Tag: montreal

Ten Threats: Expanding the Seaway

  • A freighter leaving the Duluth harbor in Minnesota. (Photo courtesy of EPA)

One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

We’re continuing our series Ten Threats to the Great Lakes with a look at the idea of
letting bigger ships into the lakes. Lester Graham is our guide through the series.


One of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes identified by many of the experts we surveyed
is dredging channels deeper and wider for larger ocean-going ships. In the 1950s, engineers
carved a shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence
River. The St. Lawrence Seaway was to make ports in cities such as Chicago and Duluth main
players in global commerce. Today, the Seaway operates at less than half its capacity.
That’s because only five percent of the world’s cargo fleet can fit through its locks and
channels. For decades, the shipping industry has wanted to make them bigger. David
Sommerstein reports:


(Sound of rumbling noise of front-loaders)


The port of Ogdensburg sits on the St. Lawrence River in northern New York State.
When the Seaway was built, local residents were promised an economic boom. Today
what Ogdensburg mostly gets is road salt.


(Sound of crashing cargo)


Road salt and a white mineral called Wallastonite – the Dutch use it to make ceramic tile.
Front-loaders push around mountains of the stuff. In all, the port of Ogdensburg
welcomes six freighters a year and employs just six people.


Other Great Lakes ports are much bigger, but the story is similar. They handle low-value
bulk goods – grain, ore, coal – plus higher value steel. But few sexy electronic goods
from Japan come through the Seaway, or the gijillion of knick-knacks from China or
South Korea.


James Oberstar is a Congressman from Duluth. He says there’s a reason why. A
dastardly coincidence doomed the Seaway.


“Just as the Seaway was under construction, Malcolm McLean, a shipping genius, hit on
the idea of moving goods in containers.”


Containers that fit right on trains and trucks. The problem was the ships that carry those
containers were already too big for the Seaway’s locks and channels.


“That idea of container shipping gave a huge boost of energy to the East Coast, Gulf
Coast, and West Coast ports, and to the railroads.”


Leaving Great Lakes ports behind ever since the regional shipping industry has wanted to
make the Seaway bigger.


The latest effort came in 2002, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the
economic benefits of expansion. The study said squeezing container ships through the
Seaway would bring a billion and a half dollars a year to ports like Chicago, Toledo, and
Duluth. But if you build it, would they come?


“Highly doubtful that container ships would come in. Highly doubtful.”


John Taylor is a transportation expert at Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
He’s studied Seaway traffic patterns extensively. He says there would have to be “a sea
change” in global commerce.


“Rail is too competitive, too strong moving containers from the coast in and out say from
Montreal and Halifax and into Chicago and Detroit and so on, too cost-effective for it to
make sense for a ship to bring those same containers all the way to Chicago.”


The expansion study sparked a flurry of opposition across the Great Lakes. It failed to
mention the cost of replumbing the Seaway — an estimated 10 to 15 billion dollars. It
didn’t factor in invasive species that show up in foreign ships’ ballasts. Invasives already
cost the economy 5 billion dollars a year, and environmentalists said it glossed over the
ecological devastation of dredging and blasting a deeper channel.


Even the shipping industry has begun to distance itself from expansion. Steve Fisher
directs the American Great Lakes Ports Association.


“There was quite a bit of opposition expressed through the region, and in light of that
opposition we took stock of just how much and how strongly we felt on the issue and
quite frankly there just wasn’t a strong enough interest.”


Most experts now believe expansion won’t happen for at least another generation.
Environmentalists and other critics hope it won’t happen at all.


So instead, the Seaway is changing its tactics. Richard Corfe runs Canada’s side of the
waterway. He says the vast majority of Seaway traffic is actually between Great Lakes
ports, not overseas. So, the Seaway’s focus now is to lure more North American shippers
to use the locks and channels.


“Our efforts have to be towards maximizing the use of what we have now for the benefit
of both countries, the economic, environmental, and social benefit.”


Today, trucks and trains haul most goods from coastal ports to Great Lakes cities.
Shippers want to steal some of that cargo, take it off the roads and rails, and put it on
seaway ships headed for Great Lakes ports.


For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Closing a Door

  • Coast Guard Marine Science Technician Sheridan McClellan demonstrates some of the equipment used to check the ballast water of foreign ships. Environmentalists believe the Coast Guard should be given the equipment and authority to more thoroughly check the ships for invasive species in ballast water. (Photo by Lester Graham)

In this “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” series, we found experts across the region point to alien invasive species as the number one challenge facing the Lakes. The Great Lakes have changed dramatically because of non-indigenous species that compete for food and space with native fish and organisms. More than 160 foreign aquatic species have been introduced since the Lakes were opened to shipping from overseas. It’s believed that many of the invasive species hitched a ride in the ballast tanks of ocean-going cargo ships.

Transcript

Today we’ll hear more about Ten Threats to the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has the next report in the series:


In this “Ten Threats to the Great Lakes” series, we found experts across the region point to alien invasive species as the number one challenge facing the Lakes. The Great Lakes have changed dramatically because of non-indigenous species that compete for food and space with native fish and organisms. More than 160 foreign aquatic species have been introduced since the Lakes were opened to shipping from overseas. It’s believed that many of the invasive species hitched a ride in the ballast tanks of ocean-going cargo ships.


Foreign ships entering the Great Lakes are boarded and inspected in Montreal, long before the ships enter U.S. Waters. Sheridan McClellan is a marine science technician with the U.S. Coast Guard. He says inspectors take samples of the ballast water and test it onboard ship. He demonstrates the equipment at the Coast Guard lab in Massena, New York.


MCCLELLAN: “And when you look through this refractometer, if you look on the right hand side, you will see the salinity… If you’d like to look through it…”


GRAHAM: “Oh, yeah. I see.”


MCCLELLAN: “You see a line?”


GRAHAM: “Right.”


The inspectors want to see salt in the water. That means the ship exchanged ballast water from a freshwater port with ocean water that kills most freshwater organisms hiding out in the ballasts.


“Once we check all the ballast tanks and they’re all good to go, we tell the captain that he’s allowed to discharge his ballast in the Great Lakes if he so desires.”


And that’s it; if the ship’s ballast contains ocean water and the log shows the water came from deep ocean, it’s good to go. Lieutenant Commander James Bartlett commands the Massena station. He says that’s all the Coast Guard can do.


“We’ve been asked if we are actually checking for the organisms and doing, you know, a species count. Right now, that technology’s not available to us nor, really, do we have that capability in our regulations. It’s essentially, it’s a log check, an administrative, and then also a physical salinity check.”


But a ship can also be allowed into the Great Lakes if its ballast tanks are empty. Ships fill their ballasts tanks to keep the vessel stable in the water. When a ship is fully loaded with cargo, it sits deep enough in the water that it doesn’t need ballast water for stability. It’s declared as “No Ballast on Board,” or NOBOB.


But “No Ballast On Board” does not mean empty; there’s always a little residual water and sediment.


(Sound of footsteps thumping on metal)


Deep inside the S.S. William A Irvin, an out-of-service iron ore ship that’s permanently docked in Duluth, Minnesota, Captain Ray Skelton points out the rusty structure of the ballast tanks.


“You can see by all the webs, scantlings, cross members, frames, just the interior supports for the cargo hold itself, and the complexity of this configuration, that it wouldn’t be possible to completely pump all of the tank.”


And a recent study of NOBOB ships found there’s a lot more than just water and sediment sloshing around in the bottom of the tanks. David Reid headed up the study. He says there are live organisms in both the water and the sediment.


“If you multiply it out, you see that there are millions of organisms even though you have a very small amount of either water or sediment.”


And when ships load or unload they discharge or take on ballast water, that stirs up the water and sediment in the bottom of the ballast tanks along with the organisms they’re carrying from half way around the world, and they end up in the Great Lakes.


The shipping industry says for the past few years, the security regulations since 9/11 have been more important to the industry than dealing with ballast water. Helen Brohl is Executive Director of the U.S. Great Lakes Shipping Association. She says the shipping industry hasn’t forgotten; it is paying close attention to concerns about ballast water.


“From my perspective, in ten years, ballast water is not an issue, because in ten years there’ll be treatment technology on most ships. We’re moving right along. Ballast, in some respects, is kind of beating a dead horse.”


But environmentalists and others say ten years to get most of the ships fitted with ballast water treatment equipment is too long. New non-indigenous species are being introduced to the Lakes every few months.


The invasive species that are already in the Great Lakes are costing the economy and taxpayers about five billion dollars a year. The environmentalists insist Congress needs to implement new ballast regulations for the Coast Guard soon.


They also say the Environmental Protection Agency should start treating ballast water like pollution before more invasive species catch a ride in the ballast tanks of the foreign freighters and further damage the Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Atmosphere Blocking Sunlight?

You’ve probably heard about global warming, maybe also climactic cooling. Scientists have identified another phenomenon called “global dimming.” They say the world is getting darker. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

You’ve probably heard about global warming, maybe also climactic cooling. Scientists
have identified another phenomenon called “global dimming”. They say the world is
getting darker. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports.


In the 1980’s, a handful of researchers noticed a strange trend. Less sunlight was
reaching the earth’s surface than fifty years earlier. The scientific establishment
dismissed the notion as ridiculous. But researcher Michael Roderick of Australia
National University says today, ‘global dimming’ is becoming accepted. He says much
of the northern hemisphere is 10 to 20 percent darker than it used to be.


“Something in the atmosphere is blocking the sunlight from getting through. And that
something is either more clouds or more aerosols, so basically pollution.”


Roderick says the dimming is worst in big cities, but rural areas and even Antarctica also
are getting less sun.


Scientists don’t know what ‘global dimming’ means for people, plants, and animals.
Roderick and geophysicists from around the world are meeting this week in Montreal to
take a first stab at that question.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.

Related Links

Tapping Nature’s Cupboard for Pollution Cleanup

Often our first impulse to clean up a mess is to reach for a chemical cleaner. It’s the same kind of approach in environmental clean-ups. Often the experts first turn to chemicals to clean up badly polluted areas. A new approach to cleaning up pollution has been evolving in recent years. Instead of creating new chemicals to clean up contaminated areas, researchers are trying to use what Mother Nature already provides. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has more:

Transcript

Often our first impulse to clean up a problem is to reach for a chemical cleaner. It’s the same kind
of approach in environmental clean-ups. Often the experts first turn to chemicals to clean up
badly polluted areas. A new approach to cleaning up pollution has been evolving in recent years.
Instead of creating new chemicals to clean up contaminated areas, researchers are trying to use
what Mother Nature already provides. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has
more:


Nathalie Ross is standing in front of a big water tank divided into three sections. She’s a scientist
at Canada’s National Water Research Institute. She’s working on a different kind of approach
towards environmental cleanup. She explains she’s letting Mother Nature clean up different
aspects of pollution in each section of the tank.


“The first one is what we call natural attenuation, which is based on the natural process to
degrade contaminants, so that’s what we can call our control.”


In the second section, nutrients are added to the water to feed the existing bacteria to see if they
can be stimulated to clean up the water that’s polluted with chlorinated products.


“The third tank, in addition to the nutrients, we add bacteria. And those bacteria were shown to
degrade the chlorinated products, so we are hoping that it would speed up and also complete the
process to the end where we are hoping to see no contaminant at all.”


What Ross is demonstrating is “Green Chemistry.” Also known as Green Technology, the
concept is simple – instead of creating brand new chemicals, it’s becoming increasingly possible
to use the chemicals and processes already available in nature. The thought is that naturally
occurring compounds will be less harmful than the ones that we invent in the lab.


There are two streams of green chemistry – one is using environmentally conscious principles in
the production of new products and processes – water based paints and fuel produced from corn
are a couple of examples. Nathalie Ross is demonstrating the other stream – using naturally
occurring substances and biological agents such as bacteria to clean up the pollution we’ve already
created.


Jim Nicell is doing similar work. He’s an associate professor in the Department of Civil
Engineering at McGill University in Montreal. He’s working with enzymes that will clean up
toxic waste. He’s found a surprisingly ordinary source of the enzymes – a piece of horseradish
root.


“You can take your horseradish, put it in a blender, get the horseradish sauce if you want and
have it for supper. But before you do that, squeeze out the juice which is pretty awful, raw,
smelly stuff, which actually has a high concentration of this enzyme. I literally took that juice
and added some hydrogen peroxide and into a solution that contained some pretty toxic materials
and they just precipitate out. And so with a very small quantity of this enzyme we can actually
have a major impact on reducing the toxicity of that waste.”


The simplicity of Green Chemistry has been gradually attracting the attention of scientists and industry over
the past fifteen years. In terms of scientific developments, it’s still pretty young. But it’s a
concept that makes a lot of sense to Nicell.


“Nature is a whole lot smarter than we are. It’s had a lot more time than we’ve had to optimize
the way things are carried out. Now, we have a whole bunch of industrial catalysts that we have
made in the past but we don’t have nearly the time or, I guess, the capability, the experimental
setup that nature has had to produce the optimal catalysts.”


It might seem like an ideal solution, but critics say we need to be careful. One of the concerns
which has been raised is ecological balance – whenever large quantities of any substance are
released, even natural ones, there is often a risk that we’ll change the environment in ways we
don’t want to.


Brian McCarry is a scientist with the Department of Chemistry at McMaster University in
Hamilton, Ontario. He says, despite that concern, we shouldn’t be overly worried.


“They’re natural organisms, they’re not pathogenic. I don’t think they’re going to disrupt the
balance of nature. They’re not like putting in some really vigorous organism that takes over.
These are also not mutant, genetically engineered organisms so I don’t think anybody should be
terribly worried about having all sorts of strange genetic material floating around that are now
going to get into the ecosystem and run amok.”


There’s one other big concern about Green Chemistry: the cost. Both Nathalie Ross’s water
project and Jim Nicell’s horseradish experiments are still in the early stages. It’s not clear yet
whether it will be cost effective for large-scale industrial applications. But given the benefits of
green chemistry, advocates hope that the value of using the simple answers nature offers will also
be considered, not just the cost.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.

Related Links

Urban Artists Fight for Graffiti

  • Graffiti artist Juan Carlos Noria imagines his artwork as a gift to the community. Artwork provided courtesy of JCN at them-art.com

Graffiti has been a part of urban life since ancient times. There’s also a long history of trying to get rid of it. In many North American cities, civic leaders are experimenting with new ways to eradicate graffiti. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, urban artists are determined to keep it alive:

Transcript

Graffiti has been a part of urban life since ancient times. There’s also a long history of
trying to get rid of it. In many North American cities, civic leaders are experimenting
with new ways to eradicate graffiti. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen
Kelly reports, urban artists are determined to keep it alive:


About twenty artists, most of them men, spread out on either side of a canvas wall set up
in the middle of a parking lot. They wear baggy jeans, baseball caps and gas masks. The
ground is littered with spray paint cans as they splatter color across the canvas.


(sound up)


The artists build on each other’s ideas. Horizontal purple stripes are transformed into an
exotic bird. Pen and ink drawings peek out beneath layers of orange and brown, slowly
disappearing under the paint. This is Ottawa’s first graffiti fest, organized by
local artist Juan Carlos Noria. He arrives by bicycle, wearing splattered jeans and
carrying two backpacks stuffed with spray paint.


“This is our way of giving back to the city true expression and unfortunately I do agree that some of it
is ugly but it’s like a hammer, you know? It’s a tool for building or destroying.”


Noria is a full-time artist who sells oil paintings and sculptures. But his best known work
might be his graffiti. He creates detailed pen and ink drawings on white paper. Then,
late at night, he glues them to downtown buildings.


His drawings depict the plight of humans in the modern world. One shows a man using
one hand to pour coffee into his mouth, as he pounds a hammer with the other.
Another depicts a person surrounded by bubbles representing thought – about money,
heartbreak, and the passage of time.


For Noria, this sort of unexpected art is comforting in a city that prides itself on
cleanliness.


“My living room isn’t this clean, you know? And a lot of these Ottawa streets are super
clean. In an alley that is vacant, it’s almost like a mark that a human being has been there
and I think that’s important, you know?”


But to many other people, graffiti is a sign of crime, decay and danger. That’s prompted
Ottawa to join other North American cities in introducing a graffiti management policy.
The plan includes a special phone line to report graffiti and tougher fines for those who
are caught.


The city estimates it spends about 250 thousand U.S. dollars cleaning up graffiti on city
property every year.


Paul McCann is head of Ottawa’s surface operations office. He says the biggest problem
is tags – initials or names scrawled in marker.


“I’m not talking about the nice graffiti art that a lot of people appreciate but the problem
is the tagging. Some of it is gang related. It’s not in the right place, it is considered
vandalism if you don’t have permission.”


McCann says there’s been a sharp increase in tagging. And it can make residents, and
tourists, feel unsafe. But he draws a distinction between the taggers and the so-called
serious artists.


While graffiti will never be tolerated in places like the parliament buildings, McCann is
looking for areas where graffiti can flourish, such as skateboard parks. It’s a strategy
that’s been used in other cities, including Toronto and Montreal. And it’s something Juan
Carlos Noria is eager to support.


“Graffiti is a movement of the youth. We must embrace it, say it’s not going to go away
so let’s give them spaces to work in and I think that by offering them these spaces, the
older artists will realize these are gifts, so they will in turn speak to the younger artists and
educate them and that’s what it’s all about.”


For Noria, graffiti offers a public venue to vent his frustration about pollution, capitalism,
and the ubiquity of advertising. Not long after the graffiti fest, one of his works
appeared on the wall of an abandoned theatre. It depicts an angel imagining a beautiful
gift as it sends a spray of paint onto the building.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly in Ottawa.