Acid rain isn’t a new threat to the environment. But its effect on trees and soils has been a point of debate. Now, a new study supports the theory that acid rain can deplete nutrients in forest soil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan has more:
Transcript
Acid rain isn’t a new threat to the environment. But its effect on trees and soils has
been a point of debate. Now, a new study supports the theory that acid rain can
deplete nutrients in forest soil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan
has more:
Acid rain is caused by emissions mostly from coal-fired power plants. It’s linked to “dead”
lakes and streams that have become too acidic for fish and other organisms.
But a new study published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal says the
addition of even a small amount of acid to forest soils can deplete minerals needed for
plant and animal survival.
Ivan Fernandez is the lead author of the study. He says the study showed the loss of
several nutrients, but he’s most concerned with calcium loss.
“Calcium both reduces the toxicity of bad things as well as being a required essential nutrient.
If you lose too much calcium, you can have direct nutrient deficiencies.”
Fernandez says when minerals like calcium and magnesium are lost the result is
slower plant growth. He also says the loss of these minerals can lead to poor water quality.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin Sullivan.
Researchers are looking at ethanol from corn as an environmentally-friendly way to power fuel cells. However, some studies show corn-based ethanol takes more energy to produce than the fuel provides. (Photo by Lester Graham)
Researchers are looking at ways to use corn-based ethanol as a way to power hydrogen fuel cells. It would appear to be an environmentally friendly way to get into the hydrogen fuel economy. However, ethanol might not be as environmentally friendly as its proponents claim. Backed by the farm lobby and ag industries such as Archer Daniels Midland, ethanol has plenty of political support. But some researchers say corn-based ethanol is a boondoggle. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Stucky reports:
Transcript
Researchers are looking at ways to use corn-based ethanol as a way to power hydrogen fuel cells.
It would appear to be an environmentally friendly way to get into the hydrogen fuel economy.
However, ethanol might not be as environmentally friendly as its proponents claim. Back by the
farm lobby and ag industry such as Archer Daniels Midland, ethanol has plenty of political
support. But some researchers say corn-based ethanol is a boondoggle. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mary Stucky reports…
This reactor is in a laboratory at the University of Minnesota ticking as it converts ethanol into
hydrogen. Researchers here envision thousands of these inexpensive reactors in communities
across America using ethanol to create hydrogen, which would then be used in fuel cells to
generate electricity.
Lanny Schmidt, a Professor of Chemical Engineering, directs the team that created the reactor.
“We’re not claiming our process is the cure-all for the energy crisis or anything like that. But it’s
a potential step along the way. It makes a suggestion of a possible way to go.”
Hydrogen is usually extracted from fossil fuels in dirtier and more costly refineries.
Schmidt says it’s much better to make hydrogen from ethanol.
“It right now looks like probably the most promising liquid non-toxic energy carrier we can think
of if you want renewable fuels.”
Not so fast, says David Pimentel, an agricultural scientist at Cornell University. For years,
Pimentel has warned about what he calls the cost and efficiency and boondoggle of ethanol.
Pimentel says ethanol is a losing proposition.
“It takes 30-percent more energy, including oil and natural gas, primary those two resources to
produce ethanol. That means importing both oil and natural gas because we do not have a
sufficient amount of either one.”
Pimentel says most research on ethanol fails to account for all the energy needed to make the fuel,
such as energy used to make the tractors and irrigate crops. Adding insult to injury, says
Pimentel, ethanol relies on huge government subsidies going to farmers and agri-business.
“If ethanol is such a great fuel source, why are we subsidizing it with 2-billion dollars annually?
There’s big money, as you well know, and there’s politics involved. And the big money is leaking
some of that 2-billion dollars in subsidies to the politicians and good science, sound science,
cannot compete with big money and politics.”
Pimentel also points to environmental damage of growing corn – soil erosion, water pollution
from nitrogen fertilizer and air pollution associated with facilities that make ethanol. But
Pimentel has his detractors.
David Morris runs the Institute for Local Self Reliance in Minneapolis. Morris is not a scientist,
but he commissioned a study on ethanol. He says Pimentel relies on out-of-date figures and fails
to account for the fact that ethanol production is getting more efficient.
Morris’ findings – a gallon of ethanol contains more than twice the energy needed to produce it.
As for subsidies…
“There’s no doubt that if we did not provide a subsidy for ethanol it would not be competitive
with gasoline. But what we need to understand is that we also subsidize gasoline, and if you took
the percentage of the Pentagon budget, which is spent directly on maintaining access to Middle-
Eastern oil, and impose that at the pump, it would add 25- to 50-cents a gallon. At that point,
ethanol is competitive, under the assumption that you will not need a large military budget to
protect our access to Iowa corn.”
But more efficient than making ethanol from corn might be grass, or even weeds. David Morris
says that’s because you don’t have fertilize or irrigate those kinds of plants, the way you do corn.
“So if we’re talking about ethanol as a primary fuel to truly displace gasoline, we have to talk
about a more abundant feedstock. So instead of the corn kernel, it become the corn stock, or it
becomes fast-growing grasses, or it becomes trees, or sawdust or organic garbage. And then
you’re really talking about a carbohydrate economy.”
Pimentel scoffs at that idea.
“You’ve got the grind that material up, and then to release the sugars, you’ve got to use an acid,
and the yield is not as high. In fact, it would be 60-percent more energy using wood or grass
materials.”
While scientists and policy people debate whether ethanol is efficient or not, Lanny Schmidt and
his team soldier on in the lab undeterred in their efforts to use ethanol for fuel. Schmidt
understands some of Pimentels’s concerns, but he thinks scientists will find an answer, so ethanol
can be used efficiency enough to help power the new hydrogen economy.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Stucky in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Spotted Knapweed seed heads - Land managers work hard to control or prevent invasive plants like this one from taking root. New research may help their efforts. (Photo by Barry Rice/The Nature Conservancy)
New research indicates that some invasive plants spread rapidly because they don’t have natural enemies to keep them in check. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush explains:
Transcript
New research indicates that some invasive plants spread rapidly because they
don’t have natural enemies to keep them in check. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Mark Brush explains:
The research found that some foreign plants thrive in North America because
they’ve escaped their natural enemies. In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers found some of the enemies the plants escaped were
in the soil. They looked at the invasive plant spotted knapweed. They found the
plants are not only free from microbes that might eat their roots, but they
also found microbes in the areas the plants invaded that actually help them
grow.
Ray Callaway is one of the researchers at the University of Montana.
He says regulations are needed to stop these kinds of invasions:
“I think we ought to have much stronger restrictions on the movement of
horticultural plants and so on from across continents. I think we’re
playing with fire.”
The majority of plant invasions come from the horticultural trade. Policymakers are now
working on a protocol to monitor the importation and sale of non-native plants.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark
Brush.
Satellite imaging shows that spring thaws in the northern latitudes are happening almost a day earlier each year. Environmental scientists worry that faster melts could accelerate global warming. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan explains:
Transcript
Satellite imaging shows that spring thaws in the northern latitudes are
happening almost a day earlier each year. Environmental scientists worry
that faster melts could accelerate global warming. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Corbin Sullivan explains:
The satellite readings show that the spring thaw in
the Alaskan tundra and northern forests is coming
more than a week earlier than it did in 1988.
John Kimball co-authored a study of the NASA
images. He says the greenhouse effect is responsible
for earlier melting. And he warns that faster thaws
could lead to more greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.
“The potential here is that this warming will
actually reinforce that greenhouse related warming
trend that we’re seeing. That would occur at a much
faster rate.”
Kimball says microorganisms in the arctic soil are
the reason for the increase in heat-trapping gases.
He says the organisms become active when the soil
thaws, breaking down carbon in the soil and
releasing methane and carbon dioxide.
Kimball says an earlier thaw means more
greenhouse gases will be produced each year. That’s
in addition to the gases produced by human sources
like automobiles and power plants.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Corbin
Sullivan.
One of the gases that figures prominently in the global climate debate is carbon dioxide. Scientists believe CO2 emissions can be reduced if carbon in the atmosphere is “stored.” Economists want to incorporate carbon storage into a market-driven solution to regulate emissions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray has this story about climate change, forests, and the emergence of a carbon trading market:
Transcript
One of the gases that figures prominently in the global climate debate is carbon
dioxide.
Scientists believe CO2 emissions can be reduced if carbon in the atmosphere is
“stored.”
Economists want to incorporate carbon storage into a market driven solution to
regulate
emissions. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Ann Murray has this story about climate change, forests, and the
emergence of a
carbon trading market:
Climate experts say the earth’s temperature started to change about 150 years ago.
That’s when
people began to burn coal and gas and oil to run factories and generate electricity.
These fossil
fuels release carbon dioxide into the air. CO2, a “greenhouse gas,” traps the
sun’s heat.
Climatologists warn that unless carbon dioxide emissions are curbed, the planet will
continue to
heat up. Scientists are now looking to nature to counteract this human influx of
carbon.
Coeli Hoover with the U.S. Forest Service is among these scientists.
“There’s a plot over there.”
For the past three summers, Hoover and technicians from the Forestry Sciences Lab in
Warren
County, Pennsylvania have traveled to hardwood forests in the northeastern United
States.
“What we’re doing is trying to get a basic handle on how much carbon is stored in
these different
forests and how management might change that.”
Today, Hoover is in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia. She and her
team gather
their equipment from their van. As they head to a stand of cherry, maple and beech
trees, Hoover
explains some basic biology about carbon storage and trees.
“They pull carbon dioxide out of the air to make sugars, carbohydrates for trees to
live on. And in
the process that carbon gets stored as wood. And carbon also get stored in the soil.”
Hoover’s study is the first to examine carbon stored in forest floors and soils.
The regional study
looks at uncut forests and those that have been thinned. Hoover wants to see if
different forest
management practices affect the amount and type of stored carbon.
(knife cutting around forest floor)
This morning, Hoover and a technician use a knife and template to cut small sections
of the forest
floor, the layer of organic material above the soil. After the forest floor samples
are labeled and
bagged, the crew takes samples of the soil.
(sound of slide hammer core)
They dig 12 holes per plot with a slide hammer core. That’s a metal cylinder with a
cutting tip on
the edge and brass core sleeves inside.
“This method allows us to get these really nice depths without having any doubt of
what we’re
getting.”
Hoover says the whole point of her study is to eliminate the carbon guessing game.
Because
there’s little information about belowground carbon, it’s been hard to establish
how much carbon
is stored in forests. Scientists call this a “carbon budget.” The big picture,
says Hoover, is
important because of the emergence of a domestic carbon trading market. A market
where
foresters can grow trees, store carbon and make money.
“Right now carbon dioxide isn’t regulated as a pollutant. There are people who
think that it
probably will be. There’s voluntary reporting where companies can report their C02
emissions
and their uptake for different projects. So there’s a lot of experimental work
going on.”
An experimental program in Chicago is working to give industry a reason to reduce
carbon
dioxide output. The Chicago Climate Exchange will begin trading carbon credits. If
a company
reduces its CO2 output by installing new technologies, that difference can be sold
on the
exchange. Companies will buy credits that represent storage of carbon in either
trees or soil. Dr.
Richard Sandor is the founder of the Climate Exchange.
“We are going to have projects which would have to be monitored and verified and
approved by
our offset and forestry committees where people would agree to reforest. If a
particular project
that absorbs 100,000 tons of carbon in the aboveground biomass can be measured, then
people
sell those on the exchange.
Sandor says this isn’t the first time that pollution credits have been traded in the
United States.
He points to the success of the sulfur dioxide market. Sulfur dioxide is the main
component in
acid rain. The U.S. EPA estimates that this market driven program has cut sulfur
dioxide output in
half and saved $50 billion a year in health and environmental costs.
Not everyone sees such a sunny future for carbon trading. Some critics believe that
CO2
emissions must be regulated by the government or through the international
greenhouse gas
agreement called the Kyoto Protocol.
Others worry that foresters or landowners will resort to single age, single species
tree plantations
to quickly fulfill contracts.
(forest sounds)
Back in the Monongahela National
Forest, Coeli
Hoover says biodiversity need not suffer.
“I don’t think that you have to manage for carbon or sustainable timber production.
I think you
can do both and manage for wildlife. I don’t think there are a lot of tradeoffs
there.”
We probably won’t know the success of carbon trading in the United States for
another five or ten
years. The Bush administration has refused federal regulation of carbon dioxide and
for now, has
left the solution to the markets.
For The Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Ann Murray.
A recent study shows a possible link between breast cancer and a toxic chemical we’re exposed to every day. And people living in some Great Lakes states might face higher exposure to this chemical. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erika Johnson has more:
Transcript
A recent study shows a possible link between breast cancer and a toxic chemical
we’re exposed to everyday. And
people living in some Great Lakes states might face higher exposure to this
chemical. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Erika Johnson has more:
Cadmium is a toxic metal present in trace amounts in the air, water, soil, and in
most foods. It is also found in
batteries and cigarettes, and is released by some industries.
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are at the top of the list for overall cadmium exposures.
Recent findings published in Nature Medicine suggest that even low levels of cadmium
in lab rats caused changes
in their sexual development. Cadmium mimics estrogen, the female hormone that
regulates the reproductive
systems of men and women.
Steve Safe is a Toxicologist at Texas A & M University.
“Women have high doses of estrogen. They have much higher rates of breast cancer
than men. And estrogen has
been clearly linked to breast cancer. What we don’t know is, ‘Can cadmium
contribute to that? Does low dose
cadmium have any effect on humans at all?'”
Safe says more research is needed before any clear links can be made to human health.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erika Johnson.
Sludge being spread over a field with a manure spreader. (Photo by D. Seliskar, Halophyte Biotechnology Center, Univ. of Delaware)
The more people inhabit the earth – the more sewage there is. Something has to be done with it. Before chemical fertilizers were invented, farmers used human manure to improve their crops. Some still do. About three million dry tons of treated sewage – called sludge – fertilize sod, pasture land and even food crops every year in the United States. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Amy Tardif looks at what the practice may be doing to the environment:
Transcript
The more people inhabit the earth – the more sewage there is. Something has to be done with it.
Before chemical fertilizers were invented, farmers used human manure to improve their crops.
Some still do. About three million dry tons of treated sewage – called sludge – fertilize sod,
pasture land and even food crops every year in the United States. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Amy Tardif looks at what the practice may be doing to the environment:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says using treated human waste as fertilizer is the
most environmentally sound way to get rid of it. It used to get dumped in the oceans. The
pollution caused dead zones.
Now, using it on land is becoming controversial. As people move closer to rural areas, they
discover what’s happening. It smells. It might also cause damage. Tommy Drymon insists the
creek near his Florida home has changed because farmers near his house use sludge as fertilizer.
“This was the most beautiful place I’ve ever settled down to. And the creek just looks awful now.
It used to be clear and now it’s just black and mucky all the time.”
Drymon says not only has the color changed – there’s more icky residue on the shore. He rarely
sees otters, deer and other wildlife any more. He definitely stopped swimming in it. Drymon and
his neighbors think the human fertilizer nearby farmers use – known as sewage sludge – is to
blame.
Sludge is made at sewage treatment plants. The water people flush down their toilets gets pretty
clean with today’s methods. That means more of what’s leftover stays pretty dirty. It resembles a
thin pudding or a powder depending on how it’s treated. It can contain viruses, bacteria,
chemicals and cancer-causing heavy metals.
“Now this sewage sludge includes not just human waste, it includes Pine Sol if you clean your
toilet bowl with Pine Sol, or if you do oil painting and you flush the paints down the drain or if
you work in a chemistry lab….”
Eric Giroux is an attorney for Earthjustice. He’s handling a lawsuit for Tommy Drymon and his
neighbors. It claims sewage sludge dumped on farms there is wafting through the air making
them sick and running off into the creek.
There are federal, state and county rules meant to prevent runoff. There are buffer zones from
water bodies and rules to protect groundwater. But sludge is not always applied according to the
rules. And there are things missing from the rules – according to The Cornell Waste
Management Institute. They don’t deal with poisons such as flame retardants, the drugs we take
and toxic chemicals that harm fish and wildlife and inhibit plant growth.
But those who use sludge as fertilizer like it.
“It’s a product that has to have something done with it. And if it’s done properly there are no
problems.”
Dennis Carlton has used the free product on his cow pastures for ten years. He says the calves
raised on those pastures end up weighing more than others. Sludge saves him sixty to 160 dollars
an acre on expensive chemicals.
“It’s cost effective and it does a better job than the commercial fertilizer because it last longer
because of the slow release qualities.”
Sludge contains lots of nitrogen – which is food for plants. It’s organic. Plants absorb it very
slowly. And that’s good.
Since 1997, University of Florida Soil scientist Martin Adjei has compared typical commercial
fertilizer – ammonium nitrate – with sludge. He says his studies show the good stuff in sludge gets
into the plants very nicely, and he says plants don’t seem to absorb the heavy metals.
“We measured lead, barium, cadmium, nickel in the plant. They were all point zero, zero two or
something parts per million in the plant.”
That’s lower than the EPA says it has to be. Adjei says only trace amounts of metals sunk into the
groundwater. He doesn’t know yet whether the metals drift into the soil. But he found too much
of the nutrient phosphorous builds up in the soil when fertilized with sludge year after year. He
admits there are many more tests to be done.
This year the EPA responded to complaints about sludge. It plans to test it for 50 chemicals – far
more than ever before. Geff Grubbs is the EPA’s Director of Science and Technology.
“We’re focusing on a couple of things, one is beginning to ramp up some of the research
investments to strengthen our understanding of some of the processes and nature of the
contaminants that could be present in sludge and what risk they might or might not pose. And we
do have a number of things that are in the works both near and longer term that might lead to
changes in the underlying regulations about what can be in biosolids before they are applied to
land.”
And, the EPA and a few industry groups have created a best practices program for willing
utilities. They pledge to control the odor and dust as well as manage the nutrients in their sludge.
The utilities are then audited by impartial, independent, third parties. There are only 48
municipalities participating nationwide.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Amy Tardif.
A new report shows Ethanol is worse for the environment than gasoline that doesn’t contain the corn-based fuel. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
Transcript
A new report shows Ethanol is worse for the environment
than gasoline that doesn’t contain the corn-based fuel.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
The study from the University of California at Berkley
concludes ethanol does more harm than good for the
environment when all factors are taken into account. The
report considers the amount of energy it takes to produce
the fuel, and the environmental cost of the soil and
water use needed to grow the corn to make the fuel.
The study also says ethanol does not produce less
pollution. The researchers say ethanol spills can
contaminate groundwater, and fertilizers and pesticides
used to grow the corn create additional strain on the
environment. The report’s author says when all factors
are included, ethanol is 65 percent less efficient to
produce and use than regular gasoline.
Ethanol advocates say the fuel reduces emissions and
is a safer additive than any other currently available.
They also say the production of ethanol is constantly
improving. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m
Jonathan Ahl.
Artist Ladislav Hanka's fascination with fish
fuels his work. Photo by Tamar Charney.
The salmon, bass, and other species of fish that swim in the lakes, rivers, and streams of the Great Lakes region provide food for all kinds of creatures, including people. And for the many recreational fishermen, they’re sport. But the life that fish lead is also inspiration for artists. In cooperation with Public Radio International’s program Studio 360, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney paid a visit to artist Ladislav Hanka. His etchings explore cycles of life, death, and regeneration in nature and more often than not, depict fish:
Transcript
The salmon, bass, and other species of fish that swim in the lakes, rivers, and streams of the Great
Lakes region provide food for all kinds of creatures, including people. And for the many
recreational fisherman, they’re sport. But the life that fish lead is also inspiration for artists. In
cooperation with Public Radio International’s program Studio 360, The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tamar Charney paid a visit to artist Ladislav Hanka. His etchings explore cycles of
life, death, and regeneration in nature and more often than not, depict fish:
Ladislav Hanka asks people to take a look at life from a different angle. He does this in his art,
and he does this in real life as I found out when I asked him how old he was when he started
drawing.
“I’ll show you. (footsteps) We’re going to make a little expedition under my kitchen table. So
get on your back, slide under the table with me here, and look up, and there you see some of the
first drawings I ever did. They’re nothing. They are just chicken scratch, but it’s kind of neat.”
Now that he’s an adult, the kitchen is the only room in his house in that isn’t an art studio.
Ladislav Hanka works where you’d expect the living room to be. But there’s no sofa here. Just
lots of counter space, storage drawers, and the press he uses to print his etchings. The corner
where he sketches is cluttered with cans of colored pencils, sheets of paper, and stuff you sure
won’t find at an art supply store.
“Now here is a vat of pickled fish.”
There’s trout, pickerel, a goldfish and other slimy brown creatures in a smelly preservative. He’ll
draw them and at times even dissect them. But when the lakes and streams aren’t frozen, he puts
the bucket away and heads outside for inspiration. He spends a lot of his time hanging out along
rivers fly fishing and sketching.
“I’ll sometimes put on waders, the fishing gear, and take a sketchbook out and just wade around up
to my chest in the water and sit in the lilies on the edge with a sketchbook.”
He uses the sketches as the basis for etchings. They’re inspired by what he observes outside and
from what he learned in school when he studied zoology. Ladislav Hanka’s etchings are very
detailed, but they’re not what you’d see if you just looked outside. There’s very little, if any color,
just warm tones of black ink on creamy paper. Some are landscapes with tangles of tree roots,
dirt, and rocks. Others are underground or underwater scenes with fish, birds, and bugs,
sometimes in various stages of decay.
“It’s a 14-by-18 plate size – it’s an etching. And there’s a moon, a full moon, shining in a very dark
background, very organic sorts of textures with a feeling of some sticks and roots and unclear
exactly what it is.”
At the bottom of the image lurking in the dark quiet shadows are fish called burbots.
“There’s a skeletal element to this burbot. The head is more defined than the rest of the body. And
it’s obviously moving among the sticks and up the light source and through various little bones
and skeletons. The intent is it is something inevitable, that it has to go up to the moon. And the
interesting thing with the burbots are that they do, indeed, spawn at night. They spawn in the
middle of winter. So there’s something I find very compelling about this drama, this ancient
drama, that keeps recurring and happening every year under the ice, in the cold, and under the
moonlit night. There’s a romance about it. I keep going back to spawning cycles.”
Watching salmon spawn has become his yearly ritual. Every fall he sits on the bank of a nearby
creek to watch Great Lakes salmon spawn. Salmon return to the place where they were born to
create the next generation in the moments before they die.
“It’s a forgotten little place that I think once used to be an industrial waste sight almost. A bunch
of 55 gallon drums and tires and poison ivy and all kinds of stuff. There are the salmon coming
up stream, among the logs, and the tires, and spawning. It’s this grotesque and beautiful things all
at once. It’s a spectacle, a ballet, death dancing lightly among them and picking over them, and
there they are, trying to spawn before they die, before the energy seeps out of their system.
Eternal cycles, I guess that’s what it’s about. We’re so used to thinking as in human terms, of a
linear way of thought – you evolve, society evolves, everything goes forward in one direction.
And yet the fact is every one of us lives life much more cyclically than we really admit to
ourselves, and we are disgustingly like our parents and like their parents, and like our great-
grandparents and you repeat the stupid things you can’t stomach in your parents, and there you are
repeating the same things years later. There’s something cyclical about it, but it is also beautiful.”
But why you keep coming back to fish?
“Why do I keep coming back to fish? Well, maybe there is something in all of us that wants to
migrate upstream and return to the source – the going home business, whatever home might ever
have been.”
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.
Tom Miller's farm in Central Illinois includes buffer strips that provide habitat and food for wildlife and keep chemicals and soil out of a nearby river. Photo by Jonathan Ahl.
Each spring, the seasonal rains and melting snow lead to millions of gallons of water entering rivers and streams around the Midwest. While that water is important for the rivers’ health, it brings with it soil, herbicides, and insecticides from farms. Programs designed to help keep soil and chemicals on the farm and out of the watershed are growing in popularity around the region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl has more:
Transcript
Each spring, the seasonal rains and melting snow lead to millions of gallons of water entering
rivers and streams around the Midwest. While that water is important for the rivers’ health, it
brings with it soil, herbicides, and insecticides from farms. Programs designed to help keep soil
and chemicals on the farm and out of the watershed are growing in popularity around region. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jonathan Ahl reports:
It’s a cold Spring day on Tom Springer’s Farm. But the strong winds and light rain do not
dampen the spirit of Springer. He’s showing off strips of land that contain tall grasses that would
normally be farmland waiting for the Spring planting:
“What we’re doing, we’re trying to create shelter belts up against these food plots for the birds
and the wildlife to have shelter in the winter.”
Springer is referring to buffer strips. The long, narrow pieces of land that take up about one acre for
every 30 acres of this farm in Central Illinois. The strips provide food and habitat for wildlife
such as quail and pheasants. They also provide a “catch” for some of the soil and chemicals that
would otherwise end up in the nearby Mackinaw River. That’s why some groups call them filter
strips. Springer is taking part in several state and federal programs that pay him to take the land
out of production and convert it to these buffer strips. Springer says he likes having the wildlife
around and wants to help the environment. But he says the financial incentives are the essential
ingredient that makes his buffer strips a reality:
“It was getting to the point that us small-time farmers we’re going to get pushed out because of
the economics of it. So I went ahead and did this, and it’s really worked out good. It’s a different
way of farming. It really is. What I’m doing, I’m farming the wildlife. I’m farming the
conservation program.”
Depressed crop prices and growing expenses are making the buffers strips a more popular
alternative for farmers. Adding to the financial advantage are not for profit groups such as Trees
Forever and Pheasants Forever. They make contributions of time, materials, and expertise to
farmers like Springer. That makes it easier to build the strips that comply with the state and
federal subsidy programs.
Tom Miller is with Trees Forever. He says the government payments get farmers to consider the
program. But he says they stay in because they know what they’re doing is right for the
environment. Miller says farmers are learning the dangers of plowing their land right up to the
banks of rivers and streams:
“Typically in the past, it’s been whatever farmland was there they would farm up to the edge.
But I think increased awareness and education over the last ten years from local and state
agencies and non-profits helped farmers realize you can’t do that.”
Miller says his group’s Buffer Initiative and others around the Midwest are gaining momentum
and making a difference in cutting down on pollution in waterways. But not everyone believes
these buffer strips are the magic bullet to fight erosion and chemicals in the watershed:
“I would say they are necessary but they’re not sufficient.”
Terry Kohlbuss is the director of the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission, a central Illinois
governmental group that has pushed for numerous water clean-up programs. He says buffer
initiatives are good programs. But he says it is only a drop in the bucket in the fight to help
bodies of water:
“But the other important source of that accelerated flow of water through the natural drainage
system is from developed areas. The solution set here is that there are probably 15 to 20 or 30
different types of programs that need to be in place to really get after this problem successfully.”
Kohlbuss says land management plans that cover all types of land will be necessary if there is
ever going to be meaningful progress in keeping soil and chemicals out of the rivers. Other
critics of the Buffer Strip program say there’s no guarantee the program will last because farmers
are reacting to the subsidies. Tom Springer says he has heard the criticism that if crop prices go
up or the payments run out, farmers will give up on conservation programs:
“I think a lot of them, if the program burns out in fifteen years, they’re talking about tearing a lot
of these out. We’ll I’m not, I’m going to leave mine in. They are on sand hills that were always
burnt up in the fall, you know. Most of the time it wouldn’t make much of a crop anyway, so we
are going to use it for conservation measures.”
Organizers of the buffer strip programs hope all of their participants will have the same point of
view as Tom Springer. Meanwhile, they continue working on finding more farmers to sign up for
the program.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jonathan Ahl.
