Blazing New Atv Trails in Parkland

  • Advocates of special trails for ATV riding say the trails would reduce environmental damage from uncontrolled use. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Managers at state parks across the country are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a
rising demand for trails for All-Terrain Vehicles. Stephanie Hemphill reports park
managers are finding it’s not easy to satisfy both fans who have fun on four wheel drive
vehicles and people who want a quieter time in the park:

Transcript

Managers at state parks across the country are scrambling to figure out how to deal with a
rising demand for trails for All-Terrain Vehicles. Stephanie Hemphill reports park
managers are finding it’s not easy to satisfy both fans who have fun on four wheel drive
vehicles and people who want a quieter time in the park:


As the name suggests, All-Terrain Vehicles are built to travel rough. ATVs power over
rocks and logs. Their go-anywhere knobby tires grip the land and take their riders just
about anywhere they want to go, and a lot of them want to go to public parks.


Whether it’s forests, dunes, bogs or a desert, riders say four-wheeling can be a fun way to
get out into nature. The vehicles are popular. Dealers are selling close to a million ATVs
every year, and sales are growing steadily. With that many people looking for a place to
play, states are scrambling to accommodate them.


In Minnesota, the state decided a long ATV trail might be a good way to attract tourism
dollars to a struggling rural area in the state.


Ron Sluka jumped at the idea. He’s the trail coordinator for a local ATV club. He’d been
wanting for years to build a trail in his area. Then he heard the state would pay for a
“destination” trail so well-built and attractive, people would come from all over to ride it.
Sluka thought it would be great news for his area.


He and county officials worked up a plan, but when it hit the local news, Sluka says a
few people raised a ruckus:


“The way it was presented to the people, eminent domain would take over in cases if
need be, and there were going to be up to 20 feet of your land taken for this trail. None
of the above is true, totally none of it is true, absolutely zero. But it’s too late: once
things are rolling, it’s rolling.”


Sluka says now, it’s hard to get a rational discussion of the issues. Beyond property rights
issues and worries about the ATVs being too loud, there are other concerns:


“The residents have kind of been left out of the loop.”


That’s Deb Pomroy. She lives near the proposed ATV trail.


Pomroy says most of her neighbors don’t mind the local ATV riders. It’s that idea of
drawing ATVs from all over the state that freaks them out, and Pomroy has her own reasons
for opposing a trail here, where the Cloquet River has its beginning: wood turtles.
Pomroy is a biologist. She says this area is a refuge for the turtles. They’re endangered in
most of their range, and listed as a threatened species in Minnesota.


Wood turtles bury their eggs in sandy soil. Pomroy says they would love to bury their
eggs in soil disturbed by ATVs, but the eggs wouldn’t survive:


“Even stepping on a nest, which is buried in soil, don’t know there are eggs there, is
enough to destroy the eggs.”


The trail is on hold for now, while county officials and ATV riders try to come up with
an alternative. Concern about damage to sensitive environmental areas is one of the chief
reasons many environmentalists don’t like the idea of letting ATVs into parks.


Jason Kiely is with Wildlands CPR, a national non-profit group that works to prevent off-
road vehicle damage on public land. He says fights over ATV trails are inevitable, as
long as public agencies don’t involve all park users in a comprehensive planning process.


“Primarily because off-road vehicles affect every other use of the forest so significantly.
So we advocate for doing comprehensive travel and recreation planning, not just trying to
carve off the ATV piece, but multi-stakeholder planning efforts that offer something to
everyone.”


Kiely says the US Forest Service and many state agencies have a lot of work to do, to
find the right balance between preserving nature and allowing ATV riders to have their
fun on public land


For the Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Putting a Price Tag on Urban Trees

  • Volunteers with the Greening of Detroit plant about 4,000 trees each year in the city. (Photo by Sarah Hulett)

Money might not grow on trees. But researchers at a think tank devoted to saving America’s forests say dollar signs can be attached to all those oaks, maples, and sycamores. They’re hoping their environmental calculus can help convince local governments that it’s in their best interest to protect the trees they still have, and to plant new ones.
The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

Money might not grow on trees. But researchers at a think tank devoted to saving
America’s forests say dollar signs can be attached to all those oaks, maples, and
sycamores. They’re hoping their environmental calculus can help convince local
governments that it’s in their best interest to protect the trees they still have, and to plant
new ones. The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett reports:


If trees could unionize, they’d be able to put together a pretty compelling case for hefty
compensation packages from the cities where they work. That’s the general idea behind a
series of reports put together by the advocacy group American Forests. The organization
looked at the amount of tree-covered land in several US cities and for each city, it put
together a dollars-and-cents case for their protection.


Trees in Detroit got a recent appraisal from the group. Trees shade more than 31 percent
of the city. Besides helping to keep the city cool, the report says Detroit’s trees take out
two million pounds of pollution out the air every year. That’s worth about five
million dollars. And it said if the city’s trees were gone, the city would have to build 400
million dollars worth of storm water drains. That’s because trees act as buffers during
heavy rains, and help control flooding.


Cheryl Kollin is the Director of Urban Forestry at American Forests. She says the bottom
line for politicians and city planners is money. She says they’re not going to save trees
just because they’re nice to look at:


“And I think it’s really building that awareness that trees — as wonderful and beautiful as
they are for their aesthetic qualities — it’s so important to connect the ecological
properties that they have and the economic benefits they provide. Because it really is going to
be that economic argument that makes decision-makers do things differently.”


Like a lot of cities, Detroit relies on a non-profit group to raise money for urban
reforesting. Today, the Greening of Detroit is planting trees around a recreation center in
one of the most polluted areas of the city, where diesel soot from heavy truck traffic
contributes to a high asthma rate.


Rebecca Salminen-Witt is the director of the Greening. She says this is a critical time for
this struggling rust belt city:


“We want to see some development in Detroit. We want to prove to outsiders that good things are
happening here in a visual way. Any development is good development, right? And, you know, that
is simply not true.”


Witt says as the city seeks to rebound, the focus can’t just be on new buildings. She says
it’s important that planners and developers figure trees and green space into Detroit’s
future and she says the American Forests’ economic data and satellite images will help
her make that case:


“Having those statistics, and having that visual representation of this is what it looks, you know, here’s your
heat island effect with trees and without trees.”


That visual picture of tree loss proved especially powerful in the nation’s capital.
American Forests surveyed Washington, D.C.’s trees in 1999. Its report said the city lost
nearly two-thirds of its tree cover between 1985 and 1997.


The Washington Post published the before-and-after satellite photos. They showed huge
swaths of black gobbling up what a dozen years earlier looked green from far above the
earth. It looked like a cancer had wiped out the healthy parts of the city whose slogan is
the “city of trees.”


“That got the attention of a variety of people. One person in particular was Betty Casey.”


That’s Dan Smith of the Casey Tree Endowment Fund. The group was established thanks
to a 50 million dollar contribution from Betty Casey, the widow of developer Eugene B.
Casey:


“And I believe the contribution was if not the largest gift ever for environmental action,
certainly one of the largest.”


That sort of cash gift is a dream for most cities. But the Greening of Detroit’s Rebecca
Salminen-Witt says she does expect to be able to use the information from American
Forests to raise money. And she says it will also help her small organization figure out
which parts of the city are the most in need of trees:


“We have to decide where we’re going to allocate our resources. And having a tool that makes
allocation of resources in an area where there’s a great need easier, or make more sense, is
really important to a non-profit organization.”


Witt says her first pitch will be to the corporations and civic leaders planning a
redevelopment along Detroit’s riverfront. Witt says the plans she’s seen call for some
trees and green space. But armed with satellite pictures and economic data, she hopes
she’ll be able to make the case for a few more trees.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Putting a Price Tag on Urban Trees (Short Version)

A non-profit group devoted to saving America’s forests is putting a dollar value on cities’ trees in an effort to convince local planners
to save existing trees and plant new ones. The GLRC’s Sarah Hulett has this report:

Transcript

A non-profit group devoted to saving America’s forests is putting a
dollar value on cities’ trees in an effort to convince local planners
to save existing trees and plant new ones. The GLRC’s Sarah
Hulett reports:


The group American Forests has compiled reports for more than
two dozen US cities. The studies use satellite images to see how
most cities are losing trees over time. They also put a price tag on
the work trees do for a city.


Rebecca Salminen-Witt is the director of a non-profit tree planting
group called the Greening of Detroit. She says people appreciate
the beauty of trees. But she says they need to be shown there’s an
economic need for trees:


“They want us to come, they contact us constantly, they give us
their time and their money. So we know how important it is to
them. But the evidence we really have is anecdotal.”


American Forests says it can show that cities’ trees can be worth
hundreds of millions of dollars for the work they do cleaning
pollution out of the air and helping to control storm water.


For the GLRC, I’m Sarah Hulett.

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Importing Hazardous Waste

Hazardous waste is being trucked across the border from Mexico and Canada, but the U.S. government has no idea how much. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Hazardous waste is being trucked across the border from Mexico and Canada, but the US
government has no idea how much. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to try to keep track of how much toxic
waste was trucked across the borders, but three years ago abandoned its own program.


A report in the San Diego Union-Tribune found the work was turned over to a private
contractor, but it was behind the data by two years when that project folded in 2003. The
newspaper reports the EPA now relies on a much smaller program operated by a non-
profit organization. It’s compiling numbers from paper manifests the truckers turn in at
the border.


Definitions of hazardous waste differ in Mexico and Canada. And if companies try to
classify toxic material as less than hazardous, then they can pay less for disposal. The
EPA says it plans to standardize a hazardous waste manifest form later this year to better
determine what’s coming in and how much is coming in.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

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Making the Environmental Field More Diverse

Later this month, a group of students and professors
in the Great Lakes region are holding a national conference aimed at creating more diversity in the environmental field. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Later this month, a group of students and professors in the Great Lakes region are holding a national conference aimed at creating more diversity in the environmental field. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


The Minority Environmental Leadership Initiative at the University of Michigan is holding the conference. It’s for students, leaders of environmental non-profit groups and government agencies, and environmental faculty at universities.


Professor Dorceta Taylor says the conference will look at why the level of minority hiring in the environmental field is still so low, and what can be done about it.


“The environment affects everyone, and it could be a far more effective movement if it involved a larger cross section of the population.”


Taylor says many environmental organizations say they’d like to hire more minority graduates, but don’t know how to find or recruit them. Organizers say they hope the conference will connect employers with minority students looking for jobs.


For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

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Pollution Credits as Stocking Stuffers

Here’s a last-minute gift idea for a green-thinking loved one. A New York-based environmental group will retire a pollution credit in someone’s honor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein explains:

Transcript

Here’s a last-minute gift idea for a green-thinking loved one. A New York-
based environmental group will retire a pollution credit in someone’s honor.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein explains:


The Environmental Protection Agency issues pollution credits to power
plants. Each one allows them to emit one ton of sulfur dioxide from their
smokestack.


Several years ago, one power company donated 10,000 of the credits to the
Adirondack Council. The group’s a non-profit working to reduce acid rain.
Instead of trading them on the open market, where they can fetch up to 800
dollars apiece, the Council decided to retire the credits. Spokesman John
Sheehan says for 50 bucks, the group will send someone a gift certificate.


“That certificate will show that that person has removed essentially one ton
of sulfur dioxide from the atmosphere permanently and that that pollution
will never go up a smokestack anywhere in the country, and it will help
clean up the Adirondacks and the rest of the United States at the same time.”


Sheehan says the Adirondack Council has about 3,000 credits left. His staff
will be around until Thursday to help people give the gift of cleaner air this
Christmas.


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

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From Industrial Waste to Raw Materials

  • A Conesville, OH smokestack. The Cuyahoga Valley Initiative has found a way to turn potential pollutants into money. (Photo by Kenn Kiser)

The Rust Belt regions of the United States are looking at new ways to make industrial prosperity and environmental recovery work hand-in-hand. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shula Neuman reports on an effort that could be a model for industrial areas throughout the nation:

Transcript

The Rust Belt regions of the United States are looking at new ways to make industrial
prosperity and environmental recovery work hand-in-hand. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Shula Neuman reports on an effort that could be a model for industrial
areas throughout the nation:


(sound of birds)


This area of Cleveland near the Cuyahoga River is where John D. Rockefeller first set up
his Standard Oil empire. The Cuyahoga is infamous for being the river that caught fire in
1969 and it became a symbol of the nation’s pollution problem.


Cleveland businesses and industries still live with that legacy. But through a new effort
called the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative, they’re trying to overcome it – although on the
surface it doesn’t look like there’s much happening.
Today, smoke stacks from steel plants still tower above head … below, like a jumble of
twisted licorice sticks, railroad tracks run through the meadows alongside the Cuyahoga.
Silos and old brick buildings line the banks of the river.


For Paul Alsenas, it’s an amazing place — not so much for what it has now, but for what it
can become. Alsensas is the director of planning for Cuyahoga County, the lead
organizer of the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative. The idea of the initiative is not to abandon
industry, he says, but to incorporate environmental and social principals into industry,
which could attract new businesses.


One of the more progressive aspects of the Initiative is something called “industrial
symbiosis.” Alsenas says industrial symbiosis works like natural ecology…


“An ecology of industry where nutrients flow from one form of life to another and make
it tremendously efficient and so therefore we have a competitive advantage. The
Cuyahoga Valley Initiative is not just about sustainability; it’s also whole systems
thinking, it’s also competitive strategy.”


Here’s how it works: waste from one company—a chemical by-product perhaps—is
used by a neighboring company to create its product. And that company’s product is then
sold to another company within the valley—and so on.


Alsenas says it’s already started: some companies located in the Cuyahoga Valley have
been sniffing out opportunities for sharing resources before anyone heard of the
Cuyahoga Valley Initiative. Joe Turgeon, CEO and co-owner of Zaclon, a chemical
manufacturer in the valley, says the Initiative sped things up.


“We pull all the members together and say, ‘OK, this is what I’ve got, this is what you’ve
got; here are some of the materials I need, here are some of the assets I have.’ And an
asset can be anything from a truck scale to a rail siding to by-product energy to
chemicals.”


Zaclon and its neighbor General Environmental Management have already begun their
symbiotic relationship. GEM now buys a Zaclon by-product, sulfuric acid, and in turn
Zaclon purchases a GEM byproduct. GEM president Eric Loftquist says the benefits go
beyond simply saving his company money.


“You know, we do business all over the country… but when you look around you see that
for every dollar you keep in this county, that generates taxes, generates jobs and the
benefits just keep rolling down. So you always want to look within.”


Loftquist says the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative encourages that effort. He says it’s
remarkable that it’s all coming together at the right time and with the right stakeholders.
It brings businesses together with government and area non-profits—including some
environmental groups—in a way not thought possible by industry and environmentalists
in the past.


Catherine Greener is with the Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit think tank that
studied the Cuyahoga Valley and is helping to get the initiative off the ground. She says
this area of the river—known as the regenerative zone could put Cleveland on the world’s
radar as a new business model.


“Cleveland has been known for being one of the seats of the industrial revolution and
what we’re seeing is a new industrial model that can emerge. How can you create
manufacturing jobs, industry jobs without jeopardizing the health and welfare of all the
people involved and also, to overuse a word, to ‘green’ the area around it?”


Greener says industrial symbiosis is a workable, practical solution because it makes
business sense… not just environmental sense…


“Sometimes I think about it as finding money in your pocket after you’ve washed your
pants. It’s always a bonus and you’ve always had it. And the resources that you have
here you’re just reinvesting in them and finding them and looking at them differently.”


The participants agree that “industrial symbiosis” won’t solve all the waste problems, but
it’s one part of a movement that’s making industrial cities re-think their relationship with
business and the environment.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Shula Neuman.

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