Researchers at the University of Delaware have found that planting trees around poultry farms has many benefits (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:
Transcript
As suburbs are built closer to
farms, there are sometimes complaints
about the odors. Researchers are now
working to smooth things out between
farmers and their new neighbors. Jessi
Ziegler has the story on one
of the simple solutions they found:
If you’ve ever driven by a chicken farm, you know the
smell can get pretty bad.
So, imagine living by one, and smelling it every single day.
Well, researchers may have come up with a solution –
trees.
Planting a few rows of trees around a farm can do all sorts
of good.
They capture dust and ammonia. And they block noise
and odor.
Also, they make the farm look a lot prettier. Which,
researcher George Malone says, can make a big difference.
“There’s been other studies to indicate that attractive
farms, statistically, have less odor than unattractive farms.
Perception is reality of what we deal with.”
And the perception is, the better you think a farm looks,
the better you think it smells.
For The Environment Report, this is Jessi Ziegler.
Aimee Hurt, with the group Working
Dogs for Conservation (Photo by Brian Mann)
Wicket, on the trail of some moose pellets (Photo by Brian Mann)
Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:
Transcript
Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:
It’s early, the sun still tangled in the alder trees, when we set off
on foot down a
narrow logging road.
(sound of walking down the road)
Soon, Heidi Kretser with the Wildlife Conservation Society finds the
first evidence that
we’re not alone.
“These are moose tracks.”
New York’s moose population has surged in recent years, to move than
500 animals.
Researchers have been tracking moose using airplanes and radio collars.
But today, were tagging along behind a cheerful black lab mix named
Wicket.
(sound of dog’s collar jingling)
Wicket flashes back and forth across the trail, snuffling eagerly.
She wears a bright
red vest and that tinkling bell is designed to keep her from actually
meeting a moose
head-on.
Her owner and handler, Aimee Hurt, says using dogs to find biological
samples – everything from plants to rare birds – isn’t new.
“I think if you talk to a lot of biologists who’ve been out
in the field for
decades, ‘Oh yeah, my dog figured out that we were looking for —
whatever.’ And they
started honing in on it and helping out. So I really think that dog’s
have been
biologists’ partners for a long time.”
Hurt’s organization – Working Dogs for Conservation, based in Montana
– took the idea
one step further, training dogs in much the same way that police train
K-9 units.
Wicket knows how to find six different kinds of scat, including
mountain lion, grizzly
bear – and now moose
“She is an air-scent dog, which means there’s no tracking
involved — she’s
just sniffing the air for a whiff of scat.”
Heidi Kretser, with the Wildlife Conservation Society, says moose
droppings can tell a
lot about why these Clydesdale-sized animals are returning to New York, what they’re
eating, and how they’ll reshape this forest if their numbers keep
growing.
“By understanding the diet, we’ll get a better sense of what
habitats they
might impact long-term, since they eat 40 pounds of vegetation a day.”
(sound of birds and footsteps)
Wicket leads the team on long ramble through the radiant lime green
forest, and down
across a burbling creek.
(sound of creek)
We see moose sign everywhere – mule-sized tracks, maple trees
stripped of bark. And
then Wicket sniffs out her first pile of droppings.
“Whoopee, good girl. Very nice!”
More poop means better data. So the pellets are trucked away in a
plastic bag for the
trip back to the lab.
For Wicket, the reward is a few minutes of joyous play with a squishy
rubber ball.
(sound of squeezing toy)
“Let’s get to work!” (bell jangling)
Then the team is off again, with Wicket snuffling happily through the
trees. Biologists
hope to use the same method to study other wildlife – from grizzlies
to mountain lions.
A team is researching the next generation of bug sprays, some that may not be as smelly or as sticky as DEET (Photo by Lester Graham)
It’s summertime – sometimes known as
mosquito and tick season. For decades, bug
sprays with DEET have been the most effective
to keep those disease-carrying pests away.
But there are some new repellants on the
market – and even more to come. Julie Grant
has the buzz on bug sprays:
Transcript
It’s summertime – sometimes known as
mosquito and tick season. For decades, bug
sprays with DEET have been the most effective
to keep those disease-carrying pests away.
But there are some new repellants on the
market – and even more to come. Julie Grant
has the buzz on bug sprays:
Hot summer nights haven’t changed all that much since
1957. Sure, they’re selling sushi at ball parks these days.
(sound of baseball game)
But, for the most part, people are still using the same bug
spray.
DEET was designed in the 1950s for military use.
Stores started selling it soon after. At this kids’ baseball
game in northeast Ohio, there are as many opinions about
DEET and bug sprays as there are people.
Person 1: “I if I did use bug spray, I would use DEET. I heard that’s the
best.”
Person 2: “No, actually, I am concerned about any kind of chemical. I
don’t like to use it. I don’t think it’s necessary.”
Person 3: “I’ve been scratching all week.”
Julie Grant: “Why don’t you use it?”
Person 3: “Stinks.”
Person 4: “Probably looking for something without DEET, of course,
which is pretty much outlawed anyway.”
Child: “I have a bug bite on my neck.”
Person 4: “Yes, you do have a bug bite on your neck, which is why
we need to go look for something.”
Actually, DEET is not even close to being outlawed. It’s used
hundreds of millions of times each year – by backyard
barbeque-ers and soldiers, alike.
In all these years, there have been only fifty reports of skin
problems or seizures – and those were attributed to gross
overuse, and couldn’t be definitely connected to DEET.
But it is a plasticizer. If it touches your watch face, it will
smear the plastic. And that makes people a little nervous.
And while it does drive away a wide array of bugs, including
mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus, DEET does not protect
against mosquitoes that carry malaria, or ticks that carry
lyme disease and rocky mountain spotted fever.
The worst thing about DEET for lots of people is that
stickiness and that evil smell.
Trisha Branden is a health editor with Consumer Reports
magazine. She says lots of people just don’t like using
DEET.
“But I think everyone has their own sensitivity, particularly
when it comes to the smell and feel of DEET. It’s better to
have some protection than none at all.”
Consumer Reports has surveyed bug sprays and crèmes on
the market.
They found that the higher the concentration of
DEET, the longer it protects you from bugs. At the highest
level, 98% DEET, it lasted half a day.
But some products contain as little as 7% DEET because it
smells so bad.
Some people want something else. The EPA recently
approved a new chemical – called Picaridin. It smells better.
Consumer Reports found that Picaridin products kept
mosquitoes away for up to four hours. That’s not too bad.
It’s better than the natural products. If you use soybean or
peppermint oil, Branden says you’ll probably have to reapply
a lot – at least every two hours.
“If you compare that to Picaridin product or the low DEET
products, that is not nearly the protection.”
Chemist Ulrich Burnier is on a team researching the next
generation of bug sprays. He believes there are more
effective chemicals out there. They’ve tested thousands of
chemicals and narrowed it down to seven.
“If we’re successful, the ideal product will give you 24 hours
protection, so you only have to apply once a day, you’ll be
protected around the clock. It’s not a plasticizer. And,
actually, this morning, I spent time trying to pick up odors
from these seven compounds, and none of us participating in this
study could detect any disagreeable odors from any of these
compounds.”
DEET still works pretty well. But mosquitoes and other
invading insects are thriving. As we experience climate
change, levels of mosquito-borne diseases like malaria are
on the rise.
(sound of baseball game)
When you’re at your nephew’s baseball game, and fending
off bugs, you might need to be a little patient. It could take a
few years. But experts say you should be able to find new
products that you like and that work for you.
The USDA is testing a new bug spray to ward off mosquitos and other pests (Photo by Lester Graham)
Researchers are working on new chemicals
to keep mosquitoes from biting. The Environment
Report’s Mark Brush reports they might have found
a better alternative to DEET:
Transcript
Researchers are working on new chemicals
to keep mosquitoes from biting. The Environment
Report’s Mark Brush reports they might have found
a better alternative to DEET:
The EPA says DEET is safe to use on your skin. But the repellent’s smell and stickiness
turns some people off. And spraying DEET on your skin won’t protect you from all types
of mosquitoes.
So researchers are working on alternatives.
Uli Bernier is research chemist with the USDA. He says their research team is looking
for a compound that will work against some of the most dangerous mosquitoes.
“DEET works against a great variety of insects, but not against all of them. And in
particular some of the malaria transmitting mosquitoes will bite through DEET without
difficulty.”
Bernier says their research has turned up some chemicals that do a better job than DEET.
The chemicals keep mosquitoes from biting for up to three times longer. Bernier says their
next step will be to test the chemicals for possible human health effects and for their
effectiveness on other insects.
(mosquito buzzing sound)
For The Environment Report (sound of swat) – gotcha – I’m Mark Brush.
Officials placed containment booms around the barge. Most of
them failed to prevent the oil from floating downriver, contaminating dozens
of miles of pristine shoreline. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)
Dwayne Chalk at his marina on Fisher's Landing near Alexandria Bay,
NY. In the background, you can see a black stripe of 30-year-old oil on the
dock. The St. Lawrence River has recovered, but Chalk and many others worry
about another spill. (Photo by David Sommerstein)
Blue herons and thousands of other wildlife were victims of the
oil spill of 1976. (Courtesy of the NY State Dept. of Conservation)
30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New York state. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:
Transcript
30 years ago, an oil barge ran aground in the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds
of thousands of gallons of thick crude oil coated the shoreline of northern New
York State. The accident remains one of the largest inland oil spills in the
United States. It’s a reminder that freighters haul millions of gallons of toxic
liquids across the Great Lakes. And many people worry about another spill.
The GLRC’s David Sommerstein talked to witnesses of the 1976 spill:
It was really foggy that morning. Bob Smith awoke to two sounds:
“You could hear the anchor chains going down, and next thing we know
there was a young Coast Guard guy knocking on the front door.”
The Coast Guard guy had driven up, asking around for a missing barge.
Smith remembered the anchor chains echoing across the water that woke
him up. He went outside to look.
(Sound of walking outside)
Thirty years later, Smith lives amidst cozy cottages on manicured lawns in
the heart of the touristy Thousand Islands.
“Just right about straight out there. See where that boat’s coming up there
now?”
That’s where a barge carrying oil from Venezuela had dropped anchor after
running aground. That morning Smith watched crude as thick as mud drift
out of sight downriver:
“If you’re born and raised here on the river, you don’t like to see anything go
in the river that doesn’t belong there.”
The Coast Guard placed booms in the water, but the oil quickly spilled over.
It carried 50 miles downstream. It oozed as far as 15 feet into the river’s
marshes. Tom Brown was the point man for New York’s Department of
Environmental Conservation. He says the spill couldn’t have come at a
worse time for wildlife:
“All the young fish, waterfowl, shorebirds, furbearers, were coming off the
nests and were being born.”
Thousands of birds and fish suffocated in black goo. As images of
devastation flashed on national TV, the spill killed the tourism season, too.
It was a summer with no swimming, no fishing, no dipping your feet in the
water at sunset. Really, it was a summer with no river.
(Sound of river at Chalk’s dock)
30 years later, everyone still remembers the acrid smell:
“When I woke up in the middle of the night and I could smell oil, I was
afraid I had an oil leak in my house.”
Dwayne Chalk’s family has owned a marina on the St. Lawrence for
generations. Chalk points to a black stripe of oil on his docks, still there
three decades later, and he’s still bitter:
“The Seaway has done this area, well, I shouldn’t say that, it hasn’t done any
good. To me it hasn’t.”
The St. Lawrence Seaway opened the ports of the Great Lakes to Atlantic
Ocean freighters carrying cargoes of steel, ore, and liquid chemicals. It
generates billions of dollars a year in commerce, but it’s also brought
pollution and invasive species.
Anthropologist John Omohundro studied the social effects of the 1976 oil
spill. He says it helped awaken environmentalism in the Great Lakes:
“The spill actually raised people’s consciousness that the river could be a
problem in a number of areas, not just oil.”
Groups like Save the River and Great Lakes United began lobbying for
cleaner water and safer navigation in the years after the spill:
“If a vessel carrying oil or oil products were in that same type of ship today,
it would not be allowed in.”
Albert Jacquez is the outgoing administrator for the US side of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. The 1976 barge had one hull and gushed oil when it hit the rocks.
Today’s barges are mostly double-hulled and use computerized navigation.
Jacquez says a lot has changed to prevent spills:
“The ships themselves are different, the regulations that they have to follow are
different, and the inspections are different. Now does that guarantee? Well,
there are no guarantees, period.”
So if there is a spill, the government requires response plans for every part of
the Great Lakes. Ralph Kring leads training simulations of those plans for
the Coast Guard in Buffalo. Still, he says the real thing is different:
“You really can’t control the weather and the currents and all that. It’s definitely going to be a
challenge, especially when you’re dealing with a real live incident where
everyone’s trying to move as fast as they can and also as efficient as they
can.”
Critics question the ability to get responders to remote areas in time. They
also worry about spills in icy conditions and chemical spills that oil booms
wouldn’t contain.
(Sound of river water)
Back on the St. Lawrence River, Dwayne Chalk says the oil spill of 1976
has taught him it’s not if, it’s when, the next big spill occurs:
“You think about it all the time. Everytime a ship comes up through here,
you think what’s going to happen if that ship hits something.”
Chalk and everyone else who relies on the Great Lakes hope they’ll never
have to find out.
That black mold you sometimes find in wet basements might cause more trouble than you think. New research finds that toxins produced by black mold are capable of killing cells that help us smell. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
Transcript
That black mold you sometimes find in wet basements might cause
more trouble than you think. New research finds that toxins
produced by black mold are capable of killing cells that help us
smell. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:
Toxins found in the spores of black mold have been linked to
respiratory and neurological problems. But now, researchers at
Michigan State University have found that the toxins also affect
the nasal passages.
Veterinary Pathologist Jack Harkema was one of the researchers.
He says in the study, mice were given a small, single dose of black
mold toxin.
“When we examined these animals, we found that the cells that are
important to detect odors, or the sense of smell, that within 24
hours they died.”
Harkema says the toxins killed nearly 80 percent of nasal cells that
send signals to the brain. He says more research is needed to better
understand the effects of the toxin on people. That could be
important for thousands who’ve been affected by flooding,
including the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Source: The Humanure Handbook. Jenkins Publishing, PO Box 607, Grove City, PA 16127
www.jenkinspublishing.com
Books can be powerful. Sometimes they can even change your life. As part of our ongoing series on individual choices that impact the environment— “Your Choice; Your Planet”—the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Curtis Gilbert brings us the story of one book that changed his mother’s life… a book that so profoundly affected her that she felt compelled to share its teachings with strangers. It wasn’t the Bible or the Koran… or “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” And the part of his mother’s life that it changed is one so exceedingly private that most people don’t even like to talk about it. He’ll explain:
Transcript
Books can be powerful. Sometimes they can even change your life. As part of our ongoing
series on individual choices that impact the environment — “Your Choice; Your Planet” —
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Curtis Gilbert brings us the story of one book that
changed his mother’s life…a book that so profoundly affected her that she felt compelled
to share its teachings with strangers. It wasn’t the Bible or the Koran… or “Chicken Soup
for the Soul.” And the part of his mother’s life that it changed is one so exceedingly private
that most people don’t even like to talk about it. He’ll explain:
There’s a sound — something familiar to everyone who lives in a Western, industrialized
country — but it’s a sound you’ll almost never hear at my mother’s house.
(sound of toilet flushing)
Five years ago, my mom turned off the to water to her toilet. She put a house plant on top
of the seat and opposite it built a five-gallon bucket in a box that took over all the duties
of its porcelain counterpart.
“Well I had seen ‘The Humanure Handbook’ in the FEDCO Seed catalog — and it just sort of
intrigued me. And I decided one year that I would read it since I was curious about it year after
year. And I read it and then I began to feel really bad every time I flushed the toilet.”
That’s because every time my mom flushed the toilet she was rendering undrinkable several
gallons of otherwise perfectly good water. And what’s more, she was whisking away valuable
nutrients that she could have just as easily returned to the earth.
That’s right… Humanure is a contraction consisting of two words: human and manure.
Here’s how it works: You use the humanure bucket in pretty much the same way you’d use a flush
toilet. Everything’s the same, except that instead of flushing when you’re done, there’s another
bucket right beside the humanure bucket and it’s filled with sawdust. You use a little cup to
scoop up some sawdust and then you just dump the sawdust in the humanure bucket when you’re
finished using it. That’s it. And the crazy thing, the thing that always surprises people when
I tell them about my mother’s humanure project is that it doesn’t smell bad.
“Anytime anything’s stinky in the humanure, you just cover it with sawdust and it doesn’t stink
anymore, except of course what is already in the air, which is like any toilet.”
Once a day my mom takes the bucket brimming with sawdust and humanure and dumps it into her
massive compost pile. There, it mingles with her kitchen scraps, weeds from the garden, and
just about every other bit of organic matter she can find… and in two years time the humanure
cooks down into dark, rich, fertile soil.
For the first couple of years, my mom was content just to operate her own humanure compost
heap and let her garden reap the benefits — but the more she did it the more of a true believer
she became. Strict adherence to the faith wasn’t enough for her anymore. She had to become a
missionary. She bought a case of Humanure Handbooks and set up a booth at an organic gardening
festival called Wild Gathering.
“And I think I sold one at that Wild Gathering. And then after that I was giving them away right
and left to my sisters and nieces and friends and whoever! And I used them all up and then this
last year I decided that not only was I going to get another box of Humanure Handbooks, I was
going to collect humanure at Wild Gathering!”
My mom knew she’d a lot of buckets for the project, so went door to door at the businesses
in town. She didn’t say what she needed them for, and luckily they didn’t ask. She collected eight
buckets full in all — not quite the payload she was hoping for. Attendance at Wild Gathering was
pretty low that year, due to rain, but relatively speaking, sales of the Humanure Handbook were
way up.
“I sold more at this last Wild Gathering. I think I sold five or six. And I gave one away for
Christmas this year to Natasha, who had been having plumbing problems. And I started my spiel and
she was really quite interested. And, I think we may have a convert there before long.”
Conversion. The ultimate goal of any evangelist. My mom admits that she doesn’t know of anyone
she’s actually brought into the fold — but she likes to think she’s planting seeds. Just
introducing people to the idea that there’s a alternative to flush toilets, she says, is a huge
step forward.
“This is really a shocking idea to a lot of people and a lot of people who come to the house will
not use it. I have to make the water toilet available to them.”
My grandmother won’t use it. Neither will my mom’s friend, Rochelle. And then there’s my
girlfriend, Kelsey. Last summer the two of us spent several days at my mom’s house in Maine
before taking a road trip back to where we live in Minnesota. After quietly weighing the
ramifications of sawdust versus water toilets, Kelsey finally decided to brave the humanure…
well, sort of.
Curtis: “So you used it for some things, but you’ve told me before that there were some things
that you couldn’t bring yourself to do.”
(laughing)
Kelsey: “No, I couldn’t. I did not have a bowel movement during our entire visit to your
house, over the course of four days.”
I’d like to think that Kelsey’s physical inability to make full use of the sawdust toilet
was an anomaly, that most people would have no problem going to the bathroom at my mom’s house
in Maine… But I doubt that’s the case. And that’s not the only reason I’m a little skeptical about
my mom’s vision of a world humanure revolution.
Curtis: “It occurs to me, and I’m about 100 pages into the book at this point, that this is
all well and good for people living in rural areas, but I live in a city. Where am I going to
put a compost heap?”
Mom: “You know, there could be chutes in buildings. There would have to be temporary storage.
Trucks would come in and take it out. Great huge compost piles would be built and it would work
down very… I think that where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
I’ll admit it; I’m still skeptical. I mean I believe in humanure, sure. But I also haven’t
put a house plant on top of the toilet in my big city apartment…and I probably never will.
Call me a summer soldier in the humanure revolution if you will, but when I go home to my
Mom’s next Christmas, I’ll be flushing with sawdust and I’ll be proud.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Curtis Gilbert.
Runners often wonder what to do with their shoes once the treads have worn too low to give enough foot support. People who have donated old shoes to charities or thrown them away have a new option now… a “sneaker recycling program.” As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde reports:
Transcript
Runners often wonder what to do with their shoes once the treads have worn too low to
give enough foot support. People who have donated old shoes to charities or thrown
them away have a new option now… a “sneaker recycling program.” As part of an
ongoing series called, “Your Choice; Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Skye Rohde reports:
David Lupinski wants old running shoes, no matter how smelly they are. They just need
to be clean.
Lupinski is the recycling director at the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management
authority in Utica, in upstate New York. He’s collecting used athletic shoes as part of the
Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program.
Now, this got my attention. I’ve been running for 11 years. I’m a one-pair-a-year girl.
I’ve sent way too many worn-out shoes to the Salvation Army… just because I didn’t
know what else to do with them. I wanted to find out what this is all about.
Nike picks up the shoes from participants like Lupinski and sends them to a facility in
Oregon where they’re ground up. David Lupinski explains it best.
“The upper area, that’s material that is more cloth and things like that. And that’s what
they make into padding for carpeting. The middle sole has a little bit more plastic, a little
bit more rubber in it. They grind that up and they make it into a material that they use for
things like tennis courts, basketball courts. The bottom of the sneaker or athletic shoe is
pretty much all rubber. They grind that up and they actually make a product that they call
“Nike grind.” And that material is what they use for tracks. It’s nice and soft and
pliable.”
The shoe program is a good fit for Utica. That’s because of the city’s ties to running. The
National Distance Running Hall of Fame is located here, and the country’s biggest 15-
kilometer road race – the Boilermaker – is held here every July.
But Utica is not alone. There are 33 organizations from 20 states participating in Reuse-
A-Shoe. Each of them is expected to collect at least 5,000 pairs of shoes this year.
This all started in 1993, when a couple of Nike employees asked if there was anything
they could do with defective shoes instead of throwing them out.
Nike joined up with the National Recycling Coalition in 2002 to expand the program to
all 50 states. Kate Krebs is Executive Director of the coalition.
“I liked it for a number of reasons. It was a company that was taking back their product
at its end of life and turning it into something that was really productive and really cool.”
Krebs has helped almost 60 organizations try to team up with Nike, and there’s already a
waiting list to participate. She says the participants are creative about collecting shoes
too.
“We just had a girl scout troop in Los Angeles on Earth Day collect more than 5,000
pairs of shoes in one day. Some zoos have set it up. Some marathons have set up
collection. Junior high/high school track programs are collecting. So everyone’s doing it
a little different… and that’s the part that’s so magic about it.”
Back in Utica, Dorothy Cornell is dropping off a few pairs of shoes at the National
Distance Running Hall of Fame.
“I just put in three sneakers that I found in my basement that are no good to me or my
family. And they’re doing a recycling here, so we’re bringing them down here. It’s, you
know, a great idea. I wish more people would, you know, be aware of it.”
(ambient sound)
A little later, the Solid Waste Management Authority’s David Lupinski peers inside the
donation box at the Hall of Fame.
(rustling sound… “Geez, this is a bag of athletic shoes…”)
He finds six pairs of shoes, including two fluorescent orange track shoes that are almost
brand new. He says he picks up about 40 pairs of shoes a week from this box. There are
seven other donation boxes around the area.
Lupinski has almost 800 pairs of shoes now, but he still has a long way to go before he
gets his 5,000 pairs and Nike sends a truck to pick them up. People have called him from
across upstate New York to see how they can get their old shoes to him.
Reuse-A-Shoe participants are all hoping for lots of shoes. But they also want to spread
the word and get people as excited as they are about giving old shoes new life.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Skye Rohde.
The Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle was introduced in 1916 to control aphids. It has since established populations around the country. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Transcript
Many people in North America have already met the multicolored Asian lady beetle. It
looks like an ordinary ladybug, but it has some bad habits. It stinks, it bites and it
invades homes when the winter approaches and stays there until spring. And not only is
it a pest in our houses, it has decided that it likes wine too. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Victoria Fenner has the story:
Ann Sperling goes out to the vineyards every day to check for bugs. She’s the vintner
with Malivoire Winery. Malivoire is a small organic winery in the Niagara Peninsula in
Southern Ontario, just north of the New York State border. There’s one kind of bug in
particular that Ann is hoping she doesn’t see – the multicolored Asian lady beetle.
It was introduced to North American in 1916 to control help aphids on plants. In 1988 in
Louisiana, the ladybug population suddenly started to grow. Scientists still don’t know
what happened to make them reproduce so fast at that time. But in only six years, it
spread as far as the northern states and southern Canada.
The spread of the bug has been very bad for the grape and wine industry. Sperling is
nervous about these ladybugs because she was caught by surprise a few years back. She
didn’t know anything about the problems they would cause to her wine at the time.
“Typically there is a certain number of insects including wasps and things like that that
are harvested with the fruit and it doesn’t cause any problems in the processing. And in
2001 there were these Asian lady beetles and they infected, or affected, the flavor of the
wine, so that there were many wines from that vintage throughout the Niagara peninsula
that had the characteristic flavor and were not saleable.”
The big problem is that Asian ladybugs are the skunks of the insect world. Just like
skunks, they give off a bad smell to discourage predators. And they release a sticky
brown substance from the joints in their body when they’re stressed and they make a real
mess.
At harvest time, there’s a lot of commotion in the vineyards. That’s when the bugs get
really upset, and they leak all over the grapes. They also hang on to the grape clusters
and are pressed into the wine along with the fruit. Sperling says they had to dump half of
their 2001 vintage because it had a bitter taste and a bouquet of raw peanuts.
Because of this, the multicolored Asian Ladybug has become a big problem for wineries
in the Great Lakes region and in the Midwest. It’s such a pressing problem for the wine
industry that the Ontario Grape Growers Association has set up a special task force to
figure out what to do. Gerry Walker is heading up the task force. He says the ladybug
isn’t a problem this time of year, but the populations are being monitored to head off
potential problems during the harvest season.
“First of all, the bug usually is outside the vineyard for most of the season. It’s usually
located in soybean fields or forested areas. It has a wide host range in terms of what
aphid species it will feed on. It primarily feeds on aphids during the growing season,
populations build up and at the end of the growing season when cool temperatures occur
it cues the bug to look for hibernating wintering sites and also to fill up on sugars in order
to hibernate. And so they move to the vineyards as the grapes begin to ripen.”
Asian ladybugs are found across most of the southern part of North America –
everywhere that there is an aphid population.
And there is a connection between soybean fields and vineyards. Here’s why – aphids
like to eat soybeans, and the multicolored Asian ladybeetle likes to eat aphids. When the
soybeans are harvested, the beetles look for new food and move to the vineyards.
Mark Sears is an environmental biologist at the University of Guelph. He’s beginning a
study to find out the movement patterns of the ladybug. He says we can’t get rid of them.
All we can do is control them.
“This beetle’s been here long enough that there’s no way we’re going to eliminate it. We
just want to suppress its numbers so that it isn’t a problem, in this case, in the vineyards.
If we do a good job of suppressing aphids – we’re not going to eliminate them either, but
if we keep them at lower numbers then there’s less food available for beetle populations,
there will be fewer of them to move to vineyards. And therefore we should be able to
contain the problem, not the insect itself.”
Ann Sperling is one of many winemakers who’s happy to see that this major study of the
ladybug is being done. But the invasion of 2001 was also a valuable learning experience.
Sperling says they’re ready if it happens again. Malivoire Winery has bought a shaker
table to dislodge the bugs from the bunches of grapes. They’ll also hire more people to
sort the grapes by hand.
Some people in the wine industry don’t like to talk about the multicolored Asian ladybug.
They’re afraid of tainting the reputation of their wines. Ann Sperling agreed to talk about
it because she thinks there wouldn’t have been as much damage to their 2001 vintage if
they had been better prepared. They haven’t had any big problems since then.
If another large invasion happens now, Malvoire Winery is ready. Ann Sperling hopes
other wineries will learn from their experience.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Victoria Fenner.
For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the curb. But not everyone can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports… that choice could be affecting your health:
Transcript
For most of us, getting rid of the garbage is as simple as setting it at the curb. But not everyone
can get garbage pick-up. So, instead, they burn their trash. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Lester Graham reports… that choice could be affecting your health:
(sound of garbage trucks)
It’s not been that long ago that people everywhere but in the largest cities burned their trash in a
barrel or pit in the backyard. That’s not as often the case these days. Garbage trucks make their
appointed rounds in cities, small towns, and in some rural areas. But they don’t pick up
everywhere… or if they do offer service… it’s much more expensive because the pick-up is so far
out in the country.
Roger Booth lives in a rural area in southwestern Illinois. He says garbage pick-up is not an
option for him.
“Well, we burn it and then bury the ashes and things. We don’t have a good way to dispose of it
any other method. The cost of having pick up arranged is prohibitive.”
He burns his garbage in the backyard. Booth separates bottles and tin cans from the rest of the
garbage so that he doesn’t end up with broken glass and rusty cans scattered around. A lot of
people don’t do that much. They burn everything in a barrel and then dump the ashes and scrap in
a gully… or just burn everything in a gully or ditch. Booth says that’s the way most folks take
care of the garbage in the area. No one talks about the smoke or fumes put off by the burning.
“I haven’t ever thought much about that. So, I don’t suppose that I have any real concerns at this
moment. I don’t think I’m doing anything different than most people.”
And that’s what many people who burn their garbage say. A survey conducted by the Zenith
Research Group found that people in areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota who didn’t have regular
garbage collection believe burning is a viable option to get rid of their household and yard waste.
Nearly 45-percent of them indicated it was “convenient,” which the researchers interpreted to
mean that even if garbage pick-up were available, the residents might find more convenient to
keep burning their garbage.
While some cities and more densely populated areas have restricted backyard burning… state
governments in all but a handful of states in New England and the state of California have been
reluctant to put a lot of restrictions on burning barrels.
But backyard burning can be more than just a stinky nuisance. Burning garbage can bring
together all the conditions necessary to produce dioxin. Dioxin is a catch-all term that includes
several toxic compounds. The extent of their impact on human health is not completely known…
but they’re considered to be very dangerous to human health in the tiniest amounts.
Since most of the backyard burning is done in rural areas, livestock are exposed to dioxin and it
gets into the meat and milk that we consume.
John Giesy is with the National Food Safety and Toxicology Center at Michigan State University.
He says as people burn garbage, the dioxins are emitted in the fumes and smoke…
“So, when they fall out onto the ground or onto the grass, then animals eat those plants and it
becomes part of their diet. And ultimately it’s accumulated into the animal and it’s stored as fat.
Now, particularly with dairy cattle, one of the concerns about being exposed to dioxins is that
then when they’re producing milk, milk has fat it in, it has butter fat in it. And the dioxins go
along with that.”
So, every time we drink milk, snack on cheese, or eat a hamburger, we risk getting a small dose
of dioxin. Beyond that, vegetables from a farmer’s garden, if not properly washed, could be
coated with dioxins. And even a miniscule amount of dioxin is risky.
John Giesy says chemical manufacturing plants and other sources of man-made dioxin have been
cleaned up. Now, backyard burning is the biggest source of dioxins produced by humans.
“So, now as we continue to strive to reduce the amount of dioxins in the environment and in our
food, this is one place where we can make an impact.”
“That’s the concern. That’s the concern, is that it’s the largest remaining source of produced
dioxin.”
Dan Hopkins is with the Environmental Protection Agency. He says, collectively, backyard
burning produces 50 times the amount of dioxin as all the large and medium sized incinerators
across the nation combined. That’s because the incinerators burn hot enough to destroy dioxins
and have pollution control devices to limit emissions. Backyard burning doesn’t get nearly that
hot and the smoke and fumes spread unchecked.
The EPA wants communities to take the problem of backyard burning seriously. It wants state
and local governments to do more to make people aware that backyard burning is contaminating
our food and encourage them to find other ways to get rid of their garbage…
“(It) probably won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution, but by exchanging successful efforts that other
communities have had, we should be able to help communities fashion approaches that have a
high probability of success.”
But… public education efforts are expensive… and often they don’t reach the people who most
need to hear them. The EPA is not optimistic that it will see everyone stop burning their garbage.
It’s not even a goal. The agency is just hoping enough people will find other ways to get rid of
their trash that the overall dioxin level in food is reduced.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.
Researchers at the University of Delaware have found that planting trees around poultry farms has many benefits (Photo courtesy of the USDA)
