Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Your Drugs in Your Water

  • Pharmaceuticals and other toxins have been found in lakes like this one, Lake Champlain. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)

Less than ten years ago, the U.S. Geological Survey found household drugs and
chemicals in almost every body of water they sampled. Each year since then, at least twenty
studies come out showing these chemicals can affect the hormone systems of wildlife –
and some studies have begun to look at effects on humans. Kinna Ohman reports that,
despite all this, little has been done to address the issue:

Transcript

Less than ten years ago, the U.S. Geological Survey found household drugs and
chemicals in almost every body of water they sampled. Each year since then, at least twenty
studies come out showing these chemicals can affect the hormone systems of wildlife –
and some studies have begun to look at effects on humans. Kinna Ohman reports that,
despite all this, little has been done to address the issue:



Every major water body in the United States, whether it’s a river, lake, or wetland,
probably has at least one scientist keeping an eye on it. Lake Champlain is no exception.
This large lake, forming much of the border between Vermont and northern New York,
has its share of scientists… and Mary Watzin is one of them.


Watzin’s the director of the Rubenstein Ecosystem Science Laboratory in Burlington,
Vermont. She’s been studying how human pollution and activities impact the lake’s fish,
birds, and other water wildlife.


Watzin’s been around long enough to see quite a few of the big pollution problems resolved,
but you can’t help noticing some frustration when she talks about the latest issue:


“We’re cleaning up our act, at least with PCBs – we’re working on mercury – and
then there’s all this new generation stuff coming along.”


This new generation of pollutants includes the active parts of household chemicals and
drugs which have the potential to impact the hormone systems in wildlife. They’re in
detergents, cleaning products, and many types of drugs such as antidepressants, steroids,
and even birth control pills. Chris Hornback is with the National Association of Clean
Water Agencies:


“They’re coming from consumer products. In the case of pharmaceuticals, they’re
coming from drugs that our bodies aren’t completely metabolizing. Or, in some
cases, from unused pharmaceuticals that are being flushed down the toilet.”


And the problem is, once these drugs and chemicals leave our house, many of them aren’t
filtered out at wastewater treatment plants. Treatment plants were not designed to handle
these types of pollutants. So any lake or river which receives treated wastewater can also
receive a daily dose of these active chemicals.


Because these pollutants can number in the hundreds, just how to study them is under
debate. Mary Watzin says the old way just doesn’t work anymore:


“The classic way to examine one of these compounds is just to test it by itself. But
the fish aren’t exposed to these things by themselves, because they swim around in
the general milieu of everything that gets dumped out.”


But looking at how mixtures of household chemicals and drugs affect fish and other
wildlife can bring up more questions than answers. Because of this, Pat Phillips, a
hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey says we might want to concentrate on just
keeping these pollutants out of the environment:


“One of the things we see is that we see mixtures of many different compounds
coming into the wastewater treatment plants and coming into the environment.
And its very difficult to figure out what effect these mixtures have. But if we can
remove some of them, that makes a lot of sense.”


In the past, when the issue was industrial toxins, the solution was to control these toxins
at their source. This is because wastewater treatment plants weren’t made to deal with
industrial toxins in the same way they’re not made to deal with household drugs and
chemicals. But now, Chris Hornback says controlling this new generation of pollutants at
their source just isn’t practical:


“A lot of the substances that we’re talking about now including pharmaceuticals
and other emerging contaminants are coming from the households. So, those
sources are much harder to control. You can’t permit a household. A wastewater
treatment plant can’t control what a household discharges so that’s where public
outreach, and education, and pollution prevention efforts come into play.”


These efforts are really only starting. Some states have begun pharmaceutical take-back
programs to keep people from flushing unused medicines down the drain, but
participation is voluntary.


Everyone involved agrees that in order to solve this problem, it’s going to take people
thinking about what they’re sending down their drains. But just how to broach this
somewhat private topic is yet another question.


For the Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

Related Links

Volunteers Testing the Waters

  • Volunteers across the country gather samples and data for biologists who don't have the resources to get into the field. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:

Transcript

Most of us assume the government is keeping track of environmental
issues such as pollution in water. In reality, most pollution problems
are first detected by citizens. Lester Graham reports in some parts of
the nation, volunteers step in to make sure their local streams and
lakes are clean:


Rochelle Breitenbach and Mary Bajcz are trudging through the snow,
winding their way through a thicket to find a small creek. It’s 14
degrees above zero. And they plan to go wading. They’re lugging in a
fine-mesh net, some hip boots, and an orange 5 gallon bucket of trays and
specimen jars.


Breitenbach says they’re headed for a pristine creek that eventually
becomes a river, the Huron River in southeast Michigan:


“One thing about this spot is that it’s really close to the headwaters
of the Huron River. So, it’s a really good indicator of what they’re
going to find downstream too. This has traditionally been one of the
best spots to collect in the entire watershed.”


They’re just one team of many that take samples up and down the river.
They’re looking for a certain kind of bug, stonefly larvae. Stoneflies
are good fish food and they are very susceptible to pollution. They’re
considered an indicator species. If stoneflies are there and healthy,
it’s a good indication the stream is healthy:


“Their food source is on decomposing leaves, so that’s
where you find them. And then, I will get some of the leaf packs in
the net and then I’ll dump it in the tray. And then we’ll add a little
warm water so they don’t freeze. And then we’ll sort through the leaf
packs and then look for stoneflies.”


Breitenbach cautiously makes her way down the bank, across the ice and
into the water.


She’s taking her first sample in this open water. Bajcz steps out onto
the ice, holding a plastic tray so Breitenbach can empty the net’s contents
into the plastic tray. But… the ice can’t take the weight.


Luckily Bajcz did not fall into the water. In these temperatures, that
would have been bad. They scramble up the snowy bank and start
sorting through the debris in the trays to find stonefly larvae.


Stoneflies have two tails. Mayflies have three tails. So, they’re
squinting to see what they’ve got:


Mary: “Oh, there’s one! Right there. Right, Rochelle? That one?”


Rochelle: “I left my glasses in the car.”


Mary: “Okay. I’m going to collect it. I think it is.”


Rochelle: Yes, go ahead and take it.”


Mary: “Oh look! That’s a mayfly. Three.”


Rochelle: “Yeah, see all the tails.”


Mary: “Look at that one! That’s two. That’s got two. See?”


Rochelle: “Yep.”


Mary: “Wow. (whisper) That’s gigantic.”


Rochelle: “That’s why we love this site (laughs).”


Once they find one, they drop the bug into a jar of alcohol. After the
thrill of finding the stoneflies, they hate to kill them, but they have
to preserve the samples for biologists.


Rochelle: “The whole jar goes back and Jo goes through and identifies
everything.”


Jo is Jo Latimore. She’s the Huron River Watershed Council’s
ecologist. She says without the volunteers’ efforts all along the
river, they’d never be able to monitor this river system as well, but
there are drawbacks to using volunteers.


“The first impression is that volunteer data may not be as trustworthy
as anyone else’s, any trained professional’s data. But, our volunteers
have been trained and then we also do quality control checks, just like
the government would do with their agencies where we’ll go out side-by-
side and send professionals out with the volunteers and compare their
results to make sure that they’re trustworthy.”


Latimore says the end result of volunteer surveys like this one is a
steady monitoring program that fills in the blanks left by government
agencies that can’t do the work.


“The agencies that do have the responsibility for checking the quality
of our waterbodies really have very limited budgets, very limited
staff. For example, in Michigan, the professional biologist from the
DEQ can only get to a particular watershed every five years. And to
really be able to stay on top of the conditions in a stream, you need
to monitor more often than that.”


Voluntary watershed organizations all across the nation assist government agencies in
monitoring the streams and lakes. But in many parts of the nation,
there are no volunteer agencies. The water quality is rarely checked,
and the only time anyone realizes there’s a problem is when there’s a
huge fish kill or other pollution problems that get the attention of
people who live nearby or people who fish the streams. And nearly
everyone agrees that’s not a very good way to keep water clean.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Car Sharing Gets Profitable

  • Through car sharing programs, users rent cars on an hourly basis. (Photo courtesy of Zipcar)

There’s nothing unusual about renting a car by the day.
It’s commonplace at airports nationwide, but for most Americans,
renting a car by the hour is a strange notion. Renting a car by the hour
is often called “car sharing.” Car sharing is good for the environment
because its users only get the car when they need the car. They usually
take buses and bikes to get around. Car sharing has caught on in a few big
cities on the east and west coasts. That’s largely due to the efforts of a pair
of private companies, Zipcar and Flexcar. Now those firms are poised to
expand their operations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd Melby
has this report:

Transcript

There’s nothing unusual about renting a car by the day. It’s
commonplace at airports nationwide, but for most Americans, renting a
car by the hour is a strange notion. Renting a car by the hour is often
called “car sharing.” Car sharing is good for the environment because its
users only get the car when they need the car. They usually take buses
and bikes to get around. Car sharing has caught on in a few big cities on
the east and west coasts. That’s largely due to the efforts of a pair of
private companies, Zipcar and Flexcar. Now, those firms are poised to
expand their operations. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Todd
Melby has this report:


For the past six months, a nonprofit called the Neighborhood Energy
Consortium has had the Minneapolis/St. Paul car sharing market to itself.
The non-profit group has raised about $450,000 to buy 12 cars. Those
energy-efficient hybrids have attracted about 140 people to join the
HourCar program. That’s Hour with an “H.”


(Sound of bus stop and rumble of passing truck)


On this Saturday morning, Mary Solac is shivering at a bus stop, waiting
for a ride to go pick up her HourCar. Despite the obvious inconvenience,
she says it’s worth it.


“You don’t have to worry about insurance. You don’t have to worry
about gas. It’s like okay, I’m paying what I’m paying and I don’t have to
worry about fixing the blasted car either.”


After a short bus ride, Solac does have to worry about more mundane car
concerns… such as scraping the ice and snow off the window.


(Sound of ice/snow scraping on the windshield)


To date, Solac’s only choice for renting a car by the hour has been
HourCar. That’s about to change.


The nation’s largest car sharing company — Zipcar of Boston — is
invading HourCar’s Minneapolis turf. Nearly 50,000 people now take
turns driving about 500 Zipcars, mostly in Boston, New York and
Washington, D.C.


Scott Griffith is the CEO of Zipcar.


“Over the last several years, we’ve really focused on those cities and getting
them past profitability, past the break even point, to prove that at the
metro market level, that we can make money in this business.”


That track record enticed a venture capital firm to invest $10 million in
Zipcar.


Another big new company is also getting an influx of cash. The nation’s
second-largest car sharing company — Flexcar of Seattle — is about half
as big as Zipcar. It too has a new investor: AOL Founder Stephen Case.
He rented a Flexcar, liked it and bought the company.


In Chicago, Flexcar has paired with a local nonprofit to put 47 cars on
the street.


Zipcar, meanwhile, is also trying to get into Chicago. It wants
government agencies in the Windy City to commit to using its cars
before entering the market. The company hopes that happens sometime
this year.


Business professor Alfred Marcus at the University of Minnesota says it’s
not unusual for emerging businesses to seek government help like this.


“To get this sector going, to stimulate it, it makes sense for their to be
some public involvement, but you would hope this could take off on its
own. I think this is transitional – these public and private partnerships,
and that’s very typical when industries start.”


In Minneapolis/St. Paul, the University of Minnesota is guaranteeing
Zipcar a $1,500 per month per vehicle subsidy, but once Zipcar meets the
$1,500 minimum, that subsidy goes away. Zipcar says it expects to do
just that in three months.


At the moment, Zipcar is growing fast. It had revenues of about $15
million in 2005. CEO Griffith says it expects to double that this year, but
Alfred Marcus with the University of Minnesota says over the long-term,
Zipcar faces big hurdles.


Zipcar has only had success in large, densely-populated cities. Its target
market is young people without cars who are highly price sensitive, and
then there’s the question of where to keep the cars. They have to be
conveniently located to the people who might want to use them.


Marcus says that if these start-ups continue to grow, someday they might
be gobbled up by bigger companies.


“The ultimate aim of Flexcars or Zipcars may be to build up a fringe
business, get it going and have a rental car company buy them or have even
have a conventional automobile company by them.”


But the car-sharing company owners say they have other plans. Zipcar
boss Scott Griffith says he’s working on a 10-year plan to make Zipcar an
international company. Flexcar owner Stephen Case says he bought that
firm “to build it” and not to “flip it.”


For the GLRC, I’m Todd Melby.

Related Links

Global Worming

Remember when you were a kid, how you’d spend hours poking around,
looking for creepy crawly things? If one woman has her way, a lot more
of us will rediscover that joy…And as adults, also appreciate some
practical benefits. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Wendy Nelson
explains:

Global Worming

Remember when you were a kid, how you’d spend hours sitting in the yard,poking around, looking for creepy crawly things? If one woman has herway, a lot more of us will rediscover that joy…And as adults, alsoappreciate some practical benefits. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’sWendy Nelson explains: