Communication towers throughout the country, such as cell phone and radio towers, are to blame for millions of migratory bird deaths each year. Now, an environmental group has filed a complaint against the Federal Communications Commission in an attempt to cut down on bird deaths. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ashley McGovern reports:
Transcript
Communication towers throughout the country, such as cell phone and radio
towers, are to blame for millions of migratory bird deaths each year. Now,
an environmental group has filed a complaint against the Federal
Communications Commission in an attempt to cut down on bird deaths. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ashley McGovern reports:
The Federal Communications Commission requires lights on communication
towers two-hundred feet and taller.
Environmental groups say these towers pose a threat to migratory birds.
They say in bad weather birds mistake lights on towers for stars they use to
navigate when flying.
The FCC requires an environmental impact study to be conducted whenever
towers like these are built.
But environmental groups say the FCC rarely follows this regulation.
The National Wildlife Federation filed a complaint against the FCC after the
Michigan State Police built a one-hundred-eighty-one-tower communication
system.
Michelle Halley is an attorney for the NWF.
“The Michigan State Police applied to register their towers and to build their towers, and they were
allowed by the FCC to do that, without conducting the proper environmental review.”
Halley says these reviews can help position towers outside of migratory bird
flyways.
She also says lowering some towers would eliminate the required lighting.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ashley McGovern.
The Coho site, a 540-acre tract of undeveloped land along Lake Erie, was intended to be used for power plant development. When those plans fell through, conservation groups rallied to buy the land. They're now celebrating a successful purchase. (Photo by Cathy Pedler)
Sunset at the Coho Site, in late summer. (Photo by Cathy Pedler)
In an ongoing study on the health of the Great Lakes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified shoreline development as one of the biggest threats to the health of the five Lakes. Conservation groups have continually worked to slow the spread of shoreline development. And now along a stretch of Lake Erie, they’ve scored a major success. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray has more:
Transcript
In an ongoing study on the health of the Great Lakes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
has identified shoreline development as one of the biggest threats to the health of the five Lakes.
Conservation groups have continually worked to slow the spread of shoreline development. And
now along a stretch of Lake Erie, they’ve scored a major success. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Ann Murray has more:
Tom Furhman and Cathy Pedler with the Lake Erie Region Conservancy have come to what’s
called the Coho site to celebrate.
(champaign bottle cork pops)
(laughs) “Coho ho ho ho!”
This 540-acre tract was named after Coho salmon. It’s the largest undeveloped and unprotected
parcel of land left along Pennsylvania’s Lake Erie shoreline. There were plans to build a power
plant here. Those plans were abandoned and the conservation groups have been trying to get a
hold of it. It’s taken five long years to buy the land.
“We organized a group in ’98 to try to get the utility company to sell it and really there was no
interest to sell that parcel so we partnered with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and most
recently with the Conservation Fund to buy it. And when we thought about the best use we got a
hold of the state and said this could be a great state park.”
After finishing their Champaign, Furhman and Pedler hike down to the western front of the Coho
parcel. Here, the property’s 90-foot cliffs loom over the water’s edge for more than a mile. Pedler
says most of Pennsylvania’s 43-mile long Lake Erie shoreline is privately owned. And
development has contributed to erosion and damage to bluffs. She stands on the property’s
narrow rock strewn beach and admires the unfettered view.
(sound of water)
“You can see just how magnificent this is with the water running over the slate and the high cliffs
and the bare magenta trees and an eagle. Yeah, I think we kind of want to keep that! Laughs.
(sound of waves fade under)
“It is a very significant site.”
Charles Bier is a conservation biologist with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.
“It’s really that narrow band of land that’s sometimes less than a half a mile wide. That’s this very
unique interface between Lake Erie and the mainland of Pennsylvania.”
As part of a larger project, the Conservancy performed a natural history inventory of the Coho
property. The site has high bluffs, wetlands and old growth forests. Inland dunes formed 15,000
years ago when glacial movement made the lake elevation higher.
“All of these habitats come together for 11 species of plants that are considered to be very rare
and unusual.”
Back on site, Cathy Pedler points out that this parcel of land is also historically important. Pedler
and her husband, Dave, are archeologists. This afternoon, they trudge up a thickly wooded hill
above an access area to Elk Creek, one of the state’s best fishing spots.
“Oh, we’ll go this way.”
At the top of the hill, the trees give way to a large plowed field. The farmer who has leased this
land has unearthed fragments of stone tools and pottery. The Pedlers believe that an ancient
village was located here.
This is really a special property archeologically. It’s not just a site. We think it’s a pretty
significant complex of them.
Six archeological sites on the Coho property have already been inventoried. Some are at least
10,000 years old. The Pedlers think the best way to protect these historic locations and sensitive
natural areas will be to make the land a state park. In the next few months, the Conservancies
plan to transfer the parcel to the state of Pennsylvania.
But some local government officials have raised questions about making the lake front site public
land. They say the stretch of land could be developed and property taxes collected. If it’s put into
parkland, the local government loses that tax money. Gretchen Leslie is spokesperson for the
Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Leslie says despite the loss of
property taxes, she sees the acquisition of this parcel as a smart move for the region.
“We believe this property has economic value and that you can locate industrial developments or
business parks in many, many different locations throughout the region. But there are only a few
locations that have such special natural qualities to them that they will serve an important tourism
role. And this is one of them.
(sound of waves)
And the cliffs above Lake Erie are unique. Pennsylvania is a large state, but only a small piece of
the state sits on the Great Lake. And many think that the one-mile stretch of shoreline that Coho
covers is worth preserving.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Murray.
A popular federal program that pays farmers to restore wetlands on their property is underfunded in President Bush’s budget proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein has more:
Transcript
A popular federal program that pays farmers to restore wetlands on their property is underfunded
in President Bush’s budget proposal. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein
has more:
The 2002 Farm Bill called for turning 250,000 acres a year of marginal farmland into wetlands.
Wetlands on farms help control pesticide run-off, replenish aquifers, and provide wildlife habitat.
And the effort gives farmers some extra cash in lean times. The Bush Administration wants to
downsize the program by 50,000 acres a year. But critics say it’s too popular to reduce.
“For every acre that gets enrolled, there are five acres waiting to get enrolled.”
Julie Sibbing is the wetlands policy specialist for the National Wildlife Federation. She says millions
of acres of wetlands nationwide are under threat from development. And farm conservation
programs are a crucial way to preserve them.
“There’s been a lot of talk about how the farm programs have expanded under the Bush
Administration. It’s really not been the great expansion that we would have liked to have seen.”
Last year, the program helped convert 213,000 acres of unused farmland into wetlands, short of the
250,000 acre goal.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
70 billion dollars – that’s how much the world’s wetlands are worth in annual goods and services, according to a report from the World Wildlife Fund. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:
Transcript
Seventy-billion dollars – that’s how much the world’s wetlands are worth in
annual goods and services, according to a report from the World Wildlife
Fund. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams has more:
The report says wetlands provide goods and services such as water filtration,
habitat, flood control and food production. The authors analyzed all the
studies that have been done on the economic value of wetlands.
They say billions of dollars are spent each year to drain wetlands for
immediate economic benefits.
Chris Williams is a conservation manager with the World Wildlife Fund. He
says decision-makers don’t always understand the long-term benefits of
wetlands.
“And if you’re, say, an official in a local jurisdiction, you’re thinking,
what is the immediate return of developing this area? There might be tax
revenues, there might be employment benefits, there might be increased
housing. Now those are important, and those should be thrown into the mix.
What we are mainly saying is, fine, but when you’re balancing those short-term returns, balance
them with the long-term value of the resource that
you’re developing.”
Williams says governments might try to restore wetlands when an area has
been paved over. But he says it’s much more expensive to build a wetland
from scratch than to take steps to preserve it.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.
We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford’s black Model T. Cars of every shape, size – and color – now practically dominate American life. Which poses a problem – what to do with the cars once they’re piled high in junkyards. A recent public art project offered one passionate recycler a chance to reuse junked cars in his art. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has this story of “Art on Wheels”:
Transcript
We’ve come a long way since Henry Ford’s black Model T. Cars of every shape, size – and color
– now practically dominate American life. Which poses a problem – what to do with the cars
once they’re piled high in junkyards. A recent public art project offered one passionate
recycler a chance to reuse junked cars in his art. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak has this story of “Art on Wheels”:
The American landscape is filled with automobiles. Lines of fancy molded steel are everywhere
– in parking lots and bumper to bumper along the highways. Or, as Canadian folk singer Bruce
Cockburn once observed, a kind of “sheet metal ballet.” But, sadly, when the dance finally ends,
there’s nothing left but junkyards of crushed steel. A recent community art project suggested that
re-use could be an answer to the old environmental debate of what to do with all the junk.
(sound of kids at the art show)
Dozens of artists were asked to come up with their own unique ways to re-use at least some of
that automotive scrap for the recent “Art on Wheels” Project. Art teacher Bruce Adams describes
what he and his high school students call the “Environmentally Friendly Car.”
“There’s a picket fence on each side. The front we call the front lawn, because the surface is a
big, grass lawn, with a bird house, so the birds can live there over the summer. Then the back of
it, we call the backyard, it’s a garden, it’s a got a pond, it’s got a stream running down to the pond
– it had fish living in there all summer.”
Adams says they built the car as sort of an ironic commentary on the whole American dream
thing. That’s what many of sculptures in the exhibit were designed to do – to make a statement.
Other sculptures, such as the cement truck chicken, were simply intended to be outlandish. But
for one of the exhibit artists, Doug McCullum, re-use isn’t a novelty. It’s a lifelong expression.
You might even say an obsession.
“My sister broke her femur…I made a lamp out of her steel leg splint. It was a little strange
thinking that, you know, this thing spent six months in my sister’s leg –
but she kind of enjoyed the lamp.”
McCullum is, well, shall we say, passionate about re-use? Okay, so you might even call him the
Dr. Frankenstein of the junkyard. His Gremlin car sculpture from the exhibit features some of
his junkyard creations. They’re popping out of the roof, the hood, the doors and the gas tank.
Come meet Scratch, Knock, Guzzle, and the rest of the Gremlins gang.
“The car is covered in a wide variety of monsters, all named after things that go wrong with your
car – henceforth the name Gremlins. They are all made out of various things like air compressor
tanks, and old recycled drive shafts, and snow blower hoods, and old air tanks.”
No, McCullum isn’t an auto mechanic, or a junk dealer. He’s an architect by trade, who likes to
create recycled art in his spare time. But McCullum doesn’t have to go far for re-use materials
when he begins a project. He just walks downstairs and scrounges around in his basement.
McCullum says he saves everything – and he’s especially partial to automobile salvage.
“I have so much steel, and so much stuff that I’ve recycled in my basement that it would take a
small crew to move that stuff out, and that’s just the way I create.”
McCullum says there are plenty of worn out or broken parts from his own cars down there. And
he’s never one to pass up somebody else’s cast off muffler or tire tread abandoned at the side of
the road. McCullum hauls it all home for his next project. And if he does run into roadblock
while creating? McCullum says he loves to go shopping – at the junkyard of course.
“It’s like shopping at the mall for me. I like climbing through the piles, and digging through
something, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Like, oh… this could be a great head, and sit
that aside… I go looking for a part and I come out with like a couple hundred pounds worth of
steel. Like, yeahhhh, like there was a big sale at the mall and I’m coming out with the spoils of
my labor.”
But make no mistake, for McCullum re-use isn’t an idle past time, it’s a professional and personal
commitment. As both an artist and an architect he says he believes in the beauty and the
possibility of preserving everything. McCullum says things can and should last. He says it’s
purely a matter of vision.
“Basically, anything that is discarded can be re-used in a wide variety of ways, just people don’t
have the vision or that kind of mentality to really think in a different way. And that’s really what
this whole project is about – the Art on Wheels thing in general – you can re-use everything.”
(sound of kid yelling, “Look a bug car! There’s a bug on top!”)
MCullum says the unusual automobile inspired sculptures were fun to make – and to look at.
Mind you, he doesn’t expect to see gremlin cars or cement truck chickens roaring down the
highway anytime soon. But McCullum says hopefully the exhibit will help turn people on to the
possibilities of recycling.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.
New light is being shed on one of your shopping choices. Some conservation biologists have been critical of coffee that its distributors tout as better for the environment because it’s shade grown. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
New light is being shed on one of your shopping choices. Some conservation biologists have been critical of coffee that its distributors tout as better for the environment because it’s shade grown. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports…
The idea is that shade grown coffee is better for the environment than coffee grown in full sunlight. That’s because rather than clearing the land for the coffee bushes, it leaves tropical rain forest trees standing. But some biologists say that’s not the same as leaving the rainforest intact. So, they say it actually accelerates the destruction of tropical forests.
Stacy Philpott is a co-author of an article in the December issue of Conservation Biology. She says with rigorous certification programs and fair trade policies, shade grown does mean conservation-friendly coffee bean farming.
“If there is a high diversity of shade trees, that helps maintain a lot of particular species of animals that live there.”
Philpott notes that shade-grown coffee certainly beats the alternative of clearing the land and planting coffee bush varieties that produce higher yields in the full sun.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Almost forty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in northwestern Pennsylvania. Hundreds of Seneca Indians lost their land, homes and traditions to the dam’s reservoir. Now a new generation of Senecas is trying to preserve a way of life that many believe was nearly inundated by this federal project. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray has this story:
Transcript
Almost forty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in northwestern
Pennsylvania. Hundreds of Seneca Indians lost their land, homes and traditions to the dam’s
reservoir. Now a new generation of Senecas is trying to preserve a way of life that many believe
was nearly inundated by this federal project. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray
has this story:
(students playing outside school)
It’s a sunny day in Salamanca, New York. Young Seneca students lurch and lunge in a game of
keep away.
(students playing game: “Let go! Let go!”)
Although they look like any group of kids
at recess, they share a big responsibility.
(kids playing ball outside)
“My Indian name is Gayanose. My English name is Brooke Crouse- Kennedy. I’m here because
I’m trying to be one of the ones to preserve our culture and just learn.”
Brooke and 12 other students are here at the Faithkeepers School to learn the Seneca language
and the teachings of the Longhouse religion. The health of these cultural benchmarks declined
after the Kinzua Reservoir flooded one-third of the Alleghany Reservation and scattered tribal
families. The cedar wood school now rests on the upper reaches of the reservation – a narrow strip
of land that follows the Allegheny River from Pennsylvania to New York.
(Dowdy and kids in classroom)
“What kinds of things do you need that’s growing on earth?”
“Food.”
This morning, longtime teacher Sandy Dowdy, works with very young students. In 1998, she and
her husband Dar rallied the community and started the school. They’re two of only 200 Senecas
who can still speak their language.
“Now do you see why Yoedzade is so important? Everything we need is on Yoedzade.”
Thanking Yoedzade, the earth, and its creator for the bounty of nature is the building block for
learning the Seneca language and ceremonies. Today, this handful of students learns a shorter
version of the thanksgiving speech. The speech stresses the interconnection between the natural
world and the well being of individual people.
(Dowdy and kids recite thanksgiving speech in Seneca)
“We cover just the ceremonial part and the giving thanks part in the morning and then in the
afternoon, we study things. We look into erosion and pollution and all of those things
that we can do to protect those things we just gave thanks for.”
These lessons have a real life application in the school’s small gardens. The early Senecas
depended on gardens to survive. Fruits and vegetables were so important to the tribe’s existence
that they appear in many of their stories and ceremonies. Senecas continued to farm until their
fertile bottom land was flooded by the Kinzua reservoir.
Following the traditional cycles of their
ancestors, Landon Sequoyah and the other kids now help with planting and harvesting.
“The corn’s right there. A long time ago they used to have big things of corn and beans and squash. That’s the Three
Sisters. That’s the Three Sisters. Guindioth and the Three Sisters. He was going back
up to the Skyworld and they grabbed onto his legs and they told him not to go or
they could go with them but he was like,’No, you have to stay down
here to feed our people.'”
Murray: “If you hadn’t been in school would you ever had a garden?”
“I don’t think so cause I was going to a public school and I didn’t know hardly anything about our
culture.”
Many Senecas on the Alleghany Reservation believe their culture was nearly lost when the
Kinzua Dam was built. The Senecas and others strongly protested this project. But their
arguments were turned down in the courts and the U.S. Congress. Tyler Heron is an elder and
Seneca historian. He says that the Canandaigua Treaty of 1794 guaranteed that Seneca land
would remain untouched by the United States government.
“But the politics change over 200 years. We weren’t the threat. We weren’t the political power
any more. The threat, I guess, was the river itself to Pittsburgh …the flooding. It was the
threat to the economy.”
Major floods along the lower Allegheny prompted the federal government to act. To make way
for the dam, 600 Senecas were moved from their homes along the riverbanks. In 1964,
contractors burned and bulldozed Seneca houses, trees and public buildings. Churches and
cemeteries were moved. Heron, who was 17 at the time, says life as he knew it has changed.
“Even the ecology of the river itself has changed. My wife, for instance, used to make her extra
money as a teenager by catching soft-shelled crabs and selling them to the bait companies
but I don’t think there’s a soft-shelled crab in the river anymore.”
Aquatic plants were lost as well. The reservoir also inundated hardwoods used for carving
ceremonial masks and many medicinal plants. Heron, whose grandchildren attend the
Faithkeepers School, says these children are learning to identify the remaining plants. They’re
learning to speak the language and lead the ceremonies and carry on for a community that lost its
ancestral home along the Allegheny.
“Our existence is dependent on us …dependent on us only. And we have to keep our identifiers.
How do we keep our identity? Well,language. It starts right here.”
(Kids playing in front of Faithkeepers school. One child speaks in seneca. Fades into traditional
Seneca chant.)
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Murray.
Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb unplanned growth:
Transcript
Environmentalists scored a huge victory at the polls earlier this month, when a Midwestern city and its
surrounding townships agreed to a tax to preserve a belt of green space. The plan marks one of the first
locally funded efforts in the Midwest to fight sprawl. Sprawl often occurs when developers pave over
farmland and other natural resources to create strip malls and subdivisions. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Julie Halpert takes a look at whether this plan will fulfill its promise to curb urban sprawl:
Voters in Ann Arbor, Michigan gave the nod to a 30 year tax to preserve roughly 8,000 acres of land. It’s
one of the first measures in the Great Lakes states to set up a major regional funding plan for curbing
growth. Sprawl is prominent in the area and Ann Arbor and its surrounding townships will share the
preservation costs. The proposal will allow the city to purchase easements on land. That will prohibit the
land’s future development and preserve it.
Elizabeth Humphrey is the director of the Growth Management Leadership Alliance in Washington, D.C.
She says citizens are fed up with seeing houses overtake park lands. So anti-sprawl initiatives, like Ann
Arbor’s, are gaining popularity among all political parties.
“I think the loss of open space is the one thing that we all see as the big threat of sprawl. It’s tangible.
You can see it in the field you used to play in when you grew up. It disappears and that’s visceral. And I
think that appeals to everybody who’s really concerned about how we’re growing.”
Humphrey says that Ann Arbor’s program is a good approach, since it focuses on regional development.
And while scenic areas like Boulder, Colorado and Portland, Oregon have greenbelts in place, the
Midwest generally hasn’t followed. But that could all change now, according to Mike Garfield. He’s
director of The Ecology Center, which spearheaded the plan.
“I think that what we did Tuesday in Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor township could lead to a wave of new
conservation easement programs and farmland programs around Michigan and throughout the Great
Lakes Region.”
Garfield says his group’s win showed it was possible to successfully trounce a formidable opponent: the
homebuilders. Homebuilders feared the plan would limit housing choices. They spent a quarter of a
million dollars to fight it. Garfield’s hopeful that this victory will help preserve Ann Arbor’s high quality
of life and its vital downtown. In a mere ten minutes, he’s able to walk to work without fighting traffic.
And he thinks the ‘yes’ vote indicated that Ann Arbor residents value that kind of living. But Garfield
realizes not everyone in Ann Arbor agrees with him.
“And of course there were some people in town who are not developers and home builders who opposed
it because it was a tax or because they believed some of the arguments or they didn’t trust city hall or
something like that.”
Niki Wardner is one of those people. She lives in a ranch on an acre of land overlooking a public golf
course in Ann Arbor’s wooded residential section. A handful of vote no signs are perched against her
door. Wardner lobbied heavily with other citizens against the Ann Arbor plan. She thinks 30 years is
way too long for a tax.
“They’re going to bond this issue, this proposal, i.e., take a mortgage out. We can never change it.
There’s no accountability. How do we know 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years, what’s going on with
it?”
Wardner’s concerned that this plan was rushed to the ballot without details on how it would work and
what kind of land will be purchased. She thinks something needs to be done about sprawl. But she’s not
sure this is the solution. And she also thinks residents won’t agree to the increased development that will
likely occur downtown and where she lives.”
“Personally, you know, I bought my piece of property because I live on a park and you know, we all like
trees and green space and I don’t think anyone wants townhouses or condos or a five story building in
their backyard.”
And building more homes downtown is a central part of the plan. Doug Kelbaugh is Dean of The
University of Michigan’s College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He says that to avoid sprawling
out, more people need to live in the city’s center.
“There aren’t enough people living downtown. It’s the living downtown, the downtown residential
development, that will do the most to decrease sprawl, decrease the number of commute trips, decrease
the length of commute trips, increase the walkability, increase the livability and the urbanity of Ann
Arbor lifestyles.”
Kelbaugh says if that denser development occurs, that means houses will have to be built on smaller lots.
That could curb housing price spikes by adding to housing supply. He said that if carried out responsibly,
Ann Arbor’s plan could be a small, but important first step in attacking sprawl.
“As long as gasoline is so cheap and farmland is so cheap, we will tend to have sprawl in America. This
is a major model that’s prevailed in America for 50 or 60 years, if not a little longer and it’s going to take
a little while to turn it around. But this is a significant beginning.”
Other towns are looking to preserve green space just like Ann Arbor’s doing. They’ll be closely watching
to see if it works.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Halpert.
There were millions of acres of prairie in the Midwest when white settlers arrived in the early 1800s. Today, only a tiny fraction of these native grasslands remain. In recent years, there’s been renewed interest in restoring old prairies and creating new ones. But when financial realities conflict with land protection efforts, even the most devoted prairie lovers must make a difficult choice. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Springer reports:
Transcript
There were millions of acres of prairie in the Midwest when white settlers arrived in the early
1800s. Today, only a tiny fraction of these native grasslands remain. In recent years, there’s
been renewed interest in restoring old prairies and creating new ones. But when financial realities
conflict with land protection efforts, even the most devoted prairie lovers must make a difficult
choice. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tom Springer reports:
This is not a sight that Bev Villareal ever wanted to see. On her restored prairie near Plainwell,
Michigan, there’s a dozen men and women armed with shovels and buckets. They’re digging up
native plants by the hundreds and carting them off in a pick-up truck.
Bev Villareal settles into her favorite chair and lights up a Capri Super-Slim cigarette. The scene
from her back window would look familiar to a 19th century pioneer. It’s a real prairie, with
plenty of rare flowers and enough tall grass to fatten a buffalo. But with her chronic lung disease,
Villareal can’t get out much to enjoy it.
“Well, my health has been going down, and I do have some bad habits, health-wise. So I know
that it’s in my will that’s the kids are to sell the farm, so, yeah, because I know this place will be
developed and that’s it.”
Villareal says she bought the farm “for a steal” in the early 1960s. Back then, she spent her days
cooped up in a meat-packing plant. And this was her country retreat. She loved outdoor work.
She built a fieldstone wall with her own hands. And she especially loved to raise flowers. She’d
sell cut daffodils, iris and zinnias from a little table in her driveway.
“I belong to gardening club here in Plainwell, and I always tell them I’m not a gardener, I’m a
flower grower.”
Then in 1990, Villareal’s daughter introduced her to Bob Pleznac. At first, they weren’t exactly
kindred spirits. Bev Villareal’s a blue-collar type. She likes flowers because they’re pretty. Bob
Pleznac’s a bankruptcy attorney. He calls plants by their Latin names. And he knows more than
you’ll ever want to hear about prairies. Yet when Pleznac visited Villareal’s land, he saw the
potential for a new kind of natural garden.
“Just looking at the property and seeing what it looked like, and knowing Bev’s love for flowers,
I knew that the prairie plants would love this land and that Bev would love the prairie plants.”
And he was right – Bev loved the idea. When Bev and Bob first planted their prairie, it covered
an area the size of a small house. Today, it spreads across about seven acres of rolling hillside.
On this fall afternoon, clumps of native grass the color of buckskin tremble in the breeze. Dried
stalks of purple, yellow and orange wildflowers linger on as reminders of summer’s glory.
And now, autumn has come for Bev Villareal and her prairie. Neither she nor anyone else she
knows can afford to save it. Once the property’s sold, it will probably sprout quarter-million-
dollar houses instead of black-eyed susans.
But the volunteers out in her backyard are working to see that this prairie survives. Christy
Chapman is with the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy. She’s pulling out clumps of
wildflowers and stuffing them into a plastic trash bag.
“Yeah, It’s like prairie in a box, we box up something and we might have three or four good
plants all living together and we dig up the plug, put in a bag, cart it down the street and plop it
back in. So it should do real well.”
The volunteers are excited by their work. Yet Bob Pleznac just can’t bring himself to pick up a
shovel. For him, it’s a necessary, but bittersweet undertaking.
“I hate to think about this beauty being paved over, but we’ve got a terrific opportunity now.
This is harvest time. It’s time to get the seed off this prairie, as much as we can, with all the
volunteers that have come in here from the Wild Ones Club and from the Southwest Michigan
Land Conservancy, and we’re going to be able to do with these plants what we set out to do.”
The plants are being moved to the Chipman Preserve. It’s a rolling, 180-acre parcel near
Kalamazoo. It’s owned by the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy. It doesn’t look like a
prairie yet, but Bev Villareal’s plants will help change that. Nate Fuller is a Conservancy staff
member. In his mind’s eye he can see a prairie here. He also envisions an oak savanna, a wild
grassland dotted with trees.
“Well, here we’re standing on the edge of what is going to be the boundary between our savanna
and prairie. You can see there’s some oaks up here, you might hear the wind going through those
leaves there, there’s some staghorn sumac around, there’s also quite a bit of scotch pine hanging
on, a bunch of black cherries. But mostly it’s pretty open, you can see some rolling landscape,
and we’re gonna keep this pretty open.”
Survey records from the 1800s show that this site was once a prairie. With careful management,
that age-old landscape will return. For Nate Fuller and his transplant crew, the hard part is
knowing when to stop.
“It’s kind of like being a kid in a candy store, with free rein, I tell ya (laughs) there’s so many
neat plants. It’s ‘Oh, we gotta get that one, we gotta get that one, we can’t stop now!’ and
watching all the volunteers go, I’m trying to tell them, ‘The trucks loaded, we gotta go,’ and they
say ‘No, we can’t leave any behind! And it’s ‘will be back, will be back, don’t worry.'”
Some prairie plants can live to be 100 years old. And the lands protected by the Southwest
Michigan Land Conservancy are permanently restricted from development. So the flowers and
grasses from Bev Villareal’s property will be safe here. And at this new address, her prairie
legacy will bloom for generations yet to come.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tom Springer.
The Selkirk Lighthouse circa 1860-1870. (Photo courtesy of Jim Walker)
Lighthouses often hold a special place in people’s hearts. They’re viewed as symbols of America’s maritime history. The beacons guiding sailors back to safe harbor are metaphors for guiding lights in our lives too. That might be why the idea of spending a little time living in one of the historic structures is so appealing to many people. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde talked with the owners of a lighthouse that’s now operated as a place to vacation:
Transcript
Lighthouses often hold a special place in people’s hearts. They’re viewed as symbols of
America’s maritime history. The beacons guiding sailors back to safe harbor are metaphors for
guiding lights in our lives too. That might be why the idea of spending a little time living in one
of the historic structures is so appealing to many people. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Skye Rohde talked with the owners of a lighthouse that’s now operated as a place to vacation:
The Selkirk lighthouse sits at the mouth of the Salmon River on Lake Ontario. It’s scenic,
although the area is not very well known – except to salmon fishers. But some people, once they
visit find they keep coming back. Jim walker was one of those people.
“I didn’t move to Pulaski to buy the lighthouse at all. I was living and working quite comfortably
with a family in a lovely location in Maine and came out here on a fishing trip. A friend of mine
got ahold of me and said, ‘We have to go to a place called Pulaski, New York.’ I said, ‘Pulaski,
New York. Now what’s a good reason for going there?'”
Walker came to Pulaski on Veteran’s Day weekend in 1986 with 10 friends. But when the time
came for them to leave, half the group didn’t want to go.
“They were just having such a great time. We were fishing in the snow in the river, catching
steelhead, having a ball. And none of us had had the chance to experience anything like this
before.”
A couple of the men started talking about investing in the area’s hospitality industry. They
looked at some properties over the winter, and when the Selkirk lighthouse came up for sale in
1987, walker made an offer.
Sixteen years later, walker has turned the old lighthouse into short-term rental housing. It’s
become a popular stop with a 98-percent occupancy rate and visitors from over 100 countries.
Since then the lighthouse has operated as a lifesaving station, private residence, resort and
“designated historic landmark.” In 1989, the coast guard reactivated the Selkirk lighthouse
lantern.
The lighthouse itself is a 3-story rectangular stone building with an octagonal glass lantern house
on top. Wayne Wheeler is President of the San Francisco-based U.S. lighthouse society.
Wheeler says the Selkirk lighthouse is one of a dying breed.
“It’s a unique structure in that it has the old-style lantern on the tower. There are only three or
four of those remaining in the country.”
Only 20 of the 600 lighthouses across the nation offer some kind of lodging, either in the actual
working lighthouse or in keepers’ quarters nearby.
Richard Moehl is President of the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, which
encourages lighthouse preservation and restoration on the Great Lakes. Moehl says people
appreciate the uniqueness of spending the night in a lighthouse.
“People just love to be able to say ‘I did this, and at a historic lighthouse,’ versus a walk-through,
one-time light station. You have an opportunity to work there and live there, eat there, cook
there.”
And people will pay for the chance to do just that.
Nicole Paternaster is Manager of the Selkirk lighthouse and has worked there off and on for 15
years. Walking in through the kitchen door, she points out the building’s attributes.
Bathroom, stand-up shower and the kitchen area are mainly what make up the addition part of the
lighthouse. And here’s the stone wall that I just absolutely love. And all the amenities of home
away from home… (fades under)
It’s homey and relaxed. The floorboards in the first-floor bedroom are original. Paternaster and
walker are working to replace the windows with original-style ones, whenever the lighthouse isn’t
occupied.
The staircase to the third floor is blocked off right now, since a couple of stairs up to the
lighthouse are too rickety to use. But you can get to the top. Nicole Paternaster led me, creeping
past the roof rafters and around the spiral staircase, through a wooden portal and then up a metal
ladder leaned against the wall. At the top we popped up in the lantern room itself.
“You can see the river, you can see the lake, you can see what’s called Deer Creek Marsh. But it
is absolutely gorgeous. And of course, today it’s a windy day, so you can see all the waves
breaking out there. I just love it.”
The guests love it too. New Jersey resident Len Levonaitis and his family have fished in the area
for 15 years.
“When I go on vacation, I don’t want to be in the midst of the craziness, you know, downtown
Pulaski, where the salmon fishing is hot and heavy and there are hundreds of guys there. It’s nice
to be able to go out and find a place like the lighthouse. What’s nice about it is that it’s right
there, you know, on the lake. You can see the fish coming in.”
Like Levonaitis, many guests find themselves visiting again. Some have already booked their
stays for 2004 and even 2005.
Jim Walker says owning the lighthouse has been a valuable experience, but after 16 years he’s
ready to pass the torch on to somebody else and focus on other business.
“I’ve reached the hard conclusion of trying to recruit a replacement. No, that’s not just put a
piece of property on the market for sale, but it’s to recruit someone who basically has a younger
body, a lot of motivation and similar ideals to try to pick up and carry the ball from here.”
Walker has advertised the property in different lighthouse publications. It’s listed at one-and-a-
quarter million dollars. So far, there have been a few inquiries.
“It’s a very, very unusual place, one of the last of its kind. That’s, that’s the type of thing we
need to polish up and pass along to the best of our ability.”
Walker says he’s sure the right person will emerge to keep the light shining and the door open to
future guests at the Selkirk lighthouse.
For the great lakes radio consortium, I’m Skye Rohde.
