An Illinois Congressman says all cities should follow
Chicago’s example and end sewage system overflows into the
Great Lakes. The GLRC’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
An Illinois Congressman say all cities should follow Chicago’s
example and end sewage system overflows into the Great Lakes. The GLRC’s
Tracy Samilton reports:
Many cities in the Great Lakes watershed have aging sewage systems that
can’t cope with heavy rains. That can result in untreated sewage being
dumped into the Great Lakes.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk says Milwaukee dumps a billion gallons of
untreated sewage into Lake Michigan every year. But he says cities in Indiana
and Michigan have also dumped sewage into the Lake. Kirk has co-authored a bill
that would give all cities in a Great Lakes watershed twenty years to fix problems.
After that, they’d would face fines of 100 thousand dollars a day per incident.
“The dumping of raw fecal matter into the lake, the alarming rise in beach closings…
20 years from now, that should all be part of our past and not our future.”
In the meantime, the bill would also require cities to let the public know
when they dump sewage into the Great Lakes.
For some people, lawn care is a choice between burning calories or burning fossil fuel. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Turf plots at Michigan State University are studied for grass hardiness, ease of maintenance, and water usage. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Polls indicate the majority of people want to do better toward the environment. One of the most polluting activities at many homes is lawn care. Lawn mowers spew out emissions that pollute at a higher rate than cars. Lawn sprinklers can use massive amounts of water. And over-use of fertilizer can pollute nearby streams. The GLRC’s Lester Graham looks at simple things you can do to reduce pollution and still have a green lawn:
Transcript
Polls indicate the majority of people want to do better toward the
environment. One of the most polluting activities at many homes is lawn
care. Lawn mowers spew out emissions that pollute at a higher rate than
cars. Lawn sprinklers can use massive amounts of water. And over-use
of fertilizer can pollute nearby streams. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
looks at simple things you can do to reduce pollution and still have a
green lawn:
It figures that the day I went to talk to a turf expert about mowing and
lawn care… it would be raining.
“Well we needed it. So, I guess that’s the good thing about it.”
Tom Smith is the Executive Director of the Michigan Turfgrass
Foundation. He’s got all kinds of recommendations for how to properly
prep soil for lawns… but we wanted to limit this story to some simple,
practical things we can do with an existing lawn to reduce the impact to
the environment.
“One of the first things and easiest things you can do is mow high. In
fact, I tell most consumers, most residential facilities mow as high as you
can set your mower. Because, what that will do is you’ll get a better root
system, you’ll get more shading of that soil and you’ll have less water
loss.”
Smith works closely with the Michigan State University’s turf grass
research program. One of the things they’ve learned there goes against
some of the advice you might have heard in the past about watering. In
research that’s been going on since 1982, they’ve let Mother Nature take
care of one plot… another gets deep waterings a couple of times a
week… and a third gets daily watering, light rates, in the middle of the
heat of the day. The plot that looks best year after year… the one that
gets light watering, daily during the middle of the day. Most of the water
evaporates… but it reduces the heat stress on the grass… so it doesn’t go
dormant and brown. And Smith says it actually uses less water…
“In that research, we were able to reduce water use by about half by
doing daily watering at light rates in the middle of the day compared to
that deep infrequent watering.”
“Now, there are going to be some people who say ‘Look, I don’t want to
use water in a cosmetic way at all.’ Is there a grass that doesn’t use the
kind of water that most grasses we know do?”
“Actually there is one of our grasses that we recommend called Turf
Type Tall Fescue. Turf Type Tall Fescue is our most drought tolerant
grass. In most summers it will stay green without any supplemental
water.”
Smith says before you start spreading fertilizer on your lawn… you
should get a soil test to see exactly what you need. It’s an eight to ten
dollar test that can be done by your county extension office… and it’s
good for about three years. If you put fertilizer down without knowing…
you’re probably adding to the phosphorous and nitrogen pollution
problems in the streams and lakes in your area and beyond.
Keeping your equipment running well also helps reduce pollution. An
oil change in the lawn mower… and sharpening your mower blades.
(Sound of grinder)
Mark Collins maintains the turf plots at Michigan State University’s turf
grass program. His crew sharpens their blades every third mowing… but
they’re probably mowing a lot more than you do…
“Probably a homeowner should at least once a month. Just keep the
blade sharp. That’s the biggest thing. If it’s a sharp blade, then it cuts
the grass cleanly and you don’t get a frayed edge on the grass blade.”
And Collins says a mulching mower is best because it cuts the grass
blades into tiny bits that help fertilize the lawn… and reduces the need
for bagging your clippings.
And while we’re on the topic of mowers… recent years, lawn mower
manufacturers have been making more efficient, cleaner burning
machines… although they’ve resisted the idea of catalytic converters
which would greatly reduce emissions.
At Midwest Power Equipment, John Brown says there’s not a lot of
consumer pressure to make lawn mowers more environmentally
friendly…
“Nobody asks about environmentally friendly – or very, very few. Most
people want to know about power, they want to know about ease of use.
As far as environmentally friendly, it’s probably the last question that
comes up.”
But if you are interested… Brown says there’s a little bit of information
on emissions right on the mower.
“Yeah, there’s a little sticker that’s actually on – like on the ones I have
on the floor here – it’s wrapped around the gas tank. It says an air index
quality and it’s a one-to-ten scale, one being the best, ten being the worst.
So, you could look at it, kind of judge for yourself.”
So, using less water, planting hardy grass, using only the fertilizer you
need, keeping your machinery in good working order and buying the
least polluting models all help. But… there are soulutions… such as
planting more drought resistant shrubs and trees so that there’s not as
much grass to mow… and if you’re really adventurous… you can get a
manual reel mower… one with no engine… it just uses the energy you
provide by pushing it.
This is an artist's concept of how the FutureGen coal-burning power plant would look. The FutureGen power plant would confine the carbon dioxide that it generates and store it deep underground. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Energy)
We’re hearing more and more these days about global warming and how human activity is believed to be changing the climate. A lot of the blame has gone to pollution from coal-burning plants that produce electricity. Now, the U-S wants to build a plant that would capture and store the pollution… if it can find the right site. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
We’re hearing more and more these days about global warming and how
human activity is believed to be changing the climate. A lot of the blame
has gone to pollution from coal-burning plants that produce electricity.
Now, the U.S wants to build a plant that would capture and store the
pollution…if it can find the right site. The GLRC’s Julie Grant reports:
The U.S Department of Energy is chipping in 750-million dollars to the
build what’s called the FutureGen coal-burning power plant, and a
consortium of power companies is contributing an additional 250-
million. That’s a billion dollars of investment.
It’s exciting to Craig Stevens. He’s a spokesman with the Department of
Energy.
“FutureGen could revolutionize the way we use coal in this country and
around the world.”
We get most of our electricity from power plants that burn coal and belch
out greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide. But Stevens says
FutureGen would be a cleaner coal-plant…
“And that’s important because today, we in the U.S have a 250 year
supply of coal reserves. It is our most abundant fossil fuel. These
electric plants actually burn coal to produce electricity for millions of
Americans. One of the things we want to do is to use this coal in an
environmentally sensitive manner.”
The hope is that FutureGen will capture the carbon dioxide it generates
to store it deep underground. Scientists plan to purify and liquefy the
CO2, so it’s a water-like substance. Then they want to inject it into the
earth. They plan to dig wells 9000 feet deep for CO2 storage. They also
want to use the space left behind from old coal mines, oil and gas wells.
Geologist Neeraj Gupta is with Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus.
He’s been researching what’s known as carbon sequestration since
1996…
“And that time this was just the beginning of an idea that you can take
carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial sources, you know, such
as power plants, and you can purify that, to make like a pure CO2s
stream. And, just like you produce oil and gas from the deep geologic
formations, you can take that CO2 and inject it back into the ground into
those same or similar deep geologic formations.”
Gupta says in the same way fossil fuels are trapped deep in the earth,
carbon dioxide could be trapped underground for millions of years, but
there are a lot of uncertainties.
Dr. Rattan Lal is director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration
Center at Ohio State University.
“Uncertainties are… is there going to be leakage? Either at the place
where it’s being injected or several miles away where there might be a
geological fracture in the rock strata.”
Lal says areas that have the right kind of rock layers and are not prone to
earthquakes, would be the best places to experiment with a project like
FutureGen.
Mark Shanahan is director of Ohio’s Air Quality Development
Authority. He thinks his state might be the perfect place because it has
the right kind of geology. At the deepest levels, the rocks aren’t entirely
solid. They’re porous, like a sponge, but with microscopic holes.
Scientists expect those tiny holes to absorb the CO2…
“The second thing is that that porous geology has to be beneath another
formation that is not porous, so the non-porous formation serves as a cap
on top of your CO2. So, once you put it into the porous formation, it
can’t go up.”
So the CO2 is trapped underground… hopefully permanently. Other
states, besides Ohio, think they also have good places for the plant.
The Department of Energy is currently reviewing proposals and plans to
pick a site by late next year. The agency wants to have FutureGen up
and running by 2012.
Two gourmet chefs managing the kitchen at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth are adding organic vegetables to the menu. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Sharon McKeever takes a pot of soup off the stove in the kitchen at St. Luke's Hospital in Duluth. Food managers are adding hormone-free milk and organic fruits and vegetables to the menu. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
St. Luke's Hospital recycles food service items like large cans and jars. The kitchen also saves unused meals for the local food bank, and sends food waste to the compost pile. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
Some hospitals are trying to heal the food that they serve. The GLRC’s Stephanie Hemphill takes us to one hospital that’s making efforts to spice up their menu:
Transcript
Some hospitals are trying to heal the food that they serve. The GLRC’s
Stephanie Hemphill takes us to one hospital that making efforts to spice
up their menu:
(Sound of elevator)
St. Luke’s is the smaller of Duluth’s two hospitals. Their motto could be
“we try harder.” Several years ago, the hospital put two chefs in charge
of the housekeeping, laundry, and food.
In the kitchen, there’s the usual industrial stoves and dishwashers, and a
long assembly line where workers fill the trays for patients, based on
what they’ve ordered.
“The patient fills out the menu, I’ll have this entrée and that salad and this
beverage; then as the tray moves down the conveyor belt, they look at the
menu and put on the appropriate products.”
Mark Branovan was a gourmet chef at restaurants in California’s wine
country. In that part of the world, they take their fresh fruits and
vegetables very seriously.
“We did very little of our produce buying from the big distributors; we
had local guys that would grow lettuce for us, and herbs for us, and tomatoes…
anything we wanted. So that just kind of rolled over for us into, if
we can do it for a restaurant, why can’t we do it for a hospital?”
It’s harder to do in this part of the country, where you can grow lettuce
for about half the year and you’re lucky to get a tomato at all. But
Branovan and his colleague, LeeAnn Tomczyk, decided not to let that
stop them.
Tomczyk was a chef in a trendy restaurant in Wisconsin before she took
the job at the hospital. She says when she first came here, she was
appalled at some of the things on the menu.
“YOu know the patient was able to pick a jell-o salad and a piece of cake.
Well, to me jell-o is a dessert but to them it was their salad and that
was their vegetable, and that wasn’t right.”
Tomczyk and Branovan started to add more fruits and vegetables,
including organic items, to the menu, but they learned to pick their
battles.
“When I tried to change some of the casserole dishes, and some of the
traditional northern Minnesota fare, I was met with some serious
resistance from our customers and our patients who said, ‘Yeah, we have
tater tot hot dish on our menu because we like it.'”
One of the first items to change was the milk. Now the hospital serves
hormone-free milk to patients in the rooms and workers in the cafeteria.
Tomczyk says she’s convinced hormone-free milk and organic food are
healthier. She says an organization devoted to helping people heal, like a
hospital, needs to think about healing in broad terms, even globally. She
says buying local food avoids long-distance transportation, with its heavy
reliance on polluting fossil fuels.
“And the introduction of pesticides and herbicides, and that getting into
our water systems, it’s that whole cycle, and we’re using more and more
these days, and I think it’s just got out of hand.”
The hospital is also committed to reducing waste. It freezes unused
portions and gives them to soup kitchens and homeless shelters. It sends
its food waste to the city compost pile.
St. Luke’s is a member of a hospital buying group that negotiates prices
with big producers like Pillsbury. Each hospital is supposed to buy a
certain percentage of its food through the buying group. When Branovan
and Tomczyk asked the distributor for hormone-free milk, the distributor
didn’t carry it.
“We had to actually get a waiver that says they will allow us to buy off-
contract.”
Branovan got a similar waiver to buy organic fresh fruit, and greens for
the cafeteria salad bar. He hopes to add more organic and locally-grown
foods.
Branovan says St. Luke’s is the first hospital in the region to ask the
buying group to supply hormone-free milk and organic vegetables, but
hospitals and schools on the west coast and east coast are doing it on a larger
scale.
James Pond is editor of Food Service Director, a trade magazine.
He says the movement will grow.
“The pricing advantages will in some ways level out, where if it becomes
important enough to the clientele, the food service operators will respond
by providing products in this manner.”
Some hospitals organize a farmer’s market to serve their workers, as a
way to introduce them to organic and local foods. Then they add those
foods to the cafeteria and patient meals. At St. Luke’s, they feature
organic food at company parties.
The emerald ash borer is destroying millions of ash trees in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Department of
Agriculture)
One of America’s favorite shade trees is being killed by the millions. A tiny invasive insect is to blame. The emerald ash borer has dealt an unexpected blow to cities, homeowners and industries that work with ash trees. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… the ash borer has been especially devastating to the nursery industry:
Transcript
One of America’s favorite shade trees is being killed by the millions. A
tiny invasive insect is to blame. The emerald ash borer has dealt an
unexpected blow to cities, homeowners and industries that work with ash
trees. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… the ash borer has been
especially devastating to the nursery industry:
Everybody thought ash trees were perfect. That’s because they’re great
shade trees, they grow fast, they turn yellow and red and purple in the
fall. Ash trees were the go-to tree for a lot of cities after Dutch elm
disease killed off most of the nation’s elm trees 30 years ago. Scientists
thought ash trees were pretty much invincible to pests.
Then… the emerald ash borer hitched a ride to the States in cargo from
China… and changed everything.
“We couldn’t believe it. It’s like We were stunned, you know, wait a minute,
this is something we can’t even sell anymore.”
Amy Camido is a certified nurseryman. She sells trees and shrubs at Ray
Wiegand’s Nursery. It’s a large nursery outside of Detroit… close to
where the ash borer was first discovered in 2002. In 2003, Michigan
officials banned the sale of all ash trees. That meant nurseries had to cut
down and chip or burn all of their ash tree stock.
“Gosh, when they told us we couldn’t sell them anymore, it was like, pick
them up and put them in the bio-grinder, they were gone. These trees,
they weren’t even trees that were infested.”
Camido says Weigand’s Nursery destroyed 6-thousand trees. That cost
them a half million dollars. She says the nursery lost out on three fronts.
They grew ash trees and they sold them to homeowners and landscapers.
Ray Weigand says the nursery… like many around here… lost a third of
its market.
“Once you lose it you lose it. It’s hard to make money up in any
industry. We just plant other products and hope that they bloom out and
people like them.”
Weigand says now… instead of selling lots of the same type of tree…
they’ll have to plant many different species to hedge their bets. Nurseries
also want the federal government to compensate them for their losses,
but that’s looking unlikely. Congress continues to slash funding for
fighting the emerald ash borer… and states are not putting up any extra
money.
Nursery groups say the beetle should be a national priority… because it’s
not just a Midwest issue.
Mark Teffeau is with the American Nursery and Landscape Association.
He says the borer’s hurt sales of ash trees nationwide.
“Right now it’s a buyer’s market. The ash prices have basically plummeted
to the point that I know growers who have realized there’s no market for
these trees and then they’re pulling them up and destroying them. Either
that or trying to sell them at reduced prices in places where ash borer isn’t
present.”
The only state that’s banned all sales of ash trees is Michigan, but the ash
borer has also infested trees in Ohio and Indiana. Those states have not
completely banned sales of ash. Instead, they’re restricting sales from
infested areas. Officials in those states say some nurseries are still able
to sell ash trees… but not a lot of people are buying them.
Nursery groups are putting pressure on state and federal officials to keep
the ash borer contained. The beetle only moves about a half mile a year
on its own, but people help it spread a lot farther… by moving firewood
infested with the beetle. Just one piece of infested firewood can start a
new outbreak.
Patricia Lockwood is the ash borer policy director for Michigan. She
says states are getting the message out that moving firewood spreads the
beetle.
“We’re continually on a daily basis outreaching through schools,through the
libraries, we are doing billboards, public service announcements. We
really are outreaching to a tremendous amount of individuals. We never
do enough but we’re doing the best with the resources that we have.”
But even though there are laws against moving firewood, critics say
those messages are not getting through to everyone. Nurseryman Amy
Camido says people don’t seem to care about the ash borer until it affects
them directly.
“Just as recent as last summer, last fall, people were bringing in branches
and saying, you know this tree isn’t looking as good as it should and I’d
say, ‘you know it’s an ash tree?’ and they’d go, ‘Yeah, so?’ and I say
‘you know about the emerald ash borer problem?’ ‘Nooo…’ ‘Like, how
can you not know? How can you not know??”
Camido says she hopes people in the rest of the country can be spared
losing their ash trees, but she’s not feeling very optimistic these days.
Scientists say a lot’s at stake if the ash borer isn’t stopped. They say if
the beetle spreads throughout the country, more than 8 billion ash trees
will be killed, and they say nurseries, the timber industry and taxpayers
will foot the bill for those losses… running in the hundreds of billions of
dollars.
Ford Motor Company installs a permanent Fumes to Fuel system at Michigan Truck Plant after a successful pilot program at the Ford Rouge Center last year. (Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company)
Another look at the Fumes to Fuel system at Michigan Truck Plant. (Photo courtesy of Ford Motor Company)
Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up in smoke. But a promising new technology turns these ordinarily troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this
report:
Transcript
Pollution from factories and other places might be dollars just going up
in smoke, but a promising new technology turns these ordinarily
troublesome waste products into something that’s especially valuable
these days: cheap electricity. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie
Halpert has this report:
Remember the children’s story, where Rumpelstiltskin was able to take
straw, a cheap, abundant material, and magically transform it into
precious gold? Well, these days, cheap energy is like gold, and one
company has found a way to similarly generate power from pollution.
(Sound of engine running)
To see how it works, I’m standing on a roof sixty-five feet above the
ground. This is where Ford Motor Company maintains its pollution
control equipment. There are rectangular gray metal boxes as tall as I am
all over the roof, so many that we can barely walk between them. Under
the roof, they’re painting trucks. The paint emits vapors that Ford is now
capturing with these big boxes of machinery.
Mark Wherrett is Ford’s principal environmental engineer.
“We’re here at the Ford Motor Company Michigan truck plant, where the
paint solvent is collected from the process and used as a fuel to make
electricity in a Stirling Engine.”
The Stirling Engine is key. Here’s how it works. Ford’s using an engine
developed by STM Power. STM is using an old engine style called a
Stirling Engine that was once used in place of a steam engine. Instead of
using coal or wood to heat up water and make steam, STM burns the
paint fumes to heat up hydrogen and power the engine. The fumes will
generate 55 kilowatts of electricity. That’s enough to power 11 homes.
There’s not as much pollution emitted at the end, since burning can be
adjusted to temperatures where pollutants are reduced. Wherrett says
that for Ford, the technology simply has no downsides.
“The fumes to fuel process takes the environmental emissions and turns
them on their head, so instead of them being a waste product that we
have to dispose of, we can then turn it into a commodity where we can
then use that to make electricity and use that in our plant systems.”
And that means Ford doesn’t have to purchase as much power from the
grid.
Dorrance Noonan is CEO of STM Power, the company that’s redesigned
the old engine. Noonan says Ford is a perfect candidate for this
technology.
“We’re really excited about the Ford project because it offers a
tremendous opportunity to manufacturing companies and large paint
operations, who have large VOC problems that they have to deal with in
very expensive ways.”
The Ford plant is just the beginning for the company. They also plan to
deliver their portable on-site generators to landfills and wastewater
treatment plants. In that situation, methane gas is used as the fuel to
generate electricity. Noonan says his company has a bright future.
“Well, in the next couple of years, we see strong penetration in our two focus
markets, which are the landfill markets in the U.S. and the wastewater
treatment markets in the United States, and then we see that expansion
going outside of the United States to Europe and eventually to Asia.”
There are some skeptics.
Dan Rassler, with the Electric Power Research Institute, says STM’s
technology does have the potential to create viable new sources of
energy, but more companies need to actually start using it before he can
know for sure, and he says that right now the technology is still too
expensive for many companies.
“We’d like to see the capitol costs of these systems be lower than where
they are today.”
Right now, an STM unit costs $65,000. Rassler would like to see overall
costs cut by 10 to 20 percent. He says costs could decrease as more of
these units come on line.
STM CEO Dorrance Noonan says the costs are comparable to competing
on-site generators, and these expenses will be offset by using the free
fuel used to generate electricity that his engines provide. Noonan says
that continuing high natural gas prices will be his technology’s best
friend, as companies strive for ways to reduce energy costs.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk, Ohio Governor Bob Taft, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. This was right taken after they signed the agreement. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
In the spring of 2004, President Bush created a task force to develop a comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan. The group recently released its final recommendations. But members already disagree about the future of their proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
Transcript
In April 2004, President George Bush created a task force to develop a
comprehensive Great Lakes restoration plan. The group recently
released its recommendations, but members already disagree about the
future of their proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn
Allee reports:
Efforts to improve the Great Lakes face a major hurdle. Local, state and
federal programs overlap and sometimes duplicate one another. That
wastes a lot of time and money. President Bush wanted to change this. So, he
created a task force called the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration. For the
first time, cities, states, federal agencies, and Indian tribes would agree to
specific goals and how to reach them. By most accounts they succeeded.
Here’s Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“I can’t overstate what a major step forward this is for the Great Lakes.
For the first time, we’re all the same page with a common vision.”
The parties agreed to eight major goals. Among other things, they want
to restore wetlands along Great Lakes shorelines, they want to clean up
heavy metals that pollute lakebeds, and they want to keep sewage away
from public beaches. The cost for all this would stand at billions of
dollars, and that price tag caused a major rift.
Bush administration officials agreed to spend 300 million additional
dollars per year. That’s just a fraction of what states and environmental
groups hoped for.
Derek Stack is with Great Lakes United, an advocacy group. He says
states want to participate, but sometimes they can’t.
“I think a lot of the states simply don’t have the dollars necessary to pull
it off.”
Tribes, cities and states are being careful with their criticism. They want
to keep the door open for the administration to change its mind.
“To be fair to the federal administration, the states are saying we don’t
have federal money, and the feds are pointing out that we don’t exactly
have state money either, but the states have committed themselves to the
plan. So, now that they know what they’ve committed themselves to, the
budget building can begin. It’s hard to build a budget if you don’t have a
plan.”
Some critics are more strident, though. Illinois Congressman Rahm
Emmanuel says the administration needs this clear message. Federal
leadership requires federal money.
“There’s either action or inaction. This is the ninth report in five years,
and I hope it’s the last report. Now, there’s nothing that can’t be cured when
it comes to the Great Lakes that resources can’t take care of.”
Great Lakes advocates and state governments will be watching the next
few months closely.
Cameron Davis directs the Alliance for the Great Lakes. He says he’s
reserving judgment until the President releases a budget proposal.
“That budget will be released the first week of February, and if it has 300
million dollars in new funding, then we’ll know that the administration’s
serious. If it doesn’t we need to ask Congress to step in.”
Some legislators say that deadline might be too soon to judge the
ultimate success of the restoration plan.
Illinois Congressman Mark Kirk says other federal cleanup efforts came
after several reports and years of waiting. Congressman Kirk says the
prospects for the restoration plan are good. The Great Lakes region has
the strength of eight states standing behind it.
“When you look at the success of the Chesapeake Bay, and then the success
of protecting the Everglades, you see, once you come together with a
common vision, what a unified part of state delegation or in the case of
Florida, what an entire state delegation can do.”
On the other hand, it might be hard to keep eight state governments
focused on a common purpose.
There’s another wrinkle in the restoration plan as well. Canada lies on the other
side of the Great Lakes, and any comprehensive plan will require its
cooperation as well.
A farm in Manistee County, Michigan using an irrigation system. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Land Use Institute)
In the Great Lakes region, farmers are one of the biggest users of water. They
pump water from underground aquifers or from lakes and streams to irrigate their
crops or water livestock. Agriculture has been criticized for its large withdrawals
of water. Farmers say they want to be recognized in a Great Lakes water use
agreement as efficient water users, but as Erin Toner reports… it’s unclear
whether that’s true:
Transcript
The series, Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is now looking at the threat of water withdrawals from the Great Lakes. Our guide through the series is Lester Graham. He says a lot of businesses and homes use water from the basin, but one group says its use is especially efficient.
In the Great Lakes region, farmers are one of the biggest users of water. They
pump water from underground aquifers or from lakes and streams to irrigate their
crops or water livestock. Agriculture has been criticized for its large withdrawals
of water. Farmers say they want to be recognized in a Great Lakes water use
agreement as efficient water users, but as Erin Toner reports… it’s unclear
whether that’s true:
Scott Piggott is the sixth generation to grow up on his dad’s cattle farm in a small
town in central Michigan. He says not everything on the farm is perfect, but he
says he grew up knowing that you have to do things right to protect the
environment.
“If we don’t begin to stand up and say, look, this is what we’re doing to protect
the environment, I think more people will continue to say, hey, they’re not telling
us what they’re doing, they must be doing something wrong.”
Piggott also works for the Michigan Farm Bureau. He says his goal is to make
sure every farm in his state is doing everything it can to protect the environment,
including conserving water they use for irrigation.
But Piggott and the farm bureau oppose broad regulations for large water users,
such as farmers. That’s proposed in a draft of a Great Lakes regional water use
agreement. Piggott argues the agreement should treat farmers differently because
the water they use goes right back into the ground.
Piggott said in a Farm Bureau press release that, “95 percent of the water that
touches a farm field seeps into the soil providing aquifer recharge.”
Later, he qualified his statement.
“It is estimated that 95 percent of the water that touches an open, pervious space
seeps into the soils and a portion of that, which I would infer that, it does provide
aquifer recharge, but necessarily does all 95 percent of it go towards aquifer
recharge. I think that might be debated. The quote could probably be stronger in
a given direction, but I stand by it.”
Piggott says his information is based on Environmental Protection Agency
estimates. But is his 95 percent figure true?
Jon Bartholic is with Michigan State University. He’s done research on water
use on farms. He says of all the water that falls on a farm – that’s rainfall and
irrigation – about 70 percent of it evaporates.
“So the remaining part, 30, 40 percent depending where you are. It might be
almost 0 percent, if you’ve got clay soil and it’s all run off, is there to potentially
to go back and recharge the aquifer.”
Bartholic’s estimate is that 30 to 40 percent potentially flows back into the Great
Lakes basin and its aquifers – that’s nowhere near 95 percent. Bartholic says farmers
do consume water.
“Clearly, farmers are being very conscientious about their water use, but, yes, if
you use water for crops and have economic value, there is some consumptive
usage of that water.”
Other water experts in the region say the issue is complicated. A lot of factors
effect how much water used to irrigate crops actually gets back to the aquifer.
Although one expert says at best the 95-percent estimate is “theoretically
possible” if conditions were perfect.
Conditions are rarely perfect.
Mark Muller is director of the Environment and Agriculture Program with the
Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis. Muller says it’s
generally agreed that right now there’s plenty of groundwater in the Great Lakes
region, but he says there is still reason for concern. That’s because in other areas of the
country, aquifers thought to be plentiful have gone dry.
Muller says managing Great Lakes water resources is important for the close to
40-million people who rely on the basin for their drinking water. He says
managing that water correctly is also crucial to sustaining the region’s farming
industry.
“Industry and agriculture is going to look at the Great Lakes basin as a place
where they should set up shop. So, I think we should realize that we have a very
valuable resource that’s only going to become more valuable in future years.”
Muller adds that public opinion is very important to shaping the Great Lakes
regional water use agreement. He says any misleading information, from any of
the stakeholders, is just not helpful. That’s why the farm bureau’s claim that 95-
percent of the water used for irrigation recharges the aquifers is more important than
just an optimistic viewpoint. It’s seen by some as a public relations spin.
Several state agencies in the region will
reduce the amount of salmon stocked in Lakes Huron and Michigan next year. The change is designed to help the alewife population recover. Alewives are the salmon’s main food source, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette reports, some biologists think helping the alewife will hurt native fish:
Transcript
Several state agencies in the region (IL, IN, MI, WI) will reduce the amount
of salmon stocked in Lakes Huron and Michigan next year. The change is
designed to help the alewife population recover. Alewives are the salmon’s
main food source, but as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Peter Payette
reports some biologists think helping the alewife will hurt native fish:
The total number of salmon stocked in the two lakes will be cut by more than
a third next year. The state agencies that manage the stocking programs say
there was widespread support for the decisions, but one dissenting voice was
the Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority, or CORA.
CORA supports recovery of native fish species like the Lake trout. Mark
Ebener is a fishery Biologist with CORA. He says you can’t protect
alewives and expect lake trout to do well.
“So you have to commit to one or the other. Instead of what the states are
going to do, and what Michigan is going to do, it’s going to protect alewife
by reducing stocking so they can have healthier salmon, but at the same time
it’s going to say, ‘Well tribes we still want you to support Lake trout
rehabilitation and we still support it and think it’s still feasible.'”
Female lake trout that have a diet heavy in alewives can develop a nutrient
deficiency. It causes most of their young to die soon after birth.
A new bill would make the prevention of the spread of Asian carp a higher priority. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service)
A new bill in Congress aims to ban the importation and possession of a fish that threatens the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:
Transcript
A new bill in Congress aims to ban the importation and
possession of a fish that threatens the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports.
Biologists say if Asian carp ever get into the Lakes, the fish would do major
damage to aquatic life.
Even though the carp are already in some Midwest rivers, several states ban people from importing or having the fish. Wisconsin Republican Congress member Mark Green says the ban needs to be nationwide.
“There are some areas that don’t have Asian carp now. So by
banning the importation we at least hopefully stem the flow while we
take other steps.”
Steps like making sure a new publicly funded carp barrier is finished in a canal southwest of Chicago. A bill Green has introduced would add four types of Asian carp to a list of destructive species currently banned under federal law.
Green expects opposition from parts of the aquaculture industry. It’s generally thought that the Asian carp first entered Midwest rivers when they got away from fish farms during floods.
