The government is trying to reel in the red tape that is keeping offshore wind farms, like this one, from being built in the US. (Photo by Les Salty, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
The biggest obstacle to putting wind turbines offshore – out of sight of the shoreline – is not technology. It’s not money. It’s government red tape.
Now, the federal government says it wants to streamline the permitting process. Mark Brush reports the goal is to get offshore wind turbines off the drawing boards and into the oceans:
Transcript
The biggest obstacle to putting wind turbines offshore – out of sight of the shoreline – is not technology. It’s not money. It’s government red tape.
Now, the federal government says it wants to streamline the permitting process. Mark Brush reports the goal is to get offshore wind turbines off the drawing boards and into the oceans:
There are several states that are hoping to build the country’s first big offshore wind farm.
The government says sighting wind farms in the ocean is a great idea. It’s windy. And the giant wind turbines could provide power in places where it’s needed most – to the big cities off the nation’s coasts.
But there’s some fighting going on between government agencies. And that’s been tripping up permits for these wind farms.
Ken Salazar is the Secretary of the Interior. He recently spoke to a Senate committee about the infighting:
“There has been a jurisdictional feud that has gone on for quite awhile – unresolved – between FERC and the Department of Interior relative to the sighting of renewable energy facilities in the Outer Continental Shelf.”
Salazar says the agencies have now reached an agreement. So there shouldn’t be any more delays at the federal level.
But offshore wind farms face a lot of hoops at the state level as well. So it still could be awhile before the country’s first big offshore wind farm goes up.
Drier areas will
find a warmer climate makes things tougher, but other areas might benefit
(Photo by Patrick Tregenza, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)
Farmers are starting to see signs
of climate change. One crop that’s more
susceptible to change than most is the wine
grape. Lester Graham reports not everybody
thinks that’s bad:
Transcript
Farmers are starting to see signs
of climate change. One crop that’s more
susceptible to change than most is the wine
grape. Lester Graham reports not everybody
thinks that’s bad:
Vineyards are likely to be especially affected by climate change.
Gregory Jones is a research climatologist at Southern Oregon University. He says
growing grapes for wine is always a tricky business, and climate change will make it
tricker.
Gregory Jones: “Pinot noir is produced in a cool climate and cabernet sauvignon in
a warm climate, and you cannot produce one in the other without having it affect
style, quality and flavor.”
So, grape growers across the nation are watching things closely. Drier areas will
find it tougher, but other areas actually might benefit.
Bill Hendricks is showing me his vines. Pinot grigio, cabernet franc, cabernet
sauvignon.
Hendricks says grape growers in central Michigan – where he is, Virginia, Missouri, California – they’re all beginning to see changes.
“They see it coming. You know, the record year of ’99—what, 2001 I also think.
Like, last year we were about ten days above norm. This year we’re four days above
norm.”
As the climate changes, some vineyards might have to switch to different varietals –
different kinds of grapes.
(sound of the peninsula)
More than 200 miles northwest of Hendrick’s vineyards, on a peninsula jutting into Lake Michigan, there’s a wine
growing area called Leelanau. It’s known for its white wines. It’s always been a little too
cool for red wine grapes, but things are changing.
Chalie Edson is the vintner at Bel Lago Vineyard and Winery. He says he doesn’t
want to call the warmer seasons global warming.
“Not being a climatologist, I’m going to answer
‘no.’ It’s tempting to say ‘Yes, yes. It’s getting warmer.’ Whether that translates into
overall increase of warmth in expected temperatures in the years to come, I think that’s still
somewhat speculative. But, I sort of hope that it happens.”
Yep, you heard right. Global warming would be beneficial to Edson. You might be
wondering, ‘why?’ Well, because this climate is better suited to white wines, and red wines
sell better.
“People come to northern
Michigan just like they come to any other winemaking region and they ask for reds.
We’ve made some really great progress in the last ten years in making reds as the
winemakers learn better how to utilize the fruit that we have here. And we’ve also
had a string of really warm vintages.”
But right now, Leelanua County is known for its white wines.
Climatologist, Gregory Jones says there’s a real question whether wine
consumers will be able to keep up with the changes.
“If you’re in a historic region that’s always produced pinot noir and all of a sudden
you really can’t do that, you know, because the climate’s changed, then you’re going
to grow merlot and you’re going to do it very well in that same place, but the
consumer has to be retrained.”
And so Burgandy wines might not come from Burgandy in the future, and wine
drinkers will have to try to keep up.
(sound of bottles clinking and price-tag gun clicking)
At Plum Market in Ann Arbor, Michigan, wine buyer Rod Johnson says climate
change has been a good thing for wine – so far.
“So, places like Michigan which traditionally have been too cold is suddenly seeing a
lot of different wines like pinot grigio and riesling, even pinot noir being able to be
grown here. So that’s beneficial. Same thing in Germany. They’ve had great year
after great year after great year in Germany where it used to be they were too cold.
When we get to the point that we’re hurting the wine business, I think there will be a
lot more hurt going elsewhere in the world.”
So if those dry California areas or Mediterranean areas get too warm and too dry for
wine grapes, that’ll probably be the least of their worries.
Chet Meyers surveys the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve for Red-headed Woodpeckers. He's heading up a study to identify the bird's preferred habitat, and to encourage landowners to let dead and dying trees stand, as woodpecker homes. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)
This red-headed woodpecker has just stored an acorn for use in the coming winter. The word for
this is cache. (Photo by Jim Williams)
Red-headed woodpeckers used to
be just about everywhere east of the Rocky
Mountains. But these days the number of
red-headed woodpeckers is about half of
what it was fifty years ago. Stephanie
Hemphill reports volunteers
are working on a new project to get people
to help red-headed woodpeckers. They’re
encouraging landowners to let dead or dying
trees stand rather than cut them down:
Transcript
Red-headed woodpeckers used to
be just about everywhere east of the Rocky
Mountains. But these days the number of
red-headed woodpeckers is about half of
what it was fifty years ago. Stephanie
Hemphill reports volunteers
are working on a new project to get people
to help red-headed woodpeckers. They’re
encouraging landowners to let dead or dying
trees stand rather than cut them down:
You can’t miss Red-headed Woodpeckers. They have long beaks,
bright red heads and snowy white breasts. And if you go to the right
place, you can find a lot of them.
“Somebody told me that there was Red-headed Woodpeckers up
here, so I walked five minutes, and there was a Red-headed
Woodpecker, and it flew into a hole in a tree, and I says, ‘wow, this is
easy.’”
Lance Nelson first visited the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science
Reserve about a year ago.
“And then I came up this year and found 8 nests. But the young
make a lot of chattering, so you can usually tell where the nest is.”
Today they’re not hammering on trees – the sound most of us
associate with woodpeckers – but they’re doing plenty of chattering.
This reserve in southern Minnesota looks a lot like how much of the
Midwest used to look.
There are clumps of big oak trees here, separated by open areas of
native grasses, shrubs and wildflowers. The biologists call it an oak
savannah.
And there are Red-headed Woodpeckers everywhere – about fifty of
them on this 500-acre patch of ground.
“There’s a red-headed, and he’s got a baby with him. God, they’re
beautiful. They are so beautiful.”
That’s Chet Meyers. After a career as a college professor, he’s now
in charge of an effort to make more places where Red-headed
Woodpeckers can build their nests and raise their young.
If they can figure out exactly what the woodpeckers like so much
about this place, maybe they can come close to reproducing the
same conditions other places.
Chet Meyers is marking every tree where the woodpeckers have
nested.
“See these two trees to the left, go to the right-most one, it forks, and
there’s a broken-off snag up there, looks like a ‘Y’. That’s where the
babies were sticking their head out a couple weeks ago. It was really
cute.”
Once the trees are marked, the group will catalog exact descriptions
of each tree. They’re hoping to come up with a profile of the perfect
home for Red-headed Woodpeckers.
“And we’re going to measure the diameter of the tree, how high the
nest cavity is, the species of the tree, is it alive or is it dead, so we
can get some data on what seems to be the preferred habitat.”
Once they’re pretty sure they know what the woodpeckers like, they’ll
reach out to land owners. They’ll to try to get them to leave dead and
dying trees standing.
That could work on old abandoned farms, where there are trees and
open spaces. Or in cemeteries. Or around golf courses.
“If our theory – see, this is all theory – if our theory is correct, the golf
course replicates an oak savannah and there should be birds there.
So, that’s what we’re hoping.”
And Meyers says helping woodpeckers means helping other wildlife
too.
“The woodpecker is called a primary nester, it digs the cavity. But
flying squirrels, mice, snakes, bluebirds, tree swallows – there are lots
of other animals that are secondary nesters. They can’t drill the hole.
But they live there. So what we’re trying to do is preserve the habitat
so the woodpeckers drill the hole and when they leave, something
else will come in and live in it.”
The researchers think if you have dead or dying tree, that could be a
home for a Red-headed Woodpecker. But usually homeowners are
worried the tree could fall and damage something, Meyers says you
can cut off the top and some of the bigger branches and leave the
rest of the tree standing. They think the red-headed woodpecker will
be just as happy.
For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.
The recent appearance of a new invasive species shows just how easily an even worse invader could make its way into the Great Lakes. Rebecca Williams reports the invaders are hitching a ride in the ballast water of foreign ships:
Transcript
The recent appearance of a new invasive species shows just how easily an
even worse invader could make its way into the Great Lakes. Rebecca
Williams reports the invaders are hitching a ride in the ballast water of
foreign ships:
The new shrimp that’s here is called the bloody red mysid. Scientists say
the shrimp eat tiny organisms at the bottom of the food web… and could
compete with fish for food.
Steve Pothoven is a fisheries biologist with the Great Lakes Environmental
Research Lab. He discovered thousands of the shrimp near Lake Michigan.
“They’re originally from the Ponto-Caspian region, which is the Black and
Caspian Seas. The Ponto-Caspian is the same region that zebra mussels,
quaggas mussels are from, gobies, so that’s the region we’ve got a lot of
the more recent well known invaders.”
Scientists have an eye out for another invader from that same region. It’s
called the killer shrimp. It’s known for biting and shredding its victims…
and doesn’t always eat what it kills. Some scientists are worried if it
gets in, the killer shrimp could cause even more devastation to the Great
Lakes food web.
Construction along the shorelines can put a strain on natural systems. (Photo by Carole Swinehart/Michigan Sea Grant Extension)
One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:
Transcript
We’re continuing our look at ‘Ten Threats to the Great Lakes.’
Lester Graham is our guide through the series. He says the
experts who were surveyed to determine the threats say rapid
development is among the problems affecting the lakes:
One of the more subtle but relentless threats to the Great Lakes is
coastal development. Condos, ever larger and nicer beach homes
and buildings and parking lots in the watershed all have an
impact on the Lakes. As the population grows and the suburban
lifestyle keeps spreading, the health of the lakes is compromised
in countless tiny ways. Reporter Peter Payette finds those tiny
ways all add up:
Greg Reisig is standing at the edge of a 20-acre construction site
just down the street from the shore Lake Michigan.
Below him is a man-made pond a few hundred feet long. It was a
dry summer around here, but the pond is full.
In fact, Reisig says the water level is always the same.
“And that indicates there’s a lot of ground water flowing
here…there’s a lot of water in this pond and you can see what
was a whole big wetland complex…there’s a lot of cedar and red
osier dogwood…all the wetland plants.”
There are no wetlands here now.
The site in northern Michigan was excavated for homes a few
years ago.
But now the Army Corps of Engineers says the wetlands that
were here need to be restored. A few acres likely will be
restored. But Reisig says almost the whole site was wetlands
once. He expects it will soon be a subdivision with not much
more than a drainage ditch connecting it to Lake Michigan.
“What will that do to the amount of flow of water going into the
bay? Because of hard road surfaces, hard driveways, roofs,
buildings and supposedly fertilized lawns. What will happen to
the water and how will that increase the flow to the bay?”
The developer’s attorney says this is nonsense. Matt Vermetten
says this land was heavily farmed and mined for clay.
“There are pockets of quote unquote wetland and those are there
because of excavation for clay. So is this a wetland complex of
the nature we speak of when we typically speak of such a thing? I
think not.”
Disputes like this are becoming more common around the Great
Lakes. John Nelson is the baykeeper with the Grand Traverse
Bay Watershed Center. The bay off Lake Michigan and attracts a
lot of people. But Nelson says development doesn’t have to be a
problem.
He says the problem is people don’t think about the ecology of
the lakes. For example, east of Traverse City, Michigan, resorts
dominate the coastline. Along the beach, thick stands of sedges
and rushes extend out a few hundred feet. But the sections of
dark green marsh alternate with stretches of clean sand and white
lawn chairs.
(birds calling on beach)
Nelson grew up here and says this part of the lake was never a
sugar sand beach.
“They’ve located in a coastal marsh. Instead of celebrating and
dealing with that they’ve chosen to see it as they would like to
have it and then change it.”
The impacts of the changes are cumulative. Fish and wildlife
habitat is fragmented. The natural filtering properties of the
wetlands are gone.
So every time the city gets a rain shower all the dust and grime
and pollution are washed right into the lake.
Census data show people are leaving many of the Great Lakes
coastal cities and spreading out along the coastline. But it’s not
clear how local governments should plan for the growth.
Mike Klepinger studies land use planning for the Michigan Sea
Grant program. He says it’s hard to make direct connections
between a healthy lake and particular land uses.
“We are getting more planning along the shoreline than we had
thirty years ago in the state. The number of counties and number
of townships that have a plan has gone up, for example. But we
don’t know whether those plans are really doing any good.”
And it’s hard to implement good planning on a broad basis. In
any area, dozens of different local governments might have
independent control over development.
Multiply that by the number cities, townships and counties along
the coasts of the Great Lakes… and it’s hard to see how it all can
be managed so that enough coastline habitat is preserved.
The government is trying to reel in the red tape that is keeping offshore wind farms, like this one, from being built in the US. (Photo by Les Salty, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
