8 billion dollars was announced for rail projects.
(Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)
The Obama Administration’s
release of money for higher
speed rail ended up being less
than most states wanted. Lester
Graham reports on what this
will mean for passenger train
service:
Transcript
The Obama Administration’s
release of money for higher
speed rail ended up being less
than most states wanted. Lester
Graham reports on what this
will mean for passenger train
service:
Eight billion dollars apparently doesn’t go that far in rail projects. The pundits have noted California’s Sacramento to San Diego corridor got 2.3 billion and Florida’s Tampa to Orlando route got 1.25 billion, making those states the big winners.
But if you forget state boundaries and look at rail networks, the Midwest’s Chicago Hub network pulled in a whopping 2.6 billion to improve the rails.
Amtrak doesn’t get any of this money. It just runs the trains. It doesn’t own many of the tracks. But spokesman Steve Kulm says better tracks mean Amtrak trains can go faster.
“Train speeds are going to increase from say 79 to 90 or from 90 to 110. But wit this funding that was announced, there was the Florida project and the California project. If those projects do happen and get moving, those projects will be at the 150 or higher levels.”
That’s how fast the train from Washington to New York goes and it’s getting more passengers than the airlines.
Some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage. Here is a high-speed train in Taiwan.
(Photo source: Jiang at Wikimedia Commons)
Today, August 24, is a deadline for
states competing for eight billion
dollars in federal stimulus money
for higher speed rail. Shawn Allee reports, this stimulus could
run in slow-motion:
Transcript
Today, August 24, is a deadline for
states competing for eight billion
dollars in federal stimulus money
for higher speed rail. Shawn Allee reports, this stimulus could
run in slow-motion:
Federal Railroad Administration staff are staying late tonight – August 24 – to accept hundreds of applications for higher-speed rail funds.
FRA spokesperson Rob Kulat says the agency wants to give out stimulus money quickly, but, just in case, it’s announced there might be two rounds of applications – not just one.
“It would be a delay, but the idea is to have successful projects, to have them work cost-effectively. If a state isn’t ready financially or technically to implement their plan, then they need to go back to the drawing board a bit. We’re not going to throw good money after bad.”
Kulat says some states have shovel-ready rail projects, but others states are just in the planning stage.
It could be years before they clear the track for faster trains.
Some Hip Hop artists are using their music to reach people about environmental issues affecting their communities (Photo source: Lestat at Wikimedia Commons)
When many people think of songs about the environment, they conjure up visions of folk singers and acoustic guitars. But the environment is becoming a more prevalent issue among Hip-Hop artists. Lester Graham reports they’re looking at the issue and how it affects their lives directly:
Transcript
When many people think of songs about the environment, they conjure up visions of folk singers and acoustic guitars. But the environment is becoming a more prevalent issue among Hip-Hop artists. Lester Graham reports they’re looking at the issue and how it affects their lives directly:
Environmentalists are often portrayed as treehugging elitists by conservative talk show hosts – and others.
That image really was never accurate, but the environmental movement is becoming more diverse. The environmental issues are becoming increasingly important to a wider swath of society.
Mike Cermack is a consultant for Boston’s public schools. He helps teachers figure out the best ways to teach classes such as environmental science.
He’s come to the conclusion that music can go a long way in getting the attention of kids in the classroom – especially since Hip-Hop artists started tackling the environment and not just as some distant ‘polar bears and butterflies’ issue.
“We really want to start at the corner store and ask deep questions like, ‘why isn’t there any fresh produce? Is that linked to the fact that diabetes and obesity is kind of rampant in our neighborhoods and in our families?’”
As people living in inner cities Cermack says – artists such as Mos Def did it in his song ‘New World Water.’
(clip of Mos Def song)
And it’s not just those big nationally known artists.
Mike Cermack says he stumbled into Boston’s local ‘green Hip-Hop’ movement by working with activists who were trying to stop a power plant from being built next to an elementary school.
“In talking with them further and getting to know them, also many of them turned out to be these really talented MCs, these talented lyricists who are using the new knowledge that they found working with the non-profits and kind of weaving those into their more traditional narratives of ‘this is what’s wrong with street/urban issues; this is what’s wrong with all the gangsters around/in my city.’ They’re saying how can we also bring in these environmental issues.”
And those artists are pulling in friends and bringing a whole lot of street cred to environmental issues.
Tem Blessed and Ben Gilbarg called in some of their Boston friends to perform ‘Green Anthem.’
(clip of ‘Green Anthem’)
“They’re staying true to their roots as kind of the voice social injustice and speaking out against urban problems and they’re really mixing it up with a lot of environmental issues.”
Mike Cermack says he’s been working to get students interested in environmental issues in the classroom, but Hip-Hop artists such as J-Live and Thes One get it done in a way the students know.
“They’re already used to loving the hip-hop tracks. And they know the MC. You know, it’s more important that the MC is from the community. That’s another big piece. I think it’s a really interesting start to this green hip-hop potential.”
This train in Graniteville, South Carolina, crashed while carrying chemicals called "toxic inhalation hazards." Transporting these chemicals is extremely dangerous, and rail companies think chemical companies should share some of the insurance burden. (Photo courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency)
Workers in Hazmat suits at the site of the Graniteville crash, which killed nine people. (Photo courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency)
Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful: Take chlorine. It purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them, even though insurance is expensive.
Shawn Allee says rail lines now want the chemical industry to chip in:
Transcript
Toxic Inhalation Hazards are a class of chemicals with a notorious name: if you inhale them, you die.
On the flip side, they’re useful. Take chlorine: it purifies drinking water. Another is anhydrous ammonia. It’s used for corn fertilizer.
The government feels some toxic inhalation hazards are so important it forces railroads to ship them, even though insurance is expensive.
Shawn Allee says rail lines now want the chemical industry to chip in:
To understand why the railroad industry wants help with insurance, you should know what happened in Graniteville, South Carolina.
Phil Napier is Graniteville’s fire chief. Napier tells me, one night in January 2005, he got paged about a train wreck.
He hopped in his truck and before long, he found the train engineer.
“I stopped to roll the window down and this gentleman told me they had a chemical leak and he couldn’t breathe and he fell to the ground. And immediately, it hit me. It basically took my breath and all I remember is taking a U-turn heading north but I ended up south. There’s a time-zone in there that I have no memory.”
When Napier came to, he got word from his radio: the train carried chlorine and a toxic cloud was spreading.
Napier evacuated Graniteville. Later, he got a look by helicopter.
“We did a flyover. I mean, it was like a Twilight Zone – you could see cars all up and down the highways, with the doors open.”
Nine people died in the Graniteville derailment and chlorine spill. Since then, the railroad industry worried an accident like this could ruin them.
“The lesson we drew from that was, if there is a major catastrophe by the railroad carrying this material, could be forced into bankruptcy and be forced out of operation.”
That’s Ed Hamberger, the head of the Association of American Railroads.
Hamberger calls the Graniteville accident a tragedy for the town and a financial mess for the railroad responsible – Norfolk Southern.
“The accident in Graniteville resulted in damages of 400 to 500 million dollars.”
Norfolk Southern won’t confirm the figures, but consider this: it’s still in court over an incident involving nine deaths.
Experts say if a similar derailment happened in the middle of a big city like Chicago, it could kill at least 10,000 people.
Hamberger says railroads can’t insure against that.
You might think they would refuse to carry toxic inhalant hazards, but the government says they have to – because rail has the best safety record.
“The freight railroad industry has what is known as a common carrier obligation to carry these toxic by inhalation materials. Several of our members have said if they were not forced to, they would not carry it because of that liability threat.”
Hamberger says if the government won’t lift the obligation, it’s fair to require chemical companies to pay some insurance.
And, he says, it would make the public safer.
The argument goes, if chemical companies paid more to insure against transportation accidents, they’d create safer chemicals.
“With regard to the argument the chemical industry needs an incentive to make safer products, frankly, we have all the incentive in the world.”
Marty Durbin is with the American Chemistry Council.
He says chemical companies already pay insurance against accidents in their factories.
And they are looking for alternatives to chlorine and other toxic inhalant hazards.
Durbin says, besides, when trains leave their factories financial risk should be out of their hands.
“You have to have liability throughout the chain that helps motivate safety improvement.”
The chemical and railroad companies will battle this out in front of government agencies for a while.
In the meantime, each year, trains will make 100,000 shipments of toxic inhalation hazards along the nation’s railroads, even if some freight rail companies don’t want to.
The Akron multi-modal transportation center. It was built by the train tracks, but before it was completed, Amtrak pulled out
of Akron. Now the only mode of transportation is the bus. (Photo by Julie Grant)
People who like the idea of passenger trains have been waiting for decades for the
federal government to get on board. Now, some think Congress might be ready to
get funding on track for Amtrak. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
People who like the idea of passenger trains have been waiting for decades for the
federal government to get on board. Now, some think Congress might be ready to
get funding on track for Amtrak. Julie Grant reports:
A few years ago, I took the train from Akron, Ohio to visit my sister in Washington,
D.C. She still teases me about it. What would have taken less than 2 hours by
plane or 6 hours by car took 14 hours by train.
We got side-tracked a lot, waiting for freight trains to go by.
(sound of a train)
That passenger route I took has since been canceled. The trains that come through
now are only for freight.
Moving freight was the real reason most railroad companies started laying down
tracks in the 1800s.
Passenger trains were just a way of getting name recognition and brand loyalty with
the fat cats that owned the factories that needed to move freight. They were treated
well on the passenger trains, and everybody benefited from that great service.
By the 1920s, the government started investing a lot of money in highways.
The age of the auto moved ahead. Passenger trains became quaint.
Companies running trains started going bankrupt. By 1970, Congress voted to
create a national passenger rail line – Amtrak.
Ross Capon is president of the National Association of Rail Passengers. He was
already a leader in the passenger rail movement when the gas crisis in 1979 hit. He
thought gasoline shortages and high prices were going to give Amtrak the jump it
needed.
“When we had prominent cartoonists ridiculing the Carter administration for
discontinuing Amtrak trains, at the same time as gasoline was unavailable to many
people, I thought we were going to be in clover from then on. I was wrong.”
But when gas prices spiked last year, so did Amtrak ridership. Capon thinks, maybe
this time passenger rail will come into its own. Even though gas prices have
dropped, lots of people still want to ride the rails.
I’m visiting the brand new multi-modal transportation center in Akron. But so far, the
only mode of transportation is the bus.
Kirt Conrad is director of planning for the Metro Regional Transit Authority. He says
the center was built along the train tracks. But before it was even finished, Amtrak
pulled out of Akron.
Now if you want to go somewhere, you’ve got to take the bus. But over the past
year, Conrad says, the buses can barely keep up with all the new demand.
It’s like this in many cities across the country. People want to ride the rails – but
there’s no train.
In cities like Dallas and Phoenix, Conrad says trains have been successful.
“The ridership projections are surpassing what they had forecast. So i think the
experience is, you do build it and nationally they have come.”
Many states have been working with Amtrak to improve tracks. And, in some places,
trains go as fast as 120 miles an hour. Passenger rail supporters say for shorter
trips, say a couple of hundred miles or so, trains make a lot more sense than going
to the airport.
But analysts say if passenger rail is going to get on track it needs government
investment.
Conrad says passenger trains need better access to tracks – and better tracks – so
they can move past the slower freight trains.
But Ross Capon at the Rail Passenger Association says Congress is spending
almost all its transportation money on highways and airports.
“The federal government has, to put it crassly, bribed the states for years not to
spend money on rail. Look, we’ll give you 90% dollars on your highway projects,
80% dollars on your airport projects. But if you dare spend money on passenger
trains, youíre on your own buddy.”
But Capon thinks, maybe now, since Amtrak is more popular, Congress might be
ready to increase the amount of federal money it spends on passenger rail service.
Getting rail projects across the nation on the fast track.
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.
An Amtrak train, Pere Maquette, in St. Joseph Michigan (Photo courtesy of Amtrak)
More people are riding the nation’s
passenger train service, Amtrak. It’s to the
point that Amtrak doesn’t have enough train
cars in some areas and the trains are sold out.
Lester Graham reports Amtrak has some other
issues to deal with before it can get on the
right track:
Transcript
More people are riding the nation’s
passenger train service, Amtrak. It’s to the
point that Amtrak doesn’t have enough train
cars in some areas and the trains are sold out.
Lester Graham reports Amtrak has some other
issues to deal with before it can get on the
right track:
Amtrak is seeing more passengers. Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari says on some of
its busier routes, ridership is up double-digits.
“We’re seeing increases of 20% with no additional capacity. Those are just people who
are taking the train who hadn’t taken it before or who had changed their travel plans to on
a day when the train isn’t sold out, because we have a lot of days now where the train is
selling out.”
That’s because the train is handy – especially on those shorter trips, such as New York
to Washington, Los Angeles to San Diego, or Detroit to Chicago.
Last year Amtrak had more than 26-million passengers. This year it looks like it’ll get
about 27-million. Now, to put that into perspective, 761 million people flew on an
airplane in the U.S. last year.
But, Magliari says most of Amtrak’s competition isn’t the airlines.
“Most of our competition is the automobile and we believe the largest single reason for
some of the increases we’ve had this year is people trying to avoid the higher cost of
driving their own cars and trucks.”
And Amtrak would love to buy some more trains to serve those passengers. But the
railways are already crowded. The same reason Amtrak is getting more passengers –
higher fuel prices – is also the reason a lot of freight is being switched from trucks to
trains.
Jonathan Levine is an Urban and Regional Planning expert at the University of
Michigan. He says, for much of the nation, more freight train traffic is causing Amtrak
some problems.
“The scheduled service is really quite good if and when the trains follow the schedules.
But, those of us who’ve taken those trips know that the probability of having a delay is
rather significant. And it happens because of congestion on the rail lines.”
Amtrak is supposed to get top priority on the railroad. But the freight railroads own a lot
of the tracks. The dispatchers work them. They control the switches. And in this day
of just-in-time deliveries, it’s hard for those railroads to side-track a freight train for
Amtrak to speed by.
Mark Magliari with Amtrak says they’re working on that problem.
“About 70% of our operations—that’s about everything outside the East Coast—is on
somebody else’s railroad. And we’ve seen progress in a lot of these relationships with
the host railroads, making improvements in how they handle us.”
And judging from the increase in ridership, train passengers don’t see it as any different
than an airplane being delayed. And at least it’s a comfortable seat with plenty of room
to walk around, unlike a crowded plane sitting on the tarmac.
Mark Westerfield uses Amtrak. He also works for one of those freight train companies.
We caught up with him at Union Station in Chicago. He thinks the problems can be
worked out for Amtrak, they need to be worked out.
“It needs to be expanded. It needs to be increased. And, I think, I’m very optimistic
about the fate of Amtrak with the price of fuel, the price of gasoline, the congestion at
airports, the security at airports, the fact that a lot of the traveling public is getting older,
as I am, and less willing to be cramped into MD-80s and aging 737’s. I think it’s got a
great future. I really do. It’s gonna require a lot of capital investment.”
Getting that capital investment means getting more support from Congress and state
legislatures. Some members of Congress make a lot of noise about funding Amtrak.
They make is sound as though it’s the only government supported transportation
system out there. The fact is, airports get tons of money from the government. With
rising fuel prices and more ridership on Amtrak, government money for the train might
get a little better traction with Congress in the future.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.
This Canadian National train waits for a signal in South Holland, Illinois. South Holland, like Chicago itself, is criss-crossed with rail lines. South Holland would likely see fewer CN trains move through its town, should CN’s buyout of the EJ & E Railway get federal approval. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Gillette only has to part a few weeds in his back yard to reach tracks along the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway. His family bought their home in Frankfort, Illinois, just months before Canadian National Railway proposed buying the EJ & E. Under the deal, trains running by Gillette’s home would run more often and would carry more cars than they do today. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Jim Holland’s the current mayor of Frankfort, Illinois, just one of dozens of towns that might see more freight traffic come their way if CN’s purchase of the EJ & E Railroad goes through. His town’s a rapidly-growing suburb that actually had its start as a rail town back in the 19th century. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Canadian National’s Jim Kvedaras is responsible for selling the benefits of his company’s proposed buyout of the EJ & E Railway, which operates in a loop around the Chicago area. Canadian National hopes to shave the time it takes freight to move from the Midwest to ports in the western U.S. and Canada. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
American drivers hate getting stuck
in traffic jams. Well, they don’t get much
sympathy from railroads – they’ve got traffic
jams of their own. There’s one place in
particular where the train’s run so slow it
can take a day to move a train of chemicals,
furniture, and cars just a few miles. One
company tried to buy its way out of the problem.
Reporter Shawn Allee explains how that blew up
into a fight all of us might pay for:
Transcript
American drivers hate getting stuck
in traffic jams. Well, they don’t get much
sympathy from railroads – they’ve got traffic
jams of their own. There’s one place in
particular where the train’s run so slow it
can take a day to move a train of chemicals,
furniture, and cars just a few miles. One
company tried to buy its way out of the problem.
Reporter Shawn Allee explains how that blew up
into a fight all of us might pay for:
If you buy a new car or build a new house, there’s a good chance the stuff to build it
sat in a Chicago-area rail yard for a while. Railroads from the East Coast, the West
Coast, the South, and Canada all converge there. Trains in Chicago compete for
track, so they practically crawl.
Canadian National Railway doesn’t like it, and PR guy Jim Kvedaras, says no one in
America should like it either.
“Everything anybody eats, drinks, wears, lives in, moves by rail somewhere in its
production chain. If we, as the transportation provider, can offer a better service for
customers, the ultimate that contains their cost structure with the ultimate beneficiary
being the consumer.”
Kvedaras says Canadian National has a fix. It would buy a competing rail line that
runs a loop around Chicago. The company would shift trains to that less-congested
track.
The deal needs federal approval, but before that happens, Chicago-area towns are
fighting over it.
Those along the current route tell horror stories of living with too many
trains. Suburbs along the proposed by-pass route don’t want those hassles in their towns.
One place that would benefit by train traffic moving away is South Holland.
Mayor Don DeGraf says a quick car ride shows why he supports the deal.
“We’re approaching the intersection where it’s not at all unusual where we have a
train blockage.”
Shawn Allee: “Speaking of the devil, look right ahead.”
Mayor DeGraf: “It’s right up in front of us. It’s a daily occurrence.”
Allee: “I mean it’s not moving.”
Mayor DeGraf: “No, it’s just standing there. And the reason is very simple: there’s just no place for
these trains to go.”
DeGraf says inconvenience is the least of his worries.
“It becomes almost like the Bermuda Triangle, where you can’t go from one side of
town to the other side of town. So we rely on a neighboring community to give us
additional fire protection for situations like we’re experiencing right now, where a
train’s blocking the crossing.
South Holland is just one of sixty-six towns that could benefit from Canadian National’s buyout of
the by-pass route.
But dozens of towns are fighting the deal. One is Frankfort.
Frankfort gets just a trickle of rail traffic, but it might get four times as many trains
going through town.
Resident Ken Gillette’s backyard is right next to the by-pass route.
“Here I buy a house out here and ten months later, this is gonna go through. I
actually had told me wife, she wanted the house and I says, one day, those tracks
could be sold and there’d be hundreds of trains going by there every week and sure
enough that’s what happened.”
Allee: “Did you guys have some serious discussions after that?”
Gillette: “Oh yeah, not good ones, you know.”
Other Frankfort residents have similar stories. It’s little wonder the town wants the
government to stop Canadian National’s buyout deal.
Mayor Jim Holland says Frankfort’s not just being selfish. He says suburbs will want
protection from traffic hazards, and Canadian National’s offering to pay a fraction of
the cost.
“It’s assumed that the American taxpayer will eventually have to pay for the
overpasses, the extra gates and such that will be put on the railroad. And that’s
mostly United States tax dollars that pay for those.”
There’s no perfect ending to Chicago’s rail traffic mess. Even when companies like
Canadian National want to fix the problem themselves, everyone pays.
We’ll likely pay to soften the blow to towns that will see more trains passing through.
But we also pay higher transportation costs if too many trains sit idle.
Officials say a new outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease
could erupt after a fence was cut at an infected hunting preserve in Wisconsin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley
reports:
Transcript
Officials say a new outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease could erupt after a fence was cut at an
infected hunting preserve in Wisconsin. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina
Shockley reports:
Authorities say someone intentionally cut a hole in a perimeter fence at the preserve in central
Wisconsin. They say tracks indicate deer had gone in and out of the area through the hole…
before the owner saw it and notified the Department of Natural Resources.
Alan Crossley is with the Wisconsin DNR. He says officials shot deer around the preserve to try
to limit the chance the disease would spread to wild deer.
“We have to try to assess whether any deer escaped from that shooting pen. Then we’re going to
be meeting to talk about okay, should we try to do any additional shooting of deer in a larger area
around that pen.”
Crossley says it’s now even more important to monitor deer near the preserve in the years ahead.
He says it will take time to determine how their overall efforts to combat the disease are working.
So far, CWD has been found in the wild in ten states, including Wisconsin, New York and
Illinois.
Environmentalists are happy to see that sandhill crane populations are increasing. Some farmers, however, are not. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
At this time of year, one of the nation’s most exotic birds is nesting, and many wildlife lovers are rejoicing. Once close to extinction, the Eastern population of sandhill cranes has grown dramatically. In fact, their numbers are so big that they’re becoming a problem in some places – and there’s talk of starting a hunting season for cranes. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandy Hausman has the story:
Transcript
At this time of year, one of the nation’s most exotic
birds is nesting, and many wildlife lovers are rejoicing. Once
close to extinction, the Eastern population of sandhill cranes
has grown dramatically. In fact, their numbers are so big that
they’re becoming a problem in some places – and there’s talk of
starting a hunting season for cranes. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Sandy Hausman has the story:
(Sound of marsh and birds)
It’s a cool spring morning, just before dawn. Brandon Krueger is watching a stretch of marshland along a country road in Central Wisconsin. Krueger works for the International Crane Foundation. He’s taking part in the annual Midwest crane count. Celebrating its thirtieth year, thousands of volunteers have fanned out across parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois and Iowa to look and listen for sandhill cranes.
“It’s a great sound to hear when you’re waking up. This is usually the earliest that I ever get up during the year. It’s a real struggle, but it can be worth it – for some of the things that you hear and the opportunity to see cranes.”
(Sound of crane call)
Krueger hears a breeding pair a half a mile away – exchanging what’s known as a unison call. The birds are big – up to five feet tall. A hundred years ago they made easy targets for hunters. In the 1930’s, naturalist Aldo Leopold lamented the loss of cranes – nearly hunted to extinction in Wisconsin. He knew of only 25 breeding pairs of sandhills in the state. But the federal government made it illegal to hunt cranes, and the state started working to restore bird habitat. Today, crane lovers celebrate an impressive comeback.
“I’ve talked with our leading field ecologist and he’s estimated upwards of forty-thousand sandhill cranes in the Midwest area.”
This year’s crane count is still being tallied, but Krueger heard nine birds and saw three flying by.
(Sound of cranes)
In the county next door, Troy Bartz claims to see many more birds than that on a daily basis.
“I’ll come home and it’s nothing for me to see two, three-hundred cranes in a field in one crack.”
Bartz has been farming for 13 years – growing corn, soy beans and alfalfa on nearly a hundred acres near Nina Creek.
(Sound of plow)
“Plants started disappearing out of the field with crane tracks right next to them. They go right down the row and they pull the shoots out of the ground and eat the kernels off the roots. I lose thousands of plants every year.”
The International Crane Foundation says damage in Wisconsin alone could total $100 million, and for family farmers, a year’s profit could be lost.
Bartz: “On the small acreage that I’m tilling, you can’t lose thousands of plants and not have some kind of an impact. That’s hundreds and hundreds of bushels I’m losing.”
Hausman: “And what’s the cash value on that?”
Bartz: “I figure anywhere between two to three-thousand dollars minimum every year.”
Hausman: “So what do you think the answer is?”
Bartz: “Shoot ‘em.”
Hausman: “Really?”
Bartz: “Yeah!”
There is some talk of having a hunting season for cranes, but that would require approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and many critics say the eastern population of sandhills is too small to permit hunting. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says there are alternatives for farmers – machines called banger guns that make explosive sounds every few minutes. Troy Bartz’ neighbor, Mel Johnson, tried that, but found the birds quickly got used to the noise.
“The DNR warden brought the guns out. He said the best way is to mix a few regular shells in with it, he said, because it won’t scare ‘em away, the guns. He’s been taking them out for years, and he said they won’t scare any wildlife away – them guns.”
They’ve also tried scarecrows and colored ribbons but they didn’t work either. Farmers have had success with a product called Kernel Guard – a pesticide that made corn seeds taste bad to cranes, but this year the manufacturer stopped making it because one of its active ingredients can be toxic. Crane advocates are now asking the EPA to allow use of another chemical that’s already sprayed on golf courses to repel geese, but approval is not expected this year.
(Sound of cranes)
So crane lovers are keeping their fingers crossed – hoping farmers won’t be breaking the law by shooting the birds.
8 billion dollars was announced for rail projects. (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)
