends are being archived—shelved basically. That means the
testing won’t be done until the money is available.
“I never like archiving anything if I can help it. You’re probably not missing anything
but that kind of data is always nice to have if you can get it right away and look at it right
away.”
The question is, if it’s hard to get funding for monitoring and testing now—while the bird
is still on the Endangered Species List—what happens when it’s taken off the list? The
reality, say state and federal wildlife experts, is that budget priorities change as a species
recovers. Ray Rustem heads Michigan’s non-game wildlife program.
“There’s not enough money for every species. So you try to take a species to a level
where you feel comfortable with and you take money and apply it to another species to
try to recover.”
The federal Endangered Species Act requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to monitor
what it terms a delisted species for five years. After that, responsibility largely shifts to
the states. That concerns groups like the National Wildlife Federation. Attorney John
Kostyak questions whether states can really afford to protect fragile species and their
habitat over the long term.
“That’s going to be an issue with any delisting. A tough question that we’re going to
always be asking is: all right assume you go forward with delisting—how are you going
to be sure the species doesn’t turn right around and go back toward extinction again?”
With some species, that means habitat management. With others, like the recovering
gray wolf, it means public education—teaching people not to kill them. With the eagle, it
means ensuring that the birds are not threatened by the pesticides, heavy metals and
newer chemicals that contaminate the fish the eagles eat. Because of the bird’s
importance as an indicator species, Fish and Wildlife biologists are hopeful banding and
testing programs will continue after delisting. But it will likely mean finding new ways
to pay for them.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sally Eisele.
Styrene is one component in styrofoam containers (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
